This blog is all about my Journey to Weight Loss. A journey that you might be on too. Here is my story:
My name is Joyce Ann Burton Titular and I’m a Filipina American beauty queen with 2 titles: Bb. Pilipinas Universe 1985 and Miss Young Philippines 1981. I weighed about 125 lbs in those days. Iwas able to keep my beauty queen body until I hit 30 when I started drinking red wine regularly and comfort eating at night. I began to gain a steady 1½lbs a year.
When I hit 36, I made the decision to do something about my creeping weight. I started lifting weights in the gym and exercising. But 8 years of steady and regular work-outs did nothing to manage my weight because I had continued with comfort eating at night and drinking red wine. Too much red wine, really.
By my mid-40s I had reached 170lbs! To make things worse, I was VERY happy with almost everything going on in my life – my children were doing well, my hubby was amazing, my career was exciting and I had had the peace of God in my heart. I didn’t really have much incentive to lose weight. Because I am tall (5’9″) I could sort of camouflage my Kangaroo body. Even my friends said I looked okay for a 40 plus year old! But I hated myself every morning because I would wake up to a sour belly and a raging hangover from the binging and drinking the night before.
Furthermore, during the 8 years that I, kept my gym routine I tried all sorts of diets but they all kept failing because after a while, I would start drinking and comfort eating again. Cheat-days did not work for me because they would turn into cheat-weekends and then cheat-weeks.
Then finally, after years of fail-fail and more fail, I stumbled upon the right formula – one that would make me stick to a healthy lifestyle and lose weight:
1) A great diet that I like.
2) Moderate Exercise that I enjoy.
3) Accountability. By uploading photos of all my food and drinks to Facebook and Twitter, my friends online become my accountability partners. They encourage me. And it gives me incentive to “show off” my exciting food creations, my latest gym workout and my new skinny photos!
Now I feel like God has helped me gain control of my life. I no longer am a slave to my cravings. It feels so good to be FREE! I hope my blog will be an inspiration to you. Remember, encouragement is a major key to achieving success so feel free to drop some encouraging comments. You can also share your weight loss story!
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hi joyce! i, too am on a roller-coaster ride with my weight. but’s been a steady upclimb for the past three years. been trying different diets here and there and nothing works. like you, food is my comfort. what diet program did it finally for you?
congratulations to you! hope i’ll find mine, too.
Hi there! Actually, South Beach and Atkins helped me lose weight. Problem was sticking to the diet. But I think Atkins is unhealthy compared to South Beach. The diet that I was able to stick to was the 17 Day Diet and the Dukan Diet. I am blending the two diets now. There are many good diets out there – for my body type, the low-carb ones are the best. The problem isn’t really the diet. It’s the sticking to it permanently. By uploading photos to FB I found accountability and it gives me the impetus to stick to it. Been eating carefully since August last year!
Just keep up the good fight and you will find what you are looking for!