At New Year's of this year, I found that I could not bear to look at myself anymore, much less to cram my folds and bulges into piles of elasticized fabric. At 262 pounds, I was 38 pounds more than my previous "I will never get this heavy again" mark.
There are any number of reasons why I put on so much weight. Most of it was gradual; I've always been a heavy girl, and it slowly but steadily rose over a number of years. I also went through a fairly severe psychiatric episode, marked by fairly severe self-mutilation, debilitating depression (for the first time in my adult life, I could not will myself out of bed for days, and missed nearly a week of work), and a general listlessness and discord as the war between my brain's chemicals and the ones introduced to it raged on.
One of the key things, I should say, is that in all this turmoil what I instinctively sought most was control. It isn't easy, but... it is something to hold on to, in the midst of chaos.
So far, I've lost 40 pounds. I have a lot more to go, but this is a solid start, to be sure. Being that I live with myself, I don't really see the difference. I have to rely heavily on empirical evidence. Weight. Measurement. And the reactions of those around me.
People-- mostly at work, but elsewhere as well-- remark almost daily regarding my weight. It's flattering, I suppose, though it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't enjoy the attention, even if it is primarily positive. I am asked just as often, "What is your secret?" "What diet are you on?" "What do you eat?" "Atkins/South Beach/Alli/grapefruit/cabbage soup/etc??"
There is something that people have been saying for ever and ever, and it is key: "Eat less; move more."
That's really it.
Everything else is just details to tailor it to your life.
For specifics, here is what has worked for ME---
1) FOOD JOURNAL.
Many diet/fitness/health plans suggest this, and with good reason. One of the most important things you can do for yourself-- and this applies, really, to every area of life-- is to be mindful. Think, for a minute, about what you are doing. Certainly, there are many situations in which there simply is no time to think, and one must react immediately-- lunch is generally not one of them.
When you write down what you eat-- every single thing you put in your mouth-- you don't even have to be on a diet plan to see some behavioral change. Try it out, even just for a day. Eat anything and everything you want, but you have to write it down. In doing so, you have to look at it, think about it, recognize what you have done. Make sure you note down the quantities, too.
I took to using an app on my phone called My Fitness Pal. Basically it is a glamorized food journal. That's its primary function. When you set up an account, however, it takes into consideration your current weight, goal weight, and general activity level. From this it can calculate a goal number of calories to try and eat each day in order to reach your goal weight, based on what it figures you burn by being alive and creating a reasonable deficit. (Side note-- this actually goes both ways, so if you need to gain, it will calculate a surplus).
It has a massive database for calorie counting, and it is partly user generated-- so if you happen to be eating something that has a nutrition facts label on it but doesn't happen to show up in the database, you can still enter it. You can also keep track of any exercise you do, and cardiovascular exercises (for which the 'calories burned' can be reasonably calculated) are figured in. Basically, the more you move, the more you can eat. You make room for dessert, as it were.
So treat yourself! ...But earn it!
2) VIGILANCE.
Many schools of thought say to not weigh yourself every day. This is mostly because it can be rather disappointing, or even self-defeating, to do so. Myself, I need this constant knowledge. I don't only weigh myself every day-- I actually weigh myself several times a day, on three different scales. I try to keep these things consistent: at home, I weigh myself first thing in the morning, wearing only underwear; at work, I weigh myself throughout my workday, wearing my full uniform, with cell phone, no apron; at the gym, I weigh myself before and after working out, in my gym clothes. I even like to weigh myself before and after using the restroom, just to see how much I've left behind (fun fact: my record was 2.4 pounds!). With this, I have a very good understanding of how my weight fluctuates throughout the course of a day, primarily with the intake and loss of fluid and water. I can say with confidence that I can gain and lose up to 5 pounds in one day, just depending on the time of day.
On a monthly basis, I actually take measurements. I work with a personal trainer at my gym (more on that later), and once a month he takes my weight, along with four pinchy-caliper measurements to calculate my body fat percentage. Usually on the same day (or maybe the day after), I do measurements by inches in several parts of my body. This gives me a clear idea of what kind of mass I have lost, and where I have lost it the most.
Sure, most people are happy to be wearing smaller sized clothes-- or just to fit into their existing clothes better-- but for me, it's all about solid evidence. It keeps me going.
3) EXERCISE.
This has always, always been key for me. Most people, when they come down with the flu, they lose weight. They lose it because they are sleeping most of the time and living on a couple of cans of chicken soup for sustenance. It's like the best diet ever!
...Not so for me. When I get sick, I get fat. It happens every single time. I don't eat much because I'm not feeling well; I eat the same crappy condensed soup everyone else does (and perhaps, broth with tortellini). I sleep as much as I'm hazily awake. The thing is... I don't move. Not any more than absolutely necessary. And so, at the very best I might maintain my weight, if not just start to gain it back.
