Why Thirty Pounds?

So. as this sixty weeks comes to a close, and I am hoping to achieve my modified goal of 25 pounds, I thought I'd take a moment to talk about the 30 pound goal.

First, I'll tell you where it came from. When I started this, and I needed a goal to shoot for, I thought back to when I thought I looked my best. (not my HEALTHIEST, just LOOKED the best.) I thought back to grad school, and how I looked, 30 pounds lighter than I was when I started this thing. When I was in grad school, probably in 1993, I REMEMBER being my smallest, and liking how I looked. Now, I can't imagine I was healthy. With no money for food, my boyfriend and I ate lipton noodle mixes with a can of tuna mixed into it most nights for dinner, except on Thursdays, where $8 would get us a pitcher and all the wings we could handle at 10 cent wing nights at Sutters. I was under a lot of stress, as grad school can do, as all of my friends were getting jobs and I wasn't. I *was* in a city with big hills, so I probably did a lot of exercise, but that's kind of it. All in all, not the healthiest of lifestyles, and certainly not a model of "inputs leads to outputs" to really say it was something to strive for at this point of my life. But I was there, and I remembered I liked how I looked, and out came "30 pounds". Almost 19% of my body weight, up for the chopping block.

And there was a realisticness to the math, right? 30 pounds? 60 weeks? Half pound a week? That seems doable, right? I didn't anticipate months of plateaus, let alone small gains here and there.

Now, I'm not going to say it would have been completely unattainable. I could have done it. I could have gone to the gym 5 days a week. I could have counted every calorie and let it take over my life. I could have made some choices about how to live differently, indulged myself less, tried a cleanse or a fad diet here and there, and I actually think, as unreasonable a goal as it was, I could have done it.

But that is NOT how I wanted to do this. I wanted to, NEED to, do it in a way that my lifestyle could change in a way that was attainable, sustainable, and didn't make me feel like I was living an abnormal life. I needed to make my health a priority, without making it my ONLY priority.

And that is what I did.

I knew when I started this that 30 pounds was a great goal to get me pointed in the right directions, something aggressive, because that's what I needed. I'm not sure I ever REALLY thought I'd meet it.

But, the fact is, I'm not sure I would have thought that 25 was all that more attainable. That's 15% of my original body weight, a tad more, even.

Now that I've gotten to 25, I know that getting to 30 actually is potentially achievable. But what I know now about how I lose weight, I know it would take 6 months, not 6 weeks.

I feel and look great now. Could I lose more? Sure. I still have a gut (not as much as I used to!) and that will always annoy me. There will never be a bikini in my future. That's okay. And, now, where I used to have fat underarm/triceps area, I now have more of a muscle/flabby skin scenario, which seems even more unattractive than the fat in the first place, especially in the gym in front of the mirrors... waving around like flags.

But I think the future for me will just involve doing things I like, and get value out of, and seeing if that continues to get me positive impact, both from how I look and my overall health and strength. Pilates has been awesome -- my instructor, Maria, last night was saying how proud she was of me and really how noticeably STRONG I've become over the year! I'm also liking BodyPump so far, and thinking that this will be great for bone density and the kinds of things that 40 year old women should be thinking about. And, the Couch to 5K program was a great gimmick to get and keep me focused on cardio health. When I think back to my 5k the other day, the only time I suffered was when I had to walk up the hill because my legs were to tired to run it. It wasn't because I was out of breath, like I would have been months ago. I think I can and will continue to try and incorporate this stuff into my life as I can, because I can see where the real health value is, and can really see what a difference they've made in every aspect of my life.

Okay, this was a long and rambling one... thanks for staying with me.

I've got one more post in me on Friday -- I'll do weight loss, pictures, measurements, and final thoughts.

Thanks for reading!