Monday, June 29, 2020

NSV - I started focusing on my health, not my looks, and suddenly my too-small dresses fit

Hi all!

I just wanted to share an NSV that surprised me today. Like many of you, I’ve tried and failed many times to lose the weight that has piled on over the years. After college, I started gaining a steady 4 lbs/year due to an office job and no exercise + all the delivery I could order, until I was ~40+ heavier and just entering obesity territory. As a 5’1” shorty, it was much more noticeable on me than most, and I just weighed myself last month at 166, my heaviest ever.

I liked to tell myself that I carried my weight well, and since I could still fit into petite sizes, smalls, and mediums (despite hugging and puffing over the zippers and sometimes feeling like 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb sack), I told myself it was fine, I was just “thicc.” So, I got a big promotion last summer and ordered myself a bunch of size 6 Anthropologie dresses as a treat. Y’all, I could not fit into a single one: some I couldn’t even shimmy up my hips, and none came even close to buttoning or zipping. I was so ashamed, I didn’t even return them, I just hid them in my closet.

Recently, I decided to make a change: instead of focusing on weight loss for my figure and good looks (still a +, tho), I decided to do it for my health. I wanted to become strong again, I wanted to lower my resting HR and be able to do crow pose in Yoga again. I bought myself a good mat, booted up Yoga with Adriene and Fightmaster Yoga HIIT on YouTube, and did two every day, without excuses. I also downloaded My Fitness Pal and shot for 1,300 cal a day, since I was doing about an hour of cardio and strength work + 10,000 steps a day.

Yesterday, after one month, I finally did it: I was able to hold an unmodified crow pose with my feet balanced off the floor for around 5 seconds! I was so proud of myself that I almost cried. This morning, I pulled out one of those old, untouched dresses from the “shame corner” in my closet on a whim, and dear reader: it not only shimmied up my thighs but zipped up with room to spare. It FIT. And so did the other two.

I have a serious history of disordered eating, so most of my progress will be determined by fitness and clothes fit goals. I can’t tell you the exact poundage I lost, or the macros I eat (lots of shirataki noodles tho). But I can tell you how absolutely radiant I felt as sweat poured off my brow and my arms shook like reeds while I lifted up my strong, deserving body for 5 seconds last night in bakasana. And I can tell you how worth it all the hard work was, and how worth it all the hard work will be to come.

submitted by /u/ladyjerry
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3ikggcL

No comments:

Post a Comment