My Weight-Loss Journey: This Is What I Would Do If I Had To Start All Over Again
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I was a chubby 17-year old the first time I decided to stop binge eating and lose the extra fat weight I was carrying around.
It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that all that spare weight was weighing me down physically, mentally and emotionally.
I was a scrawny kid, but once puberty hit, it’s as if someone hit the Eat-Till-You-Drop switch in my brain.
From then on, food became something I loved and hated at the same time because I just couldn’t seem to get enough of it every time I ate.
I’d developed a compulsive tendency to binge until I felt like I was going to explode or throw up.
I. Just. Couldn’t. Stop. Eating.
The more my weight crept up and the baggier my clothes got, the more I withdrew from life.
Socializing was off the table because I was terrified of being seen the way I was.
I shied away from having my photo taken like the plague because I hated how ‘big’ I looked in them.
The thought of going out for a meal with friends and family filled me with dread because I didn’t know how to eat like a ‘normal’ person.
Now, over three decades and plenty of ups and downs later, I’ve finally healed my relationship with food, got my body’s fat percentage down to a healthy number, gained a lot more muscle, and feel at home in my own skin.
To celebrate this huge milestone, I’m giving thanks to the strong, healthy body that’s gotten me through so much in life, and considering what I’d do differently if I were to go back in time and start all over again.
These are the lessons that I wish someone older and wiser had taught me back then to make my weight-loss journey a less painful and confusing one — lessons that I hope you’ll find helpful if you are in the process of healing your own relationship with food and learning to love your body.
1. Put Your Mental Health First, Weight Loss Second
My early attempts at losing weight through restrictive dieting worked, but I eventually regressed back to my old eating habits and re-gained all the weight I’d lost.
Having been through this journey several times now, I can tell you this: Just following the conventional advice to ‘eat less and move more’ will give you temporary results because it addresses only one tiny aspect of losing weight: Eating fewer calories.
What it doesn’t do is help you fix is why you’ve been gaining the unwanted weight in the first place.
My own ups and downs with weight gain stemmed from my constant binge eating for comfort because I was struggling with other aspects of my life that I didn’t know how else to cope with.
It was only when I put my mental health first that I could focus on building healthier eating habits, get my body’s fat percentage down to a healthy range, and keep it there.
2. Be Your Own Best Friend
The bigger my body got, the more I hated myself.
The more I hated myself, the more I ate, feeding the vicious cycle of binge eating, self-loathing and weight gain I found myself stuck in.
But the thing is, if a friend had come to me with this very same problem, I would have encouraged them to be kind and patient with themselves.
Yet, there I was, loathing how I felt in my own body and feeling disgusted at what I saw in the mirror every single day.
The more I ‘messed up’, the more I punished myself with negative self-talk and self-sabotage.
Sick of living like this, I decided that the only way I was going to start feeling differently about myself was to treat myself differently — like I was my own best friend.
Taking this approach didn’t change my life and body overnight, but it did make me stop and think about whether something I was about to do or say would help or hurt me.
3. Food Isn’t The Enemy
The false narratives that we’ve been fed about food all this while, is.
This latest diet/miracle ingredient/fasting method really works and if you’re not on it, you’re in trouble!
Believing misinformation like this is why I spent a big chunk of my life being fearful of food, and I allowed this fear to control me, instead of the other way around.
It didn’t help that I was hooked on high-sugar, high-fat and ultra-processed foods, which in that combination, kept me wanting more and more of it.
Having been through food hell and back many times over, I realized that no one ingredient or type of food (like carbs and fat) is bad for you.
Each and every one has a place in your life (yes, I’m also talking about the cake, ice-cream and chips), but how much of them you eat and how you eat them are the everyday habits that will truly make a difference.
4. Listen To Your Body
I was eating too much at every meal, and how I ate — quickly and without much thought — enabled me to do that.
Switching to healthier foods helped me feel better, but I still had two big problems that were still eating away at me: Hunger terrified me, and once I started eating, I didn’t know when to stop.
It wasn’t until I got to know my body’s hunger cues and made them my friend with mindful eating that I stopped feeling afraid of hunger (no, feeling hungry wasn’t going to kill me!) and figure out when I should start, and stop eating.
To this day, mindful eating is what allows me to eat whatever I want without needing to constantly count calories — a habit I know I wouldn’t be able to stick to anyway.
5. Stress Is The Enemy
Constant anxiety and worry about life drove me to eat for comfort.
But ironically, my source of comfort (food) triggered even more negativity and anxiety because the way I behaved around it made me feel ashamed, unhealthy and out of control.
Looking back and knowing what I know now, I learned that the one, constant thing that was driving this whole vicious cycle of bingeing and resulting emotional pain was this: Stress.
This pattern rears its ugly head whenever my life spins into chaos.
So now, stress is something I do my best to keep firmly at arm’s length with boundaries, healthy habits, focusing on emotionally mature relationships, and therapy.
6. Exercise Isn’t The Only Answer
My earliest understanding of fat loss was this: Eat less, move more.
So I did both, and got it all wrong.
I moved more, but ended up over-exercising to compensate for my constant over-eating.
I tried to eat less, but the more I exercised, the hungrier I got. And whenever I ate, I continued to binge.
What I didn’t understand was that exercise alone is a terribly inefficient way to lose fat, and really, there’s no way to out-exercise a bad diet.
After decades of struggling with my weight, I’ve finally learnt that exercising can help with fat loss, but this one habit on its own won’t drive the results that I want.
What matters more is what I eat, how much of it I eat, how I eat it, and getting all my other life-improving ducks in a row, as consistently as possible: Sleeping well, getting my stress under control, and making my mental health a priority.
