For the majority of my life, I was slim, healthy and happy with my body. I'd even go as far as to say I was confident... until I wasn't.
For most of my life, I was very naturally thin. Growing up, my Mum was very health conscious so I would always eat nutritious foods and only had junk/sweets as a rare treat. I was a swimmer and a runner, always active. But as a teenager, the combination of giving up swimming, puberty induced body changes and the independence to make more of my own food choices, I gained a lil weight. Nothing drastic, maybe about 4kg over a period of time. I hated this and became OBSESSED with dieting. I tried it all; low carb, low fat, low salt, dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, atkins, paleo, 5:2, vegan etc. As a teenager, I didn't really know what I was doing and jumped from one diet fad to the next without seeing any results. It slowly became 'just one of those things' and although I wasn't losing weight, I wasn't gaining weight either so I wasn't too bothered and didn't obsess over each diet or my weight/body.
Going to uni and living alone resulted in me struggling a bit with food. For years as a teenager I'd told myself that carbs were bad, then sugar was bad etc - I had a completely black and white/good and bad mindset when it came to food. This, combined with more drinking, partying, the temptation of takeaways, stress eating etc made me gain a further 3kg over 2/3 years. Again, nothing drastic, nothing unhealthy for my height and weight. At 173cm, I went from 56kg as a teenager to 63kg during my late teens/early twenties. I know (and knew) that this wasn't unhealthy, but I couldn't help noticing the way my body had changed and the fat that I had gained. My arms looked chubbier, my stomach was far from flat and toned, and I just felt like I needed to make a change.
Unfortunately, the years of dieting with no success eventually pushed me to eventually lose weight quite drastically with a rather unhealthy approach - which I didn't notice at the time. Because my understanding of food and weight loss were so off, I just took things to the extreme. I'd hardly eat, fast for days, cut out certain food groups, exercise as much as possible... I ended up going from around 65/63kg to 52/51kg in just three months. My flatmates were worried, my family were worried and my friends were worried - but I was just happy that something was finally working! Long story short, when I finished uni I ended up gaining the weight back over the summer while living with family again, as I was unable to get away with keeping up such unhealthy eating habits. Looking back, I am well aware of how awful my eating habits were during my weight loss and I am glad that I did not take things further, that I was unable to take things any further.
However, now that I am in a better place, I still wish to lose a bit of weight but in a HEALTHY way. But with years of dieting and calorie-cutting/counting etc has completely damaged my understanding of how to lose weight. I find myself thinking, 'how does someone lose weight without taking it too far?' I've tried Googling but I've found this only makes things worse, as diet culture is so prevalent in EVERYTHING that it makes me confused. I really want to feel happy with my body again, but without feeling like I have to only eat one tiny meal a day or that I need to go to the gym for three hours a day.
So, in short, if someone could explain to me in a simple way, how can I lose weight healthily? And what can I expect from healthy weight loss? As from experience, I only know 1) struggling with diets and seeing no results, giving up and continuing that cycle OR 2) hardly eating, over-exercising, actually losing weight but also putting my health at risk.
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