For some history, I've always been pretty good at losing weight. I've also always been pretty good at gaining weight. I love food, and I can happily sit down and eat two or three romaine hearts with no dressing, or an entire pack of white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies from the bakery. I really love to cook, and I get a lot of joy from trying new foods and cuisines from all regions of the world. I have been working on losing weight on and off for about 5 years, started getting more serious about it in January. I'm 5'4", my highest weight was 222 lbs about 5 years ago, which dropped to around 180 when I stopped drinking. I started at 172.2 in January and did good with tracking my calories most of the time, with only a few 'fuck it' weeks here or there where I decided I didn't want to restrict myself, and wanted to enjoy being able to try anything I wanted when going out to eat, or enjoy the deliciousness of an entire order of honey butter croissant from Cheddar's. I can do strick calorie counting for decent periods of time, but I want to keep my weight loss sustainable, and that means also being able to eat without counting calories at times and eating rich calorie laden foods at times, because I don't see the rest of my life being joyful without those options.
So in May, after getting back from a 10 day vacation where I made a conscious choice to not worry and stress about food and eat whatever I wanted, I was up 10lbs and at around 165lbs. I don't regret a moment, it was the first vacation my partner and I have taken in 8 years, and I loved every bite I put in my face and all the cool restaurants we tried. But I have some fitness goals too, and wanted to get my body fat down, get into a healthy weight range, and start doing bulking and cutting cycles to put on some muscle and get to a level of fitness I have never tried before. I like pushing my body and seeing what I can do with it, and right now that involves goals of getting to a sub 15% bodyfat, possibly sub 10%, and then seeing how long it takes to add an extra 10lbs of muscle to my frame with powerlifting.
I decided to start with a 12 week cut, eating around 1300-1500 calories a day, and 120-140grams of protein. And I've stuck to it fairly well. There were a few days that I knew I'd want to be able to eat more, celebrations and potlucks, so I scheduled carb refeeds those days, spaced out every couple weeks, and still kept track of calories and didn't go above maintenance. My rules for myself were 12 whole weeks of meeting my calorie and protein goals daily, carb refeeds scheduled in advance and only once every two weeks at max, and not going above maintenance those days.
Then this week came. This week was busier then any week I've had in years. I am easily overwhelmed and don't often drive long distances, and I need my sleep. This week I got maybe 4 hours a night, I had my clinical shift over the weekend (nursing school), then went to Philadelphia for a wwe payperview which was quite a drive, helped someone move in a last minute emergency, had an intense exam, ran 30 minutes without stopping for the first time, went to an Alice Cooper/Halestorm concert that also involved quite a few hours of driving, had a potluck with a support group I help run, on top of the usual every day stressors of life. It was not a good time to also be stressing about food.
I thought beforehand about trying to plan either the potluck, the concert, or the WWE event, as a refeed day, like I had been doing for special events. I knew I had wanted to commit completely to this 12 week cut and not have unplanned days of eating the world. But that would mean only choosing one day of three back to back events that I really wanted to be able to eat at. Two would have me out of town in places where I had access to restaurants and foods I can't find at home and really wanted to try, and one was a social event where I know I get grumpy if I can't try all the lovely things my people bring. So I made a choice, I decided not to feel like a failure because I didn't keep to my strict 12 week cut with only planned refeeds every couple weeks. I decided to eat the world, put whatever I wanted in my face, and count the calories after. And I consciously chose to not feel guilty for it, that was the hardest choice.
Before this week I was 147.8lbs. I ate the world for three days, somewhere around 3000 calories at least. I was 151.8 the day after the concert. When I got back, it was hard to get back to eating healthy and at a deficit. I absolutely loved being able to indulge in foods that just plain won't fit into my calorie budget right now. I mustered up my resolve and dove back in to my deficit though, and the extra water weight from three days of excess fell back off, and I'm at 147.4 this morning. That's a new low, the lowest I've been in almost a decade! I know that's how this works, that the math adds up, that weight gain from eating in excess is mostly water and only a little fat. But seeing it is the most confirming thing, even though I've seen it many times before. I just am rejoicing in the repeated reinforcement that I can live my life as an unapologetic foodie who indulges at will, while also focusing on health and weight loss and moderation. I can trust myself, I can plan ahead, I can give myself freedom to indulge and then pick up my self control without hesitation. And I finally see that I can maintain this way, I can actually hit a point someday where I can balance eating the world and trying all the lovely foods it has to offer, with eating healthy low calorie options the rest of the time to keep my weight stable, and feel content and not deprived for the rest of my life. That is my real success here, the confirmation of what I knew, but had to really see at this particular moment in time to truly believe.
For the record, I tried two new pastries in China Town that I'd never even heard of, tried rolled ice cream for the first time, and had my first experience of having sushi burritos and onigiri that I hadn't made at home. Plus a delicious mushroom melt with goat cheese and arugula, far too many pralines, and a gratuitous amount of taro boba tea. And the most fantastic cookie dough bars at the potluck which put every cookie I've ever had to shame. It was worth it!
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