Hello! I'm a longtime lurker and wanted to share a recent achievement because I've always found these sort of posts encouraging. I'm a 5"11 female in my mid twenties, from Australia but living in FL :) apologies I'm advance, this got longer than I anticipated.
My weight loss journey has been up and down over the last few years but in February this year I was at my wit's end. I was so in denial I refused to weigh myself, it wasn't until I was testing my blood pressure at a Higi machine at Sam's Club that I saw I'd fallen into the obese range for my BMI. I was going through an extremely stressful time (long story short I moved countries, got married and had no working rights) and was completely unaware of how much weight I had gained.
I started off by looking at my portion sizes but by April I realised it wasn't going to just disappear like that so I started calorie counting (I started at 1800 calories based on my height and weight). I'm not really sure what my weight was at the start of the year but I began weighing myself when I started calorie counting and I was at 219lbs.
It has now been just over 3 months and I'm down 20lbs and under 200lbs!! My BMI is also down to the overweight range. Around June I also started doing daily yoga (before this I did essentially no exercise -I have quite a sedentary job) and I'm feeling so much stronger for it.
I've got regular staple meals now and no longer go for hours on end without eating (some of my go-to meals are below). I don't eat fast food anywhere near as often as I used to and have reignigted my love for cooking!
I know it's not a mind blowing amount of weight but this feels like a big achievement for me and I really have found this community to be so encouraging and supportive!!
For anyone who need some encouragement or advice here's what I've learnt so far:
-Try not to limit yourself to just the "good" foods (unless advised by a doctor), I found if I let myself eat a little more intuitively (like having a bit of chocolate every once in a while) and keep track of my portions/nutrition I find it easier to be accountable and stay on track.
-Have some easy staple meals, I make chicken in the oven (baked at 450F for 20 minutes) with steamed veggies, banana porridge with peanut butter and honey, home made burgers with ground chuck and I even freeze homemade buttermilk pancakes as a quick snack or easy breakfast! It probably helps that I love to cook.
-Take a break from the scale. I had a six weeks plateau at one point around June and it was incredibly disheartening, I found the easiest way to deal with it was to keep tracking and weigh myself weekly or even fortnightly instead of daily.
-Drink as much water as you can, this was something I was useless at before I started tracking what I ate but since then I've been making an effort to drink 8 cups a day and it makes a difference.
-Find an exercise you can genuinely enjoy. As mentioned I'm not an active person by nature (I freelance in illustration) so finding yoga was huge for me because it's a form of exercise that I can do at any time of day and even if I'm struggling during a session I can adjust to what my body can handle. I know yoga isn't for everyone but my husband has the same relationship with Jiu Jitsu and jump rope, whatever works for you!
I hope this helps you find some motivation or some new tricks to get easy healthy meals! I'd also love to know other people's staple meals please and thank you :)
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