Tag Archives: 100 pounds

100-pound anniversary

June 18th.  Today is the day that I celebrate another year of keeping off at least 100 pounds!  I am still not at the magical goal number (or maybe I am….), but the weight that I did lose is staying off.   That is more important to me than reaching goal.

2 years ago, I bought a rose bush to celebrate hitting 100 pounds lost and planted it in my garden.  I was excited when it came back last year and bloomed at about this time (appropriate!).

This year, I was worried about my rose bush. I thought the last freezes we had might have killed it because the growth started so late, but it is blooming again right now as a reminder of what is possible.

Also, the fact that it made it through some late hard freeze and continued to thrive is sort of representative of the challenges that we face in losing and keeping off weight and yet it can be done.  It is not always an easy road, but it is certainly a travel-able road.

In the past year (June to June), I have done

I’ve kept the weight off through a year’s worth of holidays, birthdays, celebrations,  various binges, a cruise, and an injury.  Of course, this isn’t to say the weight has remained the same.  I have ranged around in a 10-pound area with 145 seeming to be the sweet spot where my body gravitates.  I really struggled last summer learning how to feed my body while training for a triathlon.  I was trying to do that and lose weight, which do not necessarily go hand in hand.  I found my body just fluctuates a lot, and that is okay.  I know how to handle it now (not that I am always successful).

Flash back to 5 years ago at 250 pounds:


Here is a shot I took this morning of the jeans I am wearing in the above picture.  24W.  I kept this pair as a reminder of where I never, ever want to be again.

I can’t believe I used to fill these jeans up.  It’s embarrassing, really.  I have this strange mixture of pride and shame about the weight loss.  Shame that I ever disrespected myself enough to get so large and yet pride that I was able to take the weight off and treat my body the way I need to in order to be healthy and fit.

Now a couple fun shots.  2 years ago at 150 being a superstar :mrgreen: :

This week at 145 trying the same pose:

Not much weight difference, but a big body composition change with the strength training.  I do have a fair amount of loose skin, particularly in my butt/legs, but it has firmed up some over time.   I wasn’t even sucking in my tummy LOL!  And I swear my butt looks a little higher??  Go squats!  Lift those weights, ladies!! (and guys).  It’s kind of neat that the older I get, the more revealing my clothes are, and I am embracing the imperfections rather than trying to hide them.

I hope that next year I will be posting again with pictures of this rose bush.  When I tuck it away for the winter and start checking on it again next spring to see how it weathered the winter months, I hope we meet again in the same spirit.

Dr. Oz taping

Show airing:  Tuesday February 16, 2010!!


Phew.  I don’t even know where to start!   I had a complete blast!  I could barely contain my excitement for most of the time (dork!!)

First off, there are no pictures of the actual taping, as that was not allowed, and I was a good person and followed those rules.  There is no way they would not have seen me take them, either, as I was sitting in the center on the end of the row!  My mother came with me as my guest (Yay!).  The staff had train tickets for me, so we boarded up on Tuesday afternoon:

Mom and I on the way to NYC! I love riding the train!

After we got into Penn Station, we took a cab to the Hilton hotel.  It was so cool to give them my reservation number and they said “Everything is taken care of”.  :mrgreen:

We were on the 39th floor 😯

It was a cushy room!  We went down to the lobby area and bumped into Dawn, whom we spent quite a bit of time chatting with.  She was so warm and wonderful.  So neat to put voices to faces.  Didn’t see anyone else until the next morning.  We had an early call at 7:20 am to meet in the lobby.  There were about 25 of us at this hotel.  There was much gabbing to be had in the lobby. I finally met Sarah in the lobby. She is such a wonderful lady:

I also met Diane, but very briefly.  I would have liked to have chatted with her more.  There just was not enough time to talk to people as we were moved around so much and in various lines.  However, that led to meeting so many people! Some of these people lost an incredible amount of weight.  Some over 300 pounds!  Ironically, at 105 pounds lost, I was one of the ‘smaller’ losers LOL!  That perception thing.

We spent a *lot* of time in lines:

I think we spent as much time in lines as we did actually taping.  The ‘losers’ then separated out from the other guests and got our special tickets and tshirts.

