20 pounds, and counting

Creative Commons: https://j.mp/OKXjet

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It’s been ten weeks now that I’m trying to lose weight, and I must say that it’s working. I weigh myself once a week, and today I exceed the psychological milestone of 20 pounds. Actually I lost 22 pounds since May 29.

I turned thirty, five months ago, and I figured out that it was about time to do something for myself! So what am I doing to lose around 2 pounds a week? First let me say that I’m not an expert about these things, and that I’m only sharing my own story. So, am I going to the gym every 2 days to work like crazy for 2 hours? Am I doing a diet that restrict me to eat only 1/20 of what I was eating before? The answers, for me, is simpler: being more active, and being more conscious of what I’m eating.

Being more active

I never was a sportsman or a really active person: I sit all day in front of a computer. For me, being more active mean walking more for now. At my weight, walking mean burning calories more than a skinny person. I know I may have to take something more challenging in a couple of weeks or months, but for now, this is how I'm doing it. To motivate myself, I bought a Fitbit. It’s a pedometer that sends different information to their website: steps, distance, calories burn... It’s also a bit social, and is around the gamification of being more active: I can get some badges, and can challenge myself with other friends on some metrics, like number of active time in a day. It helped me a lot to be more active, and to walk more.

Being more conscious of what I’m eating

This one was also with the help of Fitbit: not the pedometer directly, but the site that gives me an option to enter my food, and calculate the calories I’m eating. I didn’t, and won’t do any diet: I’m eating what I like to eat, but I’m being more conscious of what is really high in calories, and also reducing my portions. For me, it was hard the first 2-5 days because I had the habit to eat the restaurant portion size of meal (definitely too big). Now, I’m eating less. It’s a bit of work to enter what you eat during the day, but that give me a clear picture of things like if I can take a little snack, or if I had to go out, and take a walk to burn more calories. That helped me a lot in learning more about the foods I'm eating.

At the end

At the end, for me, it’s as simple as calories in vs calories out. I set Fitbit to the harder plan for a deficit of 1000 calories per day, so 7000 calories per week. That mean 2 pounds less per week (each pound is about 3500 calories). That means that each day, I can eat –1000 calories of a normal calorie intake if I do nothing. If I want to eat more or treat myself, I need to do more exercise. If I want to go faster, same thing, but I don’t push myself. I want to lose weight without going crazy, and to continue having fun. Now I’m enjoying to go out for a walk, as I even go with a friend on the Mont-Royal twice a week to change from the streets of Verdun! It’s also good to know that if I want to eat that yummy pizza, I can do it, but maybe not an entire one, or if it’s the case, I’m going to have to walk a lot more today!

For me, it’s all about being healthy, and continue to live this awesome life I have: good friends, family, job… I hope this post will help some people to lose weight, and I think I will do some post to give the do, and don't I found since the last 10 months. Also, by doing this post on my blog, it’s a way to commit myself publicly to force myself to continue my rewarding efforts to reach my first goal of 62 pounds lost…