Hi, I'm a very new 30 something - basically not even a full day of "something" So I thought of using this forum. I have found my way to this place before, and never imagined I would be returning bigger than ever, but... I guess I needed the time. My problem was always more a mental one, I can lose weight just fine physically. I have a history of ED and carried a lot of baggage regarding my weight. Even though I was convinced I overcame it all those years before, even though I managed to keep it healthy physically, it definetly came from a bad place mentally and that took it's toll and led to the eventual crash. I guess I needed a couple more years, some more experience.
Recently, I had a bit of an epiphany during one of my yoga sessions. I don't feel unhealthy and despite the weight I am not in particularly bad shape. I don't care for looks enough to make any serious sacrifices towards them. But you know what? I have a pretty kickass body and all that fat is just plain unnecesary, in fact, it gets in the way, both physically and energetically. I don't feel like I need that kind of insulation from the world anymore, I am safe. It's a waste of energy to keep supporting it. It's basically rather lame to keep it up - like that broken down cabinet you're too afraid to throw out in case you'd need it later, but over which you keep tripping everytime you need to get your suitcase out of the attic.
I don't feel like I need to be particularly obsessive and hard on myself. I don't feel the desperate, self-destructive drive to get it off of me, like it was a swarm of nasty bugs inside my skin. With apologies, I'm going to take it easy, one step at a time I will try to build better habits. I am sure that to many who will see my weight I will seem lax and unmotivated, but I have tried to tackle weight loss so many times before... now I simply want to do it. I hope I can turn this thread into a bit of a personal journal and I would be delighted if anybody found it discussion-worthy.
So for a start, my goal is to get down below 100 kilos by Lughnasad, which is a month away. I expect to get down two to three kilos.
The habits I want to form are two: First, I want to get a couple of sun salutations in before breakfast. I feel it is a habit that can be built upon and in the few days I was practising it, I've noticed I'm more energetic during the day, which got me to move a bit more readily.
The second part is to figure out this interesting meal planner (Eat This Much) - I had a lot of success with counting macros in the past (I just went totally crazy and obsessed doing it and went overboard), this promises to do it automatically, just giving me the stuff I should eat, keeping me at arms lenght from the actual calculations. I have set up a bit of a deficit, so I'll see how it goes. The main idea is to get used to the system.
After these things get more-or-less automatic, only then I'll start building on it. Oh, and I'm placing a ban on the scale, another of my favorite obsessive outlets, outside Monday mornings.
Today went good. I feel rather stuffed with my meal plan, but I'm used to eating a lot of fatty cheeses and eggs, which keep you full without neccesarily filling up your stomach. According to my calculations, I'm eating at my BMR, so it should be fine.
I did 4 sun salutations and some stretching before breakfast - I've been doing it for a week already - and I really need to figure out how to hop out of bed and onto the mat, my breakfast is getting delayed by me feeling too zombie-ish right out of bed. I'm worried that in that weak, rubbery state I will injure myself. I wonder if something like a glass of water with lemon and honey might start me up faster.
Today was a good, active day. I just wish it wasn't so hot. Five minutes outside and I feel like I've run a marathon. Not that inside is much better. On top of that we don't have hot water because of some maintenance and I'm not so hardcore to get a completely cold shower... ah well.
I tried drinking some water with honey and lemon before my yoga in the morning and it made all the difference. I did 8 sets and would have done more if I wasn't in such a rush. On that point I will improve.
