Hello, everyone!
I've been following this community since I started my weight loss journey back in January, but, as an introvert with severe self-esteem issues (that I'm working on), I was a tad too ashamed to share anything, myself. As they say, though, better late than never, so I thought I could share my story here and ask for a few tips and words of encouragement, as I'm feeling quite down today.
I've struggled with my weight since I was a little girl. I remember the first time they put me on a diet I was around nine years old. To make a long story short, I have never eaten too much junk food, but I was consistently overeating as a shorter female. I also did have some "sins" I'd overindulge in while hardly noticing it, such as cheese or nuts. I was (and still am) incredibly bad at eyeballing my portions, which is why weighing everything religiously and applying CICO to the best of my abilities has been the ultimate gamechanger for me.
While I had always been chubby, I had never actually been considered obese, barring a short period (around three months?) when my hormones went out of control as a teen. And then, as life will have it, the stars aligned wickedly and I ballooned up to almost 80 kilos (to be precise, 174 lbs for our imperial-system friends). First off, I had a really bad break-up that absolutely crushed me (and yes, I did eat quite a fraction of my anxiety away and stopped working out, and will forever be ashamed of it); then I adopted an almost completely sedentary lifestyle whilst completing a Ph. D. - it was in the humanities, so most of it consisted of reading books and writing my thesis off the top of my head, no real need to visit laboratories, do fieldwork or anything... I would hit the odd library or archive, but that's about it. And it was actually worse for my figure, as it implied international travel, leading to indulging in the local cuisines and meeting up with friends for beer/food/ice cream (whyever is socialising so tightly tied to food, anyway?). Of course, I really wanted to get back on track once I defended my dissertation... And then the pandemic hit. I shall now admit that I am an oversensitive person, so the constant flux of news about the ill and deceased hit my mental health hard. I was anxious, depressed, trapped in a not-so-big apartment with four more people in my family (oh, yeah, I also went back to live with my parents when I was struggling to find a job in academia, which was brilliant for my mental health /s), and the only thing I had to look forward to was Netflix and chill binge.
Everything began to improve once the harshest pandemic restrictions were over (didn't it for everyone?), but I was in denial about my weight by then. I was fat. I knew I was fat. But I refused to accept this fact of life and carried on miserably trying to squeeze into my pre-COVID clothes. I am not proud of having worn down the inner thighs of my then favourite jeans and even torn a couple of trousers :( Anyway, I started going to the gym again (which actually led to me overestimating my burnt calories and overeating, sadly), and found my first job in my field (!), which was almost as huge as I was by then. It was thanks to the job that I got my health back on track, though - I had to go through a medical check before I started and the nurse actually scolded me: "you have excellent health right now, but it won't be long until your weight starts destroying it". I was obese.
I immediately downloaded MyFitnessPal, which gave me a 1200-calory limit to follow, not much later I began weighing my food before setting it on my plate and playing with my macros in the app... And the rest is history. I also upped my game at the gym (which became easier and more satisfying by the day as I kept losing) thanks to the help of my younger brother, who has become a handsome, muscular man after being chubby up to the end of his adolescence, just like I have been. This activity actually strengthened our bond even more, and I associated the gym with one of my most dearly beloved people in the world, so it soon became one of the highlights of my days. In the meantime, I also found an SO, landed my absolute dream job at a different university abroad, and actually just moved to that country a couple of weeks before I actually start teaching. I actually love my new diet (even though I'm looking forward to maintenance when I'll up my calories up a tiny bit and indulge/splurge rarely) and my exercise routine, and I understand that, being in the healthy weight range with all of these good things going on for me, I must look pretty put together to many people. But I have my struggles.
Why am I feeling down if everything is going so well, you might ask? To be completely fair, just writing this out has made me feel a whole lot better, but I'd still like to share what actually "got" me today, and still ask for some kind words of encouragement and maybe a bit of advice. Thing is, I'm an "all or nothing" type of person in almost everything I do. I know this kind of categorical thinking can be cumbersome and downright impractical, and I try to be more flexible when I can, but I haven't been able to make many allowances with my diet. Since I started, I decided to exclude (added) sugar as much as I could, and try not to "cheat" much, since, let's be truthful, I was impatient to see some results. I can count my cheat meals on one hand - a slice of carrot cake on my birthday, one chocolate sweet from a box that my boyfriend brought me from abroad, one dinner out at a Greek restaurant (high school reunion), and a kebab from my favourite place that I ordered the day I moved out of my country. This has been it since January, and none of these things has put me out of my calory allowance, so I'd say I've done pretty well. I also like being in control of when I cheat, as it allows me to enjoy these meals and be on top of the possible slowing of my progress.
What happened today was a very small thing, and I guess it could be attributed to me being nervous before my job starts (it's a lot of responsibility as well), but it still has me a little worried: the boyfriend and I went out for a long walk (we actually did 16K steps according to my smartwatch thingy), then decided to sit down at a café for a drink. I ordered an iced tea (because I didn't want to drink calories), he asked for a coffee. Wanting to be a gentleman (lol), he asked me to sit down and he'd bring the drinks. We began drinking, and I took two sips of my tea before I realised that it had sugar. I didn't want to have any sugar, hadn't planned for it, and actually like my tea unsweetened (I drank it that way even at my heaviest when I wasn't dieting at all), and... I don't know, I panicked. It made me very upset. I realise I'm going to sound overly dramatic, but, in that moment, I felt like the universe was out to get me, like it *wants* me to get fat again and will give me sugar to drink even if I don't want it. I was there low-key freaking out, and my SO went and asked if my drink had sugar, to which the waitress said, "yes, of course! Is it too little? Should I bring some more?" Yeah, no, thank you. The weirdest thing is that he was asked if he wanted sugar in his drink, but mine was sweetened just because. I ended up ordering another drink (black tea, NO sugar, it was overdone and tasted like rubbish, actually), but have been sad all day after, somehow.
Now, I guess a spoonful (tops?) of sugar isn't going to make much of a difference at the end of the day (is it? Can I do anything to compensate? Should I?), but I feel tricked out of a good day and it's really bringing me down. Any tips?
P. S. Thank you so much to everyone who posts here, I come back constantly for inspiration and am exhilarated to be a new member now!
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