I once had someone tell me "you tell people not to diet, but have you forgotten that dieting is how you got to where you are?"
4 years ago I was 274 pounds.Currently I am somewhere between 175 and 183, I haven't weighed in for a long time- months and months, but I know that I have stayed within that range because I know how my clothing fits.
I have never been a small person, as a kid I was average. As a teen I was larger but not considered obese, just not tiny. Even now as an adult and about 100lbs smaller than I was once, I am not a small person and I will never be a small person. By the way- that is totally OK and normal. There are people with larger frames and people with smaller and petite frames. People who are tall, and people who are short. People who carry more body fat, and people who struggle to gain to get to a healthy weight. People who gain muscle easily, and people who can't seem to gain muscle despite their best efforts. My Dad and his side of the family are Italian and larger people, both in build, height and weight. My mother is average- but she is a chronic dieter to remain that way. Yes, your parents and grandparents size does play a role in yours.
However, when I was pregnant with my first child, I gained 70lbs. That pushed me into the 200's and for the next seven years I stayed in the 200's- from 210 and 274 and everywhere in between. Did I want to lose weight? Yes! There were times I lost and got down to 210 by eating low carb and doing a lot of cardio. It didn't stay off and really I was mostly OK with it. I was not obsessed with my body and not obsessed with weight loss- I had babies and foster children and we adopted kids and I just had a lot more important things to focus on. Until the birth of our 5th child when it was discovered I had some precancerous cells. One cell-grade level from cervical cancer, it was pretty serious but also pretty scary, a wake up call.
Not a wake up call to lose weight. Being overweight did not cause or contribute to precancerous cells. It was a call to get healthy. Actually healthy. Not "I need to get healthy so I need to lose weight". A smaller size does not mean you are any healthier. I knew that inflammation caused abnormal cells, so my body was clearly inflamed and full of a bunch of icky stuff because my lifestyle and nutrition choices were terrible. So the first change:
Eat a diet that promotes anti-inflammation and alkalinity in my body. I stayed away from things like peanut butter, cheese, dairy, processed meats and the common foods that we know cause inflammation and mucus production. Naturally, this left me eating more vegetables, fruits, fish, and whole foods. I didn't track or count anything, I ate whenever I was hungry until I wasn't hungry. I did not switch to this for weight loss- I switched to try and help what was going on inside my body.
Weight loss was a side effect from this change. Of course! Take someone who eats a diet of processed foods and sugar and make a bunch of changes to what they are eating,weight will be lost- whether intended or not.
Second, I began to exercise. Do I need to list the health benefits of a balanced active lifestyle? I wanted to be an active person- I wanted to be fit and to feel good. I started doing the 21 day fix workouts by beach body. To this day when someone is looking for an in-home workout regimen I recommend this. I didn't do their nutrition plan or shakeology or any of that, I just followed the modified workouts. Pretty soon I noticed that I was doing amazing and getting through the modified workouts and I could start doing the "rx" workouts with the leader. It felt good and it gave me confidence to see how much my body could change with exercise. I remember starting out with 5lb weights and it was a struggle. By my last round (months in) I was using 15 and 20lbs- I LOVED ordering the bigger weights each time I needed a jump up!
Again, weight loss was a side effect of this. Take a sedentary person and have them begin to exercise on a regular basis, they will lose weight even if they are not doing it to lose weight.
Stay with me here before you leave thinking I did it all with he best intentions, as soon as I hit 180lbs- I lost my focus. It stopped being about health, my blood work by then was great. I felt great, no bad cells, I had a great routine down- and then I started to care more about my weight. 180lbs wasn't good enough (Yes, I got to 180 with just those two things AND I was nursing). This is also when I began Healthful Pursuits, so many women would message me asking me for weight loss help. So I started groups and became certified in nutrition coaching (which actually was harder than any of my college level nutrition and biology classes so far, after a year in, I'm happy that it wasn't just a print your certificate kind of thing!)
Then the dieting began. Calories. Then the Zone. RP. Macros. Keto. Weight Watchers. I did them all. Where did it get me? Completely obsessed with my body, down to 163 lbs (keep in mind I am just short of 5'8 and I do have a lot of muscle on me (thanks Crossfit and learning to lift!), 163 was an ascetically good weight for me)- still not happy, still aiming for a smaller number, working out not to feel good anymore- but to help me lose more weight. I ran an ultra marathon with my husband (31.1 miles) and then CRASHED. I was so depleted and tired of working out, tired of spending HOURS away from my family on the weekends running (I love running, but once you get into distance running (my favorite) it is a big time sucker!!) and tired of protein shakes and eggs and chicken. I stopped weighing and started EATING and stopped running (I did continue to exercise, rowing and weights). I did gain weight- right back to where I was before I began dieting and where I still am today. Not a single pound that I lost on any of the diets stayed off. The only weight that stayed off was the weight that came as a side effect of making better lifestyle choices.
How has it stayed off? Well, I'm not working to keep it off, for one. I'm letting my body be where it wants to be. I do not diet, I exercise regularly and truly love it. I'm always trying new things, classes, programs, gyms, home gyms, etc. If you let your body, it will settle into it's natural healthy weight and I truly believe that is exactly where I am and exactly why I haven't "gained it all back". Once you find your body's natural healthy weight (NOT what an online BMI chart tells you to weigh), you will not have to diet, exercise or work to stay that weight.
Today I had coffee and an amazing egg sandwhich, pretzels and hummus, oranges and gummy worms, a protein shake after a workot, spagehtti and meatballs, vanilla ice cream and more. I'm a snacker more than a meal preparer, and thats ok, both are healthy.
So did dieting get me here? Yes and no.
YES because my experience with dieting backed up everything I have since learned about dieting and bodies. It gave me real-life experience to show me what diets truly do to people.
and
NO because I gained every diet pound back, and I am sitting where I left off naturally.
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