Knowledge is Power

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With the weighing-in portion of this competition at the end, I can look back and see many pros and cons to the Get Fit Challenge. Overall, I’m pleased with how much weight I have lost so far, but the end of the competition is a small drop in the bucket compared to improving my overall health and fitness. I’m still a good 10-15 pounds away from where I want to be before my big day, and it’s rapidly approaching!

Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to look back and see where my pitfalls were. From the very beginning, I set a goal that was easy and obtainable. It would have amounted to a couple of pounds a month, but instead of deciding how I would hit a certain mark each month, I looked at a giant goal that was months down the line. As each month progressed, I would near the end of it, realize a weigh-in was coming up and panic, stressing my body out with combinations of extreme dieting and exercising. I had good weigh-ins, but none reflected my progress as accurately as I wished they would have. I needed to develop a game plan to tackle one day or week at a time, and I think I would be much closer to my end-goal than I am now.

I have also learned that maintenance is not as easy as some folks say it is. Numerically, it’s easy to balance intake and output when it comes to eating and exercising. We all know that a pound is 3500 calories and you have to burn more than you’re taking in. However, we are constantly taking in calories and it takes a lot less energy to put a fork to your mouth than to put on a pair of sneakers and jog a mile. I was not prepared for the mental aspect of this competition and how much of a drain it would be at times to fight a battle without immediate results. When you try to strengthen your brain, you can take tests to determine what you have or have not learned. When you try to strengthen your muscles, it takes a heck of a lot longer to get the results, and I have greatly struggled with that.

Statistically, I don’t think there’s a good chance that I will have lost the most weight by the final weigh-in. There were girls in this competition that had more to lose than I did and girls that have only recently been fighting a battle with their weight. Regardless of the numbers that pop up on the scale, I’ve never been terribly “healthy,” and I’m excited about how that’s changed.

Since we began this competition eight months ago, I have gotten really good at guessing how many grams of fat, calories, and carbs are in different foods. I know exactly what to look for on a label before I decide whether or not I want to buy something. I understand what my basal metabolic rate is and how that contributes to my overall metabolism. I can run a mile in under ten minutes. Shoot, I can just run for ten minutes.

Despite all my knowledge, there will be days ahead when I still don’t make the best dieting choices, or choose not to get off my couch to head to the gym. However, I heard it when I was younger, I preached it when I was teacher, and I am trying to live the motto now—Knowledge is Power. Without the things that I have learned throughout this competition process, I wouldn’t feel nearly as confident about myself heading into the last couple of weeks before my wedding. Now, I know that I have a healthy future ahead of me, and I know that my friends and my family with reap the benefits for years to come.

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