dianaschnuth

Today, I weighed in at the lowest weight I’ve been in over five years.

When I started logging my weight back in November of 2002, I was about six months away from getting married, and I was obese. I thought that by being more conscious of what I was eating and by documenting my weight, I would manage to somehow lose weight before the wedding. Unfortunately, my wedding pictures ended up being my “before” pictures, as I weighed somewhere between 245 and 250 pounds on my wedding day.

In September of 2003, one week after I’d broken myself of my Mountain Dew addiction and was beginning a pasta-free week, Aaron decided to go on the Atkins Diet; I decided to join him. I lost 33 pounds in four months, and continued to lose for the next six months after that, eventually coming to a stop after having lost 50 pounds total. At that point, in July 2004, Aaron had reached the upper end of his normal weight range, and decided to go on Maintenance. After a year of dieting, I was glad to “take a break” myself, even though I still had thirty pounds to go.

For the next few years, we still ate low-carb, but weren’t in active weight-loss mode. I slowly put on ten pounds over the next two years (“Chinese won’t hurt me, just this once…”), then slowly took that ten pounds back off with the help of my friend Sheryl and a diet plan she e-mailed me. Actually, I took off more than ten pounds with that plan; it took me a whole year, but I got all the way down to 195, which was lower than my Atkins all-time low.

My next major hurdle came when I found out I would be losing my job of five years. My entire building was being eliminated due to a merger, so we all tried to make the best of it by having lots of parties on work time and organizing potlucks and generally trying to keep chipper with food and games. My weight loss had already stalled by then, but my lack of willpower — or, rather, my desire to join in and eat all the yummy consolation food — helped my weight start to creep back up. I’d gained a few back by the time I became unemployed, but I then proceeded to gain ten pounds in under six weeks of unemployment.

The past seven months or so have seen me succeed in losing ten pounds, gain five of it back, then lose another ten on Weight Watchers. I’m now down to a weight I haven’t seen for probably ten years or more.

And this is just the beginning.

After the jump: weights and measures…

I measured myself last Sunday, July 27th, and compared the numbers to my previous measurements of June 10th:

Weight: 194 lbs (as of 8/2/08 – down 12 lbs since 6/10/08)
Body Fat Percentage: 29.8% (down 4.1%)
Neck: 14″
Bust (around the b00bs): 42″ (down 2½”)
Chest (under the b00bs, not the armpits): 36″ (down 1½”)
Waist (where my pants live): 39″ (down 1″)
Hips: 47″ (down 1″)
Upper Arm: 13″ (down ½”)
Lower Arm: 10″ (down one quarter inch)
Thigh: 25″ (down 1″)
Calf: 16″

I went shopping last weekend and bought almost $300 worth of new size 16 clothes for work (plus two pairs of shorts). It was totally worth it — I feel so much better in non-baggy dress pants and new, crisp shirts.

Tomorrow, I’m getting my hair trimmed, and I’m getting Aaron to take a picture of me in my never-to-be-seen-in-public bikini that I bought last year for my short-lived attempt at the Body for Life program.

I’m looking forward to having a new “in-progress” picture of myself. It’s too bad I don’t have a more revealing “before” picture. No, wait — I take that back. Seeing just my fat face in old photos is quite enough.