Weight Loss
I have been for most of my life, anywhere from a little bit to moderately overweight. Being of a more petite stature and having a slower metabolism than most people, this has been quite a struggle. However, over the last 15 months, I have managed to lose around 40 pounds, many of then having been put on from pregnancies. I am only a couple of pounds shy of my goal weight, and am wearing petite small/medium sizes, down from extra large. Lately, people whom I haven't seen in a while, when we first meet, I will very likely hear "You look great/awesome/wonderful, have you lost weight?" To which I reply in the affirmative, and the next question inevitably is "How did you do it?" Well, I've done it in a couple of ways. Last spring, a group of us at my work had a "wellness challenge" where we organized ourselves into teams and worked on our personal goals for 12 weeks. Some quit smoking, many attempted to lose weight, others made a more concerted effort to devote more effort to daily prayer and devotions. Each of us were to assign point values to how difficult the task at hand would be and how well we accomplished them. The team that had the highest amount of points was treated to lunch by the other teams. (I didn't say winners and losers because I think anyone who tries and makes an effort is already a winner!)

My plan was at first to only eat sweets on two occasions during a week. I was fairly successful with that approach until late summer, when the weight loss plateaued. I had to find another plan, I had about 20-25 pounds to go. Finally, I signed up for the online version of Weight Watchers in late September and have lost 22 pounds since! It's nice in that you can eat anything you'd like, but all foods have a points value assigned to them, and one must stay within the points guidelines for their height and weight in order to lose weight. It's not that difficult, once one is used to the plan. As a result, I do eat healthier, look better and feel a bit more confident about myself. However, I still find that either if one is skinny or overweight, people still judge a person on the basis of their body shape. Even though I might find myself being judged positively instead of negatively as a result of this, it still seems like judging someone like this isn't exactly a fair assessment of their capabilities and talents.


- posted by Kristen @ 3/07/2004 06:49:00 PM