30F, 5"6. SW: 184.7, CW: 161.6
For context, I was always slim growing up then experienced the lifestyle creep from 2018/2019 onwards. I actually wished to be curvier so didn’t mind the slight weight I’d gradually put on, weighing 145lbs at the end of 2019. But 15 months into the pandemic, I returned to work weighing 166lbs and none of my office clothes fit!
I didn’t know a thing about losing weight and had very negative perceptions of diet culture, partly because I took for granted how slim I’d always been and could afford to not be so conscious of my weight, but mainly because I’d witnessed someone very dear to me suffer through an eating disorder and only saw dieting in the context of something very painful. I researched CICO and tentatively dipped my toes into calorie counting and portion control, saw results over 6 weeks (about 1lb per week loss), but this was contingent on my temporarily freer work schedule and all the habits I’d built fell apart when I returned to full-time work with a longer commute. This was at the end of 2021.
I vowed to lose the weight in 2022, which ended up being a pretty awful year. I experienced a storm of health issues (primarily severe IBS and the return of a debilitating skin condition, which has thankfully been treated and resolved for now), as well as a bereavement in my family, and ended the year just under 185lbs.
I felt so defeated and like a stranger to my own body, but I was committed to losing the weight as gently and kindly to myself as possible - my body had been through so much that year, I didn’t want to abuse it further with extreme restriction, nor did I want to lose too much too soon and just rebound back harder. Plus I know myself! I love eating, I had no desire to feel hungry or give up anything I enjoyed! Rather, I told myself that any small change is better than nothing, and the slower, gentler, and more sustainable, the better. Here are the things that helped me!
- Realistic calorie restriction. Rather than plugging my height and activity levels into an online calculator, I instead tracked everything I ate without judgement or intentional change to my diet for three weeks (including my period, when my appetite naturally fluctuates), and calculated my average calorie intake from that. I found this a more accurate reflection of my starting point, personalised to my actual life. I discovered I was eating an average of 2,800-3,000 calories a day.
Instead of dropping this by 500+ calories per week as typically advised, I decided to only drop about 100-200 calories, because the thought of having to give up any more frightened me - I despised feeling hungry! And then once I felt like that new lower intake was a breeze, and easy to manage, I dropped by another 100-200 calories, and carried on. Sometimes it took weeks to feel satiated at the new lower intake, and I know the difference may seem negligible! But now, a year on, I’m eating an average of 1000 calories less (1800-2000 per day), and by gradually adjusting my intake, my appetite adjusted with it, and I can sincerely say I never felt significantly hungry or like I was missing out by allowing myself to nudge my intake down slowly.
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Create a calorie bank. I found tracking exhausting at first. To quieten the noise, I made a record of the staples I eat regularly - basmati rice, baby new potatos, pasta, yogurt, cheddar, etc. - and weighed out the serving I usually eyeball myself. Then I noted the calories for this serving. Of course this isn't exact if you're looking to track calories right down to decimal places! But I just wanted to get a sense of how much I was eating, and my goals aren't so specific I couldn't spare the approximation. Instead of having to bust out the scale and tentatively add spoonfuls to my plate every meal, I could just tell myself, "cool, I usually put about this much on my plate which is [X] calories". I do still weigh things occasionally, and almost always more calorie-dense foods where the margin of error is much higher. But for gentle portion control, this was a huge help for me.
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Identify habits and patterns, not just numbers. I’d been tracking what I ate every day for a few months, and couldn’t figure out why I’d suddenly always binge in the early evening, throwing everything off track. Then I realised: I’d eat a hearty lunch, wouldn’t feel hungry as I left work, so proud for not eating again, but by the end of my commute I’d be ravenous! So hungry that I didn’t have the energy to discern low or high calorie foods, I just wanted anything fast! Once I identified this, I started having a snack just before I left work. It tided me over well, and was less calories consumed overall than if I’d let myself get hungry and then grabbed the first available thing (usually high-calorie, unsatisfying foods). Yes, tracking calories helped, but I had to understand how they best distributed through my day, and how those numbers applied to my life and routines.
