{"id":20153,"date":"2013-02-26T09:34:38","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T14:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/?p=20153"},"modified":"2013-02-26T12:36:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T17:36:11","slug":"how-did-you-lose-weight-fit-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/how-did-you-lose-weight-fit-for-good\/","title":{"rendered":"How Did You Lose Weight: Fit for Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Here’s a question from my fitness friend Tiffany.<\/p>\n

You said when you started, you weren’t setting out to lose weight, but to get healthier and reduce pain (right?). What did you start with? Clearly, focusing on “losing weight” is not working for me. I’m up and down, and I get discouraged and frustrated and mad at myself for not sticking with anything long enough to make some lasting changes. But when I go the other way – and avoid the scale completely – I don’t go up and down. Just UP!!
\nLosing weight has never been this hard for me.<\/p>\n

After each kid, I was able to lose the weight with the same amount of effort (or less!) than I’ve been putting in now. But I never had to sustain my weight loss for very long because soon I was pregnant again. Now my youngest is 3-1\/2, and I fear I’m going to be stuck in this constant state of “trying to lose weight but never getting there.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn’t decide to get fit to lose weight, because I wasn’t overweight when I started, but I also wasn’t carrying weight in a healthy way. Here are the steps I took to getting fit (and losing 25 pounds in the process).<\/p>\n

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Healthy eating.<\/h3>\n

As I mentioned before I drank a lot of soda. I thought I needed the caffeine to get through the day. The first thing I did, after the 2nd day at the gym, was quit drinking everything but water. No soda<\/a>, juice, alcohol, or even milk (although I did have milk in cereal).<\/p>\n

I cut out carbs after lunch. I realized that I would fill up on bread and pasta which is higher in calories. If I focused on eating protein and fruits and vegetables after lunch I was eating less calories, but still felt full.<\/p>\n

I ate a lot of protein. My trainer (and my husband who has aslo become a fitness junkie) recommended I eat as much protein as my body weight. That was impossible for me to do without drinking protein shakes or eating protein bars. So I did eat and drink those regularly.<\/p>\n

I cut out red meat (very hard because I love hamburgers!) and ate only fish and chicken.<\/p>\n

I developed an eating routine. Because my life is crazy busy (as I”m sure yours is) I realized I needed an eating routine to stick to the plan.<\/p>\n