Hello everyone!
I'm on a point of my journey where I feel like I should share. This and other subreddits have really help me so I give back and I hope this can help someone.
My stats: 26F 161cm (5'28) SW:87.5kg (193lbs) CW:60kg (132lbs) GW:57kg??? (125.5lbs) Desk job
Like many of you, I've never been skinny. I've always been on the higher part of the healthy BMI or the lower over weight part (I only know this because every year when I went to the doctor, she would weight me, otherwise I would never have known or cared). For most of my life, I have been fine with this. I was curvy, accepted my body and kept hearing the we are a "big bones family".
I did a lot of sport growing up (probably more than 15h a week), never worried about what I was eating and thought people who thought about it were crazy. My family had an average mediterranean diet.
Then came university and the first years at a desk job... I stopped doing sports almost immediatly after entering university and I also started drinking a lot more. Every now and then I would join a gym for a few months but it would never last.
As you can imagine, I put on a lot of weight and the worse part is never even noticed it. I remember saying to say to my bf multiple times "yeah I'm not skinny but I'm healthy" and "these stores and their crazy sizes that keep changing makes it so hard to find clothes" (funny how I was blamming the stores for shrinking the clothes and not me gaining weight).
Little by little I started to realised I had gainned weight but in my head I was not super fat, it was just university weight and it would go away once I got settled into a routine at my new job. Oh how ignorant I was. I kept saying to myself that I would lose the weight but never did anything for it.
Then one day, I found this subreddit. I read about CICO and how it worked for other people. I thought this it! This makes sense and this is doable.
I would always hate the diets everyone talks about where you can't eat this or that and would never even imagine how I would be able to keep that up so I didn't even try it.
The next day I talked to my bf. I told him the truth, that eventhough I was healthy I no longer felt ok with my body, that I was ashamed and I felt like I needed a change. This was crazy to admit because I had always had that idea that I didn't need to be skinny and that I should not care about what I eat. Then I explained him my plan, showed him what I found and asked for his help.
On the next day, I weight myself. I had not weight myself in years. I was so suprised. Never would I guess I weight 87.5 kg. I was not overweight, I was obese. I did not felt good but it was ok because I was going to do something about it.
I set a limit of 1400 kcal a day. I started weighting everything I ate. It was mindblowing to discover the amount calories of things that are healthy but not low on calories (I thought healthy meant you could eat a lot of it and it would be ok, I was so clueless).
My bf and I started doing daily walks, small runs and youtube workouts.
I increased the amount of water I drink a day (I'm now a proud hydro homie).
I decided I would only weight myself once a week. I don't like the idea of weighting myself everyday as I never cared about how much I weight and I did not want to obsess over the up and downs. Everyweek I was loosing around 0.75kg (1.65lbs) to a 1kg(2.2lbs) (at first) and then aroung 0.5kg(1.1lbs) a week. It felt amazing, I could wait for saturday morning to get on the scale and see how I did!
I ate whatever I felt like as long as at the end of the day I was under the calories I've set (I'm on 1200kcal now). I love cooking so I was never bored and never had any issue with comming up with new low caloric dishes. I ate cheese, bread, pizza, ice cream whenever I needed and never when crazy obesseing over not being able to eat what I needed that day. I also love baking so instead of eating a big slice, I counted the calories of all the desserts I baked (without crazy substitutions) and ate a small slice that fitted in my day.
Speaking of substitutions, I never went down that path. I wanted this to be sustainable and buying something that cost 30x more that the regular thing would not be financial sustainable.
I carried on counting calories everyday for the first 4 months.
Then I moved to a different country (in the middle of the pandemic) and in the first 3 or 4 weeks I did not count. I did not have my scale and I was staying at someone's house and there was no way I would bother them with my "crazy" new habit. I was nervous but I thought it would be ok, if I increased my weight I would just go carried on with counting calories once I got my own place.
But I didn't!!! I even lost weight without counting calories. It never was suppose to be a diet, it was always about building good habits and making life changes and this pause just proved I had done it. Eventually I got my own place and continued counting calories.
I had a lot more moments like this where I did not count calories like Christmas, vacations and even just going out with friends. It's ok to take breaks and not obsess with the numbers.
With the pandemic and moving countries most of the people in my life spent a few months without seeing me and no one knew I was trying to lose weight (expect my bf, of course). In June, I went back home. The last time most people saw me I was around 77kg (169lbs) and in June I was 63kg(139). And it was awful. The first thing people would comment was my weight loss. I feel like it was the only thing I talked about while being home. Everyone had an opinion on it: what I should be doing, what I was doing wrong, when I should stop. I was too fat before and I'm too skinny now and need to eat more. I can't tell you the amount of jokes about how there isn't food in the new country and if I wanted some money to buy food in the new country as it's probably too expensive and I can't afford and it that's why I lost weight... I felt truly awful, no one had ever comment so much on my body in front of me and it just made me think about what they were probably commenting before (I'll never know).
But there's a silver linning in going back home... When I moved, I brought very little clothes so I wanted to bring most of the things I had left. I started trying my old clothes and nothing fit. The pants that I had left because they were too small and I have been dreamming about rewearing for so long were now too big. Items I had in the back of my closet since before highschool that did not fit but I kept because I liked them so much were also too big. A dress I took to a wedding when I was around 14, it's too big now.
Until this point I had only seen my weight lost on the scale but everytime I looked in the mirror I saw the same body I had always seen. I realised there is probably something wrong with my mind. I did not see the weight creeping up on me and I did not see the weight going away. It was only when I was trying old clothes that I saw how much weight I had put on and how much I had lost. It's insane. I'm still going through this process as I brought clothes that I assume would fit me but just look crazy big on me.
I basically need to buy a whole new closet but haven't yet because I'm still working from home in leggings and I don't want to buy clothes until I've stopped loosing weight. When I do put on something other than leggings, I have to do stupid things like pass the jeans button through the loop that holds the belt to make the waist thighter.
I have been shooping a few times because even my leggings are too big and keep falling. I went from a L/XL to XS/S and probably from a EU44/42 to a EU36/34. I had never in a million years thought I would ever be wearing a XS.
I do miss many things about my previous body... I have no booty now which is very sad. I have saggy boobs and went down on bra size as well (from a 75E(34E) to a 70E(32E)). I guess I have some extra skin and my arms and thighs have a lot of loose skin.
I love that I don't have a double chin, it's my favourite thing. This also took me a long time to notice that it was gone.
So what's next? When do I stop? Will I ever stop counting calories?
I know I'll never look like I want to look, I'll never be a super model... So I'm thinking of 57kg as it's the around the middle of my BMI just because I need to stop somewhere and that's as good place as any other.
I've been reading now about recomping but I'm still very confused. I've recently started doing kickboxing, will this help with tonning?
I've also been on a plateau for about 1 and half months now, I'm stuck at 60kg. Is this too long for plateau? I've tried a week of not counting and then go back to 1200 and I'm still stuck here.
Finnaly, I would just like to say that having someone to support you and someone you can share the achievements with is really important.
My boyfriend is the most amazing person in the world and has been with me since day one. When he cooks dinner, he writes down all the weights in the a white board we have in the kitchen so I can "do the math" later. He asks me about how many calories I have left in the day before offering me ice cream. Sometimes he tells me he feels like eating fastfood but says we won't because we already had takeout this week. He listens to me complain and puts me on the right path when I feel like giving up. And it's not because he wants me to be skinnier, it's because I asked for help, because he is in this with me.
Thank your for "listenning" to my rant and good luck with your journey!!
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