Happy cake day to me! It has officially been a year since I made this account, weighed myself for the first time and started counting calories!
I went from 80kg down to 63kg, 17kg lost. I learned so much about health and how to maintain not only good health but so many good habits. Here's some tips.
1) Track your calories. Even if it's in a gentle way. It doesn't have to be completely accurate. What I mean by that is, is that nowadays I still weigh my food, but I round it up to the closest (usually higher) number. Then I just write it down on my note app and leave it at that. Like let's say I cut up a pear and weigh it. It comes out as 100g. I look up the calories for it online, and it's 57kcals. Then I round it up to 60, write it on a noteapp, and that's it. It literally does not need to be harder than that.
2) Exercise. People might not realize, but even going on a walk every evening is enough to keep your body well off. Gentle movement and getting up and doing things is really the corner stone to being able to eat a bit more, not feeling too restricted and keeping your NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) up and running. Adding some youtube workouts or yoga couple of times a week can be really useful for getting your blood flowing. Strength training is super useful, but I personally don't really care about the body altering of it. I have noticed so many physiological benefits from working my core and legs, from being able to walk up hill easier and squatting down to pick things up or even balance thanks to my improved core strength. I aim for 2 times a week of strength training, and it is honestly enough if your goal is just to maintaing strength and have a strong body for every day tasks.
3) Nutrition. After changing to eating mostly whole foods, with loads of fruit and veggies, I was able to start stressing less about only calories and focus more on the quality of my food. I still almost daily indulge on something "unhealthy" (ice cream, pop corn, chocolate) but moderation is seriously key. Other things I did was almost completely cut out red meat, eat vegeterian friendly foods for breakfast and dinner and have some sort of animal protein for dinner, aim 4 servings of fruit and 5 servings of veg a day (it's not that hard when you realize one medium carrot is a serving), 1 serving of beans a day (I literally just make bean brownies and eat two of them, and that's my serving, they're so delicious, moist and easy to make, highly recommend) and a serving of nuts a day. I take omega 3 tablets and d vitamin every day. When you start focusing on the quality of your food rather than just fitting whatever you feel like into your day, suddenly calories really do become more of an after thought.
4) Body image. I have gone through phases of really wanting a flat stomach and nice butt, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with altering your body to your liking, but it became too stressful, so I ended up focusing on what is the healthiest I can be, instead of how my body looked. I looked at my waist to hip ratio, waist size and bmi for guide lines on where to continue. Having an average body has given me so much self love recently, because once you know you're in a healthy place mentally and physically, you know that people who truly love you don't care about that small belly pooch or flabby arms and thighs.
5) Weighing myself. I used to weigh myself every day, multiple times a day, and if you're at that point, consider making a change. I slowly made it only a twice a week thing, then a weekly and now I only weigh myself once a month. The surprising thing was, that I actually finally broke through my plateau when I stopped weighing myself and focused on eating in a satisifying, energizing way and exercising to create the deficit, rather than always cutting out more. My biggest tip to get out of the harmful mentality (for some) of weighing daily, is to get the scale as far away as possible. Out of sight out of mind. Also if it's hard to get you're less likely to want to go through the trouble of actually getting it.
6) Eat enough. I'm begging you. It might feel good to see the scale go down at 1200 calories a day, I know, I was there, but combining weighing only once a month with eating more and creating a deficit via exercise is so important for overall health. Just trust me on this one. It doesn't mean don't have a deficit at all, but it can be as small as 200 calories a day, you'll still see progress with that. And honestly my biggest advice is to get a smart watch (if you're in a place to buy one) to track your calorie burn through out the day to have more leeway on how much you'll eat.
7) Enjoy the process. And really implement habits that last a life time. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, it won't stick. I actually like writing down what I eat nowadays because it gives me a peace of mind to know I'm still withing my calorie limit for the day. It might seem scary to think that you might have to count calories for the rest of your life, but when you realize that it takes 5 minutes before or after a meal to log them out and after that you can relax and not worry for the rest of the time is liberating. Also make exercise a habit, even if it's just a walk after dinner of first thing in the morning, or couple of push ups or crunches every time you use the bathroom, everything helps and you don't have to do a lot to reap the benefits. As long as it's a consitent habit. And you enjoy it. Try new things, biking, hiking, swimming, yoga, gym, rollerblading, skating, dancing around the house, playing exercise games, doing workout challenges on youtube, what ever makes you feel the happy feeling, do it, it's never too little and every step counts towards a life time of maintaining your amazing accomplishment. Remember to enjoy food as well, having a weekly pizza night and enjoying food during holidays doesn't mean you aren't being healthy for the rest 90% of the time. Even having a snack you're craving that day can actually steer of future craving, even if it sounds counter intuitive. Being mindful of every bite of treats that you're enjoying that day seriously helped me enjoy the small portions of my favourite foods. I even learned to only crave a small amount, as too much would be overwhelming and would leave me grossed out. Meditating is also helpful, though I'm only at baby steps with that, so I can't give too much advice on it. KEEP LEARNING. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch youtube videos, keep making sure you're on the know about mental health aspects, learn about others experiences and scientific data on what can help you reach your personal goal.
One more thing I want to say is to keep your mental health in check through the whole journey. If you don't address the reasons you got to where you are/were in the first place you won't see lasting results. And if you ever feel like falling into disordered mindset, talk to someone. I personally believe I had to get a bit obsessive to make it happen, unfortunately, but I never let it get too far. I talked to people close to me and told my struggles and really reflected on what I was doing. Now I'm in a balance of still having it fresh in my mind every day, but never letting it disturb the best life I can have.
Thank you for reading and I hope some of these tips helped you!
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