Hey all, I've been maintaining at 160 for about 6 months while I gear up for a mental and physical transition to strength-focused activities as opposed to weight-loss, and I wanted to share some of what I learned during the sheer weight-loss portion of my journey.
As you may have noticed, I initially focused only on weight loss, so I mainly did cardio as exercise and various food related restrictions. Looking back I maybe should have been doing strength exercises right alongside, but the idea was overwhelming to me so I didn't let it bother me.
Here's some stuff I did, in no particular order, that really helped me lose the weight in a way that was enjoyable and empowering.
I treated my relationships with food an exercises and my body as more of a mental health issue than a physical issue, and worked hard on self-love, self-care, and self-reflection. "You cant hate yourself into a body you love". That's easier to say then do, obviously, so here's some specifics:
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Negative Self-Talk: I have an issue with negative self-talking to the point where it's really self-abuse. To combat this I forced myself to verbalize (mentally or vocally) the specific negative words, and imagine if I heard a friend talking about themselves like that, and how I would feel hearing someone else talk like that. Additionally, I changed the frame of my response from "is this true" to "is this helpful to me?" So if I noticed myself calling myself a fat lazy piece of shit cause I was skipping the gym, rather than determining whether or not skipping the gym in fact made me a fat lazy piece of shit, I asked myself if that kind of talking was helpful for getting me to go to the gym later or right then. Obviously it wasn't helpful at all and framing it that way allowed/helped me to discard it.
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Actual laziness/preparing for being demotivated: On many of my previous attempts to lose weight I had found myself getting demotivated, or failing for a day or a week and falling into a spiral of self-loathing and eating my feelings and all sorts of crappy practices that would ultimately result in never losing weight. So to combat this, I set myself 3-tiered goals for each area I wanted to improve. The bottom tier had to be something I already did regularly or almost-regularly, it had to be a really low bar that I could easily reach even on crappy days. The top tier had to be within reach, but more difficult. As I consistently hit the middle or top tiers of whatever area or goals, and once I felt confident that the middle-tier had--through practice--become my bottom-tier, I moved my goal posts and set a new top-tiered goal and aimed at the middle again. My areas for improvement were exercise, calories-per-day, and healthy/nutritious food. My bottom-tier goal for each day was to reach my goals in one of those areas (exercising, eating within my self-set calorie limit, or eating healthy food). So I could both exceed my calorie limit and not exercise and still call it a win if the food I ate was healthy. I could eat unhealthy food and not exercise if i stayed within my calorie limits, and I could exceed my calorie limits and eat unhealthy food if I also exercised. That sort of latitude really worked for me-- but there were still days when I didn't reach any of those goals, and for those days I referred myself to step one; self care; combating negative self-talk, because one day out of five ain't no thang, nor is three weeks out of 30 weeks a thang. I also had a similar 3 tiered goal for each area I wanted to improve, a high-middle-low goal for exercise (how many times per week), calories (what not to exceed or eat below) and health (how much eating out vs cooking at home per week), but it's the same general principle across the board: low bars are easy to cross and create baby-step progress that really adds up!
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Primary Reasons and Goals: this one is the hardest. We get so much info from media and the people around us about our bodies, and I think being larger sort of amplifies that. I didn't want "looking good" to be my primary goal or motivation, because if it was I'd be demotivated any time I felt bad about how I looked (which was already my every-day), and also looking good was never a good enough reason for me, because it wasn't for me--it was for others. I'm obviously pleased with my appearance now more than I was then, but I've tried to never let that be my primary focus, and more of a side-bennie. Instead, my goal was health but also just how it feels to be in motion. Initially when I began exercising all I could focus on was how I must look--the fat, red faced and excessively sweaty and smelly woman on the elliptical--ugh! But I went to the gym late at night with few people there and good music blaring, and I eventually could stop that mantra of panic and anxiety and focus more on how it felt to move and damn that was a good feeling. I forced myself to find ways to enjoy exercise, challenged myself to explore it with curiosity and interest rather than hate and reluctance. I was never going to exercise if I hated it. I remembered enjoying motion as a child; running and climbing trees and swimming, so how might i enjoy it again, now? For me, learning/remembering to love motion and how exercise and activity made me feel became my primary motivation. Being active, strong, a biker, a hiker, a climber or yoga-master, all of that became my goal over my appearance, it became the reason and motivation. Whenever I found myself slipping into shitty negative self-talk, it was always connected to how much I was admiring my looks and my weight loss; when I forgot that I wasn't doing it for how I looked (cuz I was looking good!) I started to hate myself again for no reason (cuz I wasn't looking good enough. I never fucking will if I compare myself to social beauty standards).
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Trick and Treat yourself: I came up with tricks and treats for myself. I didn't dismiss my negative voice as entirely without merit, sometimes I really just didn't want to go to the gym. So, I had plans in place for those kinds of days. My treat was partially just knowing how good I'd feel after I'd go, so I'd always remind myself of that when feeling reluctant. Additionally, I had a playlist full of awesome music that I didn't let myself listen to outside of the gym, so listening to some pumped up beats while running was even more appealing cause that music stayed fresh for longer! I'd often cajole myself into exercise by reminding myself I could listen to that playlist; I'd get dressed in my gym clothes and sit there cultivating a motherfucking queue for the whole time, and as it got longer so too did my time at the gym. I'd trick myself too, by promising myself I only had to go for 10 minutes, or 20. Sometimes I got so used to doing 60minutes at the gym that I began to expect it from myself, and that expectation felt heavy, like too much sometimes! So I'd have to back-step and say, only 20minutes and then we can go home if we want to. And I meant that promise; 20minutes in and I'd ask myself if I felt like leaving. Usually I didn't, but when I did I kept my promises. It was a trick, but a loving one! There's plenty of ways to do it and I did a lot of self reflection to partner with myself and determine what would work, but it's really helpful!
Okay I think that's a long enough post...feel free to ask questions or clarify or PM me if you like!
Tl;dr: the journey was more mental-health oriented than I ever expected, and self-love and self-care was 100% necessary the entire way.
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