Losing It Together

You might have noticed that we haven’t been posting much in the “We Cook” and “He Bakes” sections.  We haven’t been doing much cooking lately, mainly because we started a weight loss plan last April which has curbed our cooking for the time being.  Here’s a little backstory:

Before the wedding, both Matt and I were about 20 lbs heavier than our ideal.  We had both gained the weight during our courtship due to our mutual love of beer and cooking.  We ate healthy, but our portion sizes were a bit too big and our activity level dropped the year that we were planning the wedding.  I was worried about juggling a diet, workout routine, and wedding planning on top of our already busy lives so I made a decision for myself and ultimately for both of us- No trying to lose weight before the wedding.

Photo by Rocktographer & Friend Jason Tang

After the wedding our busy lives continued to be busy.  We cooked a lot of yummy meals in our first 6 months and then slowly we started to eat out more and cooking less.  Soon another 10 lbs had crept up.  I was the heaviest I had ever been and I did not like the way I felt. Inspired by fellow Weddingbee bloggers, Mrs Avocado & Mrs Penguin, I decided to commit myself to losing 30 lbs.  Almost immediately I realized that if I was going to do this I needed my husband’s support.  We needed to do this together.

This winter we both had attended a wellness seminar on the science of weight loss. One of the recommended books was Volumetrics by Barbara Rolls PhD.

Volumetrics $10.85 on Amazon

The principles in this book are sound.  Some food, like vegetables and soups have a lower calorie per gram ratio.  Adding more vegetables to your food or volumizing your food allows you to be satisfied with fewer calories.  There aren’t a lot of rules or foods that are forbidden and it just makes sense.  Matt and I started to be more mindful of our eating but what we really needed was structure.

In mid April we made the decision to give Jenny Craig a try.  Jenny Craig uses the volumetrics approach and their meals gave us much needed structure.   We their order food every 2 weeks and for the first half of our weight loss we exclusively at their menu plan (JC meals + Fresh fruits and vegetables).  Since the half way point we have transitioned to cooking more of our own meals (1-2 days of meals a week) in preparation for moving to maintenance.  We have a phone consultation with our awesome JC consultant every week. Mr P and I talk with her together about how the week went, challenges that we had and what is coming up in the next week.

The Jenny Craig diet has me at about 1200 calories per day and Matt at 1500 calories per day.  In addition to diet we challenged ourself to increase our daily activity through increasing our daily step count.  On a work day prior to our diet I would normally walk around 5K steps, Matt around 7K.  We challenged ourself through a work wellness program to do 7,500 and 10,000 steps respectively.

During our 6 week challenge my average was 9K steps per day- WOOT!  We started walking places much more.  We walk to the coffee shop, restaurants, grocery store, post office, pharmacy, etc  when time allows.

The results?  Since April we have steadily been dropping weight.

In our experience, weight loss becomes noticeable to others around the 15 lb mark.  As of today I have lost 20 lbs and have 10 more to go.

Most of my weight came from my bust and my belly. I was happy to see both areas shrink as my weight gain had pushed me into the 32 DDD/F bra size, a size that is annoyingly had to find. I also see the weight loss it in my face and my arms.  My size 8 clothes fit perfectly now and some of my pants are getting a bit roomy.

Matt is 2 lbs away from his goal of 35 lbs lost.  His transformation has been absolutely amazing.  I knew that men tend to lose weight quicker than womenbut I never would have thought he would have lost it so quickly.  He literally has no pants that fit now. Every pair of jeans is falling off of him, even the size 32s that I picked up a couple weeks ago.

There are pro’s and con’s to doing a diet plan like this.  We typically didn’t eat much processed foods and the diet plan is full of processed pre-packaged Jenny Craig meals.  It was an adjustment to eating 3 prepared meals a day but it was balanced with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.  The packaged food was a tradeoff for time, it’s so easy to plan out food for the day and food is quick to prepare.  For us the cost was a wash because prior to the diet we were spending a fair amount dining out and buying organic local foods.

The best part of this has been doing it together.  We have a built-in support plan and are good about keeping each other on track.  Matt is going to be transitioning off soon but I know he’ll be there cheering me until my last lb is lost.  I guess you can chalk this up to one wedding regret- I wish we had tried this before the wedding.

As we start transitioning off of our diet you can be sure to enjoy more recipes from us.  We’ve really been enjoying the 2 or so days a week that we cook our own meals and can’t wait to lose that last pound.

Are you and your significant other working towards diet or fitness goals together?  How do you stay motivated?