I'm a Work in Progress - Libby

before

Fighting the battle of the bulge is something I never really thought I’d do, but over the past 10 years, I keep putting on and taking off the SAME 20lbs.  Crazy, right?  After turning 40, my body turned to mush and I felt bloated, flabby, out of shape and on top of that, it  is harder to lose weight as we age. 

No amount of Spanx was going to pull in my enlarging ass or belly so I had to start exercising ASAP even with the challenge of recovering from chemotherapy and knee surgery.  So, I committed to doing SOMETHING every day (even if it was a house chore).  I bought a pedometer and started slow with walking, biking and then added in weights.  When I started doing the weights, I really started to see a difference across the board – my knee felt better and I was much stronger and of course the flab started to firm up….

Libby - Jan '11

In the past, I’ve had success with South Beach diet and generally I like the concept of the diet, but I found the early phases too restrictive.  So, this time around, I came up with a “diet plan” that I could LIVE with.  I loosely follow clean eating principles.  I really limit my processed food intake; I eat frequent smaller meals, use portion control AND try to ALWAYS leave a bite of food on my plate. 

My BIG thing is I LOVE things that taste good.  So, I’d rather eat something that is savory (like ribs or wings) and just not a lot of them (and not that frequent). I have NOT given up real butter, regular salad dressing or my wine.  Again, moderation. This way I’m more satisfied and I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself of the things I really enjoy and this in turn has stop the binging that would happen on other diets.  When I did strict diets, that was MY vicious cycle – diet, get HUNGRY, binge, fall off the wagon, get back on track and REPEAT the cycle. 

Today, but not done!

I CAN live with my new diet plan and since June ’10, I’ve lost 24lbs, lots of inches and gained a ton of muscle mass. When I started I was in a tight size 12 and now I'm in a size 8.  My goal is for another 10lbs so that I’ll have flex weight built in.

I typically workout 6 days a week -- 45-60 mins of cardio and weights. Of course, the weight would come off faster if I had a really strict diet, but that has not worked for me in the long-term.

I am a work in progress!