Stats: F/23/5’8” SW 213/CW 160.6/GW 150
366 days ago I weighed myself for the first time in a long time, and 365 days ago I started tracking what I eat. Here’s the results.
If you don’t wanna read my novel you can skip to the bottom where I tried to summarize what I’ve learned. 😅
Before this last year, I somehow had convinced myself that people are born hot and skinny and fit, and I was just unlucky to be born fat. I’d never even tried dieting, in fact I had said a million times, I’ll never diet, that’s not for me. To be fair, my mom has tried every fad diet to ever come around, spent hundreds of dollars, and is still overweight. So to me, all diets were scams. Despite her being obsessed with every new diet she’d hear about, I was never taught about nutrition, and most of my meals growing up came boxed or frozen. Though it seems obvious and simple, I never made the connection that eating giant meals of unhealthy foods every day was the reason I was fat.
But one day, I just woke up and thought, I’m going to lose weight. It was a life changing feeling, and I wanted to tell everyone, so I did. Mistake #1. I got told by some of the closest people to me, that I couldn’t do it. They told me people can’t actually lose weight, or I would but my legs will always look like that. They told me I wouldn’t stick with it very long. And finally, they mostly told me that I was fine the way I was, if I lose weight I’d look terrible and sick. They told me this while my BMI rested in the middle of the obese category. They told me this as I struggled to fit into my size 14s. They told me this as I found myself unable to make eye contact with myself in the mirror, because it just made me want to break down at how awful I looked and felt every day.
So I started the keto diet, as it seemed most appealing with being able to have “unlimited” meat and cheese. This worked well for a few months, as I cut my addiction to sugar and carbs, but soon I was making little to no progress, losing and gaining the same 3 pounds, and I found myself “cheating” more and more with wanting fruit and rice and ice cream. I had been browsing r/Loseit and saw all these people eating all of the things I missed, and actually losing weight unlike me. It felt to good to be true, but I tried it.
And it worked! I still had some ups and downs but now I understood why. Every time the scale went lower I felt accomplished because I knew it was my diligence. And if my weight went up I knew it was water weight, and temporary. Progress isn’t linear.
I aimed at a 1000 calorie deficit (two pound loss a week) but I always made sure I felt fed, I didn’t track on my vacations, and I had many weekends out, so it averaged out to one pound a week. Do I wish I had been more strict? Possibly. But I think part of my success was never allowing myself to regret restricting. Mostly I learned what appropriate sized meals looked like and meal prepped every Sunday so I didn’t have to worry about it. I learned how to plan ahead for large and greasy meals, rather than just having them every day for every meal. And I gained an appreciation for fresh fruits and veggies, low calorie snack packs, and small ice cream bars.
I’m very close to my (maybe) goal weight, which means I can begin eating at maintenance soon. I started running 3/4x a week about 6 weeks ago and it really helped with the last few pounds, where I lost at a much greater rate than before I exercised. Once I hit this first goal weight I want to work on building muscle getting adjusted into my new normal.
So if I had to sum up and offer advice in a small paragraph here it is:
Don’t let people’s opinions taint your goals and your vision, especially when they are jaded. Don’t resign yourself to hating what you see in the mirror, you can change what you see and you’ll love yourself even more for it. Don’t punish yourself or make yourself hate dieting. You’re doing your body a favor. This doesn’t mean you deserve treats every day or for every event, but saying yes occasionally won’t take away all your progress. Losing weight is hard, it’s exhausting, especially when you don’t have as much support as you feel you need. But every pound lost shows how hardworking and dedicated you are. You are loving your body and you will thank yourself. One of my favorite things I’ve gained from this journey is my friends seeing my progress and feeling comfortable enough to come to me with questions and for support in their own weight loss journeys. And I’d like to thank this subreddit for being there for me and I hope to continue to support others on here as well.
Thank you everyone so so much 💕
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