Data for the scientifically inclined:
Height: 5’0” or 152 cm
Highest weight: 200lbs or 90kg
Weight as of 1.5 years ago: 176 pounds or 79kg
Current weight: 117 lbs or 53 kg
Current age: 28 years which I do not have to convert for the rest of the world
Pics for the impatient tl;dr types:
Highest weight to present weight
Post-partum progress to present weight (front)
Post-partum progress to present weight (side)
Proof of MyFitnessPal Anniversary
Please appreciate these images, I had to use my spouse as an Instagram husband to obtain them.
For some context, I have lost a sizable quantity of weight a few times now. I grew up as an obese explorer of a single mother in the days of a carb-heavy food pyramid and the clean-plate club. However, I would have fluctuations as to the severity of my obesity depending on my high school activities and other external factors. I hit my highest weight upon finding domestic bliss in with my spouse in college.
In late 2013 I began married life living in a particularly boring region and just decided there was nothing better to do than go to the gym a lot. I did not track calories but being more active helped me stay in the mindset of eating better. I lost about 50 pounds that time (~185-~135). My goal was starting a family with a lessened risk of gestational diabetes. Mission accomplished, I got through pregnancy without being diagnosed with that and celebrated my victory at 7 months pregnant with perhaps more Halloween candy than a human woman can consume. Oops.
Cut to February 2017 with a delightful squalling bundle in my house. My post-partum weigh-in at the obstetrician revealed my weight to be 176 pounds. I was morbidly obese. Again.
Limitations:
Time: I couldn’t get to a gym. Okay, technically I COULD HAVE, but I was working full time after maternity leave, visiting my kid at my lunch hour, driving home, getting chores done, getting a baby to sleep, fruitlessly attempting to pump, and feeding her multiple times a night. Getting to the gym was not an appealing option.
Money: I had a newborn in daycare and mostly on formula. The household had car payments, a mortgage, student loans, you get the drift. I did not have the means to buy a lot of specialty organic health foods or a specific purchased diet system.
Solution: Eat vaguely less than what I did. Log what I eat in an app to keep accountable.
I did okay at this for a month or so and fell off. June 2017 I just got on the wagon and stayed on it.
I decided on eating 1200 calories a day because of my stature (shout out to r/1200isplenty). My TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) at the time was about 1700 calories. That was enough of a deficit to lose slowly, but steadily. I kept in mind that at my goal weight, my TDEE would be about 1400 (I. HATE. BEING. THIS. SHORT.) I tried to make that my caloric maximum. I also made an engaged effort to be more physically active when able. I lost about one pound a week, which sounds agonizingly slow, but kept me on track.
Challenges:
Tracking: I did not track perfectly. I was never going to be able to track perfectly. My husband made chicken wings with his own seasoning, I just kind of threw in the weight of chicken wings and separately wing seasoning. What if I couldn't find the specific brand of wing? Was the seasoning I found in MyFitnessPal one that used brown sugar like my husband’s? Was I ever going to have 100% definitive information on every morsel I scarfed into my personage? What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
I often just found a related food item that looked reasonable in MyFitnessPal and moved on. Analysis paralysis is a lot of what would lead me to just give up in the past.
Failure: It’s 9pm. I have eaten my calorie allotment. My stomach has decided I am starving to death. I am literally going to never be able to eat again and it’s the end of the world. My hyperbolic-self needed to keep the house stocked with Fiber One bars, 50 calorie cheese sticks, fruit, and other things that I could just have on hand. That way I could be satiated without destroying the day’s deficit. I also had to learn to forgive myself and move on. If I had a maintenance day, I could just track and log better choices the next day.
Sometimes, after weeks of these good choices, the scale would be stagnant. I would even go up a pound. I had to learn patience and master the mental logistics of a plateau-whoosh cycle. “Trust the Process” was a mantra I had to whisper to myself like I was in a 90’s movie about teens learning martial arts.
External Forces: My office break room was full of food all the time. My husband can eat more than me because he is taller. A Greek chorus of humans in my life are informing me that I look fine as I am and do not need to make these choices. Socially, I had to learn to politely say “No” to a lot of things.
“No, I am not eating too little, this is medically okay, I talked to my doctor about it”
“No, I do not want the cake, but thank you for offering!”
“I appreciate the recommendation, but I will try the pizza on a day that I haven’t already eaten a burger”
Rewards:
Support!!: Despite my prior rant, most of the people in my life were very positive and loving about my choice to track my calories. My husband always consulted with me on my calorie allotment before preparing his homemade masterpieces (I don’t deserve him) and even started tracking for himself. A lot of my friends have given me so much support and encouragement and make sure that where we eat suits the choices I want to make. I also have found a Discord community that connects me to people from around the world with similar goals and challenges that can lift each other up through this process (Love you all).
Agency: After I went back to work and was still a parent, it seemed like so much of my life was decided and scheduled for me based in the necessities of this responsibility. The weight loss was something I decided to do of my own volition, this time for myself and my own health and was a great mental health benefit as I was adapting to life as a working parent.
The Actual Weight Loss: Oh yeah, also I lost weight. Almost 60 pounds from my post-partum appointment. I look cute in Old Navy stuff. I can run into rooms quickly and effectively to stop my toddler from stuffing entire rolls of Cottonelle into a toilet. I’m less likely to suffer the agonies of dia-beet-us. Neat!
Anyway, this is post is now a book despite my better efforts. Tl;dr: CICO.
Related Social Resources:
If you're not tired of my visual content: Instagram
If you want to join into a digital support family: Discord
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