Sincerenity

Today is July 22, 2024.

500 days ago was March 11, 2023. The day I decided to lose half of my weight.

I didn’t know how to lose weight. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, I just knew I needed to start. You can read about my Weight Loss Story.

This has certainly been a journey for sure. I have learned and changed a lot. As of today I have lost 29 pounds. Yes, I’ve posted previously that I lost 35 pounds, but I went through a bit of a tough time and had gained a few, so as of right now I am 29 pounds down from my heaviest weight.

This journey has not gone how I thought. There are days like this where I feel like I haven’t made any progress, but since I’ve been doing this for 500 days now, here are 5 things that have changed about me or my life:

1. My daily food routine

Here is how I used to eat: I would show up to work barely on time or late, so I didn’t have time to make, eat, or pick up anything in the morning, so I Doordash McDonald’s: 4 hasbrowns, 2 sausage egg burritos, and 1 or 2 sausage mcgriddles depending on how I’m feeling. That would normally keep me full through the workday, but then I would come home and if we didn’t have specific dinner plans, we’d go out to eat, maybe pizza, In-N-Out, or any other fast food. Plus sprinkled snacking throughout the day. If food was available, I ate it. I also ate my feelings. Any feelings. Happy/sad/stressed/annoyed/bored: I would eat. Also add in some soda’s too.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this food. The posion was in the portion and frequency.

Here is how I eat now: I meal prep everything on Sundays. At work, whenever I’m hungry, usually around 9-10am I got to the fridge and grab my breakfast: greek yogurt with banana and protein powder. An hour or so after that when I get hungry again, I go back to the fridge (I don’t keep my lunchbox with me at my desk) and grab a mint chocolate clif bar. Then a few hours later it’s lunchtime: peanut butter and honey sandwich, apples and carrots. A few hours after, I grab my other snack: pecans, popcorn, beef sticks, and sometimes more greek yogurt. Then I go home to dinner, which we usually make stiry fry or tacos, something with plenty of meat and protein.

Wow, that’s a night and day difference. That change did not happen over night. It has been 500 days of tweaks and adjustments to make my weight loss journey easier and more inevitable. And it will continue to be modified and updated as I go.

I listen to my hunger and not react to it. I’m really striving to eat intuitively. Since my weight loss was caused by emotional eating, that’s my main focus. I’ve learned how to tell when I’m actually hungry and respond accordingly.

2. My amount of exercise

I used to never, ever, exercise. I don’t think I ever exceeded more than 1,500-2,000 steps a day. I was so lazy and wouldn’t even do basic additional non-exercise movement, like going up and down the stairs at home if it wasn’t necessary. I just sat or laid down as much as possible.

Now, I’m still working on my exercise, but it’s improved a lot. I work out 2-3 times per week, go on a walk 1-2 times a week, and try to get up and walk around my office as much as I can. I now average about 4,000-6,000 steps per day. I definitely want to do more steps and more exercise but I have improved a lot since where I used to be.

Again, this did not happen over night. This has been 500 days of adjustments and updates to see what works and what doesn’t.

3. My consumption of water

Dr. Pepper used to be my “water” lol. I don’t think I used to drink any more than 1-2 glasses of water a day. Now I drink about 80-100oz of water a day, sometimes more. I have a gallon water bottle and that helps me. I noticed when I have a smaller water bottle, once it runs out I tend not to refill it, so I just keep a day’s worth of water I want to drink with me at all times.

4. My mindset

This has probably been the biggest challenge. For me… weight loss has ended up being more about my mind than my body. I had so many mindset issues – and I still do. Thoughts of doubt, thoughts of wanting to give up, thoughts that I can’t do this. Add food noise on top of that. The temptation to just fall back into what I’m comfortable and familir with (my old habits) is so real. It’s so hard sometimes, and I just have to remind myself just to take it one day at a time, since that’s all I can do.

I also am working on my mental health too. Since I used to emotionally eat, I can’t just stop doing it, I need to find something else to cope. I need to replace the habits with something else.

Mindset is one that I will be working on for the rest of my life. But for now, after 500 days, I feel like I have more self awareness and self understanding than I used to. I can see why and how things happen and how they effect me.

5. How I set goals

I used to set very specific goals like: I want to lose 10 pounds this month! And then when I didn’t lose 10 pounds that month, I would just feel like a failure and be so mad at myself. Honestly, that’s a reasonable goal. I support the SMART goal setting method, however when it comes with weight loss, I’ve learned the hard way to stop setting time constraints on myself. This will take however long it will take. It took years to gain the weight, it will take more than a year to get it off. As long as I am not giving up, I am fine with it taking longer. That has been one of the hardest realizations. Now that it’s been 500 days, I would have hoped to be farther along in my progress, but honestly, I haven’t given up, even after 500 days, and that’s my greatest accomplishment so far.

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I will continue to document my journey and share what I’ve learned. Thanks for joining me on my journey!!