Weight Loss Experiment

Weight loss. UUUUGGGGHHHH! I have about 20 lbs I would like to lose and I am tired of hearing “diet and exercise” because no one every tells me what that really means. Even hearing “watch what you eat” doesn’t help much. Everyone always watches what they eat, I can say this because I know a lot of people and I don’t know any one in the habit of eating with their eyes closed. But seriously, I am a dancer, so I get exercise and in reality, I don’t eat all that much. See, I take adderall for ADD and have been for years. My medicine and most ADHD meds cause you to lose your appetite (they originally started out as diet pills!) But after all these years my diet (lack of eating normally) and exercising have reached such a balance that my weight has plateaued at a wonderful too big 145 lbs. Ok, size wise but technically speaking, I am overweight (not by much, but enough to annoy me).

I am always keeping an eye on my weight and I feel like I am always fighting it while still never losing anything. I realize that this is the plight of many men and woman. I also recently heard that if the average person where to do some sort of exercise during just the commercials when they watch tv that they could lose up to a pound a week. This got my attention because I am a full time nanny over the summer and my kids are 6 and 9 years old and while I do take them places and do things with them, they are old enough to play together or by themselves and I have a lot of down time – sitting at the computer or watching tv—every day. So, this is something that I could totally do and get a lot of exercise in.

Then I started thinking because I am seriously tired of just being told to “diet and exercise” Really, some one tell me what that means and the right way to do it. Everything is so general and the place that try to be specific are really hard to follow. So, upon thought and some research I decided that the formula to weight loss is actually rather simple. You have to burn more calories than you take in. So, that is the goal. That is the end, what is the means? There are clearly many different ways to do this, some work, many don’t and plans are always different for different people with different life styles and different bodies. I think that the most difficult thing especially as far as dieting goes is changing your habits. And that so many people try to cut this and that out completely. But I have a theory. If you are like me and you aren’t losing or gaining weight then all you have to do is eat less than you normally would. If you are used to snacking or my favorite grown up word for it “munching” several times a day, try skipping on snack. If you are used to going back of a second helping of mashed potatoes, don’t. If you eat a whole bag of popcorn, only eat half of it. Theoretically, if you just start eating a few less calories here and there then they will add up. There are about 3,500 calories in one pound of fat. So, this afternoon when my kids want their snack and I pull out the cheese-its, instead of just eating them out of the box until I don’t want any more like I normally would, I am going to look at the serving size (27 pieces) and I will put maybe 15-20 in a bowl and just eat those. If I want another snack later, I’ll more than likely grab an apple or something but if I choose to go for the popsicle with the kiddos, I’ll only eat half of it. In some cases I know this method may end up leaving you wasting some food but you will feel good knowing that you did not eat what you could have potentially eaten.

I am going to forget about my goal to lose 20 lbs for this summer and I am going to try these few seemingly easy things and see how much weight I can lose. I have created a chart and posted it on my mirror and I will weigh myself every Monday just to keep track and to see if my theories are working and to what extent. I will continue to post during the summer about my experiment (seeing how much I can lose just by doing these things) and I will keep you posted to let you know if these changes are as easy as I am hoping they are going to be.

Here is my list:

Get moving during commercials. Whether it be dancing, jumping up and down or walking in circles (please, if you see me doing any of these things, don’t laugh!)

Eat a little bit less than what I normally would.

No more sodas; I don’t drink a lot of them anyways so this one should not be too difficult.

Switching to skim milk instead of whole milk.

Walking when I can. Parking farther away from stores, if I have the choice of an elevator, I’ll take the stairs and that kind of thing.

I take the kids to the pool almost every day so I plan to do a bit more swimming than laying out reading. But nothing too intense.

As of yesterday I am 145lbs. So let's see how this goes!