I stopped tracking my calories daily on the day that COVID was confirmed to have community spread in my state (early March). I was already extremely stressed and this put me over the edge. I still cared about my weight loss, but I couldn’t bother anymore. I half way gave up. I was still tracking a few days a week until my roommate told me she’d tested positive for COVID (end of March). I was pretty sure I was going to gain at least part, if not all of my weight back. I was down from 200 to 155lb at that point.
Despite that set back, and the lack of commitment, and all the stress, I have weighed in for the last few days at under 151lb. How did I lose four pounds..? My goal was to hit 145 by May, obviously that didn’t happen. But I’m really proud of myself for continuing to (slightly) progress despite losing track of myself and my goal.
I think for me, this shows that setting up realistic, sustainable, healthy eating habits will benefit you long term. After you’re done counting, you need to know how to eat at maintenance (unless you plan to count forever, I personally don’t). I thought I’d just been eating near maintenance this whole time, I tried to stay under, but I wasn’t counting. The habits and routines that I set up for eating healthy have been upheld in my time of crisis, and though the rate slowed down drastically, I continued to lose some weight and get closer to my goal.
I think the biggest change I made was taking control over my stress and binge eating. Instead of stuffing my face when I felt stressed and out of control, I used other coping mechanisms to keep myself relaxed. I still ate more ice cream than was “allowed” back during my counting days, but I didn’t let myself eat a pint and a half like I would’ve during my binge eating days.
Please, please focus on sustainability and realism when establishing your new eating patterns. Focus on breaking down those unhealthy habits of binging and stress eating. Set up realistic patterns and goals that can more easily be maintained. Your crisis self will thank you.
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