My First Weight Loss Journey. It had a steep learning curve.
Everyone learns. It's just the way life goes. And I happen to be an INFP 9th house stellium/Gemini moon, which means that I particularly enjoy introspection and examining the experiences I go through.
Like...I overthink about everything. Literally.
Sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's bad. But in this case, with my first weight loss journey, I think it's a good thing. It helped me reflect on what needed to change, or how I could make things better. I'm currently on what I call my second weight loss journey, and it's been difficult. But everything I learned back then has been super helpful this time around.
But without further ado, here's the positive, the bad, and the not-so-nice that I learned from my first weight loss journey.
The first leg of my weight loss journey is actually full of a lot of positive things. I look back on this time as one of the most healthy portions of my life, even though it didn't last long. Later, I even found out that the astrology was just really good for pretty much everyone around that time, so it makes sense.
Anyways, these things are:
Clothes from the past got too big Particularly my old riding breeches. I remember that we had to go from store-to-store to look for plus size breeches, and then I pretty much had to take what I could find. I think it came down to a pair in red versus the normal tan, so obviously I got the tan. They were always tight in the wrong places, and loose around my waist, so I didn't like that. One day at about 50lbs down, I tried them on again. And gosh - they were loose all over!
I could do more 10k steps? No problem. 15k? Also no problem. Two workouts in one day? A breeze. Once I got to a good basic conditioning, it was like my body kept responding positively to any other changes I made. I talk about this idea of basic conditioning in my Miyajima Plus-Size Adventure guide. It's something I'll never really forget, and it's the basis for all of my subsequent weight loss journey plans. If I can mentally be consistent for about a month, my body works with me a lot better.
Conditioning lasted a lot longer Bouncing off the idea above: I got injured, a lot, and this resulted in a lot of time off. But what I noticed is that my gains...kinda stayed put. It took about a month of doing nothing for me to lose my conditioning entirely (and have to go back down in weights/reps/sets). But if I rested for a few weeks for an injury or pulled muscle, it really wasn't that bad and I could get back into things pretty easily. AKA? Having a good workout routine has benefits.
I could have a cheat meal without as many consequences One of the reasons I even started the weight loss journey is because I was getting alarming symptoms. Like, autoimmune condition symptoms. I didn't want to spend 12 years chasing a diagnosis, so I tried changing my diet - drastically. It was mostly AIP, the autoimmune protocol. I stuck to it pretty religiously for a long time, and most of my symptoms went away. When I did re-introduce foods, I could immediately tell what was a problem, what wasn't, and what was tolerable. My body wasn't screaming anymore if I "cheated"; instead it was a manageable whisper...as long as I didn't do it all the time.
Life without depression/anxiety I can still remember the day I woke up and realised that I hadn't felt anxious or down in a long time. It was so...bizarre, and I finally realised why people couldn't understand how it felt if they weren't going through it. It's easy to take life for granted when you feel amazing. There's also some research to suggest that reducing inflammation can help anxiety/depression, so I think that was what happened. AIP is actually an entire protocol that extends outside of food (into sleep/exercise etc), and I was doing as much of it as I could.
Bad Things
And of course there were plenty of bad things. Like, really bad things. Aka: why I failed. I'm currently on what I consider my second weight loss journey (with many smaller attempts in between) and it's a lot more healthy because I have more awareness of some of these things.
I got injured - A Lot I had no idea what I was doing. My motivation was literally from some popular quotes back then. Something about "make your goal big and scary" and another one was about "try and see what happens." So I set a huge goal (that I didn't reach), but the injuries made it impossible. This really hurt my morale. I still regret it to this day, and wish I had known more back then to avoid injuries. The positive spin to this: I used every injury as an excuse to research more. I learned about running form, and practiced when I got better. Then I learned more about muscles, dynamic warmups, breathing, etc.
