Mayday! Challenge – The Results

I’ve found, over the last 6 weeks, that getting my health in check has had a bit of an anchoring effect on my life.  In the midst of all the chaos, this is constant, this makes sense.

It was hard at first, I won’t lie.  I was miserable for the first two weeks, at least, and had plenty of days where I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.

But as I replaced my bad habits with good ones, and as I built up my endurance, I discovered that I really feel great when I eat well and exercise.  It’s not anything I didn’t know – I was in great shape and ate incredibly well for a decade.  But once I got out of that routine and developed bad habits, it was hard to remember what healthy felt like.

Through this 6 week journey, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my weight is about simple math.  I gained 20 pounds.  Each pound is 3500 calories.  That means I consumed 70,000 more calories than I burned, which in turn means I need to burn those 70,000 calories in order to get back to where I started.  That is a whole lot of freaking calories!  Change can’t happen over night because it’s not mathematically possible.

Accepting that it’s not personal, it’s math, has helped me tremendously to look at my fitness goals with logic rather than emotion.

Letting go of that emotional baggage?  HUGE.

My friend Kelly pointed me toward a fabulous website called Fitday.com and I will freely admit that I’ve become a wee bit obsessed with it.  If you have any desire to lose weight, get in shape, or just see where you are, health and nutrition wise, I suggest that you check it out!  It’s completely free (unless you upgrade to premium, but in my opinion, what they offer for free is awesome) and it helps you to break your goals down into basic math.

Basically, you give it your stats: age, weight, height, lifestyle (sedentary, active, or somewhere in between) and it tells you how many calories you burn in a day, just living.  You can break down your day into as many increments as you want to get it exactly right, or you can just let it estimate.

Then you set your goals, and it tells you, in black and white, what you need to do to reach them.  It helps you keep track of your food intake and your activities, and lets you know where you’re at each day, week, month, etc.  Seriously, check it out!  Whatcha waiting for?  Did I mention it’s FREE ?

So.  After six weeks and a few days of making healthy choices, I feel better than I’ve felt in a very, very long time.

After (see, I took your suggestion, Kellee !):

— Don’t mind the smudgy mirror —

And?  And!!!  This morning I put on my favorite Citizens of Humanity Jeans , the ones that wouldn’t even come up past my knees six weeks ago.

Behold:

I did it!

Overall, I lost 10 pounds and 3% of my body fat, which was my goal.  I come away from my Mayday Challenge knowing that I can splurge occasionally as long as I keep my math in check, but for the most part?  I will continue to exercise and make healthy choices because it makes me feel good.

And?  Because I am worth the effort.

Damn.  Straight.