Over this past year, so many people have ‘kindly suggested’, ‘silently hinted’, ‘bluntly blurted out’ or genuinely out of good intentions told me that I should join weightwatchers, or get some sort of ‘shake’diet or see a dietician. When I first joined the gym, sure enough it took a good 5 minutes before the first person suggested it.
To each and every one of them, and I will continue to do so in the future, I’ve smiled and told them I know it’s because they mean well, but I will not do any of these things.
Food and eating have been too much of an obsession in my life as it is. Sure, I could just scrap out everything I find enjoyable to eat (unfortunately I have an unhealthy preference for fatty, sugary and salty things), but what happens then once I reach my goal weight? Right, I slowly start cheating, and then before I know it, half of the hard work will be undone.
I was very resistant at first to the idea of working out purely for weightloss. I still am, actually. But after a few weeks of working out, I did come to realize that it’s utterly daft to sweat like a mofo for an hour and a half, walk around with sore muscles and stiff joints, only to go home and stuff your face with everything that’s unhealthy.
This whole gym thing, it’s a good thing. It’s an investment in myself and in feeling good about me. I never in my life had the disillusion desire to be a nice size 40. I just want to be as healthy as I can be, and still be able to enjoy life. It’s taken me 25 years to gain all this weight and trust me, I’ve tried the extreme diet thing and it’s not for me, not a long term solution at least. It’s time for my life to stop evolving around food. This is one of the reasons I wouldn’t resort to weightloss surgery, I hear and read too many stories where people are constantly reminded of eating too much or eating too little or for them to need 25 minutes to eat their measly slice of toast for breakfast. I’m in no rush. I just want to keep noticing that I’m physically benefitting from my workouts, while still being able to eat a sandwich when I really want to, or pasta, or cookies, or chocolate or something fatty and totally not good for you.
The theory really is simple. Use up more energy than you take in. This doesn’t have to balance out every day, I take it on by the week. It’s hard to measure how many calories you burn. The standard values you read everywhere (even on the gym equipment) is mostly based on a person of ‘normal’ size. I know that my body needs more energy as it works harder. But as it also has a lot to shed, I also need to burn more. And then, when I do work out, I burn more than the machine says, because it does have to work harder. Yea complicated huh?
Either way, I didn’t want to make becoming healthier feel like punishment. Diets are exactly that to me. I’m doing something good for myself, sometimes I deserve to cut myself some slack. And sometimes a girl really just needs to be able to pig out without a reason too!
I’ve always hated being at a party and feeling miserable from seeing others tuck in to all the nice snacks, with me sipping on some water because of the damn diet. I’ve always hated to go to a family barbecue and get my own bowl of salad and not use the epic garlic sauce on the nice juicy meat that just got grilled. Screw that. So now I make choices. I usually do not eat bread for breakfast / lunch anymore (in Holland it’s very common to have 2 bread meals per day). Instead of lots of pork meat, I eat a lot more chicken and fish now. I don’t particularly love veggies, but can stand them when processed into a nice stirfry with lots of herbs and some asian style marinade thingy. Instead of having candies or chocolate at my desk, I keep some breadsticks or something similar at the office to nibble on if ever I get a real craving. All in all I am a lot more aware of the things I eat but I will not deny myself something when there’s a real occasion. I don’t have a consultant or dietician to ‘answer’ to. I found I was just telling them lies anyways, saying I really didn’t cheat and that I didn’t know how it was possible that I didn’t lose weight. At the end of the day, I am the only person I answer to. If I decide I can live with the consequence of eating that piece of cake at work, I bloody well will eat it.
So, as said in my previous post, by not dieting I have managed to shed quite a bit of weight. This works, for me. No pressure from people that only are concerned because I pay them to be. No disappointments for myself or the people around me when I do have a week where I only seem to be taking in stuff that’s not good for me.
I know that diets work for other people. It’s good for them. I’m always happy for someone when they’ve accomplished their goal. But thank goodness, I’m not ‘other people’. I’m me, and as with many other things in life, I guess I insist on doing this in the only way that suits me. Yes, I get to be that selfish, it’s my life and my fat to lose, after all!
TaLoeLoe moves 