I decided quite some time ago that weddings are all about the dress, and honestly, for various reasons, I wasn’t quite happy with my wedding dress. So I planned an excuse for a new dress. I see no need for C and I to renew our vows, but I thought it would be nice if, for our tenth wedding anniversary, we took a set of anniversary photos. (Our tenth anniversary is over a year away, so this really is planning in advance.)

We got married at a local public park, so going back to the exact same location is easy. Our photographer is a good friend, and she will happily come take some more pictures for us. (In fact, as we were one of the first weddings she photographed, she’s actually a better photographer now.) So the basics of this plan will fall easily in to place.

Now, I don’t want to spend a ton of money on a dress I will only wear just once. And I don’t want to have to rent C a tux again, just for the purpose of taking pictures. So I came up with a great idea- take pictures in garb.

For those of you who don’t know, garb is generally what Renaissance Faire people call their costumes. C has a really nice leather doublet. The bodice of the dress I’ve been using for the last six years is starting to go- boning poking out, some separation at the seems, etc. I have a few other pieces, but none are quite wedding picture type material. Hence, this gives me an excuse to buy a new dress that will be worn multiple times over many years.

I have every intention of buying whatever dress that is (the dresses you’re seeing in this post are the current top contenders) from an eBay store called Speedy Stitches. My last dress, which has lasted through multiple wearings, and even a few machine washes (this would be why the boning is starting to poke through) came from her, and I have loved it. She makes the dresses to your measurements, but they are also designed so that a pound here or there won’t matter. I always felt beautiful wearing that dress- more beautiful than I did in my wedding dress. (This is partially because the woman who did my alterations didn’t believe a fat girl should have a form fitting dress, which meant the bodice of my wedding gown made me look like a blob.) For most of these dresses, the buyer also gets to pick the colors. That means I could get one in my wedding colors, or get one to match the doublet C already has.

The other joy of these custom made dresses is that they are less expensive than any wedding dress not bought at the David’s Bridal $99 sale, and in general, they are better quality, because they really are made to be worn multiple times. So that’s a financial win right there.

So while my financial blogging and budgeting experience has helped with this- a fairly inexpensive way to create new lasting memories, with lots of time to budget and save for the extra expenses, it’s not actually where I see the budgeting experience really helping me.

You see, at the end of July, I also set myself another goal. By the time of our tenth wedding anniversary, I want to weigh 200lbs or less. I know, that may not seem like much of a goal to people who don’t know me, so here’s some more information. At the time I set this goal, I weighed 264lbs. That’s down from the 280 I weighed before I got my braces on, but up from the 250 I weighed about a year after the braces (and I was on a liquid or soft chew diet for about 9 months of the time I was wearing braces, because I just couldn’t chew). My goal is not to get down to what I weighed when we got married. I weighed about 255 on my wedding day (though that dropped about 20lbs in the 6 months after the wedding, as I was no longer stressed from buying a new construction house and getting married within 8 weeks of each other). In fact, I haven’t been at 200lbs or less for probably 15 years or more. I know the year C and I started dating, I was doing weight watchers, and I weighed 225.

Getting to 200lbs or less is a big goal for me. But, I also figure, that with 13 months to achieve that goal, I only have to lose 5lbs a month, which is right in the middle of the recommended 2-8lbs a month goal for weight loss. I told C my goal, and he is on board with helping me.

Personal finance bloggers, myself included, talk all the time about how a budget is like a diet. I’ve never been good at diets, but I’ve turned out to be great at budgets. So on some level, I’m turning that phrase around. I am treating my diet like a budget. I am not looking for a temporary fix. I am looking for a new normal. And that means I still want to be able to have a piece of cake at a retirement party. I still want to be able to go out for Indian food and eat at the other restaurants C and I enjoy. Sure, I could deprive myself for 13 months to achieve my goal, but I don’t want to get down to 200lbs only to bounce up to 300lbs. I want to lose and maintain.

One thing that people who have always been thin, or at least normal weight, don’t really understand is that our bodies naturally want to be the heaviest they have ever been. People who are on a diet to lose weight feel hungry almost constantly, because that is the body’s natural response to losing weight- gain it back. It wasn’t all that long ago, in terms of human evolution, that the possibility of a consistent, safe, year round supply of food became available to humans. (There are still places in the world where people don’t have that.) The human body wants to hold on to fat and store it because it is a survival mechanism.

Once I get down to 200lbs, I still won’t be able to eat as much as someone who has never weighed more than 200lbs in their life, because my body has been fatter. It will want to be fatter again.

