I just wanted to spill some of my thoughts on developing a healthy lifestyle, rather than simply "dieting."
In my early days of trying to lose weight, I had to focus so much on it - I would spend literal hours every day looking through this and other subreddits to keep me in the right headspace. I'm now about 4 months in (and about 26 lbs/15% lighter) and can finally say this really does feel like a change in my lifestyle. I've gotten very used to eating my daily budgeted calories, my IF schedule, near-daily exercise, making tweaks to my meals while I cook for me and my partner, all of it. That's not to say I never have a difficult day, but for the most part all of this stuff is now in the back of my head rather than constantly at the forefront of my thoughts.
I also finally feel like I've come far enough to start learning how to handle occasional social and indulgent eating for the long-term. I've known from the beginning that even if I could successfully lose weight, I never wanted to be that person that can't just enjoy food - I don't want to eat dressing-less salad anytime I'm at a restaurant or skip out on a delicious meal someone else has lovingly prepared for me. I feel lucky that I started my weight loss journey in the dead of winter during a pandemic when I was largely able to hole up and meticulously plan every meal I ate - I worry that if I had tried to go to a party or whatever in that first month I might have had one high-calorie day and then used that as justification to give up. Now that I have grown used to tracking my daily weight and calories, I've proven to myself that CICO works and I understand the daily fluctuations I will see on the scale so I feel much better-equipped to handle eating socially as the weather gets nice and more people are vaccinated.
The past few days have been interesting - Friday a friend unexpectedly wound up in town so we grabbed lunch together, Saturday I went to a family BBQ, and Sunday I was just wiped from the week and my partner wanted to order out. But I was able to be totally up for all of those things, and not even super worried about it because I know now that my weight is a reflection of the sum of my lifestyle, not a handful of meals. Just as 3 isolated days of healthy eating wouldn't have made me lose meaningful weight before, 3 days of enjoying "non-diet" food wasn't going to make me put it all back on either.
Of course I was somewhat thoughtful about my choices this past weekend - I didn't use any of these instances as an excuse to binge, I tried to watch my portions a bit, and I did OMAD each day since I was eating far more calories in a meal than usual (though still permitted myself a healthy evening snack if I was hungry). But I also didn't take the bun off my burger, or skip the beer I really wanted to drink, or stress about tracking everything down to the exact calorie later. I mostly just lived my life, knew I was kind of hitting "pause" on my weight loss but didn't stress about it.
And when all was said and done? I was 147.2 lbs on Thursday, and 147.4 lbs today. There were higher and lower fluctuations in between that I assume were related to water retention. Sure, I could've been losing during that time and instead I delayed my "goal" a little bit - but another goal I have is to eat food that I like, enjoy gathering with loved ones, and sometimes hang on the couch with my partner on a Sunday and order in. For the longest time I thought losing weight and being "thin" would mean giving up stuff like that forever. It sounds ridiculous now, but I really did think that. So I'm posting just to remind everyone that establishing a healthy lifestyle doesn't mean never getting to enjoy food again, and that in fact you may actually enjoy it MORE because it no longer feels like a barrier between you and feeling good about yourself.
Be well everyone!
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3gDDBr9
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