What Losing 1. 10 Pounds REALLY Looks Like. By Elna Baker. ALL PHOTOGRAPHED BY JESSICA PETERSON. This week's guest post comes from Elna Baker, a writer and performer I've long admired. For years, she's shared her journey with weight, sexuality, faith, and family with true honesty and humor. She's one of the boldest, funniest storytellers out there and it is an honor to share her voice in this space. This felt like an intervention. On the first night, he took me to his favorite part: the outdoor group baths, built on cliffs overlooking the ocean, like a postcard for romance. On our way in, he casually mentioned, . ![]() ![]() ![]() I don't do naked- in- public. It wasn't just typical body- image issues (though I have those, too). I don't look like you're . At my heaviest, I weighed 2. In my early 2. 0s, I went on a diet and lost, in total, 1. I'd imagined that losing weight would be like that scene in The Little Mermaid where Ariel holds her new legs above her head, staring at them in disbelief. This was not the case. Don't get me wrong: I was happy I lost weight. I'd accomplished something I'd always considered impossible. But, it didn't mean I got to reverse time or have a do- over with my body. The Before and After pictures you see on billboards - - they're a lie. After dropping the weight, I had so much extra skin that I could lay on my side and pull it a half- foot in either direction. For a long time, I tried to get the skin to go away with lotions and exercise. Eventually, I resorted to plastic surgery. I didn't do it to alter the way I look naturally; I just wanted a chance at the body I could've maybe had if I'd never put on weight. Most of these photos were taken a month prior to my surgery, and the last one two months after it - - my . I tracked them down for this article, and seeing them for the first time in ages, I instantly remembered what it felt like to have all of that skin on me.
![]() How insecure I used to be about it. And how I thought for sure everything would be better if I could just make the skin go away. I've had four procedures in total. I got implants the size of my old breasts and a body lift. Two years later, I went back in for a circumferential body lift. They made an incision around my entire waist, cut out a 6- inch belt of skin, and then sewed me back together, removing over 1. I also got a thigh lift: They cut up my legs from knees to groin and took out as much skin as they could. ![]() ![]() To heal, I had to sit in bed for a month with my legs spread open. Now, I have a scar that runs completely around my waist, as if a magician cut me in half. He lost 110 pounds in two years and is now maintaining his weight at 175 to 180 pounds. In fact, for every 25 pounds of weight loss. Bride drops 110 pounds before wedding. I have two scars running up my legs like inseams. But even surgery couldn't remove the extra skin entirely. When I hold my arms and legs out, I still look like a flying squirrel. I have stretch marks running down the tops of my shoulders, and there's extra skin hanging off my arms and inner thighs. If I bend over, my boobs droop like empty pouches. So yeah, I don't like being seen naked. Read The Full Story On Refinery. Also on Huff. Post. Facts About Women And Body Image. 10 Pound Weight Loss DietWeight Loss Stories - Shazie Lost 1. Pounds in 2. 4 Months. Name: Shazie. Age: 2. Family Status: Single. Occupation: Personal Health Coach. Location: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Height: 5’8. I had a mental breakdown after that and had to reevaluate my lifestyle. What made you decide to lose weight? ![]() I was so unhappy with myself and life in general. I knew I had to make a change. What were the most important changes you made to lose weight? Make it a lifestyle change. It’s way more than just a simple diet! What was most challenging about losing weight? Still managing my lifestyle change when life got in the way. How long did it take you to start to see results? I saw myself in the mirror every day so I didn’t notice the changes right away but friends and family started to notice after the first month. How long did it take for you to reach your current weight? I lost 7. 0 pounds and life got in the way. I realized I didn’t truly make it a lifestyle change and I quickly gained 5. Now at 1. 