Last October I began a serious effort to lose some weight. Specifically, I set a goal to lose 25 lbs. The motivation behind this decision was pretty basic. One part vanity; recent pictures from our trip to Hawaii were very unflattering; one part was the recognition that the extra weight was limiting my life style, last summer I couldn't complete a high altitude mountain climb and carrying extra weight was a contributing fact; but a big part of my motivation was health. Blood pressure medicine, high cholesterol medicine, daily glucose checks (no meds yet, but a matter of time). Some of those health issues are part of my DNA, but all of them are made worse by being over weight.
I had actually tried losing weight for the last year, but with little success. I'd try to make better choices and exercise more; but couldn't lose more than 10 lbs. After reading a number of articles about calorie reduction, I decided to adopt that model. A tool that I found to help me was WebMD (http://www.webmd.com/)where you can set up an plan with your weight loss goal and you can track your daily food intake. There are many sites that do this; but one thing I liked about the WebMD was that it sent a daily email reminder to log your food intake for the day. That was helpful for me particularly at the beginning.
Although the WebMD plan suggested a daily plan of 500 calories below recommended daily usage, I personally chose to set a daily goal of 1200 to 1500 calories a day. Initially, I had trouble reaching my goal, but as I tracked my individual meal and food choices, I started to have a much better picture of the calories of my favorite foods (and former favorite foods) and a better picture of portion control.
All the things that any article says about weight loss came true for me: eating more fruits and vegetables (healthy food, fewer calories), smaller portions, certain foods that you just avoid,being honest about the foods you eat and the snacks you have. Exercise certainly helped, particularly after losing 10-15 lbs, it was easier to exercise which meant I could exercise more.
Finally in early March I met my goal of losing 25 lbs, which was 10% weight loss of my beginning weight. More importantly, My trip to the doctor was very encouraging. My blood work looked very good; the doctor took me off all medications!!
So even though I'm only 90% of my self, I feel pretty good. Officially, I'm still overweight, so My goal now is to lose 10 more lb.
