I’ve been posting here and in other weight loss subs a lot more recently, largely because the past six weeks have been extremely challenging to me food- and weight loss-wise.
A little backstory: I’ve been overweight or obese for my entire life. I started losing in earnest about a year ago, and I’m down 75lbs from my starting weight through CICO. I have about 15lbs to go until my goal weight.
Originally, I had said I was hoping to reach my goal weight by my college graduation. This was always a loose goal, but I realized as graduation got closer that I didn’t have it in me to maintain a deficit that would allow this to happen. The last six weeks or so of my semester were incredibly stressful and I was struggling with motivation and discipline. I was super sleep deprived and struggling to work two jobs and finish up my classes. I had been on a 1300cal/day plan for awhile, but I realized that I couldn’t maintain that level of deficit and keep my sanity for the rest of the semester. I upped my calories to 1500/day and promised myself I would look at upping them again in a few weeks if I needed to.
This period of time was one that was full of food related events and treats everywhere I turned. I told myself I would use this time to learn what it means to be at maintenance and treat it like an experiment. On days where my schedule was pretty typical, I would eat at my 1500 cal limit, but on event days and days I had less control, I would relax a little and just try to make pretty good choices as much as I could. This month included a Mother’s Day lunch that featured a giant chocolate cake and a Mexican food lunch, Easter with all of my grandmother’s specialties, countless meals out to celebrate my graduation and my family’s annual reunion, and many other indulgences. I didn’t have time to meal prep, and for a lot of days I had to guesstimate what I was eating in a way that I hadn’t really experienced since I started my weight loss journey.
I’m not going to lie, it was a stressful time for me. Even though I knew that I was objectively doing well, I didn’t like the feeling of having very little control of what I was eating and eating out so frequently at places that have limited healthy choices. However, I enjoyed the time I got to spend with people I love, and I did get to eat a lot of really good food.
Today was the day I decided to get back on the scale. I weighed in a couple of times over the past month, but I didn’t record those weights because I knew that the restaurant meals and eating on an erratic schedule would mean that I would fluctuate a lot. The last weight I recorded was on April 8, and I weighed 145.2lbs. This morning, six weeks later, I weighed in at 145.6lbs.
In the past it would have been easy for me to still count this as a bad thing, because I theoretically could have lost around 5 lbs in that time if I had stuck to my deficit. But instead, I’m counting it as a massive victory, and a break that I needed. I made a conscious choice to relax and enjoy the events that were happening in my life even though that meant I wasn’t going to lose weight for awhile, and I successfully maintained the loss I’ve already achieved. I proved to myself that I can make this lifestyle change work once I’m at my goal weight, and that I can adapt and still meet my goals when I’m not extensively meal prepping and planning. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to be back at the meal prep game and ready to tackle those last 15lbs, but I have more grace for myself when I mess up and I know more concretely that it’s the culmination of all of my habits that produces results.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2M3zGGC
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