We feed off each other - A long, happy mother & daughter weight-loss story

Pun intended! :D

Grab some water and sip along. This is going to be a long post. I am so happy about a lot of things lately and I wanted to share. :)

My mother and I have always struggled with our weights from when we were little. She always wanted to lose weight all her life, and so did I. Like other things, I picked these habits from my mother too. Eating habits. Exercise to lose weight habits and even the insecurities. She never ever made me feel insecure. She is my biggest fan and sees me as this flawless, beautiful human. :) But I could see her hiding in her loose clothes and I was the same body type, so I was hiding in mine.

I remember waking up early in the mornings and going for a swim with my mum at 5 am during school days. I remember conversations where we used to fantasize about losing all the weight. We both have curly hair so that is another thing we bonded over. Being a millionaire overnight was another common discussion topic. :)

Anyway, I had a wave of weight loss when I was 18. I went from 187lb to 142lb. I slowly crawled back up to 167lb in the past decade. I was in no mood to lose weight anymore. Sure, I wanted to be thin but I didn't want to put the effort in.

Meanwhile, my mother was also being very unhealthy. I go to my mum's place everyday for lunch. She had let go so bad, whatever the reasons were. I saw takeout containers. Parents were getting breakfast, lunch and dinner from restaurants almost every day. I sometimes ate the leftovers and some days not.

The entire time, mum would make "snacks" to eat. She used to eat very few healthy meals and a lot of unhealthy snacks. By healthy and unhealthy, I mean nutrition-wise. She used to have cucumbers for lunch and a big serving of jaggery, yogurt and beaten rice as a snack. Individually "healthy" but not at those portions. Bags of potato chips and tubs of ice cream, things like that as rewards.

All of a sudden, my mum took to exercise HARD. Somehow, she had gotten into the weight loss zone again. Very slowly, the weight started dropping. She started losing weight simply because she was not home for as long as she used to be. She was not eating any better but just because she was eating less of those "snacks", she was losing weight.

When I saw her clothes becoming loose again (my clothes were just being stored away because everything was uncomfortably tight), I decided I would also make an effort. If my mum could get up and start walking away from her let-go phase, I could too. She was putting SO MUCH effort into it- practically out the whole day exercising! And there I was just eating and keeping tight clothes away so I don't feel bad.

So, I began CICO, I downloaded LoseIt!. I started cooking my meals during lunch. Every afternoon, I would get home, pull out some vegetable from the fridge, boil it, season it, and eat it with an egg or two.

I did this fairly regularly. This inspired my mum as well, she started generally eating better during lunch. The takeouts and dinners at restaurants continued, but atleast one of her meals was nutritious.

I steadily lost weight over the weeks that followed, because CICO. My mum lost too through exercise and eating less. We were both in the zone. My mum got to her yoyo point. She was still exercising as much, restricting some foods and not losing weight. She had plateaued.

One day, my mum asked me over the phone, how are you doing this? How are you losing this weight? Do tell me! Let me try too.

Before I go any further, my mum has some aversion to what she calls science. If I go calories and TDEE and expenditure and things, she will zone out and run away. She would rather have me tell her don't eat bananas and things like that. Also, I had not bored her with this stuff because I wouldn't like being told how to lose weight unless I asked genuinely. I do not like making people uncomfortable eating food around me. But since she asked me, and she was losing motivation because of the plateau and because I badly wanted her to know, I decided to give it my best shot.

I did not respond immediately on the phone call. I just told her, I will tell you how, but I will ask you one little favour and you'll have to do it for me, without question. She said okay. I asked her to keep a notebook ready.

I started writing her a letter. I wanted to write down everything* instead of saying it* because verbal information is really difficult to deliver and process. She could take her time with it and go back to it if she wanted. Also, I didn't want to come across as reprimanding or restrictive with her because I am pretty strict with myself, I don't want to be strict with her! On the other hand, I didn't want to leave out something important. I made it as comprehensive and complete as possible and easy to digest.

