How I Lost Those Last 10 Pounds (and kept them off!)

People keep asking me how I lost my ten pounds. Did I eat carbs? (Jesus ate carbs, and so do I) Did I juice? (Only by chewing) Did I exercise? (I was actually lazier than ever) The answer is quite simple.

MY BACKSTORY

Publishers say you can’t use backstory. You have to start with the action and weave the backstory in. Luckily I don’t need publishers. I will just click “publish” when I’m done and assume that my readers don’t have the attention spans of kindergarteners. Here’s my backstory.

As I grew up playing year-round softball, and my mom cooked healthy meals and didn’t buy soda or doughnuts, and I got skinny genes (that’s genes with a ‘g’ for those of you having Siri read this to you) I started off my adult life at a rather thin 120 pounds. When I had morning sickness I got down to 104! Don’t worry, that’s not what I’m recommending for you.

After having my daughter, I eventually got back to 120, but after I turned 30, I gradually made my way up to 150. Then, after a month of two illnesses and an injury bad enough to ruin my appetite, I ended up at 140. Don’t worry, I’m definitely not recommending that either.

MY PLAN

With no weightloss aspirations, last New Year’s I randomly decided to cut my sugar intake to only two pints a month of Kozy Shack pudding. I don’t know why. I know sugar is evil, but I didn’t want to go without it completely. Why Kozy Shack pudding? I have no idea. I like it. Bonus, it’s all natural.

HOW I DIDN’T FOLLOW MY PLAN

The first thing that happened was I realized an open container of Kozy Shack wasn’t going to stay edible for two weeks, so I switched to two pints a week. My goal was not weight loss, so I was surprised when I weighed myself after a week or so and had lost two pounds. I continued to lose two pounds a week through all of January. Unholy crap, I thought. I must have been eating a lot of sugar before!

Three things I’d like to point out here:
1. January was too cold for walking, so I sat around a lot during this time.
2. I did not (and never did) eat sugar substitutes. Yuck.
3. I did not cut back on fats. I love lots of full-fat sour cream on my burritos and lots of butter on my toast.

Besides not ordering lemon cakes at Starbucks, and saying no to cookies and cake, a major change was switching from a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast to a piece of toast (with butter!) fruit, and sometimes an egg.

And that’s it! I have even cheated many times, but even with the cheats, I figure I still eat less sugar than I would if I didn’t have the resolution at all. At first, I checked the ingredients of crackers, bread, everything, and I’ve slacked off on that a bit, but I still weigh 130, which I’m very happy with. I actually feel healthier than I did back when I weighed 120.

So what I AM recommending is that you try cutting your sugar before you go crazy with counting calories and buying a pedometer. It’s simpler than counting calories, healthy even if you don’t lose weight, and doesn’t cause repetitive stress injuries like exercise.

Marie out.