4 Lessons Learned About Weight Loss

Over the past three months, Jennifer Crow has been blogging about her wedding weight-loss journey for us (catch up from the beginning!). Here, she shares the most important lessons she's learned so far.

You can always pick back up where you left off.

I’m not going to lie — this month was not a good one for me. I only lost about three pounds total. I did see a drastic change in inches (which is pretty awesome), but all in all, I did not do my best. I cheated on my diet almost every weekend, drank alcohol more than necessary (even if it was only a glass of wine here and there), and did not make it to the gym as often as I would have liked. I did better than I was doing six months ago, but I just know I could do better.

Sunday night, I thought about all the mistakes I made this past month and realized I had to make a change. If I want to lose more weight before it’s time to go dress shopping, I need to buckle down. So, starting Monday, I vowed to myself to work harder at the gym, eat better throughout the week, and really focus on being good on the weekends. The weekends seem to be my downfall, as I’m sure it is with most of you. Luckily for me, I still have time to pick back up the pieces and keep it going!

Saturday morning, Rene and I trained with Bonne Marcus and had an extra tough workout. The exercises we did combined a lower and upper body element: Squats with a shoulder press using the body bar, knee downs with a bicep curl, walk-outs with a mountain climb, and many more! So this week, I took a spin class on Monday, ran on the elliptical and did arms on Tuesday, took a spin class on Thursday morning and did my workout from Bonne at home Thursday night, and ran on the elliptical again Friday morning. I’d say that’s a pretty good week of work outs!

Make lists and prepare meals early.

I know I said it before, but I’ll say it again — meal preparation is so important when dieting. Every week, I make a grocery list with everything I need for the week, including breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinner. Then each Sunday, I bag up all the snacks and prepare everything I can for meals during the week. It helps avoid slip-ups because I have everything already planned out for me. I don’t need to buy lunch at work, spend a fortune and be tempted to eat junk food, and we always have a healthy dinner to eat. Making snack bags are good, too, because if I’m hungry during the day, I can grab a handful of almonds or sunflower seeds instead of going upstairs at work and grabbing a bag of chips from the snack wall.

One of my favorite recipes this week was Crock Pot Italian Turkey Meatballs from skinnytaste.com. I prepared these on Monday night and threw them in the slow cooker Tuesday morning so they were all ready when I got home. They are delicious and filling, and you can put them over anything — pasta, spaghetti squash, on a hero — or just eat them plain!

Having a partner really helps.

Throughout this journey so far, I have been very lucky to have Rene by my side. He has been dieting and working out right with me, and it’s made life so much easier. I couldn’t imagine my fridge and pantry being stocked with chips and ice cream and fattening snacks — it would make it so much harder! It’s also nice that when I tell him I want a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, he tells me no.

This week, Rene also started coming to the gym with me at 5:30 a.m., which is awesome! It makes me not want to press snooze so badly, because I know we both need the workout and will feel great when we are done. A workout buddy really does help motivate you; I highly recommend it.

Don’t deny yourself everything you want.

I know that if I deny myself everything I want, eventually I’m going to binge and eat it anyway. That’s always been my problem. So, I’ve been learning to make better choices. For instance, if I am craving a sweet treat at night, I’ll eat some frozen Greek yogurt or half of a Weight Watchers ice cream bar to satisfy the craving so I’m not running out to Carvel to get a three-scoop hot fudge sundae the next day. French fries are my absolute weakness, so when a craving hits, I make sweet potato fries instead of going to McDonalds. 

The same should go for drinking alcohol. Because I planned to drink at my best friend's engagement party Saturday night, I didn't drink any alcohol during the rest of the week. And I knew that on Sunday, I'd need to pick right back up where I left off.

Tell us: What are your best weight-loss tips? What has worked for you, and what hasn't worked?

—Jennifer Crow