February wasn’t a great weight loss month for me – between The Super Bowl , Valentine’s Day, Soup Sunday, Eating out with my Dad in town, and at little emotional eating I only lost 5 lbs. Of course I say “only” but if I only lost 5 lbs every month left in this year that would put me at loosing 68 lbs this year and that’s nothing to be sad about.
I’m on a food plan but to be honest I do deviate from it on the weekends; obviously February was a learning curve for me about how to go off plan and still lose and what’s too far off plan vs what’s ok. I know at lot of people when they are on a weight loss plan don’t believe in “cheating” or going off plan but for me it’s important – one because looking at over a year of being in wight loss mode is very daunting and I find it easier to tackle each week at a time but also because quite frankly I don’t want to lose too much weight too fast. Yes, that’s right – I don’t want to lose weight too fast.
One of the biggest problems I have with our society and how we approach weight loss is that there’s always this idea out there that fat = miserable. We see it when people post before and afters, we see it in media and entertainment because heaven forbid Hollywood just ONCE cast someone above a size 6 where their weight isn’t a constant topic of conversation and of course it’s an idea that a multi billion dollar weight loss industry pushes down our throats. But here’s the deal y’all – I’m not miserable. We hear all these weight loss stories where people talk about all the things they couldn’t do because of their weight and I can never relate to that – I can see my feet and put on my own shoes, I don’t have mobility issues, I fit perfectly fine inside my car, I don’t need a seat belt extender on an airplane and I’ve never been kicked off an amusement park ride. To be perfectly honest there’s very few things my weight would prevent me from doing that I’d even want to do – I’m more outdoorsy that I like drinking on patios than I am interested in hiking through the woods. I guess in short you could say that I’m not afraid of being fat – but what I am afraid of is causing my body harm in losing weight.
Did you know that most of the contestants on The Biggest Loser have gained their weight back or that 80% of people who lose 10% or more of their body weight gain it back -YIKES! This gain is essentially caused by two things – a slowed metabolism and increased appetite. Losing weight too fast and eating less than 1,000 calories a day can really mess up the body’s metabolism – and we’re not talking about while eating under 1,000 calories a day – we’re talking forever! Also, in an ironic twist losing weight causes individuals to have an increased appetite. The key to keeping weight off is to lose it without crash dieting and ruining the metabolism and building healthy habits to control ones appetite.
Another issue that can be caused by rapid weight loss is excess skin. Gaining weight causes the skin to stretch and when one loses weight quickly it doesn’t give the skin the opportunity to shrink in turn. The reality is that if I lose over 100lbs I will wind up with some excess skin – especially around my stomach but I would like to give my skin every chance to shrink naturally which is why I’m focused on drinking plenty of water and now adding work outs to my routine. I don’t feel like weight loss should be about appearance and it certainly isn’t for me – to be honest I don’t hate what I see in the mirror. I also know my body now to know what I think it looks good in and and what I’m not a fan of. I haven’t been 100lbs less than I started in 10 years so I have no idea what that body will look like at 35 and there’s a chance thanks to excess skin it will look completely different than the last time I was at that weight. When it comes to weight loss my biggest fear is that I will actually love my body less and have less confidence than I do now and that I’ll have to spend thousands on skin removal surgery.
As much as the weight loss industry wants us to believe it I don’t think it’s normal to be miserable in ones life just because one is overweight and I wish we would stop celebrating this behavior. I need to lose 100lbs and I still lead a normal fulfilling life where my weight has very little impact on my ability to live that life. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but for ones weight to be significantly impacting their life we’re talking about being 200lbs, 300lbs and even more over weight. I do believe that there are people out there who are 25, 50 and yes even 100lbs overweight who are miserable about their weight but I would argue that is much more about underlying self esteem issues, past experiences and mental health than it is just about the weight. I think it can be very dangerous to have this mindset and lose weight because that is where you see individuals go to extreme measures to get the weight off as quickly as possible. I have worn every size jean from 8 to 22 so I can say with a lot of confidence that happiness cannot be found in a smaller pair of jeans. Happiness with ones body has to come from a place of love and acceptance not hate and misery.
