Stats: 5'2, 37F, 141 --> 110ish
Tale as old as time: I had some babies and took a long hiatus from my love of running, and as a result, gained a bunch of weight, especially after Kid #2.
Some takeaways:
1) Start small. You always set yourself up for failure if you jump in and try to workout every day for an hour and overhaul your diet. Pick one thing and just focus on making that change - whether it's working out for 10 minutes, 3x a week (what I started with), or swapping out your afternoon chips for carrots. Even now, if I'm not feeling a workout, I'll tell myself to just do 10 minutes - and inevitably, I just do the whole workout because I've built the momentum.
2) Get rid of all-or-nothing thinking. Someone once said to me, if you found a flat tire on your car, would you slash the other 3 tires? It used to be that if I ate a cookie or donut, I would immediately say fuck it, and spiral into blowing the entire day. Now I build a lot more flexibility into my diet and also don't stress about it too much, and just get back on track the next day. I live and die by the 80/20 rule, which means 80% of my diet is whole foods (vegetables, lean protein, fruit, complex carbs, healthy fats, etc.) but I live in a large city and there are SO many good restaurants and cafes all around, and there is just no way I am giving up my donuts.
3) It's been said here before, but weight loss is NOT linear. Don't miss the forest for the trees. If you take a narrow snapshot of my progress, it looks like this. If you zoom out, it looks like this. Your weight will fluctuate, you will plateau. It's NORMAL. Stick with it.
4) Move more. I know for pure weight loss, you don't need to exercise. But it's SOOOOOOO good for you. It helped me tremendously mentally, in feeling strong, feeling capable, feeling good about my body. I feel so grateful for the privilege to be able to move my body freely the way I want to, to have the energy and strength to smoke my kids in a footrace and chase them around the park. Having athletic goals (i.e. be able to do 10 pushups or 5 pull-ups or run a certain mileage or pace) helped me take the focus off every single calorie and the number on the scale, and more on how I was/am feeling and how my body is performing.
5) It's not a race. You don't get a medal for losing weight any faster. The only thing waiting for you at the end of this journey is the reality that you're going to have to maintain whatever you were doing FOREVER (with the addition of a few extra calories). You don't hit your goal weight and then go back to your old habits and old life. So whatever you are doing to get there, make sure it's sustainable for the rest of your life. It took me almost an entire year and a half to lose 30 pounds.
Right now, I'm maintaining and I've stopped tracking calories. I eat when I'm hungry, I try to eat whole foods and prioritize protein, but sometimes I'll smash a pint of Ben & Jerry's at night. I'd estimate that I'm probably eating around 1900-2200 daily, probably a bit more on the weekends since that's usually when we eat out or get takeout. As with all the other progress posts here, I'm not special and there's no reason anyone else can't do this, but it's not glamorous and there's no secret sauce, it's boring and tedious and you just have to put your head down and grind it out.
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