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Perfection is the enemy of progress. My mantra for weight loss has been, “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”. I know that’s funny, and easy to misinterpret - please don’t injure or harm yourself! I just mean to not sweat the small stuff. If putting a bit of cheese on your broccoli gets you to eat broccoli, great. You probably won’t need the cheese forever! I cut my calories slowly because I found restriction so overwhelming…but I still cut them, and hey, that’s something. I used to get a large burger and fries for lunch. After a while, I started having a smaller burger with medium fries to satisfy my craving, with some fruit for dessert. Then a burger, small fries, and larger salad and serving of fruit. Is that “perfect”? Maybe not. But it’s less calories and more fibre than where I was!
Yes I could probably eat a lot more protein and I plan to this year. But if I started my journey obsessing over protein intake, a perfect 8hr sleep every night, flawlessly balanced meals…I would’ve burnt out within a week! Every small positive change you make is better than nothing, and I learned to prioritise what I actually had the capacity to take on. Those things will come in time, when you’re ready to implement them. I couldn’t have jumped from the large burger and fries to the salad and fruit in one day. It took time, and giving myself permission to not be perfect, to make the improvement after all.
- Diet tips are tools, not rules. “Don’t drink your calories”, “nuts will ruin your progress, they’re so calorie-dense!”, blah blah blah. There are infinite declarations about how to successfully lose weight, but I found it was much more helpful to think of them as tools in my diet arsenal, ready to implement when necessary, rather than hard and fast rules I had to permanently box my whole diet into. I love boba and enjoy it more than pizza - I don’t care that I’m using up to a quarter of my daily calorie intake on a drink when I have it as a rare special treat, even if someone else may get more satisfaction from the treat of a solid pizza.
But if I’m going out to my friend’s birthday dinner, I’ll treat myself to the boba another day because I’d rather splurge on the dinner with her, and the drink will still be there tomorrow. Sure nuts are super calorie dense, but they’re great for my skin and hair and heart. I’ll just be mindful how I include these things in my diet, rather than scaring myself into cutting out everything that makes me happy, or has health benefits but isn’t low-calorie enough to be “acceptable”. I decide what’s acceptable, not a stranger with a completely different set of experiences, commitments, tastebuds, dietary inclinations, lifestyle habits, etc.
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If it’s not delicious, do it differently. The most fun part of this year has been committing to trying new recipes for nutritious foods I didn’t usually eat. I thought I didn’t like mackerel until I made fishcakes with them, with potatoes and chilli and ginger. A big tip is to experiment making typically sweet foods savoury, and vice versa. It’s common in India to sprinkle salty, spicy, zesty chaat masala on fruit, and it’s delicious! I usually have carrots as a savoury dinner time side dish, but I’ve loved grating them with cinnamon and nutmeg and dates into “carrot cake” oatmeal. How do other cultures prepare nutritious foods in a way you’ve never tried? The more variety in how you can eat something, the more options you give yourself to incorporate it into your diet. And these foods tend to be lower in calories, or at least keep you satiated.
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Find food storage that works for you. Packed lunches are usually just as satisfying as takeaway lunches for far less calories and often more nutrition, but it’s so much harder without a good lunchbox! It sounds trivial but it made all the difference to sticking with home-packed lunches for me. Maybe you need a great leak-proof thermos because you enjoy vegetable-packed noodles in broth, or a lunchbox with taller dimensions because you like toppings assembled on a baked potato that you don’t want to smush with a lid. Maybe you’d enjoy a lunchbox with compartments so your favourite sandwich doesn’t go soggy because your chopped salad or fruit is kept separate from the bread. Good food storage makes packing lunch so much easier and more enjoyable.
