In July 2020 I was 230.2 pounds that was a number I had never seen before.
I knew something had to change but I wasn’t ready, and I also was aware of my yo-yo dieting tendencies so I figured I would do it “the right way” this time and go slow and steady. I still wasn’t ready to really commit to losing the weight, so I just started THINKING about what I was eating and not really changing anything. My brain wasn’t satisfied with how slow things were going even though I hadn’t actually done anything, so I decided to start looking into all options again. The first being intermittent fasting.
I was accustomed to IF long before I even realized it was called IF because I never really ate breakfast anyway… so the adjustment was very simple for me (probably why I didn’t lose much weight.) I followed an 18:6 method because my brain said 16 hours was far too short of a fasting time even though all the data proved otherwise. Another classic instance of trying to do things “perfectly.” Regardless, I didn’t see much weight reduction even though I thought I was cutting calories (probably wasn’t I wasn’t dedicated at all to strict calorie counting). Intermittent fasting did clear up all my GERD symptoms though and that’s something to phone home about.
I also tried extended fasting because seeing a before and after of a 7 – 21 day water fast on the subreddit was too inspiring. I made it 4 days for my longest fast. It was worth it; taught me a little discipline and that I wasn’t going to perish if I didn’t eat for a day.
In August I decided to set a goal of working out for more than two weeks of the month. That turned into 28 days and my brain couldn’t have been prouder so I broke my rule of not telling my friends and family that I was trying to lose weight. Those 28 days were rough; I was ridiculously out of shape and I’m one of those exercisers that refuses to be okay with doing the low impact versions of the exercises.
My eating habits were all over place I wasn’t sure what to do with my diet I just knew I had to start fixing my relationship with food. Now that I was WORKING OUT my brain didn’t want us to waste our precious efforts, so I started counting calories FOR REAL.
I calculated my TDEE and BMR and all that and settled on 1600 calories for a slow consistent loss but now that I was counting calories my brain basically said it was a HUGE priority to eat beneath 1200 calories because we need to reach our goal faster.
I was constantly having this battle with myself to be perfect in all these diets. I kept telling myself “it’s a lifestyle change, it’s a lifestyle change” but I didn’t believe that or I wouldn’t have been sabotaging myself the whole time by reverting to old tendencies. November comes and I’m 225 pounds. So! It was back to the drawing board.
KETO YOU’RE UP!
I won’t even lie I loved keto and hated it at the same time. It worked, I lost 15 pounds in less than a month eating Flying Dutchman’s, cheese, and pork rinds. I got creative during this time too and tried all kinds of new recipes like chicken parmigiana, cauli fried rice, ramen, pizza. I wasn’t super big on cooking, but keto sparked something in me, and boy was I in that kitchen! Keto curbed my appetite and gave me some scale gratification in a timeframe that finally aligned with my dream body. Not to mention the keto community was dope. Like any other diet… things started getting stale again and some of the typical diet and food addiction straits were still haunting me.
Ever go to bed hungry? Ever lay there just thinking about food, can’t stop thinking about food, thinking about the next meal, thinking if you can sneak a snack in right now even though you already snuck all that beef jerky in earlier AND YOU’RE GOING TO FALL ASLEEP RIGHT AFTER THE SNACK ANYWAY…? Yeah me too, so I literally had to start coaching my brain that this wasn’t the last meal we were going to have and we can and ARE going to eat again tomorrow so stfu. After about a month and change I weened myself off keto.
All the weight came back xx.
In January 2021 can you believe I was seeing 225 again? Was pretty discouraging since my birthday was the next month. February rolled around and on the 8th I got serious again and started working out and “intuitive eating.” I knew I was going on vacation a week later so it was time to test if I could handle not eating like an animal. That changed everything. I just really tried to start listening to my body and not my brain that kept telling me to eat more when I already felt the food at my uvula. When I say I TRIED I really had to TRY because whenever people said to “listen to your body” it never made sense to me.
Things just started compounding from there. I had felt enlightened because even though I was at 225 again when I was finally READY and genuinely serious about making LIFESTYLE and HABIT CHANGES all the knowledge I had gained over those 7-8 months…and years had resonated so deeply that all the new habits felt like second nature. I didn’t have to strictly count calories because I had counted for so long a lot of the calories I knew already. I was CRAVING healthy foods and I WANTED to be healthy. I just wanted to lose weight and look better before. I started practicing balance and focusing on “exercise” that I love. All movement is movement, I didn’t crucify myself for missing a day or for eating out. Stand more. It was normal to eat out everyday in the past, but that wasn’t healthy behavior for me and my waistline agreed. I finally got a grasp on moderation; good luck to anyone needing to do that because that shit is hard.
I stopped weighing myself in April, it wasn’t a priority anymore, my goals changed, and I never thought I’d be the person that can eat and live like a normal person when it comes to FOOD! The way my body looks at 170 now it never has before and that IS because I did it the HEALTHY way. Change those habits or the weight is going to come backkkkk.
Body Positivity
The major lesson I learned over the year is that we must love ourselves at all points. Love your body as it is now, you’ll always have something to criticize yourself about. I was disparaging myself when I thought I was “fat” in the past, a lot of us wish we could go back to being that past “fat” while we’re on our journey. Enjoy your life and stop letting how your body looks control your experiences and desires. In reality no one gives a fuck about you and your body don’t let your silly brain fool you into thinking otherwise.
TLDR:
Food addiction is too real, I had to conquer that, but it was a long, tedious, yo-yo dieting process.
Things I did then: HCG diet, Intermittent fasting, extended fasting, Keto, low carb, exercise, calorie counting
Things I do now: exercise, intuitive eat
You can lose weight doing anything with a calorie deficit, find what works for you even if it takes a while to figure out what that is. Body recomp is a lot easier when your diet is in check. Be gentle with yourself. xx
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/pv239o/i_lost_50_pounds_in_4_months_it_took_me_a_year_to/
No comments:
Post a Comment