10 pounds lost, it’s taken me a total of 2 years to lose it. How long have you maintained your weight loss and how do you do it? I’m not in the maintenance stage yet. I still have another 2. How has your life changed now that you’ve lost weight? My life has improved drastically! For the first time in a long time, I’m happy. How did Shape. Fit help you reach your weight loss goals? Shape. Fit. com has tons of useful fitness tips! Shazie’s Weight Loss Tips! Weight loss tip #1: Realize it’s not an overnight thing and be consistent. Weight loss tip #2: Portion control! Weight loss tip #3: Balanced meals with protein, carbs and healthy fats. Weight loss tip #4: Don’t “reward” yourself with bad food! Weight loss tip #5: Any loss is a good loss! Reward yourself in a positive way. Shazie’s Weight Loss Eating Plan! Breakfast: 1 scoop of vanilla whey protein, 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk, 1/3 banana. Lunch: 6 ounces of chicken, 1 cup of veggies and 1. Dinner: Taco salad with ground turkey, sour cream replaced with plain Greek yogurt, low- fat cheese. Snacks or Mini Meals: Cottage cheese, plain Greek yogurt with fruit. Shazie’s Weight Loss Workouts! Weight Training: I weight train 4 times a week, each day targeting a different muscle group. Cardiovascular: 1 hour of cardio, 5- 6 days a week. A woman in Iceland credits her 1. Facebook . But in fact I was also so embarrassed about the images that it was something that made me determined to carry on.”The 3. Reykjavik resident, who is a sucker for chocolate, says she reached rock bottom last year when her weight had ballooned to 2. A slimmed- down Gunnlaugsdottir. Europics“For me, food was a drug,” Gunnlaugsdottir explained. I felt better as all kinds of physical pain disappeared.”Europics. Loyal friends and family were ultimately the ones who brought up the idea of staring at the before- and- after differences in her selfies. This is what kept Gunnlaugsdottir on her diet, she said. By the end of the year, she had managed to lose over 1. Pounds and Counting – I lost 1. How do you want to change your life? I haven’t been around here much lately and there are a few reasons for that. First, (broken record time), I was sick! On top of that I’ve been dealing with a nagging hip injury that I’m doing PT for. So I’ve been crabby and not in the best of moods. Thankfully Logan and Michael haven’t really been that sick lately. I’m finally on the mend (after yet another round of antibiotics, sigh). Second, last time I really wrote a post about my weight loss efforts I said that I was buddying up with a friend. Same old story that it’s been since I had Logan. The same 5 pounds I gain and lose over and over and over again. My friend Debby has been steadily losing weight, which is fantastic! She’s doing Weight Watchers and she swears by it. She says any time she needs to lose weight she goes back to WW and it always works. As she put it–weight loss is about food for her, not exercise. The old adage “You can’t out exercise a bad diet” is very true. Even if I don’t want to admit it! So recently, once I was feeling better from my plague, I decided to try something different. I cut out bread, pasta, rice, etc. I decided that I would give this a try and see if it worked.*I’m not doing a Low Carb diet. Not really, anyways. But I can easily cut out worthless carbs like bread. The only time I ever eat pasta is in a frozen meal that I’d eat for lunch and I’ve decided to stop doing those. Even though they are quick and easy for work, they aren’t exactly healthy. So for the last month I’ve stopped buying the frozen lunches. What carbs am I eating? There are carbs in most foods, but I’m really trying hard to keep it to a minimum. Typical day of food: Breakfast: two scrambled eggs with turkey sausage or bacon, coffee with cream. I crashed a few times because I didn’t have enough calories for the day and had a headache and was cranky and hungry. But after that it was ok. Here is an example of two days: Right now I’m just paying attention to carbs and calories. In a few weeks I’ll focus on lowering my sugar count. It’s a gradual process. The hardest part is taking a moment to think what can I have? Sometimes you want a quick and easy dinner and you think, hmmm how about a burrito? But then you realize the tortilla has a lot of carbs. Today I had the typical breakfast. Strawberries for a morning snack; black bean hummus and cucumbers for an afternoon snack; lunch was slices of ham and roast beef rolled up with a piece of pepper jack cheese, olives and pickles. Doesn’t sound like much but it took time to put everything together! Tomorrow I’m going to roast some veggies to take to work–that also takes time! I! Lots of carbs, yes, but worth it for one day out of the week. The next day I was back on track with low carb. The results? I lose 2 pounds last week. I’m slightly encouraged–enough to keep trying this diet and see where it goes. But I’m also not that excited about it because like I said, I’ve been gaining and losing the same 5 pounds for a year. So until I see myself lose a few more, I’m not getting too excited yet. It’s funny. It was slow and steady and took effort and time, but I was really only counting my calories and exercising. I wasn’t TOO restrictive and still had some treats here and there. Then when I got to about where I am at now, the weight loss got REALLY hard. And once again, it’s hard. I don’t know why those last 2. It’s so frustrating! Anyways, that’s the update for now. QUESTION: If you’ve done a low carb diet before, what were your go- to low carb foods?
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