Just like finding a new normal with diet, I need to find a new normal with exercise. It is possible to increase my metabolism with exercise, but just like with the weight, my body wants to have the slower metabolism. I need to find a level of exercise I can maintain for the foreseeable future, as the second that stops, my metabolism will slow back down.

These are some of the main reasons behind the yo-yo most overweight people end up on. They see the diet and exercise as temporary. They can’t be. These must be permanent changes.

In addition to all of this, we know I have a thyroid issue, though we don’t know if it is causing me weight issues or not.

So all of this is a long way of saying that I am now applying the skills I learned in budgeting to my diet. Just as I wrote in my second ever post, A Budget is NOT the First Thing You Need, the first thing I need is information. I need to know what I eat, when I eat, how much I eat, and also when and how I exercise.

To be honest, I was already quite aware of what I ate, but I didn’t have the exact numbers, and I did have some not so healthy snacking habits. I want to be able to have a Reeses Peanut Butter cup on days when I feel like it, but I don’t need to eat 3 a day, every day. So, I started a food and exercise diary. I write down what I eat when I eat it; I log my daily walks at work, and trips to the dog park.

And just like when you’re tracking every penny you spend, when you track everything you put in your mouth, you start noticing the little things here and there. For the first couple of days my biggest challenge was the lifesavers I keep on my desk. I would find myself halfway through eating one, with no real memory of putting it in my mouth in the first place. At 15 calories a pop, I can have a few lifesavers a day, but they can’t be mindless.

C helped me do the research, and we set my calorie goal at an average of 1785 calories a day. On most days, I want to bank about 100 of those calories so that on nights when we go out to eat, I can order things I like without worrying about how much I’m going over budget- kind of like we put money in car and pet funds every month so that when we need the oil changed or a vet visit, the money is right there waiting for us, with no worries about how it will blow the budget.

And the truth is, staying to 1700 calories on an average day isn’t difficult at all, as long as I’m not mindlessly snacking and paying attention to portion sizes. There are some days where I’m not going over 1400 calories (which C gets mad at me about because he doesn’t want me to starve myself). Today, I was able to go buy myself a bag of Cheetos, and stay easily within my allotted calories.

Now, we all know a diet isn’t just about how much you eat, it’s about what you eat- making healthier choices overall. C and I have been trying to do this already, but my weight loss goal is giving us both more reasons to pay attention. It’s so easy to make the meat and starch and forget about the vegetables. But the vegetables are important.

Right now, I haven’t been at this long enough for my body to really kick in with the hunger response. I do feel hungry at dinner time, but not constantly. That will change. Vegetables are the things that will let me eat whenever I feel hungry without blowing my calorie count. In that sense, they’re like my allowance– the allowance allows me to buy what I want without worrying about the impact on the greater budget. Vegetable will allow me to eat whenever I feel hungry without worrying about the impact on my greater diet.

Just like I’m working a creating a new normal for my diet, I need to create a new normal for my exercise. I need to create a routine that I should be able to maintain for the long term. Since a child could come into our lives in 3 months or 3 years, I need an exercise plan that will can accommodate that. For now, that means 2 daily walks at work (which also help reduce my stress levels, which is good, since, as I mentioned before, stress is a cause of weight gain for me), walking the dogs around the neighborhood and being more active when we’re at the dog park. These are all things that will be able to remain in my life whether there is a kid or not.

Again, the experience of creating a budget that can handle changes in plans, the uncertainty of unemployment, and everyday slings and arrows has helped prepare me for creating an exercise plan that will be flexible enough to handle the changes we’re planning for and changes that may sneak up on us.

I am treating this very much like I treat my spending. I am tracking everything. I have a burn down chart for weight loss. I don’t (yet) have a chart for calories eaten, but I do have a quick glance sheet for calories eaten as well as the in depth tracking sheet. Knowing I’ve done this with money and succeeded helps me feel confident that I can do this with food. Success breeds success, as they often say.

Now, in my case, there is one more reason for tracking all of this so closely. Just like a business has to keep close track of their books to make sure no one is stealing from them, I need a log so that I can keep an eye out for potential problems.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a known thyroid issue, in that I have bilateral growths on the gland itself. In a blood test, my thyroid levels come out normal, but that is the generic, first level test. One of the main reasons for me to keep extra close track of both food and exercise is so that if, after the initial shock of being on a new diet wears off, I stop losing weight or even start gaining, I have the documentation I need to go to my doctor and say I want to do some more testing and here’s why.

I have to admit, that on some level, I would love for that to happen. I would love for my struggle with weight to be the result of a medical issue. At the same time, I’d also just like my budget plan to work, because that would mean that I have control. Having a medical issue would mean that some things weren’t in my control. And honestly, I like having control more than I like the idea of a “magic” solution to losing weight.