They also had a paddle for each of us with how much weight we lost!  Here are Dawn and I posing:

Why does my hair look so bleached in these pictures??  Surreal moment happened as I was walking with my paddle alone in Rockafeller center and I see Richard Simmons and his entourage come through.  He must have seen my paddle because he starts walking in my direction. I didn’t think he was coming to me, but he came right up, hugged me and kissed me 4 times on the cheek and said “Congratulations” and then walked away.  I was totally flabbergasted!  And no one was around to take my picture LOL!  He was exactly like you see him all the time on TV.  The man never changes. 🙂

The taping itself was a sensory overload.  I ended up sitting in the center section of the stage the rotates around so you are always facing were the doctor was, which was pretty cool.  It basically taped in 7 segments, where the tape would roll and the action would happen.  Then sets would be moved around and we would be given some instructions before the next live set.  Diane did a segment on stage with Dr. Oz.  She was so calm and cool about it and very professional.  And tall and slender!  (Everyone seemed tall to me, what is up with that lately?).

At the end we were all on stage with Dr. Oz.  I have to say that I was so impressed with him.  He honestly and truly seemed so genuine.  There a point where the stage crew were saying to have the audience leave so they could do promo pics and he said “No, we made these drinks for them and I want them to have them” (referring to smoothies you will see during the show.)  It was like he really noticed us and cared about us instead the cattle moving in and out.  Not that the staff was not nice, they were, but you could tell they just wanted to move us along.

Dr. Oz was also very accessible.  At the end while we were still on stage, I went up to thank him for letting me be part of the show, and he hugged me and said the show was for us.

I have to say that this show was so emotional in many ways – joy, tears, pride, enthusiasm and just so much energy!  While only a few people were featured on the show, they could have pulled any one of us up there and had an inspirational story.  It was almost overwhelming.  Please, if you are struggling or if you know someone who is, they need to watch this show.  Heck – even if you are maintaining, doing great, or just love healthy living, watch this show.  There were 2 moments for me that I loved, and that was when a woman name Merrill (??) came out and talked.  She was fabulous.  And then Richard Simmons said something about when you wake up every day, you never know who you are going to inspire that day and how.  That really struck a chord in me.

I felt so privileged and honored to be part of this.  We are all big losers, but really – we are all big winners!  What a special connection to have to all of these people.

Of course, as you know – there was a blizzard hitting the city the day of taping! I was so worried about getting home, but they actually booked us all for another night in a hotel, which was very nice of them.  However, since we were going north, our train was still going ahead, so we were able to board and go home.

I did have a NY bagel, though – you all know I wouldn’t leave there without it!  I was hangry by this time:

Nice quiet train ride home, where we had only an inch of snow (sorry mid Atlantic!)

All of this happened in 24 hours.  I kept saying to my mother that I couldn’t believe all of that had happened.

I have a lot of thoughts and realizations that I came to because of this, and I need to mull them out into a post.  I am still trying to process the whole experience.

100 pound anniversary post!

I had alluded to this special rose bush in my garden a couple weeks ago:

100lb1This was the reward I gave myself for losing 100 pounds.  I wanted a rose bush, and this one is the one I selected.

Today is a huge milestone day for me.  1 year ago I stepped on the scale to have finally reach 100 pounds lost.

That means I have maintained  at least 100 pounds gone for a year!  I can’t say that I am not a little disappointed to not be at goal now, but I realize that I have kept off an enormous amount of weight.  I made it through a bunch of holidays, the Superbowl, New Orleans, birthdays and the like to varying degrees of success.

1 year ago, I was a fledgling runner  – in 3 weeks I will be doing a sprint triathlon!  Who knew that I had a little athlete in me that wanted to get out all this time??  It only took me 41 years to give her a chance!

I have spent a lot of the last year learning more about what my body is actually capable of doing, and that it can look pretty good in clothes!  I still get great satisfaction and amazement out of shopping and being in the ‘normal’ department.  I wonder if that will ever go away (I hope not).

The rose bush made it through the winter and is blooming now, and a celebration of the time passed since its first planting.  It is my sincere wish that I will be posting again in a year with the same success (and even to be at goal LOL).

Old me:

250

Taken a couple weeks ago:

shirt1

Maybe I can do this maintenance thing after all!

I was also honored to provide a guest post recipe today at Healthy Living Blog!