Never, Never, Never Give Up

Wow I did not write much in December. It wasn't intentional, there was just way too much to do. And now it's January and everything is cold and dark and sucks. I'm pretty chipper about it.
Christmas was absolutely wonderful. The girls had a great month. We had several conversations about the idea that Santa is not going to come into their room on Christmas night. Like at least 5 or 6 conversations. Some of them lasting 45 minutes. Mirinda finally fell asleep at 1 AM. Last year it was 2 AM, so we're improving. Both of these moments of finally falling asleep involved threats on her life.
I took a lot of time off over the Christmas holidays which was fantastic. Got to spend a lot of time with the girls. They're obsession with Frozen is becoming alarming. I asked them the other day when they were watching Frozen if we could watch something that wasn't awful. They didn't agree. We did go to see Frozen 2 on Christmas Day. I didn't hate it. It was adequate. Olaf is the most annoying character Disney has ever created. Ever. And the 80's music montage song with the schizophrenic guy was dumb. Other than that it was adequate.
The girls made it to midnight on New Years, and they were actually in a good mood. They liked the whole new year thing. It's extremely fun to see them enjoying these things as they get older. They make everything fun anyway. Priya cried when we took the Christmas tree down. I comforted her by telling her it would only be cold and horrible for 3 more months. I think it helped.
I wanted to take some time today to write about my weight loss journey this year. I haven't talked about it much. I lost 42 pounds this year. I'm pretty proud of it, but wow there's still a long way to go. I've learned a lot of things about weight loss and about myself that I wanted to share.
One thing I've learned is weight loss is an extremely personal thing. Each person loses weight and maintains weight differently, so what I'm writing about may not work for everyone. It is meant to be helpful however.
I started out New Years Day in 2019 sitting with my family for lunch. My mom had us go around the table and say what our New Years Resolution was. I didn't have one. I don't normally. I don't think I need a day to make decisions to change or improve. If you want to improve, make a plan and start. My mom said she was going to exercise 5 days a week in 2019. That struck me as a really good idea. I had joked for a long time about never exercising but honestly it was time to start. I wore XXXL shirts and they were starting to get tight. I absolutely didn't want to move to XXXXL shirts, so it was time to make a change.
The problem was I had done this before. I had gotten the motivation and decided to wake up at 5 AM every morning and work out. I had done this several times. Each time it lasted about 2 weeks. January at 5 AM couldn't be worse, and waking up early to do something you know you're going to hate isn't very encouraging. I know there are people who do that and love it, and that's impressive. I'm not one of those people.
The other option was to work out after work. That's a problem because I'm swarmed the minute I walk in the door by my little weirdos, and between getting dinner ready, cleaning and spending time with the girls I wouldn't be able to work out consistently. On top of that I want to spend time with them, so the evening wasn't going to work.
As a result we decided to start a wellness initiative at work. Everyone was allowed 30 minutes a day to work out in the gym at the office building. I started to do that every morning at about 10 AM. That worked for me. At first my only goal was just to complete 30 minutes each day. I was on zero resistance on the elliptical. I didn't care. I just wanted to do it. I hated it at first. No one likes starting an exercise regimen. I decided I needed to find a way to start loving it.
My biggest problem is I get bored when I work out. When I get bored I focus on how tired I am. When I focus on how tired I am I think I should stop. I turned to Impractical Jokers. I love that show. I laugh at every episode. I found if I watched that I would laugh and ignore the exhaustion or the pain, and suddenly the 30 minutes were up. I still watch it every time I work it.
Over the year I have kept up the 5 days a week. It's been an interesting process because there will come a day when I'll realize that I'm not getting a very good workout so I'll increase the resistance or the program and the workout is harder but I'm getting more from it. I started out at zero resistance and now I'm at 16. The thing goes to 20. I really like the way I feel when I'm exercising regularly. I have more energy and can do more. It's impressed upon me how important it is to find what works for you with exercise. I can balance something that isn't very fun with something I enjoy.
When I first started exercising I lost about 15 pounds over the course of 3 or 4 months. I wasn't watching my diet I was only exercising. My body responded to it pretty well. After I lost that weight I didn't lose anymore at all. I didn't gain anything back, but I wasn't losing. I was OK with that. I was keeping up what I said I would do, and my shirts weren't quite as tight.
In September I started realizing I was unhappy with my appearance. It wasn't really a being mean to myself thing, I just wanted to look better and feel better about myself. I've got an entire wardrobe I can't wear. Literally I have an entire closet full of clothes that are too tight to wear. It's incredibly frustrating. It was also my fault. Nobody told me to eat those cheeseburgers.
I started thinking about what to do about my weight. I've been on fad diets and yo-yo diets. I didn't want to do that again. I wanted to lose the weight and then maintain. My biggest issue was I was not going on a diet. A diet indicates I'm going to start at some point and then stop at some point. I wanted a lifestyle change. I started researching intermittent fasting and I really liked the idea behind it. The idea is to not eat for 16 hours, but to eat for 8 hours. That seemed like something I could do for the rest of my life. Here's the thing about intermittent fasting: if you eat whatever you want during those 8 hours you're not going to lose weight. You might maintain, but you're not going to lose. On top of that, you still have to watch what you're putting in your body. It's not just about weight loss. It's about a healthier lifestyle and the weight loss comes as a result of that. You can go on Keto or the low carb diet and eat a pound of bacon or a huge burger with no bun and lose weight, but is it healthy? It so is not.
