After years and years of keeping track of my body composition, losing weight, gaining weight, gaining muscle, adapting my diet according to the change of lifestyle, job, place of living, I learned that losing weight is everything but easy. It's a process, full of ups and downs, never linear and never ending. While all this might sound exhausting (it could be at times) it is also one of the greatest paths to complete self-love and self-acceptance.
First of all to tell something about myself -> I've been overweight most of my childhood, up until I turned 17, where I lost 22kg in the course of 6-8 months with calorie restriction and paleo. Before that, I was struggling with a binge eating disorder, had health issues, and was battling with depression (even though I was young, I did live in a pretty difficult household so I saw food as comfort and my only friend). Since then, to maintain my weight I tried different types of exercises, different diets - LHCF, Keto, Intermittent fasting, Protein diet etc, and after 6 years of this process, irrespective of any specific diet I learned this:
Your body literally doesn't want to change. So, whenever you lose the pounds, no matter the diet, the hunger hormones are going to turn up and your cravings are going to intensify, because your body has been used to the weight you're currently in, and it will refuse to change. That is also the reason why we are supposed to increase weights when lifting - your body loves to adapt to a certain point and it will stay there. In the last two years, as I am closer to my weight goal, every time I try to lose those extra pounds, before my period I get cravings so intense that it's hard to do regular chores. But, that does not mean I should listen to them. It is just how our bodies are made, and it is a completely normal thing to go through. Once you persevere these cravings, your body will adapt to this new way of functioning and the cravings will go away.
Balancing blood sugar levels is crucial. I heard my trainer giving advice to one of the people I work out with that she shouldn't care WHEN she is eating, she should eat whenever she is hungry. While this is true for most people, for overweight people this is the worst advice you can give. Of course you should listen to your body, but what happens when you wake up at 4am hungry af, and start eating without even waking up properly? That's the blood sugar levels talking. Usually, overweight people have disregulated blood sugar levels, which means that your sugar levels are dictating your hunger, and these disregulated blood sugar levels could also affect your hormones even if you aren't overweight, depending on the person, their stress levels etc. Balancing blood sugar levels can be done by eating at the same time every single day, and adding green tea and cinnamon. You'll be blown away from how effective this is. You can also go deeper into this - it's a long term health benefit.
Keep your own food diary. After 6 years, I cannot stress how important taking notes on my food habits was. In the past 6 years I changed 2 universities, 4 jobs, 3 different living places, and probably a thousand of emotional states. Even though nutrition was always one of my priorities, it is hard remembering everything, and even harder to stay on the same diet you were before after all the changes. Also, with time you learn more and more about yourself. For example, in the beginning of my weight loss journey, I really liked sweet stuff like fruits, whole wheat pancakes with some honey, and was completely okay with fitting them into the daily macros. But now, my body is craving a lot more fats - like nuts, seeds, salmon, butter, and don't even feel the need for any pancakes nor sweet stuff. But, having all of these information noted, keeps me accountable of how certain foods affect my mood, weight and cravings. It tells me what once worked and what doesn't, and what could at a certain point. The next time I change my living place, I would know what to expect and what to watch out for.
As I said, dieting is a long and non-linear process, but I am so grateful to have this type of ''struggle'' in my life rather than anything else, because it taught me discipline, it taught me self-love, and it taught me how to quickly adapt more than anything else in my life. If I hadn't had this in my life, I'd probably be a lot less successful in the other areas too. At least that's what I believe truly.
Therefore, YOU - whoever you are, if it seems hard - I won't lie to you, it's the hardest thing I've done and am still doing. But the 'fruits' of these hardships are seen not only in the mirror. Maybe you won't notice it at first, but keep going, you'll get to a place even better than you ever expected.
p.s. this is not a medical advice, only what I've learned through my personal experience, which might be true for some, but not for others. Do you own research and just don't forget to keep going!
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