This post is sort of me bragging. It's sort of me sharing what I did.
I have, in the last 6 weeks, lost 27 lbs. This sort of weight loss isn't sustainable long term. I'm probably going to see a significant slow down over the next couple weeks, but...
At the end of December, I had this thought. I'm tired of hurting every day that I come home from work. My knees hurt. My back hurt. I work 12 hour shifts of maintenance, and very often, I would get home at the end of my work week, and it took me days to be able to move without pain. Walking up and down stairs always hurt. Squatting was hard, if not impossible. Most workouts hurt me more than I could take. Even walking a short distance, less than 1/4 mile, was a challenge, and after working four days, I would have knee pains for my entire four day weekend.
So I went to the doctor. They told me, of course, what I already knew. I weighed in at the doctor at a nice round 345, and my weight is causing me issues. While 345 is not my lifetime high score for weight, I'm six feet tall, so it is well above a healthy weight. I was already trying to diet, eating less pizza/fast food, less freezer food, and eating more healthy foods. I've struggled with my weight constantly for the last 10 years or so, trying many things to get 'back in shape'. I'm not one for the new diet of the year, but I've tried a lot of 'healthier eating' and 'work out more' plans. They work to some extent for me, but they are often hard to maintain as life changes.
My doctor gave me a bit of practical advice that I'd never heard before, but proved to be useful for about a week. At my weight, I could eat, calorie wise, quite a bit before going over what I needed to eat to maintain healthy weight loss. Counting exact calories is hard, you need a kitchen scale, and a lot of food prep to do it well. So, she suggested this:
Cut down to half a cup of starch/carb foods like rice, potatoes etc. per meal, no more than 3 times per day. Make sure that half your plate is vegies and fruit at every meal.
This seemed pretty simple, and made meal planning a lot easier. I started eating more salad. I went to the physical therapist and got a workout to help strengthen my knees and back and work on flexibility. I generally tried to do the healthy things.
A week later, about a week into January, I got a call. I was, possibly am, pre-diabetic. My A1C was elevated, a 5.7 which is the low end of pre-diabetic diagnosis. She said 'Do what we talked about, but more so. Less carbs, more fruit and veg, more exercise.'
So, I did. I cut Rice and Potatoes way down. I've stopped eating bread most of the time. Tuna salad and crackers became tuna salad on romaine. Burgers are burgers on lettuce. I still occasionally eat bread, or a wrap, or the like. I cut soda from my daily consumption, though it's an occasional treat now. I do eat fruit, but not huge amounts. I try to get enough to get my vitamins in a week.
I got married in December of last year, and my husband has been doing meal prep for me. We've been eating a lot of Indian and the like, just without the rice. We've also been cribbing a lot from Keto recipes. I'm not even close to Keto, my carbs are probably under 200 a day, as close to 100 as we can get them, but I don't obsessively count or anything.
I try to eat at least 5 meals a day. Three of those meals are spinach salads with toppings on them and vinaigrette dressings.
I have cheat days, once every few weeks so far, but honestly, I like the food I'm eating. I love salad, I love Indian food. I even love the Keto food we've tried.
And I've lost 27 lbs. I weighed in this last Wednesday at 318. I've lost a belt size, I've lost a shirt size. I've lost a lot of pain in my knees. Last night, at work, I was up and down from the ground repeatedly, and while my back wasn't thrilled about this, my knees were fine.
I know the speed won't last. But, so far, the diet at least seems like a life change I can sustain. My current target weight is 250, and I expect that to take me at least a year. I might back off slightly on the lowest of low carb stuff once I get down to that weight.
I expect it to take me probably a year to get to that goal. I have celebrations planned for 300 and 275. But, I wanted to brag. And I wanted to share, for anyone who has struggled with weight loss and diets, keep working at it. There's probably something out there that will work for you. Turns out, getting married and having someone else do all my food prep is pretty much what I needed. That, and just finding food that I enjoy, and can eat, and can keep the life change going.
If I had any advice, any point to all this, it's this: Losing weight is hard. Eating changes are hard. Diets suck, exercise hurts, and everything can feel overwhelming. It's easy to feel bad and beat yourself up when you don't diet for a day. Or two. or three. Or a week. Or whatever.
But, every day is a new choice, and a new chance. If last weeks diet, or last months diet, isn't something you can sustain, keep trying to find one you can. If the exercise plan you had was one you can't stick to, keep trying to find one that works for you.
If nothing else works, always remember, no matter how small, the change you will keep doing is always more effective than the change you'll make, and forget. Even if the change is 'I'll eat a bag of vegetables every day', if you can keep to that, it's better than trying to change everything at once, then feeling bad when you can't keep it up.
Anyway. Thanks for listening to me brag and ramble. Here's wishing you all luck on your journeys.
