This is a bit long, but I wanted to share my story for you guys in case it's relatable because I think I finally found the diet that works for me.
I have been struggling with my weight and energy levels for a decade now. I went from being severely underweight my entire life, to overweight in just 3 years. It was frustrating, demoralizing, it has impacted my marriage negatively. Nothing seemed to work.
What have I tried? Well I started trying to be more active but I couldn't really get into much other than hiking and walking. And nothing changed. So I tried counting calories, just writing it all down on a piece of paper and I lost a few pounds, but it wasn't a long term solution. I got sick of the food logging pretty fast and it never lasted more than three months and then I would boomerang back to an even higher weight.
So I spent several years just trying to stay a little active, beating the absolute hell out of myself mentally every time the scale inched higher.
I had two babies and lost even more energy than before. I tried cutting out all carbs and counted calories again. Again it didn't stick more than a few months. The next year I tried Noom, and it gave me a lot of great insight into my eating habits and how I could improve them, but again the food logging just wouldn't stick.
After trying that program I FINALLY had a breakthrough with my health and was diagnosed with PCOS. Because of COVID I was left to research and look into it on my own for over a year before GYNs near me started to accept new patients again. In that year, after reading as much about PCOS as I could, I tried some new diets. My habits were much better because of Noom, and I was consistently active, lifting weights and going on walks multiple times a week but my weight STILL wasn't changing.
First I tried keto. But the excessive amounts of fat were making skin tags pop up all over my face neck and chest. I didn't have the energy to food prep either and the cravings for junk food were not going away. I then tried intermittent fasting. It only lasted a few weeks because of how unpredictable and volatile I felt during the fasting window. I have chronic depression and anxiety and with COVID picking up steam I didn't need the additional mental health hurdle.
The nail in the fasting coffin was having to get a job during the pandemic. I started working a full time physically demanding job. I expected the weight to slip off like a stretched out swimsuit.... it did not.
Mid pandemic I had an extreme mental health crisis that made me seek therapy where I discovered that my motivation and energy levels and brain fog was in fact because- despite what I thought- my depression was wildly out of control. My anxiety being under control lead me to believe my depression was too and the gross sluggish way I felt was just... me. BUT IT WASN'T.
So, the pandemic finally eases up and I finally get an appointment to see a gyno about my PCOS and ask the ass load of questions I had. There were several important takeaways:
-I was right to not pursue diets that I couldn't sustain long term
-PCOS may cause your body to go into fat storing mode when you do cardio. Stupid, but true. All the cardio I was forcing on myself was working against me.
- PCOS also can make it so your body derives energy from protein rather than carbs.
-I was dangerously close to diabetic and NEEDED to make some kind of significant change to head that off
-My doctor reccomended I focus on low impact workouts like yoga and walking and weight lifting to build muscle mass (because those at least still burn calories thankyoujesus) and that I try Whole30
Now, I won't explain what goes into Whole30 since you may already know and if not can look it up yourself. But I sat down with the guidebook and started to plan. I read and made notes and read some more and planned some more. It took me three weeks to feel fully prepared to start.
Today is Whole30 day 30. My body feels leaner, my brain feels sharper. My energy levels are up. My chronic and near debilitating preoccupation with food and sugar is almost non existent. My mood is better (but I still have bad days). And I haven't had any of the issues I'm used to like nauseating heartburn and mystery stomach pains. I cheated and weighed myself this morning (you're supposed to wait until day 31) and I lost twelve pounds.
Unlike what I thought at the start of the 30 days I don't feel desperate to add things back in. I will just give myself more variety and make it a more sustainable solution long term, but it'll probably be things like dairy and beans. I don't need sugar the way I used to and I'm not dying to binge on it like I have with previous diets.
I know it hasn't been very long but it feels so much different this time around. There are a few things I did that helped.
-I put all of my daughter's "junk food" snacks I might be tempted by into fabric bins in the pantry so I couldn't see them.
-I only shopped at Whole Foods the first two weeks to avoid impulse buy temptation and ordered my daughter's snacks through Instacart to stay out of the store.
-We just moved into a new house so if I couldn't eat it (save for my daughter's food) I didn't buy it. I told my husband if he wanted something off limits to me he had to buy it himself and I also gave him fabric bins for his goodies. It ended up working out that he was gone for 95% of the 30 days for work so there's that lol
-I scoured their recipe books and planned out two weeks worth of meals. By day 10 though I was confident enough to not need any advance planning outside of making sure I had what I needed from the store.
-I don't know how capable I would have been had I not been doing therapy first. It greatly helped my mental health and thus I felt more capable than ever before to get it done
Feel free to ask me any questions if you'd like.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/ood9ih/i_think_i_finally_found_the_glass_slipper/
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