Some of my triathlon peeps and I went to dinner this evening and we were talking a little bit about weight loss. I got to thinking this evening and realized that I have maintained my weight loss goals for about 18 months now. I can’t believe that I actually made that thing they call “A Lifestyle Change”. It’s been equal parts of more exercise and better eating. A lot of you that read this blog see the current Sonja as the newer thiner version of the Sonja you know, but my triathlon peeps never ever got to know the rounder Sonja. I went searching for a few pics this evening and found some.

In many ways the plumper Sonja is still right there inside of me, and I really enjoyed her. In other ways, I really like the new self confidence that I have found with a fit lifestyle. I found that loving the body I was in was what gave me the permission to release the extra pounds. “You gotta love it to leave it”. I’m not ashamed of these photos, I’m proud of them, proud of what I was able to part with and proud of what I hung on to. It was when I stopped talking down to myself about my weight, and started being proud of who I was that I started getting some traction with weight loss and self acceptance.

My best friend Michelle recently hit her weight loss goals and I am so super proud of her. She has also made the lifestyle change and found “the secret” that doing the right stuff for your body is easy when you do it right (eat enough, exercise enough, find the balance, accept yourself). I’m so proud.

So, without further delay, here are a few pics of the body I used to inhabit.

It’s been sooooo cold here! Under 10 degrees for the past 4 days. I’m ready for the temps to pick back up. I thought I was sick of the reoccurring snow, but I am more sick of the low temps b/c I don’t feel comfortable taking Annabelle outside at all. On Thursday I had a Mountain Mama hike scheduled and it ended up being so cold that we took the kiddos into the Lookout Mountain Nature Center and held and impromptu playgroup. We had a lot of fun chatting it up in the warm Nature Center, while it looked nasty cold outside!
In other news, I had an appointment with Prudence the dietitian on Monday and I hit my goal weight! 142! The most amazing part is that on 10/2/06 I had 29.5% body fat, and now on 1/8/07 I have 22.4%! That’s a loss of 7.1% body fat! In my case that is 16.3 pounds of fat! I also lost 4.9 pounds of lean muscle mass (the good stuff), but this tends to happen. Apparently we have muscle that supports our excess fat, so when we shed the fat, the lean muscle that supports it doesn’t need to be there either. I went shopping for a new pair of jeans and was able to buy a size 8 at Old Navy. In October I was wearing size 14, so that feels really good. My original goal was 20% body fat and a weight between 140-144. So, now I will continue to work on decreasing my body fat % while trying to build more lean muscle mass. Sometimes you can do this and your weight will actually go up (but body fat down). I am 100% okay with that, so we aren’t going to focus on weight, now just the fat %. To tell you the truth, I am feeling pretty hot to trot. I feel good, I fit into my clothing, and I am loving the new tone I have developed with all the exercise I am doing. I absolutely love going to my new gym (I don’t think I shared that I joined the gym). I do a lot of spin classes which is really building my leg strength, my endurance, and my speed. I love the Palates Mat classes for my core strength, and they have treadmills that have little TVs in them with cable! We don’t have cable, so this is a huge treat. I must admit though, my favorite is that I get to sit in the hot tub that is inside the women’s locker room when my workout is over. The thing is like the size of my living room, and it’s such a treat to relax and let the worries of the day pass over.
I have started putting together a list of all the races that I want to do this summer and it’s getting a bit insane. There are so many possibilities, it’s hard to choose. They all look so fun! Adventure Races, Triathlons, 1/2 marathons, I just know that all of this is possible for me now. I am lucky that Troy is so supportive and loves to come along to races and hang out with Pookette in his arms and cheer me on. Lucky, lucky me!
Ooh, as a last note, apparently channel 9 news showed the following photo of Annie and I on the news several weeks ago. Troy sent it in during the blizzard, and a good friend called several days ago to tell us that she saw us on the news. So here is our famous photo:

So, due to the fact that up until several weeks ago I weighed the same weight as my two week post pardem visit in Dec 2005, I decided to start seeing a registered dietician. I have been hiking a ton, and everyone told me that the weight would “fly” off with nursing…well, not so with me. Apparently I was to be haunted by the number 164. Yes, i said it…my weight (eeek). So, several weeks ago I got on the ADA website and searched for some RD’s in my area. There were a lot. I looked at each ones website (when I could find them), and I found a group of three women that sounded like they had a good philosophy. I gave them a call, had a long joyful talk with Prudence, and decided to make an appointment. She was enthusiastic about seeing the whole family, getting me going with gentle weight loss, talking to Troy about heart health, and letting Annie play in her slew of healthy food example boxes :). Two weeks later we met with her, and it was awesome. In my pre-baby life I had success with Weight Watchers, but I couldn’t bear to drag myself back there. For some reason I didn’t feel like playing the Weight Watcher game this time around. I wanted to know the facts about healthy nutrition, with no mask of “points”. Prudence was just what I was looking for, and with Annie on her way to weaning (that in another post) it was time to get serious. Prudence tested Troy and I’s body fat %, and our lean body mass, and our base caloric needs. She then used that to give me a calorie threshold to stick to and then broke those calories up into the four meals that Troy and I eat each day (Breakfast, Lunch, Heavy Snack, and Light Dinner), also further breaking our our calories into protein, fat, grains, veggies, fruit and dairy. I am in love!!
So this past Monday we had our two week checkup. I was able to implement the new diet, and I wasn’t hungry at all. It was definitely enough food when I stuck to the whole grains and variety. It was nice to see her after two weeks rather than one week b/c we really had a chance to live our changes. I lost 5.5 pounds. Holy toledo. I was hoping for 1 pound. I attribute this to me sticking to the calories, and the breakouts, and exercising once to twice a day (always fun exercise, and always with Annabelle in tow). So now that Annie has fullly weaned, we have lowered my calories a bit more to really focus on weight loss, and I am jazzed to keep up the momentum. No more 164!!! I’m now 157.75…but that was on Monday…and it’s Wednesday…so I’m probably even lighter!!! I’m giving myself a huge pat on the back!!