I'm Finally NORMAL! (Really!)

First, a little background: not long ago, I came face to face with the fact that I'd basically been slowly gaining wait over the course of an entire decade and have always had a REALLY difficult time beating down the wild raging Sweet Tooth in myself. (Thanks Mom!) One glance at my family tree indicated that this was the norm among my gene pool, and it wouldn't be easy to reverse the trend. Eventually, I was 30 lbs. overweight--30 lbs. above the HIGHEST end of the "normal" range for someone of my height/age. So I decided to do something about it.

Trouble was: the only strategy I knew was "exercise more" and "eat less." And while that IS, of course, the real answer, I think it's so difficult for people because it is so vague--no concrete benchmarks to strive for, no sense of how long it will take to pay off, etc.

In my case, a year had gone by and, while I had made definite progress, I still wasn't quite down to the "normal" weight range. In addition, because my plan was so vague, I didn't have a good way to handle unexpected bumps in the road: during Spring semester this year, for example, I gained 20 lbs., mostly because of an illness I couldn't shake and a schedule that was "too busy" to allow me to get enough rest/exercise.

Then, this summer, I stumbled across LiveStrong.com and its "Daily Plate" feature, and it has made a world of difference for me. In 5 or 10 minutes, I had entered my age, weight, activity level, and weight loss goals into the website, and it provided me with VERY concrete goals, showing me exactly what to strive for each day, in terms of my eating/exercise habits. Suddenly, I had something specific to shoot for, and I began to see how each of my food/exercise choices influenced that daily goal.

It sounds simple, but it was profoundly sobering to me. It taught me a lot about myself: why I eat, the difference between wants/needs, how long it takes for new habits to pay off, etc. It would not be overstating the case to say that LiveStrong sparked a MAJOR paradigm shift for me.

I am now eating/living better than I have for a decade (literally), but I still get to enjoy the foods I love (in moderation, of course). I feel younger and healthier than I have for a long time, and I feel like I've found something sustainable--not some fad "diet," but a way of living that I can truly maintain.

And, I am finally within the normal weight range for my age/height.

It's nice to be normal.

MOJ