Carla's Calorie Counting Success Story
Tired of losing and regaining weight, Carla has used WLR to
keep food and exercise diaries, set goal weights and record her
progress.
Age: 38
Height: 5' 10"
Start Weight: 12st 12lb
Current Weight: 11st
Goal Weight: 11st
Weight Lost: 1st 12lb
Working to Rate of Loss: 1lb per week
Time Taken: 9 months
Dieting History
No named diets just calorie counting using a book.
Have you lost weight before and regained the weight?
I have lost and gained weight throughout my adult life.
I have varied in weight between 9st 7lbs and 13st and usually
I have been lighter when I have been unhappy or stressed.
How being overweight has affected you…
When I got pregnant with my first child in 2001, I was
already slightly overweight and I remember going on holiday with
friends to Ibiza and being glad that I was pregnant because I
could blame the way I looked in shorts or a swimming costume on
the pregnancy. I was fooling myself a little as I was only 2
months gone and that doesn’t really show at all.
After I had my first child in 2002, I lost the baby weight
naturally but I was still overweight and then I started to
comfort eat due to stress and loneliness when on maternity leave
as well as being undiagnosed anaemic in the first few months of
my son’s life.
I was very unhappy with how fat I looked and hated looking at
pictures of myself during this period. I remember going to one
of my best friend’s weddings when my son was 6 months old and
feeling very upset that I couldn’t wear a pretty party dress
like lots of the other women there. I was wearing drawstring
trousers. I probably weighed over 13st at that time but I hadn’t
stood on the scales for ages.
Motivation to Diet
I started with WLR after my son was born (July 2004). I
thought I might get pregnant again and I wanted to start from a
good weight so that it would be easier to lose it after the
second pregnancy.
After my second child was born in 2005 I started WLR again
and I had the goal of getting down to the middle BMI of the
healthy range for my height.
I wanted to be really happy with my figure and be able to
wear pretty much any clothes that I liked. I didn’t want to feel
depressed and blame the pregnancy for the weight again as it
wasn’t really due to that at all.
Discovering Weight Loss Resources
I Googled ‘calories’ or something and found the free trial
offer. I haven’t stopped since really, other than when I was
pregnant.
How Weight Loss Resources Helps
The first time I used it (July – Oct 2004) I went from 12st
12lbs to 11st 8lbs in 3 months. Then I got pregnant. The second
time I used it (I started 1 month after giving birth a second
time) I went from 12st 12lbs to 11st exactly in 9 months (July
2005 to April 2006).
Since then I have gone up and down a bit but I used WLR to
maintain my weight loss e.g. after going on holiday or Christmas
when I have gone up to 11st 5lbs or something. I am back down to
my target weight after Christmas now.
The site and the method of keeping a food diary and working
towards daily-calorie targets suits me and my personality down
to the ground.
It gives me something to aim for everyday and every week and
I loved checking my daily and weekly totals and then also
checking my weight loss every Monday morning.
I have learnt about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and soon had
things memorised as to what I could and couldn’t have safely.
I loved the idea of having a weekly total so you can
roll-over calories not eaten (or calories earnt in exercise)
from the beginning of the week into the weekend allowance. This
really helped me to stay sane and have a few glasses of white
wine and maybe go out for a nice meal at the weekends.
I found that I would have a good breakfast (porridge,
wholemeal toast etc), a light lunch (ryvitas and low fat cheese
and lots of salad) and a healthy dinner (fish, veggies) say
Monday – Thursday. Also I would exercise as much as possible –
not easy whilst working and with two children but I went for
lots of walks and managed to swim quite a lot. Living in
Brighton I can walk up hills quite a lot which is fantastic for
banking those extra calories. Then Friday and Saturday I would
have say 3 – 400 extra calories each day to play with – lovely!!
I think having a target of 1lb a week weight-loss made it
very easy to stick to and it didn’t impact on my life or ability
to have fun too much. I can’t really stick to a much lower
calorie diet as I need something to look forward to.
One technique I have is to buy magazines and other non-food
treats when out and about if I am tempted to buy chocolate.
I loved the goals and results bit of the website and all the
detail it gives you about your diet and the graphs about how you
have done so far etc. It really got me hooked in each week.
I have also read some really interesting articles on the site
about particular diets. It made me realise that a balanced, low
fat/calorie diet, combined with exercise, is really the only
safe way to lose weight.
The Best of Weight Loss Resources
As mentioned I used the food and exercise diaries, the graphs
and reports for goals and results and also some of the
diet-related articles.
I didn’t get into the message board but I certainly talked to
plenty of my actual friends about what I was doing and they were
all very interested.
Carla's Calorie Counting Tips
Just set realistic targets and be realistic about what will
keep you motivated.
I knew that setting targets and meeting them would motivate
me. I love the little message you get at the end of each week if
you have lost weight! |
