Hello all, and Happy Friday! First off, I want to thank everyone in this community - I've been around off and on ~5 years, and this really is such an uplifting and inspiring community.
So, I want to share some struggles I've had recently, in the hope that it will be cathartic for me, and also hopefully will help others who are also struggling.
Current stats: 30F, 5'6", HW:175lb, SW: 168lb, CW: 143lb, GW: 130lb (reached in January 2021...not there currently)
Background: I've struggled with being overweight since my early teens. I started gaining around age 11-12 or so, and by the time I was 15, I weighed 175. At the time, my mom went on a low carb diet and began losing weight. I followed something similar, but not strictly low carb, just less food in general, but still ate some carbs and junk food. Tried to move more, etc. By the time I was 16, I was about 145lb or so, and pretty happy with that. By the time I was 18, I had gotten to ~132 without trying - I think having active jobs helped. At age 18, there were a lot of changes in my life: moved out, started university, started drinking, and started a toxic relationship. That all results in a slow gain over the next few years, and although there were MANY attempts to lose weight, none of them really stuck. The combo of the relationship, stress and drinking did not do me any favors.
Beginning of 2013, age 23, I was 160 pounds, and just starting a new relationship. I quickly gained 15 pounds in ~9 months or so due to eating a bit more junk and bigger portion sizes (the new bf is very active and eats OMAD...so I shouldn't be eating anywhere close to what he does.) At that point, I had reached my HW of 175 again, and I realized I needed to make a change, and started losing (I was also diagnosed as pre-diabetic based on A1C, so that gave me a concrete health reason to lose weight.) From 2014-2019, I cycled from 143-165 several times, each time not quite getting to my goal of 130. I learned valuable things with each cycle - for example, I dropped breakfast a long time ago, and almost never eat it now (I eat more through the day when I do eat breakfast.) I realized low carb is not for me, and I can't sustain it forever, so it's better to for me to just calorie count. However, I also need to focus on healthier foods overall for sustainability and health. Thankfully, my A1C has been in the normal range every time I've had it checked since 2014.
Cue to June 2019 - back at 168lb, and I knew I had to do something about it. I read something here on loseit that really helped me change my perspective. "Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway." From then on I decided I had to make small, slow, SUSTAINABLE (i.e., lifestyle) changes, or I would keep on weight cycling forever. I started just counting calories again and aiming for some type of workout 2x per week. From there, I slowly continued to add things, adjust, etc., not focusing on how long it would take at all. Focusing on sustainable habits, consistency and patience. From June 2019 to December 2020, I went from 168 to 132 pounds, which is close to 0.5lb/week.
Mid-December 2020: I quit smoking weed due to a possible new job (I started smoking in 2013, which has helped reduce drinking drastically since then. There is some willpower initially to not give in to munchies.) From there, I lost weight pretty quickly, and saw my GW of 130 on January 2, 2021. At this point, I was toying with whether or not I should go to 125, and then try to gain muscle. On January 14th (after seeing 129 a couple times!) I decided, this is it, I should try to focus on maintenance for now. That same day, I got rejected for the job I was applying for. Cue weed smoking again that evening. I decided to eat some of the christmas chocolates we had around (I really didn't indulge much over christmas due to not having much of an appetite.) That was all fine, I logged everything, and didn't go crazy. Two days later, on January 16th, we found out that our dog had cancer. Literally, one of my best friends, and my baby...I'm getting teary eyed just typing this out. We were in shock, and not sure how much longer we'd have with her. This is when healthy habits just started getting thrown out the window - no calorie counting, no workouts. I had to spend as much time with her as possible. The next day, we decided we had to put her down sooner than later due to some difficulty she was having with walking (the tumor was growing very quickly.) We called the next morning, and scheduled her appt for later that day. Since then, my ass has been kicked in trying to deal with the grief of losing her. Long story short, I'm back up to 143 pounds about 6 weeks later, which is not good. I do not want all of my progress to be undone. I've managed to mostly keep up with workouts, which is good. Food has been a struggle though. I definitely am an emotional eater, and I'm really trying to find ways to deal with the emotions better. Working out does help, but at night when I miss her...emotional eating can easily undo all of the hard work of working out. I committed again yesterday to log everything, no matter what. I had tried to restart logging several times, but just struggled with it. I'm in a little better place now...still missing her terribly, but I know that I will regret it if I don't course-correct now.
I just needed to get this off my chest, and I appreciate every single person who took the time to read this. You can only do your best, and your best looks different every day. Remember to give yourself grace and understanding. Life is not easy, and there will be struggles. Even if you didn't make good decisions last week, yesterday, this morning - you can still make a good decision right now. I believe in you.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/lypiss/hit_goal_weight_in_january_after_a_slow_loss/
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