Watching what I eat certainly can't be discounted as somehow less important, but, quite frankly, it sort of is. Move.
It doesn't really matter what kind of moving you do, so long as you do it. I have no interest in sports, nor in having a workout partner, nor do I particularly like being outside. Therefore, I go to the gym. And it's no accident that my gym is close to home-- and directly on my way home from work. No accident at all.
When I joined my gym, they gave me two free sessions with a personal trainer. Pretty much this was to give me an idea of how that could go-- and I went in, full force. I signed up to work with Kyle, and it's been one of the best decisions I ever made. It's not cheap, but not impossibly pricey; I'm at a rate where I work with him just one hour a week, and really, that's enough. I learn so much more from him than I would ever do on my own-- from full body movements to proper posture and form. He's even worked with me to significantly improve my balance; I can do so much more on one foot now than I had previously thought possible, and with relative ease. Plus, all the things we do while "in session," I can do on my own (for the most part, anyhow), so there's no shortage of possibilities when I'm at the gym. And when I don't feel like putting any kind of mental effort into anything, there's always the stationary bike, or the treadmill, or my favorite: the elliptical trainer.
4) DON'T STOP.
There's no finish line in this. Even if I lose all the weight I need to lose, that doesn't mean I don't have to concern myself with my health anymore.
That sounds sort of pessimistic and defeating, but really, that's just how all of life is. For the most part you're not just trying to 'push through' your whole life until you reach the sweet relief of death... right? Chances are good you'll always have bills to pay, and you'll always have to feed yourself, and you'll always have to wash dishes, and you'll always have to get your oil changed... The thing is, you get used to these things; they become routine. It's not that bad, really.
5) NO EXCUSES.
Just that. Sure, some days, I am just too tired from work. Some days I've been on my feet running around a kitchen all day and I still need to get to the grocery store and get home and make dinner and go to bed early because I have to be at work the next day. It happens. Sometimes, I'm actually just too sore from a training session, or perhaps I'm not feeling well, or whatever. Maybe I don't go every single day. That's ok.
But really, short of major illness or injury (or something drastically time-limiting, like working two full-time jobs and raising three children), there isn't much good excuse for not going at least a few times in a week. Sometimes I really, truly, simply, do not want to go. I don't want to get changed into stretchy pants. I don't want to get on that machine. I don't want to be sweaty. To be completely honest, there isn't much about exercise that I enjoy at all.
I don't remember where I first saw it, or maybe someone told it to me, but this little sort-of mantra sticks with me: "Nobody ever said, 'I wish I hadn't gone to the gym today.'"
The first time, I kind of blew it off as just another lackluster motivational-poster-type sayings; as I took a moment to think on it, however, it really touched me. Just think about it. Can you really regret doing something positive for yourself?
While I'm at it, I have to add-- no blame. I am not disabled. I am not bedridden. I am not impaired in some way that makes me unable to care for myself. I, and only I, am responsible for what I eat, and for what I do. It's not anyone else's job to make me eat proper foods-- and in proper portions-- and in proper increments of time. It's no one else's charge to make me take the stairs or walk to the corner market.
It's only me.
And you know, it hasn't been easy, not by a long shot. Losing weight is HARD WORK. Sticking to anything is difficult. If you ask my husband, he can tell you how much it stresses me out. I let him in, now and again, to how my anxiety-ridden and overly analytical mind runs, and he is taken aback and thinks I am ridiculous. Thinking about food, in any capacity, makes me nervous. I am constantly concerned with what I am eating, how much I am eating, how it was prepared, what kind of nutritive value it has, how my body will react to it, how much SALT is in it, how long I have gone between meals, whether I have eaten properly before working out, what I should (if anything) eat after exercise, how many calories are in an ounce of vodka, what foods should be paired together, what is the lowest-calorie food amount that I can eat when I take my calcium supplements so they don't make me sick... The list goes on. It gets to a point, at times, where it strongly resembles an eating disorder. I must, continually, temper all this worry with some leeway to relax, and with concrete guidelines. Remember how I said that I need to know my weight at all times? It sounds neurotic, but the point is, it keeps me grounded in reality. This way, even when my worry-addled emotive mind says "I'm so fat today; I can't eat anything because I'm only getting bigger," I can look at factual measurements and say, "That's not true; you're just feeling off; you're doing fine, so relax." Along the same lines, when I use my food-journaling app, I am trying diligently to not go over my daily caloric allowance-- but I don't want to go very far under, either. Eating too little is just as destructive. If there is anything that must be remembered in all of this, it is that all things in life must be kept in balance.
So there. That's my "secret."
Eat less. Move more.
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