Saturday, March 8, 2008

I’m An Addict

I am an addict. I have an addictive personality, I know it. I’ve never touched drugs or alcohol but for a very long time in my life food was my addiction. There’s no way one gets to over 400lbs without being an addict or have that type of personality. The key for me was turning this weakness into a strength. I believe 95% of weight loss is all mental. Ya gotta wanna be healthy and ya gotta wanna be committed to whatever it is that will get you where you want to be, no matter what.

So I turned my addiction with food to the Weight Watchers program. You might say I’m too strict, but that is just my addictive side kicking in. I don’t cheat on the program. I don’t use my 35 flex points, or at least I haven’t used them yet, and I don’t use my activity points. I haven’t felt a need to. I log everything I eat in my handy Quick Track System booklet and refer back to them if I’m hitting a plateau or just to see what I ate certain weeks.

I’ve also become addicted to exercise. I used to loathe that word but find myself doing at least an hour of cardio daily, Monday-Friday. I’ll either walk; carrying 10lb weights, or ride my recumbent bicycle. I believe firmly in muscle confusion as a way to break through plateaus. I find that the body gets used to certain forms of exercise and while it remains healthy to do it, you may not get the weight loss gains you were looking for. I find I can go around 2 months with walking before I start to plateau out, then I have to mix it up and bike for a couple of months. I also want long, lean muscle; not bulky muscles so on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I do lots of upper body strengthening with dumbbells. I do light weight and lots of reps. On M, T, TH and F I do an abs workout. I’ve been doing Legendary Abs and love the results. They are short ab workouts that really concentrate on the lower and upper abs. I also take opportunities for any activity I can get on the weekends, like walking the mile and a half to church or going for a bike ride.

All this didn’t happen overnight, but I felt if I was going to attempt to lose weight I was going to have to give it 110% and put everything I have into it. Hey, ya just gottawanna.

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