Hi! I wanted to check in with this subreddit that I have thoroughly enjoyed lurking in each day as I preserve my motivation to keep going. This morning, I’m exactly a month into what I hope will be a lifelong change. In the last month I’ve lost exactly 6.6kgs (15 lbs). My life has changed drastically for the better since I began to adopt different eating habits and to exercise regularly. Although I feel like I’ve learnt a lot about myself, my body and weight loss in the process, I’m sure there’s a lot more for me to learn as I begin to navigate month 2. My main motivation to lose weight might be a little unusual - I’m most of the way through my second year of university studying anatomy and embryology; I will be applying to medical school next year. Earlier this year, I finished accruing all the necessary academic credentials to get myself the coveted final step interview at my target medical schools. That interview will take place in late July 2020, a little under a year from now. It is my sincere hope that when that day arrives, I won’t need to consider the negative biases that comes with my being overweight. There are already enough uncontrollable things that don’t work in my favour in an interview setting - for one, my blatant “gay voice” and concomitant gesticulations usually gets me classified as a ditsy queen who couldn’t possibly perform a surgery let alone apply a band-aid - I can and should work on things I can control.
My strategy thus far has been cookie-cutter: I do 16/8 IF each day and 18/6 wherever possible. I track my calories in MFP shooting for anywhere in the 1500-1800kcal range, I wear a fit-bit to monitor my daily movement and do weights 3-4 times a week to try and preserve fat free mass. This isn’t my first rodeo at any of these strategies but I can confidently say the difference this time has been an overwhelming well of motivation. In addition, I’ve tried to apply endless random details from uni lectures to my dietary intake - this degree has to be useful for something right?
My findings and realisations thus far:
- It is okay if today is not a perfect day. This month my best friend was in town for the first time in a year, we went out to eat and drink alcohol quite a few times. I did a debating tournament one weekend where I ate chips, ice cream and pizza. I didn’t exercise at all one week because my partner was out of town. I still lost quite a bit weight over the month. I’m not saying that it’s perfectly okay to routinely have bad habits nor am I suggesting to pencil in regular cheat days. My main feeling is that as long as you don’t go absolutely crazy on those random social occasions and otherwise do really well with diet and calorie tracking when you have those “ordinary” days, that is basically A OK. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the goal should never be to have no social life.
- Weight loss is effective self care in almost every way. Exercising genuinely elevates my mood. I feel better for having eaten veggies with fibres and fruits with vitamins and other micronutrients. I am less bloated and more sharp in those dreaded morning labs. I smile more because I’m doing something for myself. This month, I felt empowered to start a really exciting new relationship. More than even that, because I’m losing weight, I feel like I have more of a buy-in to my own appearance. Things like skin care and assessing which of my clothes look better than others never went through my head before, but are becoming important parts of my daily routine.
- It’s okay to make big changes but staggering them is perhaps most effective. In the first week, I tried to eat under my maintenance but was still eating calorie-dense foods that didn’t fill me up like peanut butter sandwiches. In the second week, I started to eat more veggies and nuts, in the third week I tried to eat less red meat and more poultry, and in the fourth week I started intermittently fasting in earnest. I hope to add things like yoghurt, salmon and avocados (foods I don’t eat) to my diet soon. I hope to start C25K in the coming weeks to supplement my weight training and to reduce my resting heart rate. Surely if I had implemented all these changes initially it would have been overwhelming but taking them one by one and getting used to each one is important if this is ever to be a lifestyle change.
- Talking helps. This is perhaps more personal because I know lots of people try to keep their weight loss journeys as private as possible but for me, talking about it with my friends and family has been important. It continues to keep my motivation high and I feel like I have many people behind me, willing me to succeed.
Hope this meets the criteria of being a helpful post. I’m keeping progress photos and a whole lot of statistics but I’m hoping to save those for a later post. Keep on keeping on everybody :)
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