The letter was more like a book with different chapters

• The first was congratulating her on her success so far and acknowledging all the effort she had put in
• The second described how I was loving that she looked healthy and happy and was mentally much more at peace recently
• After that, I wrote in as plain and un-sciency terms as possible about calories. I wrote about CICO and the basic principle, the math behind it. She is a big math person, so that would catch her attention.
• I put in three simple lessons that I had found extremely motivational in my journey. I wrote that she cannot outrun her fork, so even though exercise is important, what she eats decides* her weight loss/gain.
• Based on her weight and height and level of activity, I calculated her TDEE and put it in. Just her TDEE. No formula, no varying activity levels or anything. She would lose if she ate less than that, maintain if she ate at it.
• Next, I put in food charts with calorie counts of all of the breakfasts, lunches and dinners we cooked at home with calories (measured out in spoons - I do this and it has worked well for me, she could upgrade to a food scale is she want to. I also put charts of important things like 1 tablespoon oil and 1 tablespoon coconut because these are extremely calorie dense and we Indians are rarely aware we could eat a whole naan bread instead of that oil!)
• Next, I put in calorie counts of her favourite dishes in her favourite restaurants. This was important because she loves eating out and I did not want her to restrict. I suggested considering packing more than recommended portion away so she could still be at maintenance on days she eats out.
• In the end, I put in charts of "sample days". For example, if she decided to eat at restaurant X the next day, what she could have for breakfast and lunch to guiltlessly eat dinner out.
• She always said losing another 4 kilos was impossible at her age, so I put in a chart from LoserTown with a projection of expected loss(upto her 4 kilos only, no stress form my side) if she ate just a 400 hundred calories below maintenance each day.

In the letter, I maintained throughout that

• Her achievement was great and she does not have to rush and eat in a deficit.
• This letter is more for her to take comfort in the fact that nothing is restricted, not even her favorite foods
• There is such a thing as maintenance, there need not be only loss/gain phases in life
• It is pure math in the end, so always understandable.
• All I wanted her to get used to was tracking (food and weight), for awareness.

So the next day, after we had our lunch, I handed my mom the letter. I gave her time to read and process it. She (being my mum) was so happy with how I had worded and phrased the whole thing first! :D And she was touched, happy and excited with this new information. And we took out the little notebook and made a little entry -of her weight that day and what she ate that day. We did this two days and then I let go. I did not ask her what she is eating or if she is tracking. I was as supportive as possible. :)

Since then, my mum has been tracking her weight every morning and her food in her little notebook. She made a CICO chart. It is so cute! She does not know about this sub. But like I said, she is into math. So she decided to make a chart and sent it to me, so proud of her! She does come to me often and report her weight maintenance/loss very proud, almost disbelieving that she can continue to maintain or lose!

On terms of nutrition, she has also been taking my whey protein religiously. I was very worried about her protein intake. She used to feel so tired all the time, it was difficult to look at her so drained. She used to have a lot of exercise and very little protein intake(she has a plant based diet that is carb, fibre and fat heavy). Last week, we reordered a big box of protein, it's my gift to her, she loves it. :)

This morning, she told me with tears in her eyes, I never thought I would learn something so big from my daughter. Thankyou, I am very lucky. :')

I have to add, we as Indians, know very little about diet, nutrition and exercise. We were not taught in school (the food pyramid with the carby base was what we learned somewhere in one class). Family does not know either.

Our older generations used to work like horses in farms, they couldn't afford to make rich food everyday and worked off whatever carbs they ate. Also their food was a lot cleaner - less oil(expensive) more home grown vegetables and protein from dals.

Now, the future generations, eat those rich foods almost everyday often because they can buy necessities like oil. No-one has learned to eat right or cook healthier. There is lot of obesity going around. Everyone just wants everyone else to eat a LOT of rich food.

As long as it is home-cooked, it is assumed to be nutritious! Exercise started becoming a thing after doctors started recommending walking to patients with heart problems due to obesity. Only obese people are seen exercising and skinny boys who go to the gym in the hope of getting ripped. Very few people know absolute facts, it is all hearsay and some absolute crap that some diet-books say- eat all the ghee you want, it is so healthy. Like WTF.

I know I am generalizing, but this is a HUGE percentage of people here. There is SO much lack of information coupled with mis-information out there.

I only learned very recently at the age of 27 from this sub and a few other places all I know about the importance of protein in a diet for starters, how exercise affects our body and that fasting responsibly won't kill a person!

Anyway, I digress. I am glad I found this sub, educated myself and could help my mum out too.

Tl;dr Mum and I make each other proud :')

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