Transformation Tuesday I Pushing Above and Beyond
My name is Diana Smith. I am 25, wife and mother to 2 little kids and I decided in February of 2013, I was tired of being over weight and the only person who could change it was me. I am not a professional and I have become very familiar with trial and error. I believe my success has skyrocketed because of that. I am just a young woman who wanted to change and here I am over a year later still living this way and loving the benefits of weight loss! I am realizing now what my body was missing out on for so long and our bodies can do amazing things when we treat them properly. Here is how I lost my weight.
Diet: I count calories and track them thru my fitness pal app that is free. In the beginning, I ate between 1400-1700. It just varied day to day. I Googled how many calories I should eat and basically that is what I came up with from all the articles online. I eat eggs, ground turkey, apples, peanut butter, bananas, chicken, protein shakes, turkey burgers, broccoli, cauliflower, almond milk, whole wheat pasta, just basically as clean and healthy as I can be. It was a learning curve in the beginning to figure out what to eat, but thats why I love calorie counting because I can eat a piece of cake and still stay on my “diet”. I just have to make sure that I log it. If you are wanting to be friend on my fitness pal, my username is dianawinksmith. Now with my diet since I have learned quite a bit about myself and how my body is with certain foods, I eat 1600-2000 calories a day. Same types of foods. I used to have a cheat meal once a week but now I have limited that to twice a month. My body doesn’t crave the foods anymore like I used to. I don’t perform as well when I run and I get extremely sick.
Exercise: I started out walking 1-2 miles a day with my kids in the double stroller. I would use a pedometer to track my distance. I tried to burn anywhere between 200-500 calories per workout. Then as time went on and I got stronger, I started to try running. I got into running about 4 months into my journey and have just gotten stronger and built up my endurance. I eventually purchased a polar ft4 watch that tracked how many calories I burned. I highly recommend this watch and will be doing a post about it on Monday. I completed my first 5k in August of last year and then did my first half marathon in October. Through all of that training, I lost around 50 lbs. I joined a gym right after my half marathon and have now been incorporating weight lifting in to my workouts which I know has made a huge change in my body. I am training for my third half marathon now while still incorporating weight training. I try and burn now between 500-1000 calories a workout. I get asked a lot how I can do so much. Well, my body just craves an intense workout. I love to run and running burns lots of calories. I need to keep pushing myself and anything below that wouldn’t be.
Determination: Now this last one, I can’t tell anyone how to obtain this. You just have to want it. If I didn’t have the motivation and desire to try each and every day, I would not be where I am. I have had plenty of cheat meals and lots of days where I skipped my workout. I just got up every single morning wanting more. Sure, there were days even weeks where the motivation was just not there. However, I just had to remind myself that you will just digress if you don’t continue and thats extremely depressing especially since I had already lost so much. That has made a huge change in my weight loss because it’s never been something I saw as temporary. The thoughts like “If I workout really hard this week, I will reward myself with pizza and Ice cream this weekend.” were not something I tried to let myself think. I didn’t let myself think that way because whats the point in putting all the hard work and then back tracking. When I started seeing results, it just kept motivating me to keep going. I set goals for myself every single week and that made it more doable to try harder. I can remember plenty of times running and feeling so much pain in my legs but just thinking of the number I wanted to see on the scale on my weigh in day. That motivated me so much to push above and beyond.
Support: I could not have gotten where I am without the support of my friends and family. As a busy full time mom, I have limited hours in my day to focus on myself. Being heavy for so long made me not want to exercise during those specific hours, but I knew I had to make a huge shift in my goals. My family have been there for me to take care of my children while I train, especially those long runs that take closer to 2 hours. They have been there to tell me you can do it and to not give up. They believed in me when I didn’t think I had anything left in me to keep trying. If you are looking to change your weight, you have to be clear with your support system on what your goals are so they know what is expected of them. It’s a very long road of hard work, but a very worth while one. As much as you are doing this for yourself, there are others who are there to help as well!
I didn’t choose the quick fix or the “diet” that would help me lose 20 lbs. I chose a lifestyle. I hated the way I felt for so many years and now I finally love getting dressed every day because I love the way clothes look on me. I get to buy smaller sizes instead of bottomless french fries. You need to reward yourself especially in the beginning but remember you’re not a dog! Thats why I reward myself with new clothes or a pedicure. Just as long as it makes you feel happy!
You can find Diana Smith at:
