I feel like I need to type this out, not sure if I'll post it yet, but it will most likely be long.
I was always more on the compact/muscly side, which made me incredibly insecure even as a kid. I've also had a completely out of control sweet tooth ever since I can remember (I'm talking sneaking into the kitchen and climbing shelves in the middle of the night as a kid). My mom in particular is a very healthy person though, and I stayed a completely normal weight until I moved out to university, at which point I started slowly but steadily gaining weight, mostly due to my lack of restraint when it comes to candy. Now I'm [F]25, 1.65m (about 5'4'') and currently at 76kg (168lbs). My highest weight was a few months ago at 80kg (176lbs) - I had gone to visit my girlfriend in her home country, which has a lot of incredible food to offer. I don't get to go very often so I didn't hold back, and well.
Over the last 7 years I tried several times to lose the weight, always using CICO, and it never worked. I got tired of counting, would eat things that I didn't log because I had convinced myself that they somehow "didn't count", and always gave up after a few weeks tops, while somehow still being convinced that I was continuing to lose weight (I wasn't). I did stay active and participated in a pretty demanding team sport, which I'm sure is responsible for me not gaining even more weight, but my unhealthy diet and weight also kept me from excelling in this sport, which was extremely frustrating.
Now for the good part: about 18 months ago I moved to a different city for my graduate degree. I was extremely unhappy at first and struggled with debilitating anxiety and sleeping issues, which wasn't great, but prompted me to finally seek treatment for what I am now realising has been a lifelong problem. I am going to therapy and taking medication for my anxiety, and working through a number of self-esteem issues with my therapist, many of which are related to being gay and closeted as a child and teenager.
I am learning to treat myself with respect and kindness, and it has helped immensely with my lifestyle and subsequently my weight loss. I realised that CICO just wasn't for me, because if I wanted to be successful I needed to make changes that I could keep up for the rest of my life, and I could barely keep up with counting calories for a few days in a row. I realised that I needed to fix my relationship with candy, and starting to restrict myself to a candy cheat day once a week, and then every two weeks. It was hard at first, and it's still a struggle to walk past the candy aisle in the supermarket without buying anything, but I can tell that things are shifting. I'm craving candy less and less, and am actually noticing how crappy I feel on my cheat days when I eat lots of it. I go running a few times a week because it helps with my anxiety, and I'm starting to view it as something kind I do for myself rather than a chore I need to get done. I'm thinking about this less as a weight loss period after which I'll go back to "normal", and more as a change I'm making in my life that is healthier and kinder for myself.
I still weigh myself and get excited about a new lowest weight, but I'm just as happy with these non-scale victories and how much happier I am with myself.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/37LFprA
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