Woohooo!!  When this posts I’ll be in route to New Zealand.   Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Sadly that answer is no.  But on the bright side today is a success story post!  It’s from Roni who writes at Roni’s Weigh among other blogs.  She successfully lost 70 pounds and has maintained it for several years.  Enjoy her answers to questions I (and you?) wanted to know!

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m your typical 30-something trying to juggle career, family and a healthy lifestyle. :)

I was ALWAYS on a diet. Since about age 12. It wasn’t until I had a baby that everything clicked for me.

My official starting weight was 206. My highest was about 210 (no baby involved).  Although it was probably higher as I stopped getting on the scale back then. My lowest 135. Now? around 145.

Changed thinking and changed eating habits. I didn’t really exercise in the traditional sense to lose the weight. I stayed active while changing my habits and balancing my diet.

I don’t currently count point but they were invaluable in helping me lose. I still followed Weight Watchers while maintaining but have since moved on to my own thing. Everything Weight Watchers taught me is pretty intuitive now.

Not really. I mean there are foods I try to limit but there’s nothing that completely off limits.

1. Brothy Soups! They are a life savior when you are out and everyone is ordering appetizers.
2. SHARE! For example. . . I am married to a fast food junky. We go to McDealth’s all the time. I order a salad or grilled chicken sandwich, the little guy gets a happy meal with apples and the husband gets a value meal with fries that we all share them. I get a fry fix without overindulging. It’s a win win. :)
3. Double veggies! Out to eat? Skip the starch and ask for double veggies no butter. Then you can share a dessert. ;~P

I’m having a hard time staying with my routine since going back to work. My goal is to simply do my best to keep running when I can.

I’m planning on registering for a 5k race every month this year.

MOTIVATION – sometimes I just don’t want to do it. I just don’t. :)

Easy. I switch it up! I try a new class. Get a new game for the Wii. Find a new running trail or park.

It was actually really easy for me. My belly was at the root of my body image issues at a very young age. Once I reached goal it was my way to say good bye to old demons.

My body image changed before I lost the weight but I’m a work in progress. There are days I love myself for everything I am and am not. Then there are days I feel. . . well. . . bleh.

I’m a web developer by trade and I started blogging to keep my friends and family updated when I got pregnant. After the baby came I went to Weight Watchers and I decided to start a page to keep myself accountable while losing weight. That was almost 5 years ago. Since then I launched the BlogToLose — community for those that want the support of blogging without all the overhead, GreenLiteBites — A blog about how I try to eat healthy while feeding a picky family, SkinnyMinnyMedia — My company blog which allows me to post about some geek stuff, and FitBloggin — The info site for the conference. It’s been quite a strange trip, let me tell ya!

Without a doubt! I decided to commit to blog about everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. That commitment was easy for me to stick to. Easier then a weight based goal or an exercise based goal. Journaling became therapeutic. I started to realize that there was no way I could fail if I kept up with it. It was just a matter of time.

Baby steps! I used to be an all or nothing dieter. I was either on plan and doing great or off plan and eating everything in sight. There was no happy medium. Part of my problem was trying to do everything at once. I was only going to eat this or that, workout for an hour, keep a food journal, wake up early to walk, etc., etc, etc, And all of that would start tomorrow. By lunch I would fail at one of those thing and then go hog wild. Again, no happy medium.

Once I started to realize that I didn’t need to change everything at once things started to fall into place. I only focused on small changes, baby steps, and when I mastered one I moved onto another. That built my confidence and motivated me to keep going.

The same as above except I would add that you can’t focus on the weight. If I only set out to lose 70lbs I would have failed. Instead I focused on smaller more obtainable baby steps and things started to fall in place.