{"id":425,"date":"2011-10-08T22:41:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T02:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/weight-loss-journey-part-i-of-ii\/"},"modified":"2015-07-25T17:08:58","modified_gmt":"2015-07-25T21:08:58","slug":"weight-loss-journey-part-i-of-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/weight-loss-journey-part-i-of-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Weight Loss Journey Part I of II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;\">Five or six years ago, I began a looonnnnng weight loss\/health journey that is still very much a work in progress. It began when I hit the highest weight I had ever been (including during all eight or my pregnancies!) AND my husband and I began ballroom dancing. I had wanted to ballroom dance for many years&#8211;and when I received lessons from Ray as a Christmas gift in 2005, I was ELATED. However, I quickly found out that dancing at the weight I was at the time was nearly impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">But dance we did. We danced as much as we could the first few years&#8211;group classes, private lessons, practice sessions (the studio was just a few miles from our home), and open dances. Soon I found that I was losing weight little&nbsp;by little just from dancing&#8211;until after three or four years later I had lost thirty pounds. However, to lose more weight and get healthier, I had to change my eating habits&#8211;something I did not want to do.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Three years ago, still dancing (though not nearly as often&#8211;weddings, graduations, kids&#8217; moves\/job starts, etc. interrupted our dancing a lot), I found myself sick. To make a long story short, I discovered that I had carbohydrate intolerance\/pre-diabetes. I could only feel well if I limited my carbohydrate intake. It didn&#8217;t have to be drastic, but it did have to be down to 150 carbohydrates or fewer (average person eats 300 a day!) to keep my pre-diabetes in check. Well, true to many moderate carbohydrate diets, I did not lose weight on that number of carbs&#8211;mostly due to the high fat and high caloric intake that cutting carbohydrates can created.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">So, while I felt better, I kept gaining and losing many of those thirty pounds that I had danced off in the previous years. Then I heard about a very low calorie diet that caused you to lose weight very quickly&#8211;and being an all-or-nothing kind of person, I jumped on the bandwagon and started losing pounds quickly for the first time in twenty years (when I had lost 80 pounds between baby four and five!). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">Also at this time I joined CURVES and began an amazing exercise program called T-Tapp&#8211;while stepping up our dancing for more aerobic activity. Within three months, I had lost 35 lbs and 35 inches, making my total weight loss for five years 65 pounds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">I also discovered that an overall decrease in calories, fat, and carbohydrates, with good amounts of protein, lots of strength exercising (Curves and T-Tapp), and moderate aerobics (dancing and\/or walking for 30 mins four to eight times a week) kept my pre-diabetes in check and helped maintain my loss.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">So&#8230;here I am, six years after we began dancing, with a 65 lb and 55 inch loss, from a size 22 to a 16 now to a 12, and controlling my carb intolerance. I still want to lose another 20 to 25 lbs and 20 to 30 inches&#8230;..but I&#8217;m working on maintenance for a while&#8212;making all of these changes a way of life for me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;\">See next post for pics! \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five or six years ago, I began a looonnnnng weight loss\/health journey that is still very much a work in progress. It began when I hit the highest weight I had ever been (including during all eight or my pregnancies!) AND my husband and I began ballroom dancing. I had wanted to ballroom dance for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[130,120,118],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.5.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Weight Loss Journey Part I of II - Character Ink<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/characterinkblog.com\/weight-loss-journey-part-i-of-ii\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Weight Loss Journey Part I of II - Character Ink\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Five or six years ago, I began a looonnnnng weight loss\/health journey that is still very much a work in progress. 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