Jenna and Indya

2006? and Dec. 2009

Click on image to see bigger.
For more of our little photo shoot, see here:
Thanks Dave for getting dragged out of bed to be our photographer!

Interesting to see how the camera angles affected things if you look at all the pics.

This is actually a really big deal to both of us, I think, although I am totally speaking for Indya here. We got together last January, and I think it was maybe a few days into me having started. We were both really overweight and demoralized and it was sad to be with one of my dearest friends with us both feeling that way. I think we were both in the mid 180s.

So we went our separate ways (we live 8 hrs apart) and Indya read my blog and heard about my progress. She started her own plan. At about May I had lost maybe 30 lbs and she had lost 10. Then she stagnated and I kept losing. She had picked off all the low-hanging fruit in terms of behavioral changes and that's as far as those changes got her. By July Indya agreed to do things differently.

After a few defeated-sounding emails she just decided to agree to count what she was eating and instill a few rules about sweets and portions. She was already exercising a lot, but added in more weight resistance. She's a fellow Jackie/Jillian follower like me now. But the biggest difference, I think from an outsider perspective,  was in tracking what she ate. She downloaded Livestrong to her iPhone and tracked every single thing she ate. This was a huge leap for her. Agreeing to track all food intake is an admission of failure of sorts for anyone. It means you cannot figure things out by intuition alone. It was a hard admission for me, as I documented here, but a completely essential and momentous one. In fact, if someone comes to me asking for help but refuses to track her eating I pretty much know she's not serious. I haven't been proven wrong yet.

So she started losing. Now she's down another 30 lbs. It wasn't as simple and easy as just tracking, and not eating sweets except on Saturday, but the details of her 'journey' for lack of a less dorky word, are for her to tell.

Last night we got together again at my house, almost exactly one year later. We are both 140 lbs. She looks fantastic!

Indya and I have had a very similar path in terms of tracking, reading a lot, exercising every day (I don't think she's missed a day since July), trying to eat whole foods, planning, taking Saturdays off. We differ a bit on the carb/fat intake but not wildly any more. At this point I eat more fat and she eats more carbs than say we each  did 5 months ago and we've come close to meeting in the middle. We both eat a lot of eggs and wilted greens.

It's so funny to stand next to her in the mirror. We are the same exact height but have very different frames. Her shoulders are a full 2 inches above mine. I have a long neck. I'm much bigger framed with wider shoulders and hips and even wrists. (I have the frame of someone who is 5'9" and if my back weren't curved in a big 'S' I'd probably be that tall.) So physically we are different.

I gave her a bunch of clothes to try on for our much anticipated 'photoshoot'. It felt like college. We went over our remaining flab and our newly pronounced facial lines (negative consequence of losing weight when older) in our 'dressing room' (formerly known as Alex's room but he had fallen asleep with Dave in our bed while Indya and I were gabbing). Dave called us 'girls'. It was getting late and our photographer wanted to go to sleep but otherwise I could have done a lot more of the outfit-making. Anyway, outfits chosen, we dragged Dave out of bed and forced him to take our picture.

Neither of us had make-up or brushed hair, and indoor shots bore me to tears, but it felt so good to finally take that after picture of us together. The original one had haunted me for years. It was one of those photos that really made me see how bad I looked, even when I thought I had camouflaged every thing under baggy clothes. I always blamed unflattering photos on the angle. But now I realize that I don't look fat from any angle - no matter how candid the photo is. Old maybe, but not fat.

I think we both wanted that 2006 image banished as a bad old memory. So now it is. And good riddance!