Weight Loss Success Story – Yasmeen

Weight Loss Success Story – Yasmeen

So here’s the thing. When people look at the above pictures all they see is a before and after. 100 lbs difference. The beginning and the conclusion. But the truth is my story had so many chapters than just that. I had so many ups and downs, so many plateaus, so many tears and doubts and failures. I didn’t just lose weight constantly and gradually. I lost and gained and lost and gained. I got sick sometimes. Semesters started and ended. Life got hard sometimes. My priorities changed all the time. But that didn’t stop me.

The difference between this and all the other times before that I lost weight and gained it back is that this time, I became healthy. I became my goal before I reached my goal. I put my health first. I decided to get healthy instead of losing weight. I put myself first. Before that I put everybody else first. I used to want to lose weight so people would think I’m attractive. Now I was losing weight for me. So I can live longer and happier.

People usually add their before and after weights to progress pics but here’s something different:

Before – suffering from insulin resistance and taking pre diabetes pills 3 times/day, struggling to go up the stairs or even walk to class.
After – healthy, no diseases or health conditions, getting stronger and fitter and building a better body.

A little detail:

• I started losing weight by counting calories. I wasn’t eating healthy food or even making an effort to do that. I just limited the amount of calories that were going into my body. That wasn’t the right way to do it, but that’s just the way I started. I got a myfitnesspal account and was religious about counting everything that went into my body. That went on for about 3 months, and it really put into perspective for me just what I was eating. Before that I never paid attention to what was going into my body.
• After doing that for a few months my weight loss halted. I was disappointed but I wanted to push forward. So I decided to start exercising. But my problem was that I was too shy to work out in public. I was ashamed of how weak I was and how out of shape I felt. So the gym was out of question for me. So I found an alternative. Enter Jillian Michaels. I found the 30 day shred videos online and I just decided to do them cause what’s the worst that could happen?! I would go into my room, close the door and the curtains, and just throw myself into it. I remember the first day I didn’t even make it through the first 10 minutes without having to pause it and collapse. But by the time I made it to day 30 (which was really probably day 45), I had seen incredible results in my body and I was so much stronger already. So I did it again maybe 2 or 3 times.
• After that I came back to my home country and I went to get some blood tests done, and when I saw the dr he was so impressed (I had probably lost around 30lbs at that point). He lessened the dose of medication that I was on for my insulin resistance (did I mention I was 19 one 3 pills/day?) and he even told me that if I kept going until I reached my GW, my insulin resistance would be cured and I wouldn’t need to be on any medication any more. That was great news for me because I was terrified of getting diabetes which is common in my family.
• After being home for a couple of weeks and coming back to the U.S., both me and Michael started noticing how different everything tastes over here. Fruits and veggies had maybe 10% of the taste that we got used to in my country, and chicken and meat tasted like rubber. So we started looking into where our food was coming from. We read book after book and watched documentary after documentary. And what we found was shocking. Most of our food was fake! So we switched to organic and local foods.
• When I realized that knowledge is power, I got addicted to information. So I started reading about how the human body works and how food affects my body. And this is when the most important change happened.
• At this point I switched from everything white to everything brown and whole. Whole wheat bread, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, brown rice, brown pasta, brown whole wheat everything. Why was this so important? White bread has pretty much the same amount of calories that whole wheat bread does. The difference is in what happens when it goes in your body. When whole wheat goes in your body, it gets slowly digested and your body slowly absorbs all the nutrients and fiber that’s in it. When the whole wheat is processed into white bread for example all these nutrients and fiber are stripped from it so by the time you eat it, it’s already half digested. So insulin rush into the blood stream and starts storing fat.
• Another important thing I learned is that you need to give your body a couple of hours to digest what you eat before you start eating again. I’ve seen some people say they eat every 2 hours and I used to do that too. But like I said before your body doesn’t have time to digest your food, then your blood is constantly being flooded by insulin and storing fat. If you space your meals like every 4 hours or so is better.
• Exercise is also an important part of my weight loss. I’m not the type of person that absolutely loves exercise and I don’t really like spending hours at the gym. I simply work out maybe 4 or 5 times/week about 30-45mins/day. I also always vary my work outs. I don’t do the same thing every day. Some days I go run at the park, some days I enjoy just being on the treadmill, some days I lift weight, and some days I do a class at the YMCA like zumba, kickboxing, or cycling. This is really the reason I don’t have stretch marks.
• WATER WATER WATER. ALL DAY.
• I’ve pretty much cut out anything that comes out of a box, can, or freezer bag. Also anything out of a factory or that takes less than a minute to cook. Anything that is not real food. My definition of real food is fruits, veggies, dairy, meats, poultry, and sea food.
• That^ being said, if I crave something that I don’t usually eat, I will get it, but I won’t keep it in my kitchen. I gave myself permission to eat whatever I want because the minute I tell myself that I can’t eat a specific type of food it will become the only thing I want, and then I’ll end up binging on everything, but nothing will satisfy my craving.