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| Three and a half years of long term weight maintenance 2012-2015 |
Let's celebrate:
Years in long term weight maintenance: 3.5
Starting weight: 187.4 lbs
Current weight: 119.2 lbs
Goal range: 113-119
Age: 49
Menopause: yes, 2 years
Hashimoto's Disease 1997
Levoxyl: 100 ug
Height: 5'1"
Food template: Paleo, Modified AIP, Low Carb
Strategy, NSNG, Abstainer from trigger foods
Hey! Paleo-ish, modified AIP, Low Carb/Higher natural fat, moderate protein, abstaining for the WIN. I eat 90-100 grams of natural fat a day. 80 grams of protein and around 40-50 grams of carbs from veggies. I stay lean.
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| May 2011 to August 2015 |
Even though my weight has been in the higher end of my desired weight range, I've not once wavered-
Laser sharp focus, experimenting with my food template and macros a bit. All great learning and doing the hard work that weight maintenance requires. Some months are easier than others. The last 3 months have been more work.That's life. Stop working at weight maintenance, lose that priority, lose those benefits.
Life happens. Tough as nails approach yields the long term results. Mental and physical. Constant vigilance.
The best stuff: The life at 70 pounds down, 68 pounds off. So worth it. Less expensive, chronic and acute health problems gone. I can move & sleep better, wear my regular clothes, speak to groups and individuals with focus on the topic. I feel inside like I feel outside. So, so valuable.
The good stuff: Cheaper health insurance, vacation time is actually spent with my family instead of going to the doctor or suffering migraines. Yes, I spend time grocery shopping, cooking, batch cooking, reading, and cleaning up, the effort is not without commitment. But the trade off from the chronic pain (migraines, cystic acne, joint pain is all gone)
The stuff I left behind: The mental pain of obesity comments from others, "You are not taking care of yourself", "You let yourself go, why"fatso, whale, fat ass ,- insults, genuine concern- hey I was an obese kid in the 1970's. I've heard it all as a kid and an adult. , You'll get diabetes (truth, almost diagnosed, reversed via food template). F- that life. I'm fighting a life long addiction to food. STILL.
The old stuff: Someone who knew me long ago said- yeah, I got called "whale" at a minimum of 5 times a day as a kid. I must have blocked it out and grown a thick skin. I've certainly
The problem I had was that the solutions offered did not solve my problems. The answers were inside me. Pushing aside others solutions was not an easy task. Moderate eating of cupcakes, frosting, "healthy whole grains" kept me stuck. Moderate eating is just not the solution for many of us. If it works for you, high five. If an abstinence based approach (not eating grains, processed sugar, other trigger foods) is your success, too, please, blog, talk, and share about it.
Real solutions (for me): Paleo, modified Auto-Immune Protocol, lower carb, higher natural fat, No Sugars, No Grains, sprinting, walking, good sleep, lifting heavy things, getting out in nature, cooking real foods at home 98% of the time.
The magic fairy will not arrive and grant you long term weight maintenance- abstaining or moderating. Either way, it's a heck of a lot of work. Here's to a tough as nails approach and letting us know what works for you. Please help share your tough approach. Share your health transformation. Share your Whole30 results, share how much pain and money you save.
Onward. Here's to the next meal, day, month, half year. Good Lord! Glad I hopped off the "moderation of all foods" thought process. Nice to leave the pain of 1000's of binges behind. 40 years of binge eating. Took long enough. Made me stronger. I'm still standing. And I still get called names, but, hey, I'm tough as nails.
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| 3.5 years of long term weight maintenance |
I am always the first to comment! : ). Anyway, great post as usual. I am glad you are taking steps to manage your gain. You don't want your weight loss journey to be a roller coaster ride of gaining and losing the same few pounds so I appreciate that. Onward (as you say) to tweaking and feeling better!
ReplyDeleteAli, yes! And I love that you are always first. :) Yeah, I'll either be able to work on the weight over 8-12 weeks OR I'll accept this normal weight plateau.
DeleteSince I'm 5'1", the low 120's is an okay weight for me, however, I do feel best in the mid to upper teens for weight maintenance. Feeling okay is fine, but feeling awesome is even better. So it's worth a shot.
I've never once had to lose weight when I was not binge eating. New ground for me.Also, I'm due for my thyroid check so I may have to sit tight for several more months until any blood work action steps are taken. Onward indeed.
Congrats on 3.5 years-a great milestone to hit! I'm at a little over two years right now, and I'm a bit sheepish to admit that it's been really easy for me. I feel like it should be harder, but knock on wood it's been going really well so far. My maintenance plan is pretty simple-18:6IF, a 5lb maintenance window with daily weigh-ins, paying attention to portion sizes (with the occasional help of my food scale), and that's about it! Good luck to us both as we continue onward :)
ReplyDeleteSara, I found the first 3 years of weight maintenance to be very, very easy. So I say: enjoy it. Whenever I blogged about weight maintenance being easy, I took a lot of verbal poo from people behind the scenes saying it was easy- well it was. Truely compared to my past attempts at weight maintenance that were white knuckling + binge eating this attempt is easy. It's all relative. The moderate food eaters, the still binging, weight regainers all don't want to hear it.). Nonsense. If you've found something that works, embrace it. Like a boss. That's what matters, you found something that works. It's so good. :) Congrats on your success.
DeleteKeep up that great work. Onward indeed! It's all good stuff. I forget how bad it was. This stuff, it's good.
You're looking great as always :) I don't do any of that number crunching - I just eat good food. I find too much focus makes me think about food too much but hey, it's whatever works for each of us.
ReplyDeleteLynda, thank you! You look lean, vibrant and energetic yourself. Yeah, my slippery slope thinking will glide right in, take over my brain space and mess with my weight maintenance if I don't track and number crunch. I'm glad that many can maintain without it. It's a true gift. Embrace what works. :) Glad you had a good vacation.
DeleteGlad you added (better outline of food, health conditions) to your stats section. I think it is important. The information at the top of your list really paints an accurate picture, outline. I think it is important, helpful that you do crunch your numbers.. You do write in your science experiment way. It really explains the science behind your process. What you share is highly beneficial. As I have said, we probably all have slightly different percentages. But for someone (reading, and there are a lot of those someones) who is not doing well with everything in moderation, what you write gives them a clue to how to think about their process.
ReplyDeleteVickie, yes, and thanks for encouraging me for the standards in reporting and the importance of looking at both the data and percentages.
DeleteIf I ate in moderation I would still be at considerate heart attack risk (hs-CRP high with nuts and diary), I would have deep cystic acne (dairy) and migraines (nuts). I would also be likely still on the road to type 2 diabetes (lots of tropical fruit and grains).
The high hs-CRP and the high glucose were silent except for monitoring them on my required insurance discount at work. If more people took data and trended it over 4-5 years, those silent yet expensive diseases could be reversed by diet alone.
Thanks again and I'll continue to set my wellness standards. So easy to track and trend the silent, harder for people to take action and make those habit changes.