Stay Fit While You Plan Your Wedding

Sounds impossible, right?  A few weeks ago, I got married, yay!  Partially due to cost, and partially because I like control, I didn’t hire a wedding planner.  I decided I’d plan an out of state wedding, on my own.  I like to stay busy…busy is an understatement. 

I’m sure everyone has been to a wedding right?  Hopefully everything appeared calm, cool and collected.  Mine did, at least from the outside.  Behind the scenes there is alot of scurrying and rushing and coordinating.  I don’t like being late…and certainly all of our guests wouldn’t care for it too much either.  But let me tell you – BOY is it hard to coordinate bride, groom, groomsmen, bridesmaids, father of the bride, flower girl/ring bearers, pastor, etc.  WHEW!

I’ve never been married before, and I never knew how it worked with the bridal alterations.  So I met with a seamstress about 2 months before the wedding.  Things didn’t go so well, lol.  When I told her that I still had 2-3 lbs to lose, she basically laughed at me.  I’m not sure if she was cynical that I wouldn’t do it, or thinking I was crazy for talking about a few measly lbs.  Nonetheless, I walked out of that bridal salon a little flustered and upset.  BUT, I used that frustration to fuel me in my first real push to get on the wagon and meet my fitness goal for the wedding.

Knowing that 70% of your weight/fitness goals are directly related to what you eat, I immediately began writing down what I ate.  Every single meal, every single snack…I left nothing out!  Not even a cup of coffee.  To make things easier, once I got to my ideal number of daily calories (using an excel spreadsheet, hehe) I stuck to it.  I ate the same thing for 3-4 weeks.   In the meantime, I was looking online for favors, reception ideas, etc.  I worked at least thirty minutes to an hour every day on the details of the wedding.  I work full-time too!  Now mind you, I didn’t quit the gym, I kept working out 5 days/week, weights and cardio.  Nothing insane, but attainable.   And you know what?  It worked!   In that month, I was down the 4lbs I wanted!  All that juggling and coordinating was soooo worth it.  There’s no better feeling that reaching that fitness goal

So we flew up to Pennsylvania, 4 days before the wedding.  We had to get the marriage license, meet with the country club, organist, rehearsal, etc.  The competitor in me decided that I was going to take my cooler of food.  I KNEW that my schedule was packed, and so I had to make sure I got in my 6 meals.  With all that running around, I’ll admit, I missed 1-2 meals every day.  But thank goodness I was prepared when I went or I would’ve made worse decisions.  Maybe I wouldn’t have eaten at all…or worse yet, stop and grab fast food.   Bleh!

So now it’s showtime, and I put on my dress.  Whoops, I think I lost another 1-2 lbs by missing those meals   I think my dress fit a little big, but oh well.  I still felt fabulous.  My father walked me down the aisle…everything was so surreal.  I asked the church to ring the bell, the big bell I remembered so fondly as a child.  My nerves took ahold of me and guess what?!?  I didn’t hear the bell…but the pastor swore it was rung!  When I finally got to my groom, he whispered “you look beautiful”.  All that “dieting” / careful food preparation and calculation worked!

At the reception, I allowed myself to enjoy our wonderful meal, had a champagne toast…I even had cake and a few glasses of wine.  It’s a celebration after all 😉   We kept the wedding small to medium so that we had plenty of time to enjoy the day AND spend time with our guests.  We danced, we laughed, it was perfect.  I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

So now I’m back home, getting settled into married life   I continue to watch what I eat, workout regularly and get ready for the holiday season.

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