Toxic positivity does not equal good mental health I still have a few journal entries from back then that describe what I was trying and doing and thinking. And the sum of it is basically: I was caught in the vice-grip of toxic positivity. I was literally ignoring my wounds and triggers, pretending I just needed to breathe the right way and it would all get better. AND PEOPLE PRAISED ME FOR THIS MINDSET. But toxic positivity is why the first weight loss journey failed. The second that the trauma got big and in my face again (live-in landlord that terrorized me), I still had no awareness or coping skills so the weight came back.
It was still never enough I made it to about a size 10/12 before things went downhill. And for sure, it felt nice that people treated me better. Plus all the things I could do. Spaces I could fit into. Clothes I could fit into. But I still got fat shamed a lot. There were still some people who saw that size as a starting weight, and they didn't stop to ask what my story was. I wish there was a way to advertise, "I'm already down so many pounds!" but...there isn't. People make snap judgements, then they act on those, and that's the way it goes.
It's very isolating to eat strict or mostly AIP Not many people talk about this outside of the AIP support groups. But basically...when your diet is so different from that of everyone around you (no fast food, no processed foods, etc), it isolates you. People don't like it. They acted like my choices were shaming theirs, and it resulted in a lot of criticism. And I learned that...food is so important to people that most of them can't help this reaction, and explanations don't make it much better. The social pressure of this decision is not easy to endure.
Not-So-Nice Things
Not really bad, and not really positive. These are kinda...meh. Kinda in between. Things I wish I could look at positively, but that also aren't as bad as they could have been. First world problems, I guess.
People Smiled at Me Again This should be a good thing, right? Unfortunately, it was from the same people I had interacted with at a higher weight...who used to scowl at me or treat me rudely. So when I got down to about 190/180lbs and they started smiling at me and being nice, of course it felt good at first. But then I remembered all the ways they had treated me before and I couldn't help but wonder why. I was the same person, using spaces and services in the same ways, but yet everything went differently. It felt fake, and it made me feel unsafe.
I Still Wasn't Small Enough to Avoid Fat Shaming Picture this: while looking at some Maple Syrup and wondering what kind is the best out of the options, some women walk behind me. And all of a sudden, much louder than the rest of their conversation, one of them says, "Not everything is healthy just because it's in the health food aisle." Aka - I had just been fat shamed...for looking at maple syrup. I was a size 14, and down about 60lbs. I was too shocked to say anything in the moment but I wish I would have.
Body Image Issues As can be imagined from the section where I talked about toxic positivity...I also didn't deal with the body image issues I had. And while I was able to wear shorts for the first time since I was a kid, I still didn't feel full comfortable or confident doing so. Same with dresses, or bathing suits. It wasn't anxiety per se, but just this weird...sense of exposure? I don't know how to explain it. I also didn't feel like I could join many clubs and be the social butterfly I wanted to, or run after my dreams of worldwide travel. Essentially, I was still operating under old beliefs and had no idea how deep that ran.
Conclusions
If you're contemplating your own weight loss journey, or just looking for someone you can relate to, I hope this article was helpful. It's another thing I've always wanted to write about because my experience was so...intense. I really went through a lot. I'll try and write some more articles about specifics later.
Always remember, though, that what worked for me might not work for you. I think everyone is on a unique path, and it's hard to know how to make things work for us sometimes. For all the above, I basically...didn't quit. I saw no results for at least 2-3 months that first time because my body was in BAD shape (it was one month in subsequent attempts), but I didn't quit. Consistency was an everyday thing. Sure enough, eventually I started feeling different. And once the momentum got going, I did fine.
Back then when I first started, even doing 5 minutes of walking was painful for the rest of the day. But I firmly believe that if we give our body the tools it needs to heal, it'll try. So that's what I kept doing over and over.
Side note: the before and after picture I used for the pin image is from my private fitness account. Back when I was in the middle of it, it was public. But I turned it private after I fell off the wagon the first time. So if you've seen this picture and know it has a watermark: yes! It's me. I hid the watermark with the text to keep the account private. But I wanted to show some kind of before and during for this post!
