5 n 1?!

As I stepped on the scale last Wednesday afternoon, I told myself not to get my hopes up, but I knew deep down that I was going to see a significant change. I know the goal of this blog is "50n50," and I plan to do just that. I am in no hurry to lose this weight. As I've been told before, I know it's the truth: "It didn't come on overnight, and it's not going to come off overnight." But when I saw the 2.3 kg change in my weight, I was ecstatic.

I joined a gym here in Korea about 6 weeks ago, and while you would assume that a person working out as hard as I do would begin losing weight immediately, I didn't. And here's why: While part of me was making a commitment, the other part wasn't quite ready to give up the junk-food lifestyle I had grown accustomed to. I was making internal excuses, like, "Oh, I'm working out so much, I can afford to eat this or that," and I was pretty much lying to myself. So while I wasn't gaining weight, I wasn't losing any either.

So as I was discussing Natalie's success with her, I went back and re-read her blog and realized that for her, tracking her calories was the key, so I decided I needed to do it to! And what a difference it made! All along, I had thought that if I saw what I was eating, I wouldn't be able to eat any of the things I wanted to or loved so much. But in actuality, I am just as satisfied, if not even more so, with the amount of food I have been eating. And once I got the eating under control, the weight just fell off!

I realize that it is not necessarily healthy or expected that I will lose this much weight each week. From here on out, I know it will be a struggle, but I accept the challenge and am ready for it. It feels really good to take control for the first time in awhile.

45 to go!

Making changes

It's never easy to make changes. Maybe that's why people who diet seem to fail so often. I know, because I've been one of them. Over the past few years, I have made small, subtle changes in my habits, diet, and activity level, and overall I have lost weight without a definitive plan. However, one thing that I've never done and never thought I would do is write down what I eat.

Last week, when I started the 50 in 50 challenge, I decided that if I was really going to do this, then it would be vital to take everything down so I can track what I'm putting into my body. Writing everything down seems so boring and tedious that I have avoided it for so long.

This week I changed my thinking and decided that I had to. Thanks to Natalie's heads up about sparkpeople.com, I have an easy, quick way to track my eating and with their huge database, I can even find out the calorie counts in some of the Korean foods that I was clueless about. Now that I have a recommended amount of calories I should be eating, it has become much easier to make better choices for snacks and meals. Seeing it all laid out for me like that has actually made it easier on me, not more stressful like I assumed it would. And it keeps me honest.

I have also realized that I have been limiting myself to about a half cup or less of rice at lunch, assuming that all the carbs in it must be horrible for me, but it turns out that I can help myself to a full cup, which helps me stay fuller longer and keeps me away from the office candy bowl when I get the mid-afternoon hunger pangs.

Small changes like this have made the week a very successful one, not to mention all the time I put in at the gym, and when I step on that scale on Wednesday, I am almost certain that I am going to see some great results, and I am actually looking forward to weighing myself for the first time in awhile!

A verbose first post

Hello from Korea!

When Natalie first started on this journey, I remember how excited I was for her, but at the time I just didn't feel like it was for me. I'm a fairly stubborn person, and it takes me a lot of time to make up my mind about something.

There has been a lot of change in my life since adolescence, but throughout it all there have remained two constants: The first one is my overweight build. I can't even remember ever being a normal size. I don't ever think I was under 200 pounds in high school. Some of my earliest memories throughout elementary school were of being ridiculed for my size. The second constant has been the state of being on a diet. Another memory I don't have is of ever feeling like I could eat anything I wanted. However, this didn't stop me.

At my heaviest, 329 pounds, almost three years ago, was when I made a vow to myself to embrace a healthier lifestyle. I joined a gym, stopped eating so much, stopped drinking so much beer, and discovered I had a thyroid problem. Within a year I had dropped about forty pounds and developed a little more self-esteem. However, after I lost my motivation, I gained a little weight back as I moved to another city to finish school and started drinking more.

When I regained my motivation, I lost everything I had gained back plus about ten more. I lost the motivation again, and then, more recently, in the months before I moved to Korea, I hired a personal trainer and lost about twenty more.

My first couple of months here in Korea were difficult. Initially losing weight from all of the walking and the healthy cuisine, once I moved to my new apartment, I began to frequent the nearby bakery in order to help assuage my feelings of loneliness. Finally, I had to snap myself out of it. Here I am, 27 years old, and have never even fit into a size 12. Size 12 has always been my goal. There's always been something magical about it. My first goal is to be healthier. My second goal is to fit into a 12, which losing fifty pounds should accomplish...but don't worry, I don't plan on stopping there. For the record, I was wearing a 2o when I came to Korea, and a friend of mine who is leaving was giving away most of her clothes, and I am now wearing her size 16 trousers. So I'm close!

So, here I am...I have joined a local gym which specializes in quick bursts of exercise and weight lifting in order to pump up the fat burning. I spend the weekends hiking or exploring new neighborhoods, so I stay quite active. Each workout at the new gym, I feel like I'm going to die, but it is amazing how much stronger I am getting, and I love they way that feels. I've been going for about a month now and have dropped a few pounds, so I wish I had started the 50 in 50 challenge earlier, but there's no time like the present.

I have been quite active over the past several years, so I know that my main problem is my calorie intake, so I am taking control by writing down everything that I eat.

I weighed myself at the gym yesterday and I am 107.5 kg (damn metric system,) so that equals out to a starting weight of about 237 pounds...I can't believe I'm posting this in the internet. My initial goal is to go for the 50 in 50. I know I need to lose more than that, but I want to start off with 50 and see where it takes me.

Here I go!

Welcome to another Lady!

For the 200th post on 50n50, I would like to send a big welcome to another Lady in Weighting!

Ms. Lindsy and I went to high school together, but didn't become friends until we happened to live in the same apartment complex years later. Since then, we've been inseparable.

Lindsy has decided to join our merry group and will be blogging with us from Busan, South Korea.

Yep, we span the globe!!!

WELCOME, LINDSY!