The other day a friend emailed
me to ask what motivated me to finally lose weight. I feel like all I do on
social media is talk about weight loss. Well, that and eating cake. Yeah, those
things don't go together, but there you have it. But I digress...
This friend wasn't looking for a magic pill or wave of a wand, but really wanted to know what changed mentally to help me start to change physically. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s how it had to happen for me. Something flipped in my brain and said, “Enough!” and I knew I had to start helping myself to heal and get healthy. Yeah. Heal. That’s a biggie it seems. I’m not sure I ever really realized a lot of what my weight was about, but I have a tad more wisdom now, for whatever it’s worth to the world.
It started at my 25th high school reunion in October 2014, when I saw pictures of myself and how bad I looked. I never realized just how big I'd gotten until then. I was in denial. I struggled for a while after that because I don't have great self-control at all - hence all the cake I eat all the time - and needed something to hold me accountable. When left to my own devices, I do tend to go off the rails.
In January 2015, I heard about a research study taking place at the University of South Carolina about the effects of sleep deprivation on weight loss and quickly signed up to participate. Since they expected you to lose some weight each week and made us track all food intake in a journal that we turned in (which really just showed calorie intake and they had given us a specific amount of calories we could eat on a certain number of days per week) then I was accountable to someone to stay on track. If I wasn’t losing weight, they were going to sit me down and ask why and I didn’t want that. I wanted to push forward for myself and so that I didn’t let them down. I was the 2nd participant to complete the study and, based on some conversations with the person running it, one of the more compliant. I didn’t complain (which is shocking for me since I complain all the time about basically everything), I lost weight every week (about 1-2 pounds which is how you want to do it), and did everything they asked of me.
When the study ended, I had lost around 20 pounds, which was 50% of the goal I’d set for myself. I didn’t set out to lose 40 pounds, but to get to a specific number, which was 175 pounds. I started at 218 and 175 seemed like a good number. Today the scales registered 173.6 which is the first time in a year that I’ve gotten to or below my goal weight! I’m pretty excited about that. Unfortunately, my standard way to celebrate is wanting to eat cake. Or cookies. Go have a milkshake. I won’t lie and pretend that I didn’t eat a brownie today, but I also forced myself outside for a 3 mile walk. Hahahaha That totally makes it sound like I’m some person who has enough sense to balance what they eat with exercise and I’m really not that kind of person. It’s just how today turned out.
Ultimately, I knew that once I saw some results I would get motivated and I was right. I needed something that would force me into action and the study did that. I need to pay more attention to what I eat rather than just the calories in the food because I'd like to lose some belly fat and some of the fat on my thighs. The real challenge I’m facing is to KEEP it off and start balancing my diet better. If I eat crap food all the time that’s not helping my body be healthy and heal and that’s what I’m after. Feeling healed. It’s for sure that the digestive issues I’ve battled for 20 years have greatly improved. It’s not often these days that my body has a violent reaction to food, whereas in the past it was happening more than once a week. To say that is a blessing would be a gross understatement.
Exercise has also helped a lot because once I lost weight and started being more active, it is easier to be more active. It's helped my digestion problems and it's helped the arthritis in my feet. I used to be where I couldn't do much walking at all without a lot of pain and now I'm so much better with less pain. It's been a blessing for sure.
In the end it’s mostly that I got tired of looking in the mirror and not liking what I saw. That's why I don't like photos of myself - even though I keep taking stupid selfies now, but I'm just excited sometimes when I think I might actually look good. I didn't do this for men, but it's a nice notion that now I seem to attract a little male attention and that's never been the case for me in my life. Although I will say that I think I've tended to hide behind food and being fat as a defense mechanism in life. I could say, "Well, no one is interested in me because I'm fat" and leave it at that because as far as I knew it was true. Now, I also tend to be really snarky and controlling at times and probably do scare some men off with that (and if I could scare them, I wouldn’t want to date them), so it's not all the weight, but now I do get attention that I didn't get in the past and it's a nice change, even if it's just someone complimenting me on looking nice one day or something. I’ll take it.
It's hard and I'm not going to lie. I struggle every day. Not only with food, but with my self-esteem issues. I’ll never look in the mirror and see someone who is pretty. I’ll never look and see someone who isn’t fat. At least that’s how it feels, even on the days when I look and think, “Hey, maybe I look ok today.” It’s so vile how we torture ourselves about our appearance. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m done hiding behind my weight. I’m done hiding, period. It got me nowhere, whereas pushing the boundaries and forcing myself outside of my comfort zone has gotten me to a happy place. And if weight loss played a huge part in that, then that’s the way it is. I never realized I was hiding from the world behind the extra pounds and baggy clothes, but I was. Hiding from myself as much as anyone else, but no more. Being happy is so much more fun and I refuse to let that feeling go.
