What can I say about weight loss?
It's a thing almost every adult has had to contend with at some point in their lives. Some struggle with it, others barely need to think about it, but overall it's a THING - right? Obesity is on the rise and it's no secret that it impacts our health, causing heart disease, diabetes, and even being linked to cancer.
I am currently about 35 pounds away from being at what's considered (medically) to be a healthy weight. And after 43+ years on this earth, I feel like I have learned a few things - a lot of bumpy experiences can provide a great deal of education. 😏After a lot of trial and error in the weight loss department, I finally feel like I am getting a handle on it, and I wanted to share some of what I have learned. I know I am not a health coach or an expert in this area, but I do have a lot of life experience, and I am hoping that by sharing some of my wisdom, I might help others out there who are like me! Just regular people who want to be healthier, trying to figure it out day by day.
1 - If you can't picture eating a certain way for the rest of your life, it won't work as a weight loss plan. Fad diets and super restrictive eating sometimes render results, and often do so quickly, but they are not sustainable. I have done basically every diet out there and I will tell you this: if I had to spend the rest of my life never eating bread or pasta ever again, I'd honestly rather not eat at all. Any time I have done a diet that told me certain foods were completely off limits, it worked for a very short period of time, but eventually I'd be missing and feeling deprived of whatever food was off limits. Now, that being said, sometimes people have a medical condition that requires them to remove certain things from their diets, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about telling yourself you can't ever have a piece of cake on your birthday ever again because it's "bad" food; I'm talking about telling yourself you need to remove bananas from your morning cereal because they are too high in carbohydrates (or removing all fruit from your diet because of the sugar and carbs); I'm talking about beating yourself up over food and assigning "good" and "bad" labels to them. That is disordered thinking and it can lead to disordered eating and self-destructive behavior. Also, one of the biggest reasons people gain weight back after they lose it is because whatever fad diet or restrictive eating habits they do to lose the weight are only sustainable on the short term - as soon as the weight is lost, they go back to eating the way they used to before the diet, and then the weight comes back on. If you can't imagine spending the rest of your life counting calories and carbs or not eating a piece of bread, then don't do it to lose weight. It just won't work.
2 - Beware of diet programs and eating plans that don't account for behavior and psychology. Something I have learned in all my experience with weight loss and eating plans is that if you don't factor in the reasons why people overeat or why they struggle with weight loss at all, then the behavior likely won't change. And while everyone's story is different, at the heart of it we are all human and behavior change is often stressful and difficult for most people - that's normal. One size does not fit all, you can have the perfect formula for weight loss (eat x calories per day and exercise for x minutes per week to lose x pounds per month), but you would be missing something really important - how people feel. A program (or coach) that offers emotional, behavioral, and psychological support in a person's health journey is a program that gets what it means to be human. If you ignore what's going on in someone's head consciously and subconsciously, you are ignoring who they are and what makes them act the way that they do.
3 - Stick to what feels right, what fuels your body and soul, and leave the rest. It has taken me a long time to realize this, but not feeling well is too big of a price for anything. This is why I decided to stop drinking alcohol. As I entered my 40s, I started to understand how vital it is to be healthy and to feel good. I spent too many years enduring hangovers and poor sleep and it made me feel like crap most of the time. Once I started taking care of myself more, I started to really know what feeling well felt like. And once I got a taste of THAT, I didn't ever want to go back to feeling crappy. The same is true with nutrition. When I eat junky food, I feel junky. So now I try to limit that stuff and strike a good balance with whole nutritious foods. But that doesn't mean sugary treats or potato chips are off limits (per my first point about not restricting or eliminating food for the sake of weight loss), it just means I need to lean into how I am feeling physically to help guide me in my eating plan. It also means not compromising my health for the sake of weight loss - no diet supplements/shakes/pills, starving myself, or eating "franken-foods" designed to look healthy while being full of chemicals.
As I said earlier, I'm not even at my "goal weight" yet (btw, a goal weight should be whatever fits your life and will help you be the healthiest version of you (including your mental health), and that could very well be the weight you are at now!), so I am definitely not a guru in this area; however, I feel confident I am now on the right path for my health and wellness, and I hope some of this advice I shared in this post may help someone out there who needs it. It took me a long time to figure this all out and I am glad to share my experience.
I wish you well in your health journey, wherever you may be! 💕
