Right now I think I am eating the healthiest I've ever eaten and wondering why I'm not shedding 5 lbs a minute because of it. I look back on how I used to eat and think--well, no wonder, that was NOT healthy... but at the time I thought I was doing everything right. It makes me wonder how I will look back at this time period and see all the "flaws."
Anyways, so here's a few times in my life when I ate much worse than I do now:
1. When I moved here to Korea (4 months ago). I drank almost everyday. I ate Ramen all the time. I'd eat tubes of Pringles in two sittings. I had fast food at least twice a week. And I was wondering how come I wasn't losing more weight?
2. This last summer (6 months ago). I was running. I was biking. I walked 2 miles to work many days a week. I also ate french fries several times a week. I went to MANY happy hours. My favorite restaurants were the Indian buffet and the bar. I can see why I actually GAINED weight
3. When I lived on the East Coast (3 years ago). Somehow I actually lost 25 lbs living out there. But I also ate frozen meals all the time, sometimes 2 at once. I would go to the grocery store and buy a Lunchable and half a pie and eat it in my car almost everyday. I did a lot of walking and went to the gym somewhat regularly but my binging was pretty high.
4. In graduate school (4 years ago). I gained 35 lbs those 2 years. I would go to Taco Bell AND KFC AND the grocery store to get dessert, and drive home like a zombie, run to my room and gorge. I ordered and ate whole pizzas by myself. My friend and I used to split this huge pizza from Papa Murphy's and lay around and watch TV... we called it the $5 Challenge. I would eat vegetarian food with my friends and then sneak off to buy fried chicken at some fast food restaurant.
5. Undergraduate, or when I first started gaining weight (6 years ago). I had just moved out of the dorms and thought that it was so great I lived next to a grocery store. I thought going to the grocery store everyday was very European. Except I went and bought $15 worth of food and ate it in a day. I ate whole boxes of Rice a roni. I think this is when my portion control went out the window. My work had cookie day and I would take the extra cookies "home to my roommates" ... except I'd eat as many as I could on the car ride home and then finish the rest throughout the night. I became vegetarian and overnight my tastebuds turned me from a picky eater to someone that would eat anything.. and a lot of it.
5. 7 years ago. My lowest weight (124 lbs). This is what brought up this whole timeline. Lately I've been trying so hard to remember what I ate during that time and how I exercised. I remember I used to walk and run on my mom's treadmill a lot... I remember feeling proud that I had gone 4 miles one time. I don't remember dieting much, other than cutting out things like soda and not eating really late at night. I was dating my first boyfriend and I remember my favorite food was chicken strips with honey mustard. We went out to eat a lot but I never gained any weight. Now I can't fathom how I was so thin and ate that. I also trained with my friend for a sprint triathlon and was disappointed that I didn't lose more weight during that time. After the triathlon I went to Dairy Queen to eat chicken strips.
I don't think I strictly dieted and I don't think I was crazy obsessed with exercise either. I remember I gave away all my Halloween candy. I remember I didn't take cake at some church function. I think it took me 9 months to lose 20 lbs and 3 more months I lost 10 more. I kept that weight off 2.5 years, until a bad breakup threw me into a really bad depression.
I'm really trying to learn from my old self! I have never been blessed with good weight genes, but I can remember all the success from losing that weight but not the hard times. I lost the weight my senior year of high school and that was still one of the most fun years of my life. I feel like I need to get back to that mentality. I was a picky eater and I only ate what I liked, but less of it. I liked the treadmill because I was obsessed with music and that gave me a chance to really get into it. I don't feel like my social life revolved around food like it does now. And I was so active. Not just exercising but going all over the place with my friends, always doing new things. Right now my life seems mundane and boring so cutting out/down food feels like punishment.
I'm very pleased with myself to pull these memories out of the archives and I'm going to continue to meditate on them and pull out more secrets of my past success. At this weight and this many years later, I can't remember how to act like a thin person. 124 isn't my goal weight and I remember feeling like to lose more weight than that would be a big struggle but I think I'm up for it this time around.
It really feels like an a-ha moment. The key to success is to just exercise how I like, eat how I like (though less) and add more fulfilment to my life in other aspects so something other than excess food nourishes me.
Anyways, thanks for listening, those who made it this far. I'm interested to know how you used to eat and what you felt when you ate that way... did you think you were eating badly? Did you think that way of eating would lead to weight loss success or weight gain? Or if you're like me and have gained over the years, how did you used to eat as a thinner person?