Hi, I'm Sunny, and I live in NYC and Florida (depending on the weather!) I've been dealing with weight issues my entire life and have been up and down the scale between 140 and 210 many times. I'll be 40 in January of 2010, and I've recently decided that NOW is the time to develop a healthy attitude toward my body and food, to last the rest of my life. So far, so good!

I started my efforts in February of this year and of course at first the weight came off quickly. 15 pounds off with a couple of weeks of Atkins, then another 5 pound with a couple of weeks of PWLC and then....

Screeeeeech!

Naturally, when I decided to do things the right way: meeting with a nutritionist who upped my calories from 1200 to 1600, and I started on a pretty heavy resistance and cardio training program,....the pounds...creeped...off...so....sloooooowly....

20 pounds the first 2 months. The next 5 months, I think I've lost another 15 total. Here's one event that opened my eyes though:

I was a little bummed about the slowness of the weight loss, although I felt good about doing it "the right way" for the first time ever. But still, old habits die hard and my scale's refusal to budge more than a half a pound to a pound a week was a bit frustrating. In a 5 week period during which I was doing at least 30 minutes of cardio a day, an hour of resistance training 5x a week, and doing a *pretty* good job sticking to the 1600 calories (not a perfect job, but still! That's a lot of movin' around!) I'd lost only 2 pounds. What the heck!

So I go back to my nutritionist and tell her of my woes and we talk a bit about making some modifications to speed things up a tiny bit. It comes time for the body composition analysis, which I'd had done 5 weeks prior when I first saw her. So I look at the print out, and yeah, bummer, I'm down only a pound and a half. But wait! There's more data! The "fat" line says I've gone down 5 pounds of body fat. Lean mass - up 2 pounds! Water weight - up a pound and a half! While I understand there's a certain margin of error working here, I was still very pleased to see that my efforts HAD paid off a lot more than the scale at home had told me.

So I've got 2 goals I'm working toward right now - my nutritionist's goal for me, which is 25% bodyfat which would have me at 150, and my own goal, which is 15% bodyfat which would (at my current lean mass weight) have me at 135. Now I'm not sayin' I'm going to try to stay at 15% bodyfat forever...I know that's a bit low for a woman especially one my age but ladies! I have NEVER been below 25% bodyfat, not even when I was 2! Haha I just want to touch it, experience it, feel what it feels like for one to be lean and fit...and then I will decide where the perfect composition is for me. Maybe it will be 25, maybe 15, maybe somewhere in between but it will be maintainable and healthy.

So that's me. I'm hoping to reach my goal by the end of this year but we'll see. I'll take it as it comes. If it's meant to be that I lose 1/2 a pound of bodyfat per week that's fine. It just feels really great for the first time in my life to be taking care of my body, instead of fighting with it and hating it

Looking forward to getting to know you all!

Sunny

we are always glad to see new members. It seems to me that you are already doing a really fine job at losing the weight, as they say slow and steady wins the race.

If you ever need any support or motivations, just stop by here, and we'll always give it to you.

Thank you very much! Yes, I am proud of my efforts so far, especially because they have been so uncharacteristically *healthy* But yes, I suspect I will need some support, especially as I get closer to my goals. Having been heavy since childhood, being "a person with weight issues" is so much a part of my identity, I fear I'll sabotage my own efforts as I near my goal, because ...who will I be if I am not "the lady who's always on a diet?" On the other hand, I am very excited to find out the answer to that question. I look forward to providing support and advice as well as receiving it.

Hi Sunny and welcome to 3FC!

Good luck with your goals.

Hugs
Michelle

hi sunny, from 40 min north of NYC