Hello there! I've been around for a couple of days and totally forgot to leave an introduction here. Whoops!
Hi! My name's Keika. I'm a 24-year old singing smiling American living in Japan as an assistant language teacher (ALT) on the JET Program. I'm in kind of a suburban city, and I bike to work every day through rice paddies and vegetable fields. It's great, but it's time to go. I'll be going back to the US when my contract ends in August, after 2 years of living here.
Which leads me into story time! Buckle up, because I tend to be super long-winded.
I was a skinny kid (my friend's mother actually tried to fatten me up) until middle school, when my growth slowed down. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that my expanding belly wasn't just another change to my body at the time, and I didn't do anything about it. Eventually (not sure exactly when... high school?) I hit the 195-200 range and stayed there. I guess that's just the weight my body liked for the lifestyle I was living--that is, liking food, liking sit-down creative type hobbies, detesting exercise.
Body image problems started creeping in around high school (contributing to a developing anxiety disorder, but that's neither here nor there) and became a serious problem in college. It never got to the point that I tried to starve myself or do something unhealthy to my body, but my self-worth took a serious nose dive until one lucky day, I looked in the mirror and thought, "You know, I'm actually not
that fat. In fact, I'm actually kind of cute." It was an uphill battle from there, but finally by the time I graduated college and reached Japan, I had reached peace with myself. I knew that this was the way my body looked because of the way I lived my life. I was able to see the beauty in my body, and came to the point that I felt my self esteem no longer rested on my pudge. I was not, however, ready to make a lifestyle change yet, so I just focused on loving myself and my body first.
I finally started feeling like I wanted to improve my health in 2016, but it was still tentative and I wasn't totally committed to it. The first time I tried to lose weight, I started hydrating and added extra exercise to my day, but didn't change my eating habits. I did that for about a month and still lost about six pounds that way, until I got sick, stopped exercising, and never started again. The second time, I came at it with half that motivation: I exercised every other day for one week with no diet change, saw no difference at the end, threw my hands in the air, and gave up.
Over Christmas 2016, I went home for a couple weeks. Loved it, had a great time with the family I hadn't seen in a year, ate ALL the comfort foods, it were delicious, I gained five pounds, it was great. I started thinking tentatively over that time that maybe my new year's resolution would be to lose weight for real, and to make the lifestyle change that I was putting off finally.
I went home, one week passed, two weeks passed, I didn't change a thing. It was one of those "I'll start Monday" things. I finally got that kickstart I needed after the cast list came out for a volunteer musical (done by the local foreign community) I had auditioned for. I had landed one of the main parts, and was super excited! Well, this woman I'm playing is a historical figure, and I guessed the costume department was going to put me in a yukata, which is something like a cotton summer kimono. That was confirmed this last week, when costuming had me try one on.
I don't know if you've ever worn a yukata, but you have to be pretty skinny to pull it off. At 202 lbs and 5'10", I was basically the opposite of a typical Japanese body type. I'm never going to pull off that yukata like a Japanese woman would just because of my height and frame, but I came to one conclusion for sure:
I do not want to look like a whale on stage.
So, on January 17, the day after the cast list came out, I sat down and devised that lifestyle change. I had one last pack of Oreos to celebrate, and then I got down to business. (*cough* to defeat the Huns? Anyone? Sorry, had to throw that in there...)
My plan came in three parts (diet, hydration, and exercise), and it has served me well. Tomorrow will be the fiftieth day since I started working on this, and I am currently sitting at 179--a total of 23 pounds lost! I am super excited, especially since my goal of reaching 170 by the time of our first performance (April 9) is now in sight! I've got a month to shed those last nine pounds. I've been steeling myself for failure, because 32 pounds in about 3 months is pretty ambitious, but judging by the rate I've gone so far, I might just make it!
Thanks for sticking with me through my life story! I know I'm super wordy, but it's great to be here. I joined this forum because I keep landing on it when I go to the internet for motivation or answers, so I thought, why not join all these cool peeps and stop lurking? I love how supportive this board is, and am super inspired by all the stories and positivity being shared around here. You guys are super amazing, and I can't wait to talk with you!
~Keika
In case you're interested, this is what I've been doing:
1) Diet.
I did not want to start a self-defeating diet that I wouldn't be able to keep up after I got down to the weight I wanted; I wanted to lose the weight and have it stay gone. I was ready to make an actual lifestyle change, and so that's what I've been calling it instead of "diet": "lifestyle change."
Basically put, I put an end to skipping meals, forcing myself to make sure I eat three meals a day. All the unhealthy foods I was eating, including all that super-convenient instant food, were cut out. I added extra fruit servings (even though fruit is stupid expensive in Japan) and worked in all the vegetable servings I could scrounge up into lunch and dinner. Breakfast includes a boiled egg for morning protein, and baked chicken breast (no oils/breading/etc. added) comes into a lot of my meals too, because it's stupid cheap in Japan. Dinner alternates between homemade soups and salads. I defeat the lure of convenient, ready-made food at the grocery store across the street by cooking family-size portions at dinner, separating out my one serving for the night, then sticking the rest of it in the fridge for dinners for the next 5 days or so. Cuts down how much time I have to spend cooking too, which is fantabulous.
I don't snack at all. It helps a lot of people get their fruit servings and not overeat, but for me, it's just a gateway drug. It goes from apple slices to ice cream really, really fast for me. So, I keep myself to mealtimes. Doing that helped me get past the early food cravings too, so there's that.
2) Hydration.
I already didn't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea, and I didn't drink a lot of soda, so I didn't have to worry about weaning myself off drinking or caffeine. One hurdle down all by itself! I did, however, have to cut out the sugary orange juice I was buying, which hurt a little. I have been drinking strictly only water. I have a mini-whiteboard on my fridge, on which I keep track of the week and day it is since I started, as well as my water count for the day. I make sure I get at least 8 cups a day.
3) Exercise
This is the absolute toughest one for me. I hate exercise. Always have. I've had to devise a support system for myself to keep myself moving.
First off, the area I'm in on the JET Program doesn't like us to have cars. Instead, I've got a bike which I take to work. Most of the time it's a 20-25 minute commute from my apartment, but once or twice a week, I go to my farthest school, which is about 40 minutes away. And then of course, that's repeated on my way back, so I automatically get between 40 and 80 minutes of biking every weekday. It's low-intensity, though; only one slope to speak of, and that's only on the way to the far school, and I don't usually make an effort to break speed barriers or anything. When I don't have work, I try to get out for an hour walk or so, so I still have that bit of aerobics in the day.
I also do a workout video for 20 minutes six days a week. (Sunday is rest day, where I don't bother with exercise, but am still careful to stick to plan every other way.) I'm using Jillian Michael's "30 Day Shred," which incorporates 3 circuits of 2 minutes strength, 2 minutes cardio, 1 minute abs. I both love and hate it. I've discovered that when I'm working out like that, it seriously helps out my aforementioned anxiety issues, and I love the endorphins. But I seriously hate working out when I'm actually doing it. To keep myself going, I hold myself accountable and simultaneously reward myself for a job well done by taking a selfie right after I finish, in front of the colorful weight goal reminder on my wall. Then, at the end of the week, I load all those selfies into a powerpoint presentation with the date and (on Saturdays) how much I weigh. It's pretty cool, actually, to see my face slimming down over time, but the point was just to give myself a little reward for getting up and doing it that day.
In the last almost-50 days since I started working, I have not missed a single workout day unless I was sick or injured. I call that an accomplishment.
Hi, I'm Keika, and this is my story
