I haven’t done a Sense of Sarah post in a while and today’s topic is really all about who I am. It’s something that I struggle with daily and something I know that I will have to battle my entire life.
Back when I first started blogging, I did a post on my massive weight loss. I think this is a weird topic for people to talk about, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m happy to talk about how I lost the weight and what I struggle with now. Pre-weight loss I always heard (skinny) people talking about they still struggled with body image issues after losing lots of weight. And I used to think those people were crazy because they looked so great! How wrong was I to think that because after I lost so much weight, I still didn’t feel small enough.
Like I posted back in 2014, I started out at over 200 pounds, and my 5’7″ frame was having a hard time fitting into my size 16 dresses. Then I joined Weight Watchers and got down to 150 pounds which put me in a size 10, and I thought I was happy. Then I got engaged and thought I needed to be smaller.
2-3 months before the wedding
A few days before my wedding
I don’t have any pictures of what I looked like after losing more weight after getting engaged, but I got down to 145 pounds, wore a size 8 jeans, and my chest/shoulder/neck area was extremely bony to the point where both my mom and sister would point out how bony I was. I ended up gaining back a little weight since I was basically eating nothing to get down to 145, so on my wedding day (and I wouldn’t weight myself) I weighed probably 152 pounds–and I still thought I was fat.
This brings me to today’s topic. Since getting married in July 2104, being extremely happy, and then starting grad school in early 2015 and being stressed out ever since, I’ve gained some weight. So after reading Annie’s post on her experience with Diet Bet, I’ve decided to do the same thing. I had briefly heard of Diet Bet before, but after reading her post, I thought it would be the perfect thing for me to get motivated.
You simply join a game or create one yourself (I joined one), pay the money, and you have 28 days to lose 4% of your body weight. If you do, you get to split the pot of money with all of the people who also lost 4% of their weight.
So how do they know you actually weight that and/or lose that much?
You have to submit two pictures (I am using the app I downloaded on my phone–super easy to do it) wearing something light and then another picture of the scale, your feet, and the word they give you for your game.
Since grad school literally takes up so much time and keeps me exhausted, I know that I’m really going to have to control my eating. No longer can I indulge my sweet tooth (which is huge). I’m tracking my food on the My Fitness Pal app and really trying to keep my macros in check and my protein at 30%–which is really hard by the way, so I’m okay as long as it’s in the 20s. Exercising on Saturdays are a must for me and really easy, so I am working on getting 1-2 days during the week. When I was at my smallest, I ran 4-5 days a week. I know that my time will free up once I finish grad school, so I do know that this 2-3 workouts a week goal is just for a small time. At least the key in losing weight is controlling your eating and that’s something I can control now–I’ve always heard it’s 80% of what you eat and 20% exercise. You can’t out exercise a bad diet. And my bad diet is something I’ve got to get control of–I love sweets way too much!
So I submitted my pictures on Tuesday and my final weight in is March 24th! I’m really nervous in sharing this, but I know that it will help keep me accountable!!
And if you’ve read this far, thank you!
Linking up with Annie today.
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