I am a certified nutritionist. I am a certified nutritionist because I spent so many years researching and reading and trying to figure out how to change my own body. My weight was a struggle my whole life, my highest BMI had me into the overweight category. I smiled the other day when writing to a friend I haven't seen in a year. I mentioned that I'd lost another 10 lb. since we'd seen each other. He told me I didn't need to lose weight, I looked great before. What made me smile was my response - I haven't been trying to lose weight, it's a side effect of eating well and training. What a lovely place to be! 

I used to obsess over every number. I obsessively counted calories. And carbs. And sugar. I tried the Atkins diet, the South Beach Diet, HCG diet, Berinstein Diet, Herbal Magic, Weight Watchers, Susan Summers diet, Vegetarian, Vegan, Cabbage Soup Diet, Sacred Heart Medical Diet. I tried a registered dietitian too and probably 15 other diets that I’ve long since forgotten. Not only did I try these diets, I read everything about them. I read the articles analyzing the data and the reviews of experts on the theories trying to figure out how and why they were supposed to work so I could lose weight. I was obsessed.

I tried walking, then running, then running more, then running marathons, then triathlons, then half ironman’s - I was exercising 10 - 12 hours a week of serious cardio and I was still 30 lb. heavier than I am now. I trained for a marathon while on the HCG diet. How ordering HCG online and injecting myself with it became a good idea, I don’t know. But I thought it was brilliant at the time. And I thought my modification of the HCG diet from 500 calories a day to 1200 calories a day would be a good way to drop some weight prior to a race. While training 2 hours a day. I lost 2 pounds of water weight from being in ketosis. That's it.

I measured everything obsessively. Counting every calorie I ate, every calorie I drank. I had formulas for how much of this I should eat and how much of that. I didn’t eat junk food. I had 2 food scales a million measuring cups and spoons and 4 weight scales.  

I bought a weight scale when I was on vacation because I just had to know how much I weighed. On vacation. This was the vacation attached to the trip on which I timed out in the swim of my full Ironman attempt. I spent the following 2 weeks doing hill repeats on my bike cycling up Whitefish Mountain every day as punishment. Yes, up the entire mountain on my time trial bike. 

Two of my other scales tell me how much fat I have, how many calories I burn, what my metabolic age is, how terribly obese I am around my belly, how many pounds of lean body mass I have and how many pounds of bones. Heck, one of my scales doesn’t even show numbers until I hook it up to the computer. I can sync it to the monitor on my road bike to know exactly how many calories I am burning on my bike ride.

I went to the university and had my VO2 Max levels tested to determine my training zones. Twice. And had a hydrostatic body fat measurement test done in a dunk tank just to be sure.

All of this measuring and I was still 30 lbs heavier than I am now. Now I haven’t measured anything for a year and a half. All the calculating got me nowhere. Except more insecure, more distorted and more stressed. For all the obsessing over food and calorie counting I did it just wasn't fair. I had run a marathon and completed 3 half ironman triathlons and was still too fat.  I decide to take matters into my own hands and take the nutritionist course myself.

I have lost over 40 pounds from my highest weight and gone from barely squeezing into a size 16 to being a size 8, closing in on size 6 - at a height of 5'10", I am almost at my target and focused primarily on changing my body composition (building muscle, losing body fat) not losing weight on the scale. I haven't even stepped on a scale in 2 months - a miracle for me! What a wonderful place to be!

www.renovateyourlife.me