This friend wasn't looking for a magic pill or wave of a wand, but really wanted to know what changed mentally to help me start to change physically. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s how it had to happen for me. Something flipped in my brain and said, “Enough!” and I knew I had to start helping myself to heal and get healthy. Yeah. Heal. That’s a biggie it seems. I’m not sure I ever really realized a lot of what my weight was about, but I have a tad more wisdom now, for whatever it’s worth to the world.
It started at my 25th high school reunion in October 2014, when I saw pictures of myself and how bad I looked. I never realized just how big I'd gotten until then. I was in denial. I struggled for a while after that because I don't have great self-control at all - hence all the cake I eat all the time - and needed something to hold me accountable. When left to my own devices, I do tend to go off the rails.
In January 2015, I heard about a research study taking place at the University of South Carolina about the effects of sleep deprivation on weight loss and quickly signed up to participate. Since they expected you to lose some weight each week and made us track all food intake in a journal that we turned in (which really just showed calorie intake and they had given us a specific amount of calories we could eat on a certain number of days per week) then I was accountable to someone to stay on track. If I wasn’t losing weight, they were going to sit me down and ask why and I didn’t want that. I wanted to push forward for myself and so that I didn’t let them down. I was the 2nd participant to complete the study and, based on some conversations with the person running it, one of the more compliant. I didn’t complain (which is shocking for me since I complain all the time about basically everything), I lost weight every week (about 1-2 pounds which is how you want to do it), and did everything they asked of me.
When the study ended, I had lost around 20 pounds, which was 50% of the goal I’d set for myself. I didn’t set out to lose 40 pounds, but to get to a specific number, which was 175 pounds. I started at 218 and 175 seemed like a good number. Today the scales registered 173.6 which is the first time in a year that I’ve gotten to or below my goal weight! I’m pretty excited about that. Unfortunately, my standard way to celebrate is wanting to eat cake. Or cookies. Go have a milkshake. I won’t lie and pretend that I didn’t eat a brownie today, but I also forced myself outside for a 3 mile walk. Hahahaha That totally makes it sound like I’m some person who has enough sense to balance what they eat with exercise and I’m really not that kind of person. It’s just how today turned out.
Ultimately, I knew that once I saw some results I would get motivated and I was right. I needed something that would force me into action and the study did that. I need to pay more attention to what I eat rather than just the calories in the food because I'd like to lose some belly fat and some of the fat on my thighs. The real challenge I’m facing is to KEEP it off and start balancing my diet better. If I eat crap food all the time that’s not helping my body be healthy and heal and that’s what I’m after. Feeling healed. It’s for sure that the digestive issues I’ve battled for 20 years have greatly improved. It’s not often these days that my body has a violent reaction to food, whereas in the past it was happening more than once a week. To say that is a blessing would be a gross understatement.
Exercise has also helped a lot because once I lost weight and started being more active, it is easier to be more active. It's helped my digestion problems and it's helped the arthritis in my feet. I used to be where I couldn't do much walking at all without a lot of pain and now I'm so much better with less pain. It's been a blessing for sure.
In the end it’s mostly that I got tired of looking in the mirror and not liking what I saw. That's why I don't like photos of myself - even though I keep taking stupid selfies now, but I'm just excited sometimes when I think I might actually look good. I didn't do this for men, but it's a nice notion that now I seem to attract a little male attention and that's never been the case for me in my life. Although I will say that I think I've tended to hide behind food and being fat as a defense mechanism in life. I could say, "Well, no one is interested in me because I'm fat" and leave it at that because as far as I knew it was true. Now, I also tend to be really snarky and controlling at times and probably do scare some men off with that (and if I could scare them, I wouldn’t want to date them), so it's not all the weight, but now I do get attention that I didn't get in the past and it's a nice change, even if it's just someone complimenting me on looking nice one day or something. I’ll take it.
It's hard and I'm not going to lie. I struggle every day. Not only with food, but with my self-esteem issues. I’ll never look in the mirror and see someone who is pretty. I’ll never look and see someone who isn’t fat. At least that’s how it feels, even on the days when I look and think, “Hey, maybe I look ok today.” It’s so vile how we torture ourselves about our appearance. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m done hiding behind my weight. I’m done hiding, period. It got me nowhere, whereas pushing the boundaries and forcing myself outside of my comfort zone has gotten me to a happy place. And if weight loss played a huge part in that, then that’s the way it is. I never realized I was hiding from the world behind the extra pounds and baggy clothes, but I was. Hiding from myself as much as anyone else, but no more. Being happy is so much more fun and I refuse to let that feeling go.
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