Learn what FitSugar reader laellavita means by her blog post title from our Get Fit For 2010 community challenge and contest.
I don't want to say "after" because the real after will be at the end (though does that ever really come?) because right now this really is a continual work in progress. Even when I hit a physical "after," there will always be the mental stuff to battle through. Therefore, my "after" picture is a "so far," and I'm posting it to hold myself accountable to something. I'm awful at holding myself accountable to things, be it how much I'm eating or what I'm eating or ways I'm sabotaging myself, et cetera.
June 2007 — I'm in the black and white dress, when I weighed my heaviest of around 180+ pounds. I want to say it was even 200, but by then I hated taking pictures of myself, I hated weighing myself, none of my clothes really fit, and I was absolutely miserable. I'd been on diets all my life, had an eating disorder and a pretty serious case of anorexia that earned intervention and therapy starting at age 14, but then things coalesced into a type of binge eating disorder. I'd cut carbs, do ridiculous diets, and then binge when I couldn't take it anymore. I worked at Starbucks and would constantly gorge myself on the extra pastries and drinks they gave us for free. And I was terrified about going to college and gaining an extra 15 pounds, so when I got there, I started making myself hit the gym every day and I went to the salad bar instead of even the wrap line because the amount of dressing they put on those things was absolutely terrifying. But even when I made progress and got to 165, my weight always wavered and I'd still have little binge episodes, partly because I was always restricting my diet like crazy and then going overboard. One step forward and two steps back, you know, the same old story everyone has. But finally, instead of staying at the crappy little school gym that really only had two working treadmills on a good day, I joined a (really expensive) gym down the street and started working out there. I had a few training sessions here and there and learned a lot of things from my trainer. I started running in Central Park, too, and last year finally came to terms with the fact that I was terrified of bread and carbs and that was absolutely ridiculous. Who is scared of bread? So I switched to whole grain wheats, didn't deprive myself of them, but really stuck to the moderation thing and my weight's been even easier to control — I actually lost a lot more than I thought I would! Every once in a while, I have bad days when I eat too much of the good stuff — there was even an article in Shape magazine this month (with Katharine McPhee on the cover) talking about how people can be "purist" diet saboteurs, and that is me to a T. It was a wake up call to be called out on my habits, so that is my resolution. I posted before about strength training more, and my ultimate goal is to run the NYC marathon this fall (fingers crossed if I get a slot in the lottery!!), as well as cutting out a lot of processed and packaged food, but just being aware is also a goal of mine.
To see how she transformed her body, just read more