The meal plan is... mostly good. Some delicious foods it gave me. I really like that I don't need to spend so much time calculating stuff and I'm not spending time hyperfocused on the math - something that's very detrimental to me in the long run. The only bad thing that is happening is that while I'm absolutely stuffed at meal times, I get hungry really soon, within some 3-5 hours. The meal plan includes a lot of vegetables and voluminous foods, which is quite a shock for someone who has trained their body towards small-ish portions that have proper staying power, which then enabled me to eat sometimes less than twice a day. I hate the constant interruptions of mealtimes during the day . Where did that get me, though, is evidence aplenty that it is not an entirely good way to go. Every sensible person is going to tell me to eat more often, but 3 meals is already a compromise on my part. I just have a bit of a hard time with this - yesterday I was so cranky from hunger I couldn't sleep. That is a first - in the past, I often went to sleep because I was too weak from hunger to do much else, and slept fine. Yesterday I went to bed about 6 hours after dinner, which is maybe too long? I don't know. I don't like to eat at night, but I like to stay up late. I guess (hope) my body and brain will catch on the new regime fast and things will get more normal, though.
Today I don't have much to report yet, but something just came up. Some of my recipes called for applesauce, which is not a very typical ingredient where I am from (most people just cook it from scratch and it's not like it's that much work, but I was lazy), so I went to the childrens section and got a few jars of baby purees without thinking much about it. It's marked for 4 month old babies, so there's bound to be not much extra stuff besides the fruit in it, right, that has to be regulated, right? Glucose-fructose syrup. What? Why? 4 month old babies! I didn't know that.
Today was rather uneventful. The morning yoga is definetly doing me good. I did 8 sets + stretching again, I didn't feel like pushing it much...
I realized that the app I use for food removes so much hassle from eating even compared to my previous schedule, it's amazing. I might be spending a bit more time on meal prep, but I am definetly spending a lot less energy on the "management" part of the deal. The predictability is also something that I find very pleasant - seems like waking up and knowing what's for dinner is something I like after all. I can see myself using it even after I have reached my goal, just to make eating easy.
I had some serious temptation to step on the scale outside of my "appointed time", though. I just looked really cute in my dress today (even if I say so myself), that's all. Maybe it's just improved posture from the yoga. It's unlikely I've lost anything yet. The psychological need to "check" if feeling good about myself is actually warranted by the number on the scale is... not something I want to support. I used to weight myself obsessively because the constant fluctuations were driving me mad and I wanted to be able to see a trend easily. Except... If I weigth myself every day, I can see week-to-week trends. If I weigth myself every week, I account for month-to-month changes in the same manner. I feel that having less data might in a way be more satisfying and less condusive to the neuroticism that I tend to fall prey regarding weigth loss.
Today was rather uneventful, although I have come across some minor annoyances. I feel really good, though. The food is really agreeing with me.
I couldn't do my full set of morning yoga because of a rather trivial injury to my big toe, which however posed a problem with some of the asanas. I ended up doing something quite different that didn't put weight on the injured toe, it was rather nice. I really like that I was able to just seamlessly adjust.
I did a bit of a blunder with my meal plan. I didn't read through my breakfast properly and ended up not eating half of the food I was supposed to, and noticed only now. Well, I'll probably get a small evening snack, then. I'm not hungry - but that's quite tricky with me, sometimes when I was trying to lose weight I lost appetite for days (psychologically, I presume), didn't push it and ended up crashing. I'm making allowances for special circumstances, but counter-intuitively I want to be extra careful of not going under my plan.
The weigth in the corner is quite a temptation, but I know how tricky it might get if I break my once-a-week-only promise, especially this early.
I'm spending the weekend at my grandparents, so following my meal plan is not entirely possible. I have been quite conscious with my choices and portions, though, so I don't see it as much of a problem.
I still managed my morning yoga. I wasn't sure if I'd have space for it, but I was actually rather uncomfortable at the prospect of missing it in the morning. The habit forming is working. Soon it will become an ingrained routine and then I'll start adding more strenuous exercise.
I'm on my period. That sucks, I won't get a reliable weight in tomorrow. I do feel really good about myself, though
I missed writing yesterday, but it was fine. There was a massive change in weather and I started to feel sick in the evening, today I feel like I'm running a fever. But Im hoping to be all good tomorrow. I've kept on my meal plan, I even did a bit of yoga today - I was so confused and sick that it didn't even occur to me to skip it. I did just two sets and gentle stretching, though.
