I am writing this post because I am on the Down-stage of changing my habits to improve my health and lose weight. What do I mean by that? I mean the state where you are back where you started and lost all of your progress or – worst case – gained even more weight… And I know that there are lots of women like me having the same struggles.
In summer 2021 I started a program to improve my health and to lose some weight. It was very successful, I’ve lost around 16 pounds and saw improvements not only on the scale but also in my overall health (less back pain, less problems with digestion etc.).
Success at first!
But in autumn 2021 I slowly but surely started falling back into all my bad old habits concerning nutrition, moved my body less and less, and now, beginning of the year 2022 I am right back where I started my journey. Same problems, same weight (gained those 16 pounds back). This is really frustrating, and taking into account how many tries I already took to get back to a body that feels healthy and which I feel comfortable with, it is even more frustrating.
What now? Was the method I chose wrong? Was my mindset not strong enough? Didn’t the method had enough sustainability to be integrated in my daily life? In the following I briefly describe my general thoughts, or, to be honest more like my FEELINGS about dieting and losing weight, my current state and takeaways from my last approach as well as the next steps I am gonna take – because I won’t give up. Besides not feeling comfortable in my body I really also notice pain in my body that shows me, something isn’t quite right!
Gratefulness for what I have
While editing this text I realized that I am complaining on something for which first and foremost I should feel grateful for: the accessibility of food for me and my family. I am grateful to be born in a country where enough food is available to everybody. 
I don’t know what hunger feels like. I don’t know what it feels like not to be able to feed your kids. And I am so grateful for that. While being grateful and honoring the fact that we have everything we need there is still room to improve our health and well-being. Because we have the possibilities to do so we should use them at their best. But having everything also means being in danger of having too much, which is the case when using food to compensate for something or overeating because of strange mechanisms of our society. We still can do better, we can support organizations helping to feed the world and we can look for ourselves to live the healthiest life we possibly can, which is honoring our prosperity instead of waisting it.
A history of dieting
I have a whole history of dieting starting at around age 14… as many of us have. Getting to that age where boys got interesting in a different way, people started to judge about the looks more and being interested and therefore confronted with magazines and their pictures of “beauty”. I KNOW for sure that before that age I didn’t question my natural body in any way, I wasn’t overweight AT ALL and felt quite comfortable with everything. Sure, I had days where I don’t like my hair, or liked some clothes more on me than others, felt prettier in one or another, but there was no concern, that I wouldn’t look “right”… Obviously, I wasn’t raised in a way, that those things would matter at all.
But with this young age of 14 outer influences become stronger. I remember one day on my way to school, hearing boys behind me saying: “Oh look, she got such a fat ass” – giggling around. Obviously they started a new phase in their lives, too… but this is the first moment I remember where I began questioning if I might have a “fat ass” (and in a sense of something that is bad to have) – this thought never occurred to me before…
I don’t remember exactly how it worked but at some point, my best girlfriend and I decided that we were much too fat and had to take laxatives from the drug store in order to lose weight or not gain weight. Crazy, we both were really skinny at that time… but we didn’t feel like it, all those extra curves made us feel “fat” somehow. Anyone has ever taken laxatives? They are uncomfortable, to say the least, and are potentially dangerous when not properly used. That is what I consider as my first “diet”… and lots and lots followed, in times where I was really young, and my weight was really more on the lower side …
Gradually it began that I lost the feeling of being hungry or thirsty, I lost the feeling of what really felt good or bad. Spending so much time following crazy diet plans like “only bananas”, “only 1 meal a day”, “just white bread and milk for 1 week” (and a LOT more) without having to lose weight, lead to gaining weight (also of course the natural changes in the body) long term. From age 30 on (yes, I did it all the time!!!) I gained around 5-10 pounds a year overall (gained 10 pounds, lost 15, gained 5 pounds, lost 10 pounds, gained 20, and so on). There always existed a kind of “natural” state, where nothing moved fast in either the directions up/down, but this “natural” state got higher and higher over the years.
I also lost the joy of moving my body. There were times when I moved naturally a lot: lots of swimming, walking, running, cycling, and more, but it slowly became more like a “must” for me, a HAVE TO, which was bound to the fact I felt the need to lose weight (even though there was no need for it)… After a while, I only moved my body for reaching a goal or doing “sports” to get “fit”. And so it became a chore, instead of being joyful. I hope to be able to gradually improve my perception of movement as joyful, so that at some point I will feel it as a desire rather than a duty.
Now, at age 51, with one child, my weight is at its highest – the last 16 pounds are due to the “pandemic” where I lost it all, all energy to do something healthy for my body, for some time. The only thing that changed while still looking for the right nutrition is that I don’t look for a “diet” anymore, I look for a way to get back to a state, where I don’t have to think too much about what to eat and when to have a kind of natural feeling for what I need.
I want it back: a natural feeling for my body & my health
What I took from all the above and where I am right now is that I need to get back to a state, where I feel what is good for me, where I only eat when I am hungry, having a snack is something special & enjoyable and any movement I do, I do because I feel like it, and it feels good.
