There are (many) days when I feel like I've made no progress, or even that I'm getting bigger instead. Here is my list of what I learned during my journey so far. Today is my 187th day (6 months and 5 days), and I'd like to share this for everyone who struggles with motivation, for everyone who struggles to see progress, for everyone who doesn't know where to start, and mostly, for myself. Because I'll need to come back and read this many, many times in the foreseeable future. Please bear in mind that I've been overweight my whole life, and I've been dieting on and off most of it. This isn't what I learned in 23 years. This is what I learned this time, when it actually works.
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A bad day is just that: a bad day. - Don't throw away your whole progress, regardless of that being a day or a year, because of one day. You won't "start again" tomorrow. You will continue.
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Skipping workouts once in a while is ok. - It doesn't mean you're weak. It doesn't mean you've given up. It means you need a rest.
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25 minutes of my time is like 25p/¢ of my money. - It doesn't really matter. I won't do anything of substance with it. But they add up. 25 minutes over 187 days (out of which I've worked out for 158) is 3950 minutes. That's the equivalent of £395.
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Some people won't support you. - And that's ok. Fuck those people. I've been told everything from "you're doing it wrong, you have to eliminate certain foods from your diet", to "wow, I can't even IMAGINE being that fat!!!", to "oh, you only lost this much? Hm. That's a bit...little.", to "how did you let this happen?! Where were you when you gained 15kg in 3 months?!" (I wasn't there, actually. I was too depressed to live. I just existed and ate.) They're irrelevant and so is their opinion.
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It has to be sustainable. - Of course I'd like to lose 10kg in a week! But that's not how things work. I'm not on any fad diet (keto, vegan for health not ethical purposes etc) because that's not me. That's not how I eat, it's not how I'll continue to eat once I'm done dieting. And if I woke up and suddenly had my dream body, I wouldn't even know what to do with it! I'd be back to my current weight in no time, because I wouldn't have made any changes and I wouldn't have learned anything.
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You can eat whatever you want - you just can't eat as much of it as you want. - Whenever people ask me what I eat to lose weight, I tell them. Cake, pizza, takeout, McDonald's, sweets. They never ask how much or how often, and I'm not going to lie and say "oh, three leaves of salad, no dressing". Everything I eat fits in my caloric "budget". If I eat cake for breakfast, I eat less during the day and skip the snacks. If I eat a pizza, that's brunch, because it's enough for two meals. (A pizza is about 650-800kcal, I eat Iceland mostly and Pizza Express sometimes when it's on sale.) I'm not going to give up what I love for the sake of losing weight faster. I'll learn to not eat like an asshole anymore, instead.
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Walking is free. Or even "pays" you. - I always walk to the shops and back (10min each way) because they're so close. If my boyfriend isn't home to give me a ride to the big shops, I also always walk there (30min each way). I'm appalled at paying £5 for the bus for a journey that I can make myself, on my own two legs, and burn a good amount of calories in the process. (This isn't because I'm so cheap, it's because I have £180 to live off, with cat, a month, after bills.)
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Eating less is always cheaper. I'm not going to go into how much "eating healthy" costs. A) because I don't necessarily eat healthy, and B) because food prices are different everywhere. I do eat lots of vegetables (because I love them), almost exclusively chicken or turkey breast (because I'm picky), but I'm also having takeout once a week. When we go to McDonald's or such, I like to share my meals with my boyfriend. That's half the money and half the calories. I get to satisfy my cravings for oily, cheesy things, while also not consuming 2000kcal.
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It's hard. And it hurts. - Now - it doesn't have to. But in my case, it does. I have clinical depression and anxiety, it's fucking horrible, there are days when I literally can't get out of bed and I crawl to the bathroom. I do HIIT 5 days a week, 25 minutes (double day on Friday). First time around I lost 15kg on CICO only, but I want to eat more. There are days when I literally cannot do it - and that's ok.
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You can have dessert after every meal. - Select your one portion of dessert, divide it by how many meals you're having, have one mini portion after every meal.
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Your calorie-goal is not my calorie-goal. - Sometimes I beat myself up over eating "so much". I eat 1400kcal. That's a deficit of 500kcal. I also eat back what I exercise. And that's fucking okay. My body is my body. It works in its own way. It needs the food that it needs. I'd rather work out better and harder and eat well, than deprive myself of 300kcal extra a day and feel worse than I already do.
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It might not be as tasty, but it's low effort. - On one of those horrifying shows about morbidly obese people, a doctor was trying to give advice to some random woman who was literally crying that "SHE DOESN'T WANT TO BE LIKE THIS ANYMORE, SHE DOESN'T WANT TO DIE, SNIFFLE SNIFFLE. This was a woman who needed a scooty puff to move around the house and needed her husband to help wash in her folds. Doctor: well, look at all this soda you have here, and it's all full sugar... Why don't you at least switch to sugarfree version? Woman, with straight face and suddenly very stern voice: I don't like the diet version. AND YOU THINK I DO??? You think I wouldn't rather have sugar in my coffee, than sweetener that tastes like buttcheeks?!?! I barely ever drink soda anyway (once a month?), but I always choose the sugar free version. I've been having sweetener instead of coffee for at least 5 years, and low sodium salt for at least 8. You get bloody used to it!
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If you want to eat like The Rock, you have to train like The Rock. - The only reason I get to eat like I do and still lose weight is because I work out hard. I have my takeout on days with double workouts, when I burn about 700-800kcal. Again, I could just eat less, but I'd rather work out and become nice and muscular in the process, too.
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Maybe people will like you more, maybe they won't. But you'll definitely like yourself more. - I've never been turned down for being "too fat". I'm reasonably attractive, I've dated men and women, my boyfriend of 2 years finds me attractive. But I don't. I fucking hate myself. And my opinion is the one that actually matters. Because I have to live in this body every second, not anyone else.
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Don't buy "goal clothes". You're rewarding yourself for nothing. - It's ok to buy "progress clothes", such as ones that fit or are just very slightly too small, but not "goal clothes" when your goal is several sizes down. You don't know what you'll look like when you're at your goal weight. You don't know what you'll measure in cm/in. I'd like to buy a bunch of cute Korean skirts, but I have to lose 20cm off my waist first, and who knows when that's gonna happen?! I'd rather reward myself when I'm actually there, than deprive myself of that.
If this helped even one other person, I'm glad. We're all different here, but we all have the same goal.
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