Monday, April 25, 2011

Series: Law School and Weight Gain, Part 1

I want to preface this by saying that I am in no way professionally qualified to give advice about nutrition.  I created this space in an effort maintain a weight that is healthy and makes me feel great.

Height - 5'1"

Current Weight - 108 lbs
Goal Weight - 104 lbs

I used to be about 15 lbs overweight.  I attribute this to the fact that I have a tendency to overeat.  If there is anything, I wish that when I was growing up, I was told when was enough food.  It seems simple, but I really needed that and never learned the skill until I wanted to lose weight.  I started to lose weight when I transferred colleges and was no longer living in a dorm, giving me more control with respect to my food choices.  

Over the course of about two years, I went from 120 to 105/104 (on the day of my wedding I was 100lbs, and obviously felt amazing!).  Unfortunately,  since starting law school, I gained about 4 pounds.  On a little person like me, that really makes a difference.  Not only do I notice a change in my appearance, but it feels rotten.  

This is a huge distraction because instead of thinking about criminal procedure, for example, I think about how I need to get rid of those 4lbs.  My time is limited while in law school, but I keep active by swing dancing, weight lifting, and cardio (admittedly, these activities vary in frequency, depending on the time of the semester).  At any rate, I know it possible for me to achieve this goal by being more mindful of my food intake because I gained the weight by stress eating, anyway.  There is unquestionably a certain amount of stress in law school.

So, this is all to say that I am trying to get a handle on stress eating/snacking and overeating so that I can feel better about myself and divert my negative thoughts about weight to working on law school.  This is not about going on some radical diet.  Rather, I want to figure how I can maintain a weight that I like, and having been on the weight loss track for so long, this is not territory with which I am familiar.  If anyone out there has any tips on losing or maintaining their goal weight, I would be very interested to hear them!

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