Long post, just kind of venting. For context, I’m a 24 year old woman. I grew up with parents who were constantly dieting and constantly losing weight and gaining it back and losing it again. I experienced childhood obesity and got to a healthy weight within months of moving out as an adult by severely undereating. I maintained a healthy weight for about 2 years and then slowly gained 10-15 pounds back. In an effort to lose this I did Whole 30, followed by intuitive eating and not weighing myself because I didn’t want to be imprisoned by dieting and weight loss my whole life and wanted to be truly healthy.
Spoiler alert- I ended up gaining 70 lbs in a year and a half 🥲. I about fainted when I first weighed myself, I knew I had gained weight but assumed it was more like 30lbs-still a lot. I set my mind to stick to a strict regime and lose the weight and then, maybe a month or two later, I found out I was pregnant. I had so much anxiety and guilt. I was terrified of health complications that might arise during pregnancy and terrified that I would cause my baby to struggle with childhood obesity.
It was so hard realizing I had gained so much weight right before pregnancy, because I knew I was only going to gain more weight. I gained weight slowly in the first 2 trimesters, and then by the end had gained 40lbs. 35lbs came off automatically by 6 weeks pp.
ANYWAYS. Through this journey I had to do a lot of soul searching. I want better for my daughter. I want her to grow up with parents who aren’t constantly dieting but rather live a generally healthy lifestyle. I want her to grow up enjoying healthy foods and moving and playing because it makes her feel good. I want her to be able to eat junk food on occasion without feeling guilt or feeling like it controls her. And ultimately, her relationship with food and her body is going to be heavily impacted by what she sees and lives at home. I want her to have a mom who is comfortable in her body because I know that how my mom talked to herself was how I ended up talking to myself.
In the past, I’ve had bad experiences with calorie counting because I would make my goals too extreme and would become weird and obsessive over it, which would in turn would make me obsess over food. Ive been a bit scared to actually try to lose weight because I always gain it back (and more). But I’ve come to the conclusion that even though weight loss is hard, so is being obese. It’s hard noticing that it’s harder for me to move, it’s hard not liking how I fit into clothes and it’s hard feeling like I have no control over myself. I would genuinely rather pick the “hard” route of counting maintenance calories for the rest of my life than continuing to let excess weight control me.
This time around, I’ve been focusing on long term sustainability and this is the longest I’ve ever stuck to calorie counting AND it’s not hard. If I go a bit over on calories sometimes, it’s not that big of a deal because most days I’m in a deficit. There’s no rush to a finish line because this is something I intend on doing forever. If I fall off the wagon (which I have) I’ll just get back on. There’s no consequences, the goal is lifelong health and feeling good about myself. And I’ve found that this shift in mindset has given me SO much peace. I’m actually mindful of what I eat now which makes me feel in control. I can weigh out a snack instead of just eating until I feel like stopping, and if I’m still hungry, get a little more. I’m making slow progress, but I’d rather slow continual progress than just continue to feel victim to my circumstances.
I use cronometer and sync it to my oura ring. I tend to cook large portions and freeze leftovers, and then save recipes in the app so logging calories is super easy, and I like that I can focus on nutritional content too. We’ve also been prioritizing building up our home gym. I have a little calendar by my treadmill and put a gold star on every day I work out 😅.
I know a lot of people aren’t fans of long term calorie counting and different things work for different people. I just wanted to share!
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