Now, I go to the gym primarily to build a strong, capable body and just as importantly, be around supportive, like-minded people with similar goals.
7. Start Strength Training Now
I used to think that doing as much cardio as possible was the best way to lose fat.
After all, the more calories I burned, the better, right?
Not the way I was doing it.
After awhile, I realised that relying on cardio to create the calorie deficit I wanted was the equivalent of putting myself on a hamster wheel — the more weight I wanted to lose, the faster, longer and more frequently I’d have to run.
This pointless routine left me feeling exhausted, hungry, burned out and getting fatter instead of leaner.
Things changed only when I added strength training to my workouts.
Because muscle uses more energy, it also helped me burn more calories out of the gym, even while I’m doing absolutely nothing.
8. Stop Putting Your Life On Hold
At my largest dress size, I pressed the ‘pause’ button on my life.
I dreaded leaving the house and being around other people, and getting dressed in the morning was depressing because all I saw myself wearing were baggy T-shirts and sweatpants.
I felt like I was trapped in body that didn’t reflect who I really was and didn’t know how break free…until I came to a point where I felt, as they say, sick and tired of feeling sick and tired of living this way.
At this point, I knew that the only way forward was to make peace with where I was, learn how to treat my body right and start living my life.
Life is shorter than you think, and you only get one shot at the one that you have.
Don’t waste it hating yourself.
9. Dress To Impress…Yourself
Accepting where I was meant being kind to my body, and this included wearing clothes that honored it and made me feel good about being in my own skin, regardless of my dress size or how I looked.
So out went the dreary sweats, and in came new clothes that made me feel calmer, happier and more alive…in the dress size I was at.
I decided that I no longer wanted to dress based on the negative (and false) perceptions I had about who I was.
Instead, I changed the narrative by asking myself: “What do I want to wear that would help me show up in the world as my authentic self?”
10. Focus On The Process, Not The Outcome
I bought a pair of designer jeans three sizes smaller and hung it up just outside my wardrobe, where I would see it every day, for motivation.
Yes, I had a goal I wanted to reach, but I also made sure that this goal wouldn’t be the only thing that drove me forward.
I realized that getting into those jeans (comfortably) was about so much more than just getting into those jeans.
I knew that the bulk of my journey towards reaching my jeans goal would have to be about building the solid foundation I needed to get there, brick by brick.
It also became obvious that if I wanted to get and stay healthier, the journey I’d chosen would be a life-long one — no magic pills or shortcuts, because there was none.
To this day, this is the mantra I live by: Focus on habits, and the rest will follow.
11. Stop Caring About What Others Think Of You
The first time I walked into my first group exercise class, just the thought of making a fool of myself made my heart race and the rest of me, break out in a sweat.
But once the class got into full swing, I realized that all the anxiety and worry I’d built around my fear of working out in a group was unfounded — not a single person was even looking at me.
Everyone was too busy looking at themselves.
Seeing this snapped me out of my self-absorbed expectation that the world (or this class, at least) revolved around me and my hang ups about my body.
The reality is this: Obsessing over whether other people approve of how you look is a complete waste of time.
If you ever do meet folks who judge you for your looks (and you likely will, because sadly, they exist), that’ll be your cue to walk in the opposite direction because really, what anyone else thinks of your body is not your business.
As the CEO of your body, your one and only concern should be making decisions that help you feel good in your own skin.
12. Healing Takes Time
If you’ve got a rocky relationship with the food in your life, chances are high that it didn’t get that way overnight.
It’s probably taken years or even decades to develop, often taking shape as you look for ways to cope with the traumas and stresses of life that accumulate over time.
At other times, what and how you eat are learned habits that you pick up from the people around you.
Either way, becoming aware of how your eating habits affect you is just the first of many steps to healing your relationship with food.
The rest is a life-long journey that will include wins as well as missteps along the way.
Despite having overcome plenty of my own hang-ups, fears and dysfunction around food, there are still days where I end up overeating, beating myself up for overeating, and then feeling tempted to use exercise as a bargaining chip.
But being aware that mistakes are just temporary detours allows me to be kind to myself and find my way back to where I left off, with the habits that help me feel like my best self.
Imperfection is part of the healing process, and serves as a constant reminder that I’m only a human who will make mistakes, learn from them, and get back on my feet when I’m ready.
START HEALING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD
Struggling with constant overeating and weight gain? My free, 4-week Lose 4 Pounds In 4 Weeks Without Going On A Diet email course is designed help you zero in on your overeating triggers so you can start nipping them in the bud once and for all. To sign up, head over here.
HELPFUL RESOURCES
$5 Meal Plan Cut back on the stress of cooking your own meals, and save time and money with a meal-planning service like $5 Meal Plan. As a member, you’ll get a pre-made meal plan, recipes and shopping list for five dinners and sides, plus one breakfast and lunch emailed to you every week. Prefer to have a custom plan for each week? You can pick specific recipes by cooking method, ingredients, dietary preference and meal of the day. Sign up for a free, 14-day trial here.
Amazon Fresh Barely have time to cook, let alone do your grocery shopping? Shop online and have all your ingredients delivered to your doorstep with Amazon Fresh. Get all the fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, dairy, whole grains and even kitchen supplies you need to cook healthy, flavorful meals at home.
Amazon Meal Kits Want healthy meals that taste good and all the ingredients you need picked out, prepped and sent to your doorstep? Amazon Prime members (not one yet? You can sign up for a 30-day free trial here), have the option to order Amazon Meal Kits, which contain fresh, prepped, one-pan meal ingredients that you can whip into a meal in 10 minutes or less.
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