Wednesday, December 2, 2020

roughly a year in the rear view mirror - no calorie counting, now heading into maintenance

B&A at the bottom! :-)

Not to be cheesy but I really didn’t think I’d ever make this post. Not because I didn’t think I could do it but the more I’ve been sliding smoothely into maintenance, the less of an accomplishment it seems. But today I accidentally came across my original before picture and didn’t recognize myself.

Since roughly February, I lost a ‘meager’ 8 ish kgs/roughly 18 lbs, which is just a blip on the radar for so many other users on here. To be fair, I am only 4’11, but still. It just stopped seeming like a big deal in the past month that I’ve been hovering around my now lowest weight. Which by the way, I am not today, I was at my lowest weight of 43.1kgs/95lbs on the 7th November, after deep diving into a bottle of red lol

I never counted calories because I have a history of disordered eating and calories used to make me obsessive, keeping that in mind though, that also meant that I still had pretty good muscle memory in terms of roughly knowing what’s in my food and knowing what my TDEE and BMR is. This also meant though that I was bouncing around some weights once or twice, had ups and downs (especially in April) but I think those also come with calorie counting.

My main tools to track my progress were daily weighing + Happy Scale (270 days logged!) and sort of accidental IF/OMAD. During quarantine I mostly only ate dinner or I ate the same dish for lunch and dinner and forgot about breakfast. I made up for this on other days when I was just a bottom less pit though lmao I started a new job in August and have been making salads or dinner leftovers my usual lunch. I never liked salads and never believed they made you full but here we are, those micro nutrients get you!

In the end however, my main goal besides weight loss was mostly just getting back in touch with my gut and my intuition. I was a lanky kid up until middle school to the point that my mom was constantly worrying about me slipping into the underweight category because I was too twitchy to sit through a meal, then puberty made me a bit softer, then I slipped into disordered eating and after school I just packed on the pounds until I was at my highest weight. I shed the chunk that put me into the overweight category through just cooking more at home a couple years ago, but after all I kept sticking around 52-53kgs/114-116kgs (as seen in my before) and I was just uncomfortable. That was always my ‘chubby’ weight, even in my teens and I didn’t like it. Never did, never will. It made me feel stuffy, I hated how clothes looked and my self worth is hanging by a thread as it is. So, I really didn’t like it.

But most of all I didn’t like the way I shoveled food into myself. My partner still jokes to this day that one of his favorite memories of me is the one time I was sitting in bed with fries in both hands, unable to decide which ones I wanted to eat first because I wanted them ALL. I can laugh about it now because I totally zone out when I eat something I’m excited about (because food excites me) and I get why he found it kinda cute, but that’s not healthy. And that’s not how I want to eat every meal.

So what did I do?

Most of all I got my portions under control. I still eat whatever I like but I make substitutions at times, watch how much of something I eat, I track my menstrual cycle and know that when I’m ovulating I’m unstoppable around snacks and I just try to get in more vegetables. Besides that, I went vegetarian 3 months ago, then vegan 1 month ago. (Not for weight loss)

So, long story short: remember that your stomach is or should be the size of two of your fists or something. (That’s the rule I went by when looking at my portions.) Check in with your fullness while you eat, drink water and make smart choices. Whether that means eating those cookies right now so you don’t go nuts or opting for the leafy greens so you stay full is totally up to you, your day and your goals.

One last thing because that scared me whenever I tried to break my over excitement around food: you don’t have to be afraid of food staying an emotional matter. That’s valid and food is a love language to me, just as long as it’s not your only source of comfort and expressing love.

I’m 23F, 4’11/150cm “tall” and started the year at 52kgs/114lbs. Today I am 44.2kgs/97.4lbs (a little bloated too lol)

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