How to lose weight and keep it off- a personal journey


Gemma O’Donnell, RN, MSN O


k its that time of year again when some of us start thinking about New year’s resolutions, and many of us have weight loss on our minds. At least I do! I have strug- gled with my weight all of my life


and have tried many diets to lose weight, but only to find myself gaining back the weight and more after I went ‘off’ the diet.


I will say this up front now, if you want to lose weight, please ensure your doctor knows and that you discuss safe weight loss goals and exercise that matches up with you personally. Every person has a unique situation and it may require a doctor oversight.


This past year I lost 23 pounds and have man- aged to keep it off for the longest time ever in my life. I started in January of 2019 and my goal was to lose 20 pounds by May of 2019 for a work-related trip my husband and I were tak- ing to Mexico. Plus, my doctor had just recently told me I needed to be ‘lean’ due to my high risk for breast cancer. So, I had two major in- centives to lose the weight.


My success for losing the weight was calorie control and that is just it- simple as that! I de- creased my calories and ensured I was walking everyday- at least 8000 steps a day, or main goal of two miles a day. I enjoy walking so that is my form of exercise. I used an App on my phone called MyFitnessPal to keep track of my daily calorie intake. I still use it to this day when I need to.


To find out how many calories I needed to take in a day to lose weight I used a free calorie calculator I found online. You can also use the calculator to estimate the number of daily cal- ories your body needs to maintain your current weight. I used calculator.net. If you want to lose weight, then put the goal weight you want to be, and the calculator will estimate about how many calories you need to take in that day to lose the weight. I like the calculator because you also input about how much activity you do a day, your age and height.


I also tried different diets during my weight loss journey because I needed to follow a plan for myself. In my mind, just cutting calories wasn’t enough because I didn’t know what would work for my body. Plus, I knew that I needed to find a ‘diet’ that worked for me to keep the weight off! I didn’t know where to start so I started with Keto- I read about so many positive results. I


8 FEBRUARY 2020 I HORSE & AG MAGAZINE


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