Seeing is Believing--My Fitness Pal

          Usually I only blog about books. They are my passion. After all, I am a librarian and former English teacher. However, I have a new passion: eating healthy and getting fit.

           I've needed to lose weight for a long time. In high school, I was thin. I played a lot of sports: volleyball, basketball, and softball. I could eat what I wanted because I worked out enough.

            Then college came. I was still slim my freshman year because all my friends went away to college and I walked in the neighborhood because I was bored. I also worked at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which is a free workout--climbing that ladder was awesome! My sophomore year, I transferred to HBU and began eating badly. I didn't work out much, and I was lazy. I started gaining weight and have continued doing so. It came on slowly--ten pounds here, ten there. It wasn't like I gained 50 pounds in one year. When it's slow, you sometimes excuse it or don't notice it as much.

            I tried South Beach diet. I tried cutting carbs and sugars. However, that just didn't work for me. I always went back to them and gained the weight back. I tried exercising because I love working out. I still didn't lose because I would go back home and eat junk.

            This school year, I changed jobs. I went from being a classroom teacher to a school librarian. I lost 8 pounds during the school year just because I was more active. However, I still had a long way to go--an 83 pound journey left to walk.

            Tuesday, June 7th, my sister, who doesn't need to lose a pound, introduced me to myfitnesspal.com. I did it mostly to make her be quiet, but it changed my life. Just as writing things down changed my budget (thanks, Dave Ramsey), entering in my food for the day and seeing the calories made something in my head click! The light bulb went off.

            It's been a little over a week, and I've lost four pounds, which is a healthy amount. What is the best thing so far is that I don't feel deprived. I still ate some cake bites yesterday and today. I still went out to restaurants. I still had snacks. I'm just making better choices about what I eat. I had read articles about portion control, about eating only when hungry, about cutting a restaurant portion in half, etc, but until I saw the calories added up, it didn't convict me to eat better.

            My favorite part of My Fitness Pal is when I finish my daily food journal, it tells me how much I will weigh in five weeks if every day is like the one I had. I can't wait to see where I am in five weeks!

           So, thanks, Jeanelle, for forcing me to sign up for My Fitness Pal. It's been a true pal. LOL! I love corny jokes.