Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

As many of you probably remember, I've been doing strength training since losing the weight. I've learned so much in the past six months and I think I'm slowly starting to see results.

I had a personal trainer that taught me a lot of different exercises with free weights. She also had me doing pull ups, modified push ups, crunches, chest exercises, etc. Although I'm not an expert yet, I do think I'm starting to get some definition. I hope that any remaining skin on my belly is tightening. I know it takes time so I have to be patient. I would like to go to the beach without having to worry about loose skin around my belly. At least I don't have the huge beach ball of a belly I had just a year and a half ago.

It's official, the American Medical Association now recognizes obesity as a disease.

This is troubling to me for a number of reasons. Some of my reasons might be biased as my sister suffered from anorexia nervosa, but I thought I would share why I think it's a mistake to label obesity a disease.

I read this in the news the other day. Stories like this make me proud... it's nice to see people losing weight with just diet and exercise. Papa Joe Aviance proves you can lose weight without spending too much money on groceries. He also shed the weight without resorting to surgery. 

Papa Joe Aviance basically did what I did... threw out the candy, gave up the soda and ate better food. He also started a walking routine. You might remember that I lost weight with walking myself. I still to this day walk 10,000 steps every day. This story proves that walking is a great form of exercise.

My body fat percentage has been fluctuating for a while now. A few months ago, it was 18.6, now it's about 20. According to experts, my body fat percentage should be below 18.

The strength training is working slowly, although the results are not as fast as they were with weight loss. I still like cardio more than the weights. I now have a personal trainer to go over the basics with the strength training. Hopefully I will learn enough as I only signed up for a few sessions.

I still find it hard to believe that people think of me as "slim". I know I'm not fat anymore but somehow, hearing names like "Hey Slim", or "wow, you're skinny", I think to myself, they can't be talking about me!

It's hard to get used to it. Most people were kind over the years and never really came right out and said I was fat back when I was obese. There were different things I would hear like "you're a big guy, you're gonna need a car with more room" (car salesman) or "Are you sure you're not diabetic?" (eye doctor).