Seven years ago, I lost 50 pounds and started this blog to chronicle that journey.
I’ve gained back anywhere from 10-20 pounds of that, depending on the day.
The first few years of weight maintenance were GREAT. It was still novel, I guess, and I loved eating healthy and was good at being relatively strict with my diet. But a few years ago, I don’t know if I started emotional eating through some tough times or I just didn’t care, but I slowly let those super healthy eating habits slide, thinking “but I work out a lot! I run marathons!”
LOL. Hi you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, no matter how hard you try. Damnit.
Looking back, the number one thing that helped me lose weight was tracking what I ate. And especially since I was tracking it in such a public way, no way did I want to show y’all I wasn’t eating as healthily as I “should” have, and I’ve never been one to only present the good.
Over these past few years, I’ve tried quite a few times to lose some of that extra weight. By the end of last June, I felt really good. I started thinking recently about what I was doing then. 1. Lifting with our LTF program at work. 2. Tracking everything in MyFitnessPal. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about MFP, or at least how I was using it. I was getting too competitive with myself as I compared myself to my coworkers’ eating habits and progress.
I’ve been trying a service called Rise, which matches you 1:1 with a coach who reads all your food logs and gives you feedback (basically, virtual RD.) In full disclosure, I’m paying for this with my own cashmoney (it’s about $48/month or $12/week, which is more reasonable than seeing an IRL RD) but that linky there gives both of us a free week.
The app doesn’t use calories, which is actually sort of nice. This post isn’t meant to be a review of Rise, by the way, though I might once I’ve done it longer/if I stick with it. I’ve been doing this for not even a week, and I can already tell it’s making me reconsider what I’m eating since I’m logging it AND helping me identify habits I hadn’t even realized (i.e. I really like something sweet in the afternoon.) I’ve already been making a really conscious effort for the past month or so to cut back on wine, and I’m ready to add on the healthier eating habits now. (Although it is easier to eat healthy when there is less wine in my life, just saying.
I’m also already realizing how to not beat myself up for a “bad” meal (which is usually when I’m tired/stressed/etc) and let it go, realizing it’s just one meal out of the 21 or so I eat all week. I’ve also already noticed I rarely eat more than two meals on the weekends, what about you? I’m already feeling closer to moderation, and I’m now trying to figure out solid goals for myself to keep me on track through my Hamptons weekends.
tl;dr: It’s a pain in the ass to track, but it really works.
I have so many questions for you:
1. Do you track what you eat? How/where?
2. How do you stay healthy through fun summer weekends? Loosely, I think my current plan is to ensure I DEFINITELY get in a Saturday morning workout while I’m away, and making sure I keep Friday night just tame enough that that can happen. I can be hungover and running, just as long as I’m running.
3. Do you eat three square meals on the weekend? My college roomie Lindsay and her mom made fun of me her wedding weekend because I. needed. every. single. meal. or. else.
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