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You don’t like what you don’t like and that’s fine. Maybe a bit contradictory to #5, but sometimes you just have to accept that a “healthier” food isn’t for you. Chickpeas are a nightmare for my IBS. I don’t like the taste of red bell peppers. I don’t find salads, no matter how delicious, a satisfying lunch at work in my chilly office in winter. The sooner you cut your losses instead of forcing yourself to enjoy what you just don’t, the more enjoyable your overall diet will be, and the less resentful you’ll feel towards your weight loss journey.
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Reliable snacks on deck. I love snacks, I’m a snacker, no signs of slowing down! It’s been really helpful for me to identify low-calorie and/or satisfying snacks I like, and make sure those are available. I particularly like dietician and youtuber Abbey Sharp’s “hunger-crushing combo” method where she advises combining protein, fibre, and (healthy) fats (or adding these elements to less nutritious snacks), to make an overall more balanced and satiating food option. Yes it’s adding more calories in the moment, but overall it’s fewer calories than I’d eat if I just ate the sweets alone and then binged later because I was still hungry! I love crackers with pickles and cheddar, and picking on a combination of leftover sweet veg (butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots), turkey chorizo, and roast chestnuts. I also like the mantra, “something you want, and something you need” - I want the chocolate, but I’ll have an orange too. I want the tortilla chips and dip, but I’ll maybe take a few less and have some cucumber sticks as well.
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Keep the lowest-effort option up your sleeve. At my lowest mentally, there were day, sometimes weeks on end where I struggled to get out of bed or do the bare minimum of taking care of myself. The smallest actions felt impossible. I’m in a better place overall, thankfully, but I still get off days, or just plain circumstance can get in the way - train delays that get me home from work late and exhausted, for example. It’s really helpful to identify the most minimal effort healthy options for your personal low-points, and have those around.
I like bananas because I can just grab, peel and eat, where sometimes even washing grapes and finding a bowl feels too heavy. Sometimes I’m doing great and will make an elaborate roasted veg side dish. Other days I only have the energy for chucking some frozen peas in a bowl, popping in the microwave, and sprinkling with garlic salt. Or just munching on a cucumber without chopping it! Don’t sweat it. If you can relate and sometimes have a great day where you feel a surge of energy, and you do cook a lovely, nutritious meal, try cooking extra and freezing specifically for when you feel low later on. Then you have a healthy home-cooked ready meal that you know you enjoy, and is faster to reheat than it takes a takeaway to arrive! Too depleted to make a sandwich? Who says you can't nibble on some bread, a couple slices of cheese and ham straight from the packet, and salad leaves from the bag? You're doing great.
- Your body is always worth amazement, respect, and joy. When I was much slimmer, I wished I had the boobs and butt I gained at my peak weight. I gave great, soft hugs, and I finally fit the cool dress I accidentally bought a couple sizes too big and never got round to returning! No, it wasn’t all worth the discomfort and out-of-breath feeling, or my increased health risks, so I decided to lose weight. But finding things to like about my new body made the process more fun than just hating myself all the way through changing it. The journey is hard enough, why make it harder by bullying yourself? Allow yourself to have fun and wear beautiful clothes and enjoy yourself, because you deserve to. Otherwise you just set yourself up for the mental anguish of putting even more pressure on yourself to be happier when you reach your goal weight, which may not be the case if you’ve not learned to accept the joy you deserve irrespective of your appearance. I got to experience having a different body, and that’s really cool. It’s allowed me to have more understanding and empathy for people of different sizes, where I was admittedly much more ignorant about the experience of struggling with weight and health before. Finding positives don’t magic the calories away, but it makes the journey easier.
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Thank you to everyone who’s read all of this. I haven’t hit my goal yet - I’d like to ideally reach my pre-pandemic weight at least, and I think I’ve made good progress. I started this year thinking it would be impossible. I never would’ve imagined I’d see anything lower than 180 on the scale, as I struggled so much with it stagnating after my illness. But I’m proud of what I’ve achieved this year and I hope there’s at least one person who feels encouraged to be kind to themselves during their journey, and know it doesn’t have to be awful!
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