One Year Later

I had a pretty significant anniversary earlier this month with someone who has played a really important role in my life: my personal trainer Katy.  December 6th marks a year since I started working with her, and I can't just let that go by unmentioned.

October 2011

November 2012

I'm so thankful I started up this blog when I did, because it has served really well to help me remember this whole process and see just how far I've come.  After I met with the director of my gym's fitness programs, I talked about what I hoped to achieve.  Basically, I wanted to find a way to get healthier on a long-term basis, after so many short-term diets and exercise plans had failed, and lower my risk for the heart problems and diabetes that run through my family.  After my first couple of sessions with my trainer, I talked about how hard I thought it would be to eat healthy.  And it was at first, but the "foodstyle" that Katy and I developed has just turned into a way of life.  I find it kind of laughable now that I was upset about having to cut out things like fried food, beer and bacon out of my diet - I do still have those things from time to time, but not nearly as much as I used to.  I'd say I eat fried food maybe once every few weeks, and I tend to drink wine if I drink at all, and I've made the switch to low-sodium turkey bacon.  The bigger sacrifice was, and this sounds ridiculous now, switching to fat-free creamer in my coffee.  But I got over those things and learned how to eat really healthy and really good.  I still eat a lot, but I'm eating the right things (like fruits, veggies, whole grains, tons of greek yogurt and less meat) and burning a ton of calories each week, so not only did I lose weight this year, but I've managed to keep it off for a few months so far.  Even maintaining for just a few months is more than I've ever been able to do before.  And what's really cool is that, unlike diets, this new way of life means I don't count calories/points/whatever.  I just eat healthy food and stop before I'm totally stuffed.  It seems so simple to me now, I can't believe it took so long to figure this all out.

The best Before & After:
February 2012 and November 2012

When I started working with Katy, I thought a lot of the exercising I did was pretty intense, and the good news is, we keep changing up my exercises enough that it's still challenging, but I'm still interested in doing it.  Every time I think I've gotten into great shape and can do just about anything, Katy finds a way to totally kick my ass and remind me that I'm still a work in progress, and that I should always try to challenge myself.

Ravenswood Run in April

Another thing I discovered while working out with Katy: I was finally in good enough shape to start running!  Because I have some issues with my back, I had been told by several people for years that I shouldn't try running.  One week Katy had me do drills where I ran back and forth across the very small studio at our gym, and I was surprised to discover that I didn't feel terrible after doing that.  I talked to Bob, and he suggested that I start trying to run in very small intervals on a treadmill.  I had been doing incline walking, so I started adding in running at 30 second and one-minute intervals.  This was in February, and in March I took my first run outside, going a full 2 miles!  It took me a while, finishing in about 27 minutes, and I had to stop to walk a lot, but I felt great doing it, so I kept it up.  I did my first of five 5ks of the year, the Ravenswood Run, in April, and finished the racing year with my first 8k last weekend.  I've also learned there's a pretty cool community of nice, fun, supportive runners here in the area, so this weekend I spent my Saturday morning at the Chicago Running Bloggers holiday meet-up.  We ran 3 miles in the rain, had an awesome chili pot luck (and as another sign of growth, I opted for Kim's tasty vegan chili!) and had a really fun gift swap.  It was a great way to spend the day, and I keep thinking that I never would've met any of these great fellow running bloggers if I hadn't started on this journey last year.

I'm so lazy about borrowing photos that I took this from Kim, who took it from Charlyn

As for the results of this year of change and hard work, I lost 50 pounds, went from a size 16/18 to a size 10/12 and lost 7 inches from my waist and 9 from my hips.  Last week I got more validation that I'm on the right track and truly getting healthier.  I mentioned a couple weeks back that I had my yearly insurance physical.  I finally got the results, and I'm so thrilled to report that everything improved from last year!  I didn't actually think of myself as being too unhealthy before, but in truth, I was considered a "high health risk," at risk for things like heart problems and diabetes.  As of December 2011, I had borderline high blood pressure and cholesterol, and a pretty high BMI.  My blood pressure is back in a healthy range, my cholesterol dropped 12 whole points, and losing 50 pounds caused my BMI to go down more than 7 points.  In just a year!  Now I'm just a "moderate health risk," which I don't feel too bad about because pretty much everyone is considered a moderate risk (we get insurance credits based on how healthy we are, so actually being labeled "healthy" or "low risk" is pretty tough to achieve).

I already laid out my running goals for 2013 last week.  In terms of the rest of this healthy lifestyle that I've created this year, I definitely want to keep with it, and I think it's pretty doable because it's all second nature to me.  I'll continue doing at least 5 workouts each week and I know I can keep eating healthy because it's all so delicious!  Although I could probably stand to lose a little more weight, I'm not going to set a goal for that because I'm also really happy with the way I look and feel right now, so it's okay if I just maintain the 50 pound loss.