[Rowenna]

Hi. My name is Rowenna. I have been really inspired by a lot of people on these forums, and they've been a huge help to me, but I think that my story is a bit different than any I've read about on here, so I thought I'd share it and see if anyone else is in a similar situation.

Up until my senior year in high school, I was stick thin, no boobs, no curves. It still says "100 lbs" on my driver's license because that's what I weighed at 17. I could eat anything that I wanted and my weight wouldn't change, and I did. I am one of the pickiest eaters I've ever come across, and there are just about no "healthy" foods that I can bring myself to eat. I have problems with anything even remotely spicy, or textured, or crunchy, or strongly flavored. I like very bland food like bread, potatoes, meat, rice, pasta, etc. (CARBS).

My senior year in high school I started to get a bit more curvy, and when I left for college I was a "healthy" 111 lbs. My BMI was, and has always indicated that I am healthy and within the proper weight range. My habits, on the other hand, were the opposite of healthy.

In college, I began eating three meals a day on the school's meal plan. The problem was that there was now so much more food available to me. I could have pancakes and bacon every day for breakfast, and cake and cookies and ice cream and soda whenever I wanted. And I did! I also started birth control at that point, and the combination of that and my eating habits caused to me gain a lot of weight. I didn't have a scale, so I honestly don't know what I weighed for most of my first year at college, but I was between 130-140 I would guess for most of it. That doesn't sound huge, but I am very short with a very small frame, and it was much more than I should have been.

I was never concerned about losing weight, though. I had to get bigger clothes, eventually going from a size 2 to a size 8, but it didn't really bother me that much. It wasn't until Christmas of 2007 that things started to change. I came home from college in December, and remember weighing in the 130s when I first arrived. In the course of the break, I lost weight naturally, from eating less frequently and healthier, I guess. I weighed around 120 in early January, and felt much better about my body.

Around the same time, my boyfriend decided to start losing weight. He had back surgery and gained a lot of weight while recovering, and decided to start eating healthier and exercising more. This was the first time I made a conscious effort to lose weight. We made a bet about who could get to their goal first, mine being to lose ten pounds, him to lose 50. This is pretty lame to say, but he totally kicked my butt. I ate a few salads and went to the gym a few times, but ultimately I hardly lost any weight. I got to around 115, but I wasn't really motivated. My boyfriend ended up losing 70 lbs pretty quickly. I complained a lot about how hard it is to lose weight when you're not that heavy to begin with, but it really had to do with my habits.

I weight between 115-120 for the rest of that year. That is the weight I think I would be if I ate whatever I want all the time, and exercised moderately. I didn't think about my weight much again until this past Christmas. At home again, I noticed the weight falling off just like the previous year, without any conscious effort. I weighed around 112 in early January 2009, and I felt great about myself. I was finally at a weight similar to when I first started college.

Despite my satisfaction with my weight, I was completely unhappy with my body. I was weak, I was flabby in certain areas, and my habits, while better than before, were still unhealthy. I decided to start seriously working on improving my body. Weight loss was not on my mind. My goal was to learn to do push-ups, and strengthen my abs. I started a three day a week strength training regimen, and have been following it for almost 8 weeks now. The strength training jump started me into doing an overall improvement on my body. I've started doing a lot of cardio in addition to my strength training, so that you can actually see the new muscles I am developing.

I've also been trying, with mixed success, to eat healthier. It's easy enough for me to cut out bad things, I've stopped drinking soda, eating chocolate and ice cream, and most other sugary things. Adding healthy items is the tough part for me. There are some fruits that I like, but not a lot, and I don't like any vegetables.

I know I will be so much happier with my body when it is strong enough to do push-ups and sit-ups, even though it doesn't look so bad now. I also really want to lose the small layer of flab that covers my ab muscles so that you can see them! Is there anyone else out there who is mostly trying to develop healthier habits, and get stronger, rather than just losing weight?

[mamaspank]

I think you look great. As for the healthier habits and getting stronger versus the losing weight, I think it is sort of the same thing. A very grey area. I think once you start pursuing one of those goals, and if it's working, then the other just falls into place. Every time I tried to lose weight before, I would just work out and never really dieted. Now I do both, and I have been able to not only keep it off, but don't seem to have those cravings that I used to. Am I going to eat a part of a Gourmet Vegetarian pizza from Papa Murphy's today? Yes. Am I going to just eat part of that and have a HUGE salad and work out? Yes. This is a lot different than what I would have done a couple years ago. I would have eaten as much of the pizza as I could have just so my boyfriend didn't eat it all before I could. I only have pizza probably once every two to three weeks, and when I do, it's only a couple of pizzas.

[mctinez]

Hi Rowenna,

We are similar weights and I also have a goal of increasing my strength and fitness.

I started in January and have lost 10lbs so far. I'm happy with how I look now, but like you, I want to lose that layer of fat on my stomach and increase my overall fitness.

Right now I'm focusing on toning my arms by lifting weights 3 times a week. I also do cardio. In terms of diet, I started with South Beach and now I count calories and try to limit my carbs. Because I'm short and don't have much left to lose, I'm on a pretty low calorie (but within the healthy range) diet.

I am also a picky eater and struggle to eat enough veggies. One thing I do is make smoothies with non-fat yogurt, frozen berries and a cup of fresh spinach and water. You really can't taste the spinach, especially if you add a banana! For less calories, I leave out the yogurt. I drink these about once a day for a meal or snack. Other veggies you might like include squash (you can buy this in the freezer section) and yams.

Good luck!

[Rowenna]

Thanks, mamaspank, I, too used to try to eat most of the pizza before my boyfriend could eat it all. It's been pretty easy for me to cut it down to a slice or two, but it's also eating that huge salad that is my struggle. I just can't bring myself to eat them unless they're covered in ranch dressing and cheese...

and mctinez... do you mind sharing how many calories you tend to eat? I've been trying to figure out what a healthy range is for me. From some BMA calculations, I think 1300 was what they said I should eat, but it is really hard for me to come up with that many calories worth of healthy food...

[mctinez]

I try to eat 1200 a day (I'm 5'2) based on a calculation that will allow me to lose 1lb a week, so 1300 may be about right for you if you are 5'3. I actually eat between 1200-1400 a day, because I usually eat more on days that I exercise. You're right, it can be hard to stick to this calorie range because if I eat anything unhealthy it will send me way over my calories for the day.

I also have the same problem as you with salad, the only way I like salad is with blue cheese dressing and a bunch of toppings such as olives, tomatoes, bacon bits and cheese. I actually don't eat salads because of this. Instead, I have some cottage cheese with tomatoes, beans, carrots and cucumber. The cottage cheese sort of acts as a dressing or dip and the only thing I'm missing is the lettuce.