This is how many days it took Jenny Westfall to go from obese to her goal weight
Weight-Loss Win is an original Yahoo series that shares the inspiring stories of people who have shed pounds healthfully.
Jenny Westfall is 29, 5’0”, and weighs 110 pounds. In 2017, after giving birth to her daughter, she decided to pursue a healthier lifestyle in order to be a better example for her child. This is her weight-loss story.
The Turning Point
I grew up obese in the days of a carb-heavy food pyramid and the clean-plate club. I was always aware that my weight was something that I needed to address, but I thought that the answer was exercise rather than the food I ate. Media messages I saw as a kid simultaneously praised women who were very thin and women who enjoyed burgers and steaks — it was very confusing. Because of those messages, for a long time, my weight-loss focus was set on exercise and not what I ate. I was at a gym at my college in 2012 when I stepped on a scale to discover that I weighed 200 pounds, which on my 5’0″ frame put me at a BMI of 39.
In late 2013, I began married life while living in a very boring area and just decided there was nothing better to do than go to the gym. I did not track calories, but becoming more consistently active helped me stay in the mindset of eating better. I fairly quickly lost about 50 pounds. My goal at that point was to start a family with a lessened risk of gestational diabetes. Mission accomplished. I got through pregnancy without being diagnosed with it and celebrated my victory at seven months pregnant with perhaps more Halloween candy than a human woman should be able to consume. Oops.
Cut to February 2017 with a delightful squalling bundle in my house. My postpartum weigh-in at the obstetrician revealed my weight to be 176 pounds. I was back in the severe obesity class. I realized how much happier I had been and how much more energy I had when I was closer to a healthy weight. I thought about my child and how I wanted to be able to run and dance with her. My intent was to make choices that were sustainable and better so that I could be a good example for my daughter.
The Changes
Unlike the first time I lost weight, I couldn’t get to a gym. Technically it was possible, but I was working full time after maternity leave, visiting my kid at my lunch hour, driving home, getting chores done, getting a baby to sleep, and feeding her multiple times per night. Getting to the gym was not an appealing option. Also, I did not have the means to buy a lot of specialty organic health food or a specific diet system.
My solution to my limitations was to track all of my food choices in the app MyFitnessPal. The app was free and I could still eat the same foods. I just had to be accountable to myself for what I was eating. June 17, 2017, was my first day of consistent tracking.
I decided I’d eat 1,200 calories a day because of my short stature. My TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) at the time was about 1,700 calories. That was enough of a deficit to lose slowly, but steadily. I kept in mind that at my goal weight, my TDEE would only be about 1,400 calories, which shows how difficult it can be for very short people. I tried to make that my caloric maximum. I also made an engaged effort to be more physically active when able. I lost about 1 pound a week, which sounds agonizingly slow, but kept me on track.
The main thing that kept me motivated throughout this process was that the choice I made to eat roughly 1,200 calories a day until I hit my goal weight. When I was pregnant and when I first had my child, those circumstances forced me to say “no” to things I otherwise would have loved (alcohol, sleep, sanity), but I decided that what I had chosen was more fulfilling in the long term. I took a similar approach to weight loss. Even though it was slow gratification, I always found joy in micro-goals — like when I went from an overweight BMI to a healthy BMI for the first time in my adult life. I hit my goal weight on Day 429 of continuous calorie tracking.
The After
The first time I went through major weight loss, before my pregnancy, I started exercising while I was obese. This time around, since I focused on my diet before starting on fitness goals, I realized how much being in a healthy weight range improves my flexibility and endurance even without having a regular exercise regimen. It has been very gratifying to feel so much younger even as I age.
The greatest surprise of this weight-loss journey is how much more I enjoy food now. Because I had to say “no” to so many foods while losing weight, I reserved saying “yes” to the foods that were going to be the most fulfilling and most delicious. I learned to enjoy things that my husband had wanted to introduce me to for years like fish, broccoli, and mushrooms (it helps that he’s amazing at preparing food).
My lifestyle is adaptable. On a recent vacation, my habits included walking 10,000 steps a day and fully enjoying fried walleye bites. When I am in the day-to-day reality of my office, I lift heavy things a few times a week and eat more normally. The joy of this process is that it has literally been an adaptable lifestyle change. I have learned to be more accountable to my body and myself.
The Maintenance
So far I have not changed any of my habits from what they’ve been for the past year and a half. I still eat the same foods, I still track everything. The only thing that has changed is that I consistently eat about 200 more calories a day than I did while dieting. I heard a lot of times while dieting that “you can’t track forever,” but before I started tracking daily, I beat every level in Candy Crush, so I think I can keep guessing my food intake in an app for five minutes a day.
What keeps me motivated now is my new goal. Now that I have lost the weight, I want to see how much my body can do. I plan to start lifting weights and using body-weight exercises to learn what I am capable of and fully celebrate my strength.
The Struggles
It has been gratifying to see my form change and to fit into different sizes, but because I have never been a healthy weight before, it was challenging to see how my body was still different from what I saw as an “ideal.” Before I lost this weight, my weight was the one problem that I saw between me and conventional attractiveness. The most important thing that I have learned in this process is that there is more than one kind of beautiful. My hope is to learn to love the body I have molded so that my child can grow up seeing that she can love herself and her body.
The Advice
If someone wants to emulate my journey, the first step that I would suggest is building one habit at a time. A lot of times when I would start a process, I would try to start every aspect at once. I’d think, “I’m going to eat 1,200 calories a day and work out three times a week and track everything that I eat and cook everything at home.” This was never sustainable for me. The first step I took was logging what I ate consistently, whether or not it was on target with my goals. Building a routine injects some sanity into your process.
Follow Jenny’s Journey at shortygotswole.wordpress.com
Need more inspiration? Read about our other weight-loss winners!
Weight-Loss Win is authored by Andie Mitchell, who underwent a transformative, 135-pound weight loss of her own.
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