What Are the Benefits?

When it comes right down to it, the one question you must ask yourself is - What are the benefits of what I am doing?  I.E. What are the benefits of losing weight?

In my opinion, here are some of the benefits for me.

1. I feel much better about myself.

Since I am doing this for me - first and foremost - then I am reaping all the rewards, and since I am in control, I am the one telling myself what to do.  In essence, I am the one who can look at myself and say - you are doing great, and then pat myself on the back, and this makes me feel good about ME.

Do I really believe I am not getting outside help?  Yes and no; there is no real help coming from my friends and family, per say, but there is God in my life who I know is also encouraging, strengthening, and supporting me, but it had to start with me.  God can assist but not unless I do it; without me doing it, He cannot help.  With that thought in mind, I do feel much better about myself because I started this process, and I am the one who decided I could stay with it and succeed.

2. My overall health is better.

Of course, my overall health would get better because I am carrying around a lot less weight.  In addition, I am using my cane a lot less for walking.  After my first knee surgery, I had a lot of problems with the new knee, and the foot on that leg also created a number of problems, the least of which was when it developed drop-foot; in case you don't know what that is, it is when the toes turn under causing you to basically trip over them or catch them on anything that gets in the way.  After my second knee surgery, which went much better and the knee healed better, I was using a walker because of weakness in both knees.  I did eventually do away with the walker in the house, but if I took a longer walk outside, I still needed it.  Now I walk without the cane in the house, and sometimes outside of the house for short distances, and when I take longer walks outside, I can do it with just my cane.  You see, sometimes my toes still turn under especially if I have not been doing my exercises with my foot.

Besides the walking, my blood pressure has gone down as a result of the weight loss, and that is always a good thing. 

The last health issue is 'metabolic syndrome,' which means I was borderline diabetic.  I was on insulin once a day and a pill for to regulate blood sugar twice a day.  As the weight came off, my sugar levels went down and my doctor stopped the insulin, and later reduced to pill to once a day and then lowered the dosage of the pill.  He is hopeful that at my next check up, I will not even need that pill.

I love being healthier.  It also means I do not tire as easily because I have more energy.

3. I work out more at the gym, which I am truly enjoying.

More about that and other benefits next time.

Harder Than I Made it Look

My daughter kept telling me that it looked so simple for me to lose the weight that I lost, but let me assure you, it is not an easy undertaking, but well worth the effort.

I may have looked easy from the outside, but inside it was a continual decision to stay with the program and the new eating style.  I had to want this and want it very much, but it also had to be something that I knew I could live with.  I could not take away the things I really enjoyed, and for me that really is chocolate and meat.  Now, my intake of red meat has declined, but I have discovered that I do not really miss beef because I have a decided preference for chicken, turkey, pork (a definitely favorite), fish (but I check which ones are lower in calories), and occasionally ham (the spiral pre-cut ones that are easier to serve since they are pre-cut).

From my point of view, it has always been a matter of what I eat and do not eat, but it is now measured out in appropriate portions.  At first, it was a pain to weigh everything out, but over the past year, it has become a habit.  Last summer, when I was on vacation, I took my scale along, but seldom weighed out my portions because I did learn that over time you can determine some portion sizes by the look of them.  Over the three weeks I was on vacation, I lost 7 pounds, so I did okay with not weighing out everything.  Also, you will be surprised by what you find actually already recorded in the MyFitnessPal database.  There were things there that I had not expected to encounter but found them anyway.  It never hurts to do a search, you will be surprised at what you find.

The keys to any weight loss program are determination, perseverance, a true desire to change the way you eat, and making it a lifestyle change that you can live with.  Did I ever think I could live on a weight management program that required I had to count calories?  No, I never did because I tried it over thirty years ago and it was a pain to look everything up in a book, guess about things not in the book, and try to figure out how many calories in a portion of a favorite recipe.  This app has made all of the possible, and I truly love having it as part of my life, and it really is now an integral part of my life.

So, the following pictures were done by my daughter to give and side-by-side view of both of our journeys over the past year, but the before picutres do date back to more than a year ago.  It still shows what progress we have made.

The before picture is from the summer of 2009, and the after is August of 2015.