Blogging Helped Rita Keep Off 80 Pounds

Rita Before

Every week, we introduce you to bloggers who share their weight-loss journeys and hefty doses of inspiration with their readers. This week's featured blogger is Rita from the Giggly Bits.

Name: Rita

Age: 31

Start Weight: 223 pounds

Current Weight: 143 pounds

Goal Weight: 143 pounds

My Weight Loss Approach: Every time I tried to lose weight before, I always looked for an answer: a book, a new plan, something magic I didn't know before, a reason I hadn't lost it. There must be some piece of information, some food combination, some food group, that people knew about, that I didn't. Through the experience of having made it, I know there is no secret, but there are some gems of wisdom I learned along the way.

I decided to only eat food that was maybe a degree or two separated from its original, natural state. That meant no more fast food, or even the stuff that parades around our grocery stores as "health food," like meal replacement shakes or "diet" dinners. It was heading to a place where I spent time cooking and planning meals, and taking all the time I used to spend worrying about how heavy I was and spend it putting nourishing food into my body instead.

I spent months trying to listen to my body's cues about when to eat, when I was full, when I was eating because of boredom or another emotional trigger. This may have been the hardest part of my journey. I had been eating so much, for so long, to keep myself from feeling, that the process of letting the emotions out without trying to numb them with food became terribly painful at times. Letting out 20 years of emotional baggage that's been buried under 90 pounds doesn't happen quietly or easily. But it does need to happen.

I counted calories for 14 months to retrain my body about portion sizes, all the while trying to listen to those natural signals that tell all of us when we are truly hungry and when we are full. I no longer have to count and weigh my food. I am confident that I will make the right choices for me. So far, two months have gone by without counting a single calorie, it's been a success but I will always be a work in progress.

Sweating on purpose became a huge portion of the equation for me. As an obese child, turned obese adult, physical activity had never been part of my life. I used to sweat by accident -- a lot. I didn't know what I was doing at first, just some walking and resistance bands, but I knew I had to do something. That walking turned into running and those resistance bands turned into dead lifts and squats. Losing weight turned me into an athlete that was able to complete a triathlon. My greatest moment with exercise came when I realized that no matter how good something was for me, I had to love it.

I searched high and low until I fell in love with running. It took four months of consistent effort for that to happen. Now, a day without running feels like a day wasted and exercise isn't something I fight against, it's something I treasure.

Why I wanted to blog about it: Blogging came into my life after I lost the 90 pounds that I'd been carrying around since age 10. Once I reached 10 pounds lower than my goal weight I became so preoccupied with losing more, not being happy with where I was, that my eating quickly got out of control again. I couldn't understand how after months of such restrained eating, after finally becoming the thin person I'd always dreamed of, why would I ruin it? It was this question that led me to blogging. I searched the Internet for others that had experienced the same post weight loss binging behavior. I found it in droves. Starting the blog became a natural extension of the interaction I had with people on their blogs. I began to share my story, work through my struggles and gain strength and support from others who had been there before.

Rita Now

The best part of blogging is: It didn't take long to fall in love with the support and community that blogging provided. With all our private struggles and inner pain, there are people everywhere who can empathize. And not only can others identify with your situation, they can often help. Blogging led me to resources and friendships that helped me stop my destructive eating behaviors and brought me to a place of relative peace with food and myself.

Best comment I've received: When sharing your life with the world you inevitably receive comments and emails, some great and some not so much. Out of all the those I receive I think my favorites are the ones that say my blog has given them hope. Hope that one day, they will be happy and healthy too. Being unhealthy and overweight can be incredibly isolating, not just because of how society judges but also how we judge ourselves. Hope seems to be one of the first things we lose and you have to have hope before you can lose the rest. If my blog can serve to inspire a little hope in someone's life, that's a pretty powerful thing for some words on a screen.

What's next for my blog: Over the course of my blog's short life, it has evolved from a place highlighting my own difficulty with maintenance to a forum for the athlete I became and the personal trainer I am in school to become. I use the blog now as a venue to help, support and mentor others about weight loss and weight maintenance in the real world. On October 18, I started another blog, Fitblogger, as a community site for fellow fitness and weight loss bloggers to showcase their best articles and highlight new sites.The site's goal will be to spotlight the great work that is going on in this inspirational community and pay forward the support and encouragement I received as a very new blogger. As for my personal site, The Giggly Bits, it will continue to dispense wisdom demystifying weight loss and fitness while supporting readers through their struggles and triumphs. It's what we do best over there.

Find out Rita's secrets to success by visit her blog for yourself.

More Blogging Success Stories:
Walking and Blogging Helped Jennifer Lose 50 Pounds
Theodora Swapped Takeout for Workouts and Lost 50 Pounds
Terrence's Vegan Quest Led to 60-Pound Weight Loss