Remember earlier this year when I went to a health fair and got to take a picture with a model of fat that represented how much weight I had lost at that point? To refresh your memory…
The fat mold I’m holding represents 10 lbs.
Well imagine THREE of those babies NOW because after slowly inching my way there, I finally hit the -30lb mark! When trying to Google a picture of what 30lbs of fat would represent, the best I could come up with was this picture:
I’m not sure if you noticed or not…but this didn’t even go up to 30lbs! I guess it’s just that dang much. But seriously look at that 20lb fat blob. My mind is blown.
What does this mean for me? This means I’m the lightest I’ve been in more than three years. This means I’m lighter than I was at my oldest cousin’s wedding in 2010.
This means that I’m 10lbs away from my high school weight that I remember during junior/senior year!
This also means, at least to me, that ANYTHING is possible. Since I gained so much weight (predominately my senior year of college when I went through a semi-traumatic experience), I’ve always teetered between a certain number and always had trouble getting past it. I probably lost 50lbs the amount of times I went back and forth and back and forth losing to that number, then gained, and then lost again. But now? Now I’m 10 lbs LESS than that evil number that seemed to road block me.
Which means I can lose 10 more.
I know it’s not all about the numbers. Trust me. I definitely get that, and first and foremost, this journey has been all about the healthy lifestyle from juicing to exercising to experimenting in the kitchen.
But let’s be honest here, people. Carrying around this much weight in your midsection is NOT healthy. It increases my risk for diseases while also decreasing my chances at fertility (though that’s not something I’m worried about yet).
And get this. Even though I’m now 30lbs lighter and a whole lot healthier, according to BMI charts (while they aren’t the most reliable source of health, I know) I am still technically OBESE.
Not “over weight.” Obese. I rarely ever bring up the whole BMI thing (not only because it’s not widely accepted as a reliable health measure) because I HATE even thinking about how I technically have the label of “obese.” After all, I always viewed myself as “not that bad.”
But “not that bad” to me was OBESE according to medical charts. And obese on medical charts meant all those risk factors you never dream of affecting you could actually possibly be a real thing.
But they won’t be for me.
And now, even 30lbs lighter— I’m 1.8 percentage points away from entering the “over weight” column. But I’m still celebrating my progress and the good news is, I KNOW for a fact that losing those 1.8 percentage points is attainable. And then after that? I’ll lose the rest until I’m in that healthy column.
“Not that bad” is not good enough for me. I want to be the BEST I can be because I deserve it. Addison deserves a healthy wife. My future children deserve a healthy mother. My faith in God and Jesus has always told me I should use all my talents lest I waste them. Not being healthy is wasting my talents because it limits all the good I can do. There is SO much good I can do.
And it’s all attainable.
I’m not quite there yet. But I know I can do it. I know you can too. But today I’m going to do a little happy dance and celebrate this milestone because I seriously feel amazing. Don’t mind me as I do a mini “cheers to me” with my Shakeology this morning.
For the first time, I’m happy with a picture of me slouching and just laughing (I didn’t realize the husband had snapped at this moment). But I don’t have to fake it with the “suck it in” and “reach your neck up high so the collar bones show” pose anymore. This is me! And I like it.
In case you don’t remember, here’s my before picture.
Mrs. Healthy Ever After 
wow you are beautiful!!!! So proud of you and SO happy for you!! That photo at the end radiates with joy and TRUE beauty. Keep it up!
LOVE your amazing attitude and perspective! You look great, but more importantly, you are feeling great!! Go you!
You look amazing! I don’t see how you can be considered obese.
You look amazing!
YOU are awesome!!! Miss you friend…let’s catch up soon!
You look amazing! I’m struggling just to lose ten pounds so you should be proud of you accomplishment. You go girl! 🙂
xo
Dylan
http://www.sartorialspice.com
I have lost 270 pounds and your article is very inspiring. I “googled” what does 30 pounds of FAT look like and your article came up. I have a WAYS to go before I reach the not OBESE section on the BMI chart – but I will get there.
This article gave me more motivatio. Good luck to you as well with your journey!
I just (FINALLY!!!) lost 30 pounds as of this morning and I was googling “what 30 pounds looks like” and I guess it directed me to this article bc of the content/pics lol 🙂 I’m so glad it did. We have similar stories and I almost got teary reading your entire post. Thank you for sharing all of those words just now. They were like ME talking to MYSELF 🙂 I realize this is from last year…..I’ll have to scope out your page later in the day to see your updated posts and how you’ve been doing…..but for now. I am lucky to have found this one. And I’m proud of the both of us! Thanks for making me smile this morning!!! :):):) 30 ! 30 ! 30 ! Ok….tiem to do MY little dance in the kitchen since I’ve already did it in the bathroom with the scale….the living room…..and the laundry room! lol 🙂 — M*
Hi! just wanted to say that I think you look amazing!! The heck with the BMI because if you exercise and have lean muscle weight….. the BMI chart is inaccurate. I would recommend “Burn the fat Feed the Muscle” by Tom Venuto. lot’s of great information and tools to help you reach your goals 🙂
Keep in mind, you are not 100% body fat, so if you lost 30 lbs that doesn’t automatically mean you lost 30 lbs of fat. To get an idea how much fat you lost, you’d have to know your before-and-after body fat % then do some math to figure out how much of your total weight was body fat. For example if you are (for easy math, not reality) 100 lbs and you are at 25% body fat that means you currently have 25 lbs of fat because 100×0.25=25. Without an idea of body fat % (which many scales will estimate for you) you don’t know how much body fat you lost or gained.
Wow. i have lost 30 ibs of fat and I googled it and got directed to this page. I cannot believe how gross 30 ilbs looks. I feel fantastic though and at 50 still get told I look like I am 35.