CW: Disordered eating
Hello everyone! I'm so happy to have found this community, and have gotten a lot of inspiration/motivation from reading people's stories! About me, I'm a 28 year old woman, and I'm 5'3". I was laid off due to COVID-19, and during this quarantine I have decided to use the time to focus on achieving optimal health and working toward some of my fitness goals.
I'm not currently overweight, and I'm actually pretty happy with my body at the moment. However, in the absence of the frenzy of activity that is my usual day-to-day, I am enjoying the process of slimming down, and really focusing on cleaning-up my diet. A bit of context: I have, until very recently, always struggled with my weight. I watched my mom yoyo diet and obsess about her weight. As a result, I internalized a lot of the harmful beliefs and practices she demonstrated. During my early adolescence, like many young women, I would harmfully calorie restrict. I eventually moved past that, only to get on the roller coaster of yo-yo dieting (the least fun roller coaster there is.) This reached its apex in college when I weighed my heaviest, 150lbs. Post-college my approach regulated, and I also switched to a vegan diet which definitely helped me shed some of the extra weight I earned in the dining halls and delis of college. I also began my fitness journey, which started with two years of CrossFit (major game changer, and I totally recommend it if you can go to a safe and supportive gym and are free from injury) and has now evolved to an intuitive personal mix of cardio and bodyweight training.
Even though I've mad a lot of progress with my health and weight-loss journey, there were two things I was absolutely terrified of: scales, and calorie counting. I was one of those people that will ask the nurse not to tell them their weight during a check-up. I thought that because of my issues with disordered eating in the past, having a scale in my house or starting to calorie count would trigger my obsessive and controlling tendencies and cause me to get back on the yo-yo dieting roller coaster...or worse, cause me to relapse into the harmful excessive calorie restriction of my younger days.
Fast forward to the beginning of last month. I did the weight-avoidance routine at the doctor's office during my long overdue yearly check-up. Later I logged on to the patient e-chart system to take a look at my blood test results and what do I accidentally see? My weight: 137lbs. I hadn't weighed myself in three years! Initially I was surprised and disappointed (I thought and hoped I was closer to 130,) but then something altogether unexpected happened; I felt relief. The shame, guilt, and self-hatred that usually came with not seeing the "right" number on the scale wasn't there. Yes, I weighed a little more than I liked, but it was clear that the number on that screen didn't have the same world-obliterating power that it used to.
Mid-March I purchased a scale for the first time in my adult life, and downloaded the LoseIt app. Calorie counting used to rule my life, but now it's kind of fun and is such a helpful tool for making sure I hit my calorie and macro goals. I have cut out most processed food, focusing on whole food with mostly plants. I weigh myself once a week, and it's not that big of a deal. Yesterday was weigh-in day and I lost one pound over the previous week. In the past, 1lb of weight loss in a week would have felt like a failure (traditionally I have been very intense and all-or-nothing, especially as it relates to weight loss,) but now I see it as a sign I'm doing things the right way. My current weight is 132.8lbs, I've lost a little over 4lbs over the past month and I'm really, really proud.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2XVqV5Q
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