Colorado Diet Success: Lizzie

Starting weight: 172.8 lbs.

End weight: 145.6 lbs.

Total weight loss: 27.2 lbs.

Success with the Colorado Diet feels different than I expected. In the past, I subconsciously expected that a lower weight/smaller jeans size would naturally lead to happiness; before the Colorado Diet, I based a lot of my happiness on external factors, including approval from others.

But without others’ validation, the way I look doesn’t carry nearly as much value as I used to believe. What matters way more is how the behaviors I adopted to lose weight have taught me to see happiness as created from within. In order to lose weight and become physically stronger, I learned to refrain from excuse making and using victimizing language. Once I stopped believing that everything just happened to me because I was unlucky, I realized how much agency I do have. Now, I know I can turn a bad mood by being explicitly grateful for everything I have and for everything I don’t have.   

Additionally, the healthier food has made me feel better day-to-day. The daily exercise keeps me energized, the improved physical strength reinforces my mental strength, and in general, I feel less stressed.

Here are my before and after photos:

I am now in maintenance mode, meaning I still exercise every day, eat healthy 70 percent of the time, and weigh myself every day, keeping a eye out for an “action weight” that will require me to go back to Phase II (it’s about five pounds above my current weight). In the spring, I will begin a 20-week training program for the San Francisco Half Marathon; I plan to set a significant fitness goal every six months for the rest of my life. During all of that, I welcome any opportunity to support any friend, new or old, or family member, who would like to live in a State of Slim.