So today marks the halfway point for my initial goal of a 30kg loss, things have been slowing down a lot so I thought I'd post this to remind myself of how far I've come. Warning: wall of text below...
Almost a decade ago I was diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's) where my body slowly kills my thyroid glad. Although since then my blood tests have shown that my thyroid levels are still normal, doctors can't figure out why I'm constantly incredibly fatigued and find losing weight to be difficult. Over those ten years I've gained and dropped weight so many times, with my last up and down being from 85kg to 65kg in 2016/17. Since then I've known that I've steadily gained weight and a few times attempted to lose it but never really went all out.
Skip to August 2018, I went to see my endocrinologist as this year has been really tough with my fatigue. I'm doing my PhD at the moment but I've been falling behind because some days I was struggling to get out of bed. My endo asked me to step on the scales and I almost cried when I saw 99.6kg flashing back at me. 400 grams away from 100kg... My endo said that the extra weight is definitely not helping me with my fatigue and I really need to lose it for them to determine if there is a different underlying cause. I really think this was the big push I need.
My partner has been on board with it all which is super helpful and is dieting along with me. I don't calorie count but usually do a 16-8 intermittent fast with a low calorie dinner. We've also cut out all weeknight drinking and try to limit how much (if any) we have on the weekends. I really want to make the effort to change my lifestyle completely, so if I want to have a burger or splurge a bit on the weekends, I will.
I started personal training and managed to find the best PT for me. He makes exercise really interesting and I genuinely look forward to our Wednesday mornings. He started out with a weights program for me to do in my own time but I wasn't very motivated to do it and found myself skipping the gym a fair amount. We spoke about it and I told him about how I've really enjoyed boxing in the past and like the technical side of it rather than the 'fitbox' style. He used to be a pro boxer and started to incorporate this into our PT, eventually making me a program that has 30mins of boxing, followed by 30mins of weights which I do by myself twice a week. I wouldn't say I look forward to my solo gym sessions but I also don't dread it like I used to, it's now just a part of my daily routine!
Some things I've found particularly useful on my journey so far:
- Waking up at 6.30am, making a coffee and catching up on news (or more likely, Reddit) for a bit before getting ready or going to the gym. For some 6.30am might be late, but for me this is really early. Sometimes my fatigue makes this hard but I'm always so thankful I do this. Starting my day off in a slow-paced, relaxed manner has made the rest of the day seem so much more achievable. Gotta go to the gym and feeling tired? That's cool, you've got 20 minutes to chill out before you've gotta go smash it.
- Reminding myself that something is better than nothing. Some mornings the gym is such a struggle, I feel weak and tired which can lead me into a negative mindset of believing that this gym session is going to ruin my progress. When this happens I try to stop and remember that I got out of bed, put on my gym gear, got to the gym and I'm now exercising. This is 100x better than old me. This is progress. Sure, it might not be my best gym session but it's better than lying in bed feeling sorry for myself.
- Trying to make this a lifestyle change rather than a diet. I'm not going to lie, I am terrified of reaching my goal and letting the weight come back like I've done countless times before. This really really worries me. I don't want that to become a reality so I'm trying to make this a long-term sustainable change. Sure I wanna lose all the weight as fast as I can but there isn't actually a deadline. If taking a weekend off and eating what I want means that I'll create a lifestyle I can maintain forever then I'll take that over reaching my goal weight really quick but failing at staying that weight.
In case you're wondering, so far the weight loss hasn't helped much with my fatigue. My endo wants me to get to the 30kg loss and then re-evaluate but I think I'll bring it up again at our appointment next week. Bit of a bummer but hey, I'm bloody proud of my accomplishments given I feel like I could fall asleep at any moment.
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