TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains discussion of weight loss and I want to be clear that I am not saying “your life will be amazing when you’ve lost 2 stone- trust me I’m living the dream!” That’s bullshit. We take ourselves with us wherever we go and believing your life will be better when… (x happens) is a dangerous game. They say that happiness can be found in trying to enjoy what you have, now. And I believe this is true. It is easy to say “enjoy the journey” but life IS a journey so if you’re not enjoying the journey then what the fuck are you waiting for? Things are not better (when x happens) things are just different and I want to be clear that I’m not being fatist or saying everyone should be striving to lose weight. I have been overweight most of my life and at many times technically obese. I have had health problems specifically related to this excess weight.
I have lost and regained the same weight over and over again. I am this struggle personified. I want you to know this because when you are locked in your own personal battle you look around for inspiration and if you’re like me you obsess over other people’s before and after photos (Yes, but can you SEE 28 lbs of weight gone?). You want to know what magic was they used and if it was easy for them because it looks like it was easy for them and when you try it seems impossible for you to maintain. I get it, you want to know if the hard work you will have to put in to lose weight is going to be worth it and how soon you can fit into some new fancy clothes and show whoever what they’re missing (or whatever your motivation is). Trigger warning over.
it's a green top off: before and after...
So… Q and A
Is it worth losing weight if you are overweight?
It is.
Is it hard?
Yes.
Can you you do it?
Yes.
*I should point out that since starting to write this I’ve actually lost 3 stone (42lbs) but I wanted to write this blog because I remember being my “starting weight” (again, for the umpteenth time) about 18 months ago and thinking wow, imagine being 2 stone lighter, it seems impossible but I wonder what that will feel like- will I be able to stand next to my own massive trousers, maybe inhabiting one whole leg laughing at the absurdity? *I can actually stand inside one leg of my old trousers but that’s only because all of my clothes are stretchy af
In short. No you will not be able to stand inside your previous trousers, mostly because you will probably still be wearing them. If you want to know if you will be super hot after losing 2 stone then I can tell you... yes you will!
Let me expand- you’re already HOT AF because you’re alive, you’ve got a body that works within it’s own abilities and you have the capacity for change = *HOT!*
I like to ramble but I’ve kindly put the things you will notice and things that will happen when you lose two stone first and added my further rambling below:
THINGS THAT WILL HAPPEN OR NOT HAPPEN WHEN YOU LOSE 2 STONE:
*You will probably go down a dress size or two depending on how and where you lose weight/ tone up in your body.
*You will not need a whole new wardrobe- depending on how tight your clothes were to start with your clothes will actually probably just ‘fit’ you properly- there is a difference between “does it fit?” and “can I get this garment onto my body” ie there is a difference between whether you can wrangle something onto your body and whether it actually looks and feels good. I often use clothes as a measure of weightloss- find something you can’t fit into and keep trying it on- the process goes like this: can’t get it over my butt/thighs/ can get it onto my thighs but now it won’t move/can pull it up over thighs but now can’t do it up/ can get the zip/button closer together but still won’t do up/ can do zip/button up but feels like it might explode at any minute/ can do it up, it’s a bit tight, probably wouldn’t; want to sit in for long/ can do it up and there’s a little bit of space/ don’t really think about it, they just go on. Only really in the last scenario does this garment “fit” you- you can get it on/off easily and it’s not painful to wear... but obviously we all wear things that are a bit tight sometimes (who’s got the money to buy a new wardrobe every time you put on a few pounds?) so I’m just saying that I wore a lot of things that were “tight” to begin with and actually after 2 stone weight loss, they actually just “fit me better” which is perhaps a little disillusioning when you want to imagine "a whole new you!" but I wanted to be honest- I think this will really depend on your body shape and where/ how you lose weight- you might find you go down two dress sizes on top but maybe none on the bottom…
*You WILL notice 2 stone of weight loss in how your body looks and feels- things will stick out less- you will probably be able to see the natural shape of your body emerging, clothes will feel less tight.
*You will not: go from having several tyres to completely ripped abs unless you already had amazing abs underneath and just a little bit of body fat covering them up. And if you’re still like yeah ok, YOU didn’t get abs after losing two stone but I could- you might…but I recommend looking at before and after pictures of people who were really overweight or unfit and comparing them with people who did get abs- you can normally see that they had some definition beforehand which is great if that is you- I salute your abs… but not great for the rest of us who feel like our whole ab area is just a black hole.
*Your face will look different. I recommend looking back at photos of you when you started because incremental change is hard to see- put them next to each other and really take it in- your face has changed, maybe there’s more definition, less roundness…. CHANGE!
face/off
*People will notice and say things like, “oh you look… well?” without possibly registering that you’ve lost weight.
*Random people will not stop dead in the street when they see you going “OH MY GOD! Have you seen this miraculously beautiful person?!” They will mostly not notice you as before. People you know will still recognise you, two stone is not a hollywood movie makeover situation. You will (probably) not get scouted by a modelling agency (sorry).
In short you will look better.
You will feel better
Your clothes will fit better
You will move a little easier
Doing more things will be easier
You won’t feel the heavy sense of dread when planning to go out because nothing fits you- you can take some comfort in the fact that you have been doing something for yourself to improve your health and appearance and that is positive- go you!
I have focused here a lot on how you look outwardly because if we’re honest this is where we want to see change. But the change comes from internal decisions made every day and choices you make, to move more, to go for the healthier option, to not eat sweets, or alcohol and yes you can get to your goal of two stone and stop but you’ve already started making those internal changes so why stop now? If you’re a healthy weight, bravo- you still need to maintain it and that doesn’t happen by just going back to however you were eating and acