Weddingbee Blog

It’s almost time. The impending New Year is coming, with the year of 2010 having come and gone ridiculously fast. With the New Year it’s time to make some resolutions. But more importantly, did you watch the premiere of I Used To Be Fat last night?

(source)

I can remember this time last year very clearly. It was 10 months before the wedding and I was convinced, “I’m never going to lose weight!”

I had been slightly overweight since high school.

I had a brand, spankin’ new gym membership but I wasn’t seeing results and I was discouraged. We rang in the New Year and I made a firm resolution to lose weight. To do this, I had to completely transform my views on weight loss and set a clear goal.

My first short term goal was to look great in a bikini that summer. My second long term goal was to be a certain weight by the wedding. Having important goals was one of the secrets to my success. I started to go to the gym 5 days a week. No excuses, no whining, no hemming and hawing over it. It was out of the question that I’d skip a day, going to the gym after work became a habit. I came home at midnight every day but my husband was understanding. I still wasn’t losing much weight so I had to make even bigger sacrifices and started to diet. I swear by finding a calorie target calculator and sticking to a maximum number of calories each day. It really is that easy. My calorie target didn’t leave room for processed foods and I ate nutritious, appropriately portioned food everyday. With the combination of diet and exercise, I lost weight slowly and safely from February to August. I lost weight in the double digits and met my short term goal of being proud to put on a bikini.

Yeaaaaaaaaaah.

I was no longer overweight. Unfortunately my weight loss hit a wall in September and I was unable to reach my goal weight for the wedding. But I came very close, and I was happy. My students, who saw me every day, always told me how great I looked, and at our big homecoming/repatriation to the United States it felt great to be a healthy weight. So if your New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, I encourage you to set a clear, realistic goal for yourself. Your wedding is a GREAT motivator. Diet—that magic calorie target number—is so important, and so is exercises. No excuses. If I can do it, you can do it. Once you start losing weight, you’ll realize how clear and easy it is to meet your goal and that all excuses have flown out the window.

Now that we are back in America and the wedding is long gone, I have to admit I am gaining the weight back. My pants are a little tighter, trying on clothes isn’t as much fun, and I’ve got a little pooch again. It’s just been too much fun going out to eat with my friends and eating a dish of food as big as my head. We aren’t working so we can’t afford a gym membership, so I can’t exercise. But those are excuses. I live right next to a huge park and I’m just a few blocks from the beach. Although I hate running, I’ve been reading Mrs. Trail Mix’s running blog (hey girl, how you dewin’?) and I’ve gleaned a few things. I know how I need to eat to lose the weight.

My main problem is that I don’t have a clear goal. There’s not much to look forward to next year except living a happy newlywed life. I need to find some kind of reason to reach for. For those newlywed brides, are you having trouble keeping off the weight you lost for the wedding? Is your New Year’s resolution to lose weight?

BRB, gonna go for a run…