I think I kind of have to rewire my brain. The same way my brain got rewired to its current state and approach. Now the focus is my own feeling about myself, me listening closely to my body and being gentle to myself and accepting that I am not a supermodel and that it is kind of silly trying to look similar. I will find myself in a nice group on Facebook with women my age who have a positive body image and mindset to find and give support. I will find some pictures of women I adore who have body types I can relate to and put them somewhere in front of me. Obviously, no one can avoid what is all around us, so I certainly will get confronted with pictures of women who have the body appropriate to today’s “beauty standard” (funny how some people try to get a “fat ass” nowadays, which I own naturally, haha). And that’s fine! I have a workaround for that to remind me I don’t have to look like them, I don’t want to look like them, I just want to feel good in my own skin!!!
My other tool of choice is awareness. It is the only weapon against all the negative beliefs and pictures I have in my mind about myself and my body.
Another thing I realized is that everything which constantly tells me what I am not allowed to eat does not work for me. I need a kind of nutrition that allows everything and when my body doesn’t show any bad reaction to it I am allowed to eat it if I want to. I want nutrition that is a complete lifestyle change, a change of my habits so that in the future I don’t have to think twice when choosing my meals or a snack.
The third aspect is choosing those types of movement where I feel the least resistance to do them. Because some kind of movement/exercise I feel is an important factor if I want to lose weight at first, and also improves my overall health & strengthens my immune system. This may lead hopefully to the desire to move more and in different ways again.
This is not different from what I did last year, and even though I failed and flipped back to my old habits, I still believe that it is a good way. It felt good as long as I kept it up. I will look for more kinds of support and accountability this time.
There have been internal reasons, more something about my mental state of mind rather than the state or the form of nutrition. Something that needs to be worked on.
So what I have to do is to figure out what makes my brain order me to do things that are bad for me, what are the moments in which I start going from an exception to a bad habit again… I believe it is the wiring, the habits that have been formed over the years and that are not so easy to break. My brain keeps telling me, that it is not important, that I should do the wrong thing, that I NEED the wrong thing, and not to even THINK about what is the good thing to do… Isn’t that crazy??? Is this because it is “easier” for my brain to process?
Also, my emotional state plays an important role here. Every time, I am not on top of my feelings, I fall back into bad habits. These two together my head & my emotion keep telling me – over weeks and months obviously – that I shouldn’t CARE about what I do, eat, drink, etc. instead just follow the short-term-satisfaction-route. And of course, they say I shouldn’t weigh myself or look in the mirror… tricky, tricky, tricky… But suddenly, one day, when my jeans got uncomfortable or I feel worse with my health, the moment of clarity comes: oh no, I am back where I was, I am doing all the things I wanted to stop doing… and doing less of the things I wanted to do.
After coming over the realization, the shocking moment, followed by crying, hating myself, feeling bad about myself, etc. – I have really no other clue than to start over, like I said, implement everything back into my daily life and stop doing the things that are not good. And be even more conscious about the feelings that trick me into doing unhealthy things to me. The tools of my choice are a supporting community, accountability partner, and continue writing about my progress.
Because: I want it back, this natural state of eating and doing healthy things! I deserve a healthy body, I deserve being the best me and I deserve loving myself and my body!
My approach: what do I do to get healthier and lose some weight?
Before starting you need to know your goals. It makes it easier to see the success. And where you struggle – Well, I need to know my goals, maybe you don’t š –
My first goal is to lose weight until I feel comfortable in my body and feel my health improved. My milestones to stay on track are looking at the scale (I have a certain weight in mind, but more important are my feeling for myself and the fitting of my clothes, I don’t have a fix number in mind) once a week + measuring my waist every 2 weeks. The second goal is to find a lifestyle and a nutrition style which feels naturally after a while, learn to listen to my body again (knowing when I am hungry and when not), fits my needs, can be sustained fairly easy & which helps keeping the weight once I reached the first goal.
As I said, I am no friend of don’ts anymore, as don’ts have brought me to the state I am. What I have is a list of Do’s I learned from the program I’ve been in, from my past experiences and from what I know and feel about my own body. On this list I have lots of food which I consider as helpful and healthy to use according to my general meal plan.
Everything I do is subject to change because it HAS to fit perfectly into my daily life, otherwise I still won’t be able to keep it up forever (second goal)- because that is what it should lead to, to a complete CHANGE in my habits regarding to nutrition & health.
If you want to have a look into my full meal & health plan I came up with, you can have a look at it here: LINK
Keeping you updated about my progress
As I wrote one tool for me is writing about my feelings and my progress. It helps be to keep my awareness up. So you, dear reader, are also one of my accountability partners. And maybe I can be yours, too, with writing about this all…Ā As always, I hope that my experiences help you to maybe find a short-cut for yourself, where I needed years… Would be happy to hear from you what you think, what your experiences and thoughts are on this!
Until then, I wish you all self-love, a healthy body and a happy mind!
Yours, Michaela