Tracking my weight loss

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Sunday 22 July 2012

23rd July 2012. Almost a year on.

It has been almost a year since I first decided that I must do something about my weight loss. A year since I got my first job after uni and realised I now had the time and money to focus on me and my health. A year since I realised that now was the time to lose the weight.... before I found Mr. Right, before I decided I wanted to have kids, before I travelled again. Before things got harder and life got in the way.

My dream was to find something sustainable and that fitted me. Something that I could do for the rest of my life and not get bored or feel like it's a chore or a duty. Something I enjoyed and was good for me.

That meant a lot of hard thinking, and looking into the core of myself and discovering WHY I am like this way. WHY I have this problem in the first place. And HOW to make it better. HOW to combat the "whys".

And what I discovered is that I love food. Particularly when I am bored. Or emotional. Or stressed. Or hungry.

And once I discovered that- I could learn to put things in place to combat my cravings when at times all I wanted to do is down a bottle of soda and eat myself to oblivion with ice cream.

 Bored, stressed, emotional. These are the hardest and I still struggle with them. But I am slowly learning that there are two ways for me to combat these; relaxation and exercise. Relaxation is my first point of call, this does not mean being lazy, but simply doing something for me.

Usually this includes drawing, reading, walking, taking photo's or baking. Something creative.

The other end of that is when I am so wired relaxation isn't going to help. These are the times when chilling and taking it slow, just aren't good enough. And that's where exercise comes in. I take what I have learnt at my training sessions and do a little more. Or I try to do something more active, jog to the letter box ( I live on a property, so my letter box is like 500 metres a way ) or jog with the dog. Do sit ups in front of the television. Lift weights. Something to take my mind off what I am thinking and get rid of my nervous, stressful energy.

The good thing about exercise is that it makes me happy, it makes me less likely to stress or get emotional, because twice a week I feel like I am going through my very own therapy sessions and get everything out. Not this constant building of stress and pressure.

I have realised that there are times when I feel so hungry that I just want to devour the nearest, easiest and yummiest thing there is, and the reason for it is that I don't eat the right foods, or enough of them.

I would eat a small portion, only to feel hungry not that long after and wonder why. Other people ate the same amount and they stayed full, I said.

It took me a while to realise it was what I was eating, not how much. I need to eat often and in small portions, with protein in almost all my meals.

This is hard to do, mostly for taste reasons. So it takes planning. Planning what I am going to eat for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Just so that I am full and sated and don't turn into some hunger crazed sugar obsessed monster in the afternoon. :P

So a year from when I started this journey, this snail trail to weight loss, and I have learnt some of the reasons why. I have learnt some the hows and now finally I am on a path that I believe will be sustainable and healthy and will be a path I can follow for the rest of my life.

There are things that are emotional that I need to deal with still, how I look, how I feel about myself as a person. As a person who happens to be fat, not a fat person. But I no longer feel like this is impossible, after all I got this far didn't I?

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