Hi there!
Welcome! I'm super excited to have you here. Now you may be asking yourself, why on earth would you listen to someone who is literally obese about health? And if you are, it's a fantastic question. Is this another online medium for Health at Every Size?
It absolutely isn't.
I have been 100 pounds overweight - give or take - for most of my 20s, and this has followed me into my 30s. I've had a therapist advise me that I'm a work addict. I've spent 13 years on and off anti-depressants. My thyroid is quiet quitting. I'm a vegan who has traditionally eaten impressively few vegetables. If anything, I'm a terrible rolemodel and I wouldn't listen to me.
But I'm trying to do better, and in trying to do better I've come across a lot of misinformation online about health, obesity, thyroid disorders, depression, exercise... Everything really.
I've gotten frustrated with the diet industry convincing desperate people that they need to buy magic keto pills from newly created websites or they'll never lose weight and therefore be unlovable / undesirable / unattractive (insert whatever insecurity can be exploited to get people to part from their hard earned cash here).
I've gotten frustrated with Fat Acceptance telling young women that if they lose weight they're fatphobic, that if you complain about your size or your weight that you are literally spitting in the face of everyone larger than you, and (my personal favourite) losing weight is impossible.
Why would losing weight being impossible be my personal favourite? Because I have absolutely fallen into that mindset. I have thought to myself about how I don't actually eat that much, and surely some of the walking I do is burning calories, so maybe for me losing weight is truly impossible. I'm fat but it's not my fault! That is a fantastically liberating feeling. I 100% get why people continue to believe it.
Unfortunately my lack of personal responsibility would only last until I next tried calorie tracking and exercising and then I'd realise that actually yeah, I'm more than capable of losing weight. I'm just not consistent. But why wasn't I consistent?
Well I've mentioned the work addiction, right? And the anti-depressants? Oh and the thyroid, but that came much later so I can't really blame that for my weight gain. What I'm getting at here is that there were reasons I wasn't prioritising my physical health, and they were very much tied to my mental health or lack thereoff. It's really really difficult to do the right thing for your body when you're unkind to yourself. I've wasted so many years hating my body, and wishing it was smaller, and promising myself I'd prioritise it when I achieved my professional and educational milestones. The obsessive, all-consuming voice in my head telling me that I needed to rank my goals in order of importance and achieve them one by one was ever-present. Balance? Never heard of it.
Now the problem with obsessive voices in your head telling you that you always need to do better is that they demand perfection. And perfection is impossible. In truth, when I'm at my healthiest, perfection being impossible is one of my favourite things about it because it means that there's always room to grow.
But when a voice in your head is demanding perfection in one area at a time above all else, it doesn't leave room for much else. It wasn't until I could tame that demanding voice in my head that I became happier and kinder to myself.
My world was full again and I could concentrate on multiple goals at a time! I could relax, and be present, and love myself even if I wasn't perfect and that's what started this journey.
I (reluctantly) accepted that maybe I needed to go back on anti-depressants and between that and sorting out my Hypothyroidism, I had a lot of energy.
Arguably too much energy, if I'm being honest. It needed to be channeled into something productive.
Enter my Gym, stage right. I actually found I love working out.
Trust me no one was more surprised than I was.
And secondly, working out helped me destress and detatch after work. it made me forget about my to-do list, or what I could've done better, or how awkward I must appear to others and that detachment helped me be more present with loved ones.
Thirdly, it helped me stay consistent with a modest calorie deficit. When I decided on my calorie goal I honestly thought I'd maintain at best. My previous attempts had seen me eating far fewer calories, so no way could this work. And that didn't matter. The goal was to get fitter and get emotionally and mentally stronger, I'd focus on weight loss in 6 months time. Baby steps.
It's been nearly 6 months. I've lost 26 pounds.
So why am I starting this blog?
Because I want other people in my position to know that you can love yourself as you are and still lose weight, and on the flip side - you can't hate yourself healthy.
Thank you for joining me on this journey 💜