I’m Excited To Lose Weight Again
You might recall that I’ve written in the past about losing more than 100 pounds twice in my life. Once in my mid-20s and once in my early 30s. Each time, I relentlessly tracked everything I ate and exercised regularly.
The first time around, I counted calories and stayed under 800 every day. I took a different approach in 2012 and used a raw food vegan diet that allowed for 15% fat and 10% protein. During the vegan diet, I consumed 1200 calories and walked for 2 hours a day.
In both cases, the weight dropped at about the same rate. About 108 pounds down in 7 or 8 months. And the only reason I stopped either weight loss plan was that my life changed significantly.
If you can’t easily take a weight loss plan with you when your life changes, it’s too easy to fall off the wagon. For years after gaining more weight than I lost, I had it stuck in my head that one day I could just get back on track and quickly drop the weight again.
Obviously, that’s not what happened.
Getting back on track requires a certain amount of motivation I couldn’t seem to locate. I kept thinking that I would find my motivation again and be fine.
When I became a mom in 2014, I was 25 pounds lighter when the hospital discharged me. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d been fasting and laboring for days due to preeclampsia, so of course, I lost water weight.
But after 6 months of breastfeeding my daughter, I was humiliated to discover that I weighed more post-baby than I did during pregnancy. When I finally quit breastfeeding a couple of months after my daughter turned 2, I told myself that I was going to get back on track. Again.
As much as I wanted to lose weight and feel better about myself, I still couldn’t stick to any plan. So, I didn’t. Not on most days, anyway.
Sure, there were short stints on keto, low-carb, or other vegan diets. But binge eating kept getting the better of me. Or, I’d eat healthy, whole foods for a month or two and still not see the scale move.
The whole time, I thought I’d lost my motivation, but the truth is I needed to create it for myself.
I kept falling into the trap of emotional eating, and in some ways, that payoff was higher than making healthy choices. See, I have a tendency to get stuck in the “here and now.”
If most of my days are spent at home working, and I’m using food to help cope with loneliness, depression, or fatigue, it’s hard to even envision an alternate reality where I make better choices and get the results I want. As far as I have experienced, my healthy choices tend to lead to more disordered eating.
I needed a payoff higher than the here and now. In fact, I needed a mindset shift that would get me out of my immediate feelings.
Earlier this week, I wrote about that shift and how I realized I’m more of a “rebel” than I’d realized:
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about habit strategies that can help those of us with rebel tendencies:
So here I am, finally excited to be back on track. Instead of wondering if I will be able to stick to my eating plan at all. I never suspected that I’d rein myself in by coming to terms with my aversion to fences.
But it makes sense. Anytime I have been successful, it’s usually because I buck convention and do whatever feels right to me. I suppose it never really occurred to me that I’d have to approach weight loss with a more independent mindset too.
The weight loss plan I’m on is one I have wanted to follow for more than a year but struggled to start until now. It’s a plan that was developed for folks who’ve experienced regain after bariatric surgery.
Each day, it includes 5 pre-portioned food choices (like shakes, soups, and hot meals), plus 1 meal of your choices made from protein and veggies. For the veggies, I’ve been back on Splendid Spoon soups. (Yay!) For the protein, I use small cans of tuna, shrimp, chicken, or hard-boiled eggs.
Traditionally, people on my plan have 6 little meals every 3 hours, but I find I often don’t want to eat before 10AM. Also, I’d prefer to not eat past 8PM, so I wind up spacing those meals a little bit closer together.
Of course, there’s other stuff like drinking 64 ounces of water and walking. But you know what? I feel great. I don’t have to think too much about it because it’s all grab-and-go or easily heated. And I also don’t need to worry about counting macros or staying in ketosis.
These days, I’m doing my best to set myself up for success, but there are hurdles ahead. My daughter and I are going on vacation at the end of June, so I’ll need to try to find a balance between eating well without going too crazy.
My birthday is in August and I’m likely going to allow myself a slice of cake.
I want to give myself permission to eat “off-plan” on the days that matter to me. If I’m craving beans or sweet potatoes, they are going to be a part of my day without guilt.
Finding balance with weight loss and creating manageable habits isn’t easily done. I still have a ton of work to do.
But for the first time in ages, I am excited about making the effort once again. And that’s worth some celebration.
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I’m Excited To Lose Weight Again
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