I'm noticing an improvement in posture, I feel better when walking or standing.
Yesterday was my weight in. Boy, did that mess me up. Despite my period, I'm seeing a kilo and a half down. I was so happy, almost extatic, and it colored my whole day. It was almost as if I was high on drugs. This is not healthy. I don't want to be a slave to my scale, I don't want it to hold so much power. I almost went and lowered my calories, just to see more progress, get more of this dopamine. I felt like I don't need to eat. I managed to overcome it, but it's scary. Imagine what would seeing no progress do to me, imagine that I was so bloated from my period it would show a gain. I want to take it slow. I didn't even really aim at losing weight the first month, I just wanted to set up a base to work from - and make it slow, healthy and permanent. But my mind is so used to seeing the number on the scale as a thing denoting personal value...
This is exactly the reason why my plan isn't too ambitious. I need to deal with all these demons along the way.
So I've been pretty sick in the past few days, occasionally struggling to even get out of bed. I'm feeling better today.
I've still been doing some easy slow yoga stretching in the morning - the notion that I roll out the mat every morning is becoming ingrained and it's actually something I'm looking forward to.
I wasn't 100% faithful to my meal plan during this time as I didn't have much energy to prepare meals, and felt that a lot of the foods wouldn't agree with my rather jumpy stomach. Still, I think I've made mostly good choices with my meals, given the situation.
I'm still thinking about my Monday's weight in. It's just so upsetting that I did all this work to improve my relationship with food and with my body, but realizing how fragile it all can be because of this rather trivial thing - seeing that I've lost weight. I honestly felt like a former alcoholic who had his first beer in many years and now craves, no, needs more.
So I'm still sick. It's not as bad now, but I just can't keep up with my meal plan in this condition. I'm roughly counting calories, so I shouldn't be off by much, especially as today is the first day my appetite made a comeback, but it's still bothersome.
Despite my generally poor state I've managed gentle yoga stretches everyday so far before breakfast.
Basically I feel like I'm doing the best I can under the circumstances.
I didn't get an opportunity to weight myself yesterday, so I did it today. My initial loss holds, which still puts me past the goal for this month. Despite this being not surprising given my last week's condition, despite it being consistent with my plan, I am massively disappointed. It's not such a strong emotion as last week, but it's still a testament to my broken relationship to the number on the scale.
I've been keeping with the plan since I wrote last, nothing notable. I'm almost over the illness now. Still very low energy and my voice is taking it's sweet time to get back in full, but I'm not actively miserable.
Still going strong, I'm getting really comfortable with the program. I'm spending the next few days "in the wild" - we're going camping. After I return, I'll add another little thing and hopefully, that will get the ball rolling in earnest.
Actual weight loss was negligible so far, but I feel like I'm succeeding in my goal to build a solid foundation that will not crumple like a house of cards first chance it gets. I've done some serious thinking about the issues around weighting myself and I think I've gotten somewhere. How true it is, only time will tell
Fresh 30
So I thought of using this forum. I have found my way to this place before, and never imagined I would be returning bigger than ever, but... I guess I needed the time. My problem was always more a mental one, I can lose weight just fine physically. I have a history of ED and carried a lot of baggage regarding my weight. Even though I was convinced I overcame it all those years before, even though I managed to keep it healthy physically, it definetly came from a bad place mentally and that took it's toll and led to the eventual crash. I guess I needed a couple more years, some more experience.
. Where did that get me, though, is evidence aplenty that it is not an entirely good way to go. Every sensible person is going to tell me to eat more often, but 3 meals is already a compromise on my part. I just have a bit of a hard time with this - yesterday I was so cranky from hunger I couldn't sleep. That is a first - in the past, I often went to sleep because I was too weak from hunger to do much else, and slept fine. Yesterday I went to bed about 6 hours after dinner, which is maybe too long? I don't know. I don't like to eat at night, but I like to stay up late. I guess (hope) my body and brain will catch on the new regime fast and things will get more normal, though.
