My Weight Loss Journey: What Works & What Fails

My Weight Loss Journey: What Works & What Fails 🍽️🌿🧘🏻‍♀️

A few years ago, I lost 20 kg in 6 months, reaching a BMI of 19. I was working with a personal trainer, I had a fitness routine, my nutrition was strict, and my body fat was at around 19%.

That was when I looked my best — and then I let it go.

In the past two years, I gained back 10 kg. I look fine, but the standard that had been reached is very far.

Some people accept themselves at a new weight, and that's fine if it works for you. It doesn't work for me. There's always a voice in my head nagging me and reminding me that I've strayed from my path.

I don't want to only accept my body. I want to enjoy my body. 🧘‍♀️

I embarked on a fresh weight loss journey recently. It was time to review:

what had worked for me the first time

what approaches to dieting had failed

and what worked but cannot be repeated now as my personal circumstances have changed.

In the past, what really boosted my weight loss efforts was water fasting for 24 hours or more. My longest fast was 72 hours. I fasted quite frequently over 6 months, as well as after reaching my goal weight for maintenance.

Unfortunately, I found that fasting, though effective, is unsustainable for me in the long run. It often led to eating more the next day. I ended up sabotaging my efforts. You can call it a "cheat day" but it's still counterproductive.

As for personal circumstances that have changed, I now take medication that needs to be taken with food, so fasting longer than 24 hours is out of question anyway.

I've briefly considered intermittent fasting. The problem is that I attend a lot of meetings and business events, which can be at any time of the day—in other words, there is no routine.

Food and drinks are always offered. I'm capable of not touching the food (germaphobia), but I might drink something that has calories, which would break the IF. I don't want this to be at the forefront of my mind when I'm closing business deals.

Another thing I remember is that in the 6 months I was losing weight the last time, walking was my only exercise. I only started working with a personal trainer after reaching my goal weight.

When I started exercising, I became hungrier. Dealing with that hunger was harder than when I was eating much less but not exercising. People often report they've actually gained weight after starting at the gym - this is why.

I took into account my previous experience with weight loss when I kickstarted my weight loss journey this month.

For now, I decided to simply reduce the amount of food. No fasting, no additional exercise, and especially no strenuous exercise. Also, no overthinking about calories, including not counting calories. I need this mental space to focus on other matters.

Extremely important: no cheat days.

This approach has been going well. I've dropped some weight and I look better.

More importantly, I realized that I had simply become used to a lot of food, and I don't actually need that much.

This weight loss journey has been easy to maintain, and might be viable in the long run.

Most of all, I'm learning to accept that to reach and maintain my goal weight, I literally can't have my cake and eat it too.

I feel that this is the crux of the inability to lose weight in most people. We're wired to look for the easy way out, workarounds, shortcuts, and cheat codes.

For most people, it was easier to maintain weight when we were younger, and when that ability vanishes, we dislike to acknowledge that the situation has changed. That we're different now. But those times are gone, and I need to do what works today, even if it takes a lot more effort.

Wear cute, lacy underwear

Light cinnamon scented candles

Write in journals

Say fuck you

Laugh loudly

Eat pasta

Never forgive them

Dance in your room

Wear what you want, when you want

Change yourself for the better

Because it’s your fucking life, no one’s going to live it for you, may as well love yourself x

I used to think I need to lose weight and get plastic surgery and change my look in order to make a lot of money. Then it hit me that I don’t need to do any of that, instead, I need to know if I can even handle that money and use it properly. When I changed my mindset everything shifted according to that. In favour of ‘let me prove that I can handle this’ and it worked. The same idea when someone said they wanted to manifest a rich husband, and then someone commented “you don’t want a rich husband, you want what the money can do for you. Focus on your end goal of the money/your purpose for that money” and that’s really what it is.

You cannot live alone on the fantasies you feed to your mind, eventually you have to touch your life for real, assess and analyze your habits, understand your character, try not to hate yourself for your character as it was shaped when you were very young by circumstances outside of you, and begin learning how to cope with your character, how to build habits that work for you, finish small projects, finish big projects, expose yourself to more uncomfortable situations, assess why you want to leave that friendship before you leave it, raise your anxiety levels on purpose, so that you can grow, raise your work load on purpose, so that you can grow, so that you can build resilience, so that your life expands, and can be experienced by you in full and in reality

If they keep trying to push you away, open the door

If they take you for granted, turn your back and leave

If they treat you like an option, have some options too

Mummy portrait of a girl, AD 120-150, Roman Egypt