New diet plans for a new year. For those of you who have been following the blog for a while have probably seen some of the posts where I discussed my weight-loss journey. Well, “Journey” is the word that gets used a lot but to me, a journey would imply you are going somewhere. So maybe that isn’t the best way to describe it. I’m not on a journey yet, I am still struggling to get my car out of the driveway.
Since I have added quite a few new readers since the last health-related post I’ll give everyone a TLDR version of the story so far: I wasn’t a heavy child or young adult. Sure I would have my occasional detour into Chubbytown, but for the most part, I was always relatively close to being in balance on my weight. In my mid-thirties, I developed Grave’s Disease and had radiation treatment for my thyroid. Within one year of my radiation, I gained nearly a hundred pounds and since then ballooned to my highest weight of 350 pounds.
I have never been able to get my weight under control and eventually gave up on ever being a balanced weight. In 2017 I finally decided to power my way through and took a 100-day challenge to work out every day and to record my calories. I lost nearly 50 pounds in three months then got a cat bite that put me in the hospital. This created a massive bill that was several thousand dollars (even with my health insurance), and I am still paying that off and will probably be doing so for the next couple of years.
Depression got the better of me, it wasn’t until I started this blog in February 2018 that the fog began to lift. In August I became a vegan and although I sometimes alternate between vegan and vegetarian ( Eggs and cheese are my weakness) I have been pretty successful overall. I did have tuna once and Salmon once but aside from that have been meat free for five months. I also have been doing intermittent fasting where I will cease eating for about 14-16 hours a day. I am able to be reasonably good at keeping that going especially since I work an early morning shift from 5am to 330pm and am in bed by 8pm. I have my last meal around 5pm and won’t eat again until noon the next day.
For August through September, I was able to keep posts going about my experiences with being vegan/vegetarian and intermittent fasting. In October my job switched me from nights to days. I hated getting up at 4am to get ready for work, and by the time it was 330pm I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was sleep. The amount I was blogging nosedived and all posts travel, or health-related came to a crawl. (Which stank because I was adding followers and getting visits at a really steady clip and it all slowed down as well.) I am grateful for the people who stuck around. I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.
Which brings us to now. So I have to, first of all, admit that while my vegetarian and fasting has been remotely consistent, I have gained back most of the weight I lost. There are two things lacking that I think helped precipitate the gain: lack of mindfulness and accountability.
For Mindfulness, I need to start recording everything I eat. Whatever passes my lips gets recorded. No judgment from me (I hope) just an honest account of what I eat, how much and approximately how many calories. Also what I drink although I actually drink very few calories as I eschew soda and have since I was a child. I usually only drink tea coffee and of course water. Any exercise is also recorded with an estimate of calories burned. I have already been doing this the last couple of days.
As far as Accountability that’s where you come in. I mean if you choose to of course. I will post updates every other day. My goal is to record everything I eat from now until the end of this year. It’s really kind of a yin/yang thing. I need to really know what I am eating and how much. Maybe I am sabotaging myself somehow. I am always told despite all the ways the message gets distorted the secret to losing weight eat less and exercise more. I need to put this to the test. I need to be accountable for trying to be rue to this formula. So bear with me as I post my food entries. Besides, it might be interesting to see what I am eating. (well I at least hope so.) I’ll post every other day If you are also dieting or have weight loss goals this year, post in the comments. Let’s encourage each other. I’ll gladly follow your blog and cheer you along.
) I promise I’ll keep the travel entries going, but I need to see this weight thing through. If I can be victorious, well then it will be a journey indeed.
Thanks for your willingness to share a personal journey. This is not an easy journey either.
In reference to your statement ‘the secret is to eat less and exercise more’ I tend to disagree.
I have found from personal experience, that it is a matter of not how much I eat, but what I choose to eat.
It’s the calorie/carbs that I reduced, not the amount. Don’t eat 4 full hours prior to sleep.
Biggest meal of the day should never be the last meal of the day.
Following that info above I lost 40 lbs which has never come back.
Good Luck, keep us posted, and don’t give up.
Jer~
thanks so much Jerry. I tend to sleep better if it has been a few hours since I’ve eaten and although it may seem counterintuitive , I am almost never hungry when I wake up in fact I am actually “anti-hungry” . When I say eat less I guess i mean more in the lines of eat a lower calorie/carb amount. Right now I shoot for anywhere between 1200 and 1600 calories per day depending on how active I am.