Hi everyone,
Years ago, I went from 210 to 135 (took me about 3 years including long periods of plateau and short periods of extremely fast weight losses) by eating 500-800 calories for extended periods and then going into periods of maintenance. I was hungry all the time, but I loved the weight loss and the feeling of control. To be clear, this wasn't IF. This was extremely unsustainable in the long term and the emotional and psychological approach I had was unhealthy.
When I reached my goal, I felt awesome. I still wanted to change my body, obviously, because that really never goes away. But I felt confident, I felt accomplished, and more than anything I wanted to begin eating normally again. I tried intuitive eating, I tried tracking calories in maintainence levels, I began lifting and increasing protein, and here I am, 2-3 years later, back to almost where I began. Some of the weight is muscle - prior to this point I had never lifted and was largely sedentary my entire life. But a significant portion was fat gain from my diet. I know this because none of my clothes fit, the fat on my stomach is physically uncomfortable when I sit, I'm sluggish, my cardio game is way off, and my mood swings from being 210lbs came back.
One thing that I'm really happy with over the last 2 years is the work I've done on myself in terms of my body image. I genuinely have let go of a huge amount of pressure to look thin and a lot of the fear associated with how I look day-to-day. That being said, I still want to be proud when I look in the mirror, and right now I'm definitely not. But weight loss today is about a lot more than it was the last time I did this. It's about being able to do awesome things with my body (run, lift, climb, etc.) and about feeling comfortable physically in it at any given time (not weighed down by excess, not tired for no reason, not worried about health concerns due to high bodyfat).
This post is partly for me to have some physical, meaningful way to start this process and mentally commit to it and partly to ask the community if anyone has experienced something similar. Does anyone have experience transitioning from unhealthy short-term "success" to healthy long-term lifestyle changes? My goal isn't to lose 40 lbs in 20 weeks. My goal is to change everything I need to about my daily habits and lifestyle in a long-term sustainable way and let my body adjust naturally to those changes, knowing that if I'm healthy, weight loss will logically result. Has that approach worked for anyone? Or do people have more success with calculated deficits and hard-core willpower until they're at their goal weight and then moving into maintenance? Thanks!
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2RfVCzL
No comments:
Post a Comment