The first few weeks of the intermittent fasting was tough. It's hard to retrain your body when it's used to eating all day. However, I had a goal and kept pushing through it. The nice thing about intermittent fasting is you get to drink water. It sucks to be hungry AND thirsty. After a few weeks I had lost a few pounds but wasn't seeing the results I wanted. I kept it up because my goal is not weight loss. It's a healthier lifestyle and weight loss will come as a result of that.
My mom told me about a drug called phentermine. It's an appetite suppressant and a stimulant. She had gone on it and had positive results. I decided to try it.
I met with the doctor and told him what I had been doing and said I needed some help. He prescribed the drug for me, but warned me that it's not a miracle drug. He thought I was only lose 2 to 4 pounds on it. I liked that because it seemed like a challenge to me.
I'm here to say it's not a miracle drug, but it can help. What I found is it helped me change the way I thought about food. Each day I felt that I needed to eat a big lunch because I was afraid of being hungry. When you consistently eat big lunches your capacity for eating larger meals increases. Then at 2:30 or 3:00 I would feel like I needed a snack because it was midday. That's a dangerous slope to be on. Suddenly on an appetite suppressant I didn't feel hungry. I felt full. When it came to midday and my mind would say I needed a snack, I would stop and think about it. I realized I didn't feel hungry so I didn't need a snack. It was a mental battle the first few days. There was the part of me that was afraid of being hungry and the other part of me that realized I wasn't hungry. I had to ask myself each time this battle came up whether I wanted a snack or wanted to lose weight. Most of the time the answer was I wanted to lose weight. Not always. There are times when the answer is I want to eat. One night in December we were at the Festival of Trees. I hadn't had time to eat much dinner and I was starving. I really wanted to eat but kept fighting myself all night that I wanted to lose weight. Mirinda was hungry and wanted a cheeseburger after we left so we stopped at McDonald's to get her one. My mind kept telling me I should get a cheeseburger or a spicy McChicken but I kept fighting. Finally I got home and realized that I was actually really hungry. Normally I would have a bunch of cookies or something like that. Instead I had a glass of milk and one cookie bar. When I got done with that I was completely satisfied. I learned that sometimes you need to give your body what it wants. Just give less than what you would normally give. Have one cookie instead of ten. Other times you need to master yourself because the goal is a healthier lifestyle.
After a month of being on the drug I met with the doctor again. I had lost 17 pounds. He walked in and said, "Well that worked." I agreed. He cautioned me again that I probably won't see that much weight loss in a month. Good. Another challenge. He did tell me that he had another patient who had gained weight on this drug. I couldn't understand how anyone could gain weight on this. I'm not hungry. I eat lunch and dinner and have an occasional snack, but I am not hungry for anything else. He said this guy wasn't watching what he was eating, wasn't exercising. Basically wasn't doing what I was doing. It was good to hear. It's not a miracle drug. You have to put in the work. You have to be committed to the goal of a healthier lifestyle. There are bad days. There are days when you really want to eat something you know you shouldn't. Sometimes you do. You don't beat yourself up when you do. Have the snack. Make it a good one and have less of it, but enjoy it.
Lifestyle change is not about making yourself miserable. It's about choosing one thing each week you can do differently. Whether it's a goal for exercise or food, or something you need to start doing or stop doing, do it one week at a time. The issue is we have these grand plans and we eliminate everything in our life that tastes good or is unhealthy and we're going to spend our life at the gym and put all these rules on ourselves that are going to make us miserable. We're motivated for a little while, then we find out how much it sucks and how miserable we are and the motivation leaves. We go right back to old habits and nothing changes. Instead of that start with one thing this week that you can change. Make it small. Then next week pick something else you can change. Keep up what you have done and choose new things. Small changes over time lead to lifestyle changes for the rest of your life. I can't imagine not working out now. My stomach has shrunk now to the point that when I do want to eat more I find that I'm full and I don't like the feeling of being stuffed. My clothes are starting to fit better and I'm almost to the point I can wear XXL shirts again. I have an entire wardrobe waiting for me.
That's my advice. Don't make it about only weight loss. Make small healthier decisions on a weekly basis and watch it change you and your body. It becomes habit which then becomes a part of your personality. Then you start to learn how your body responds to what you put in it and what you do to it. This makes it easier to tailor your lifestyle to a healthier one. All this leads to a healthier weight.
I lost 42 pounds in 2019. My goal is 50 pounds in 2020. I'm going to keep moving forward with this. When I get to the weight I want I'm going to maintain. I'm not going through this again. It sucks. It sucks gaining weight and slowly realizing that clothes you wear don't fit you anymore. It's much better to stick to healthy behavior and habits. It doesn't mean you can't have that ice cream. Eat the ice cream, just have a scoop or two instead of the entire thing of Ben and Jerry's. It was one of my favorite snacks.
In saying all this I realize that each body is different. Each person is different. This is what has worked for me. The method I've used may not work for you, but I do believe the principle is the same. Don't make huge sweeping changes all at once. Start with one thing today, then build on it. Be patient. You may not see results right away but over time you will. Just don't give up. I'm looking forward to writing about this again next January 50 pounds lighter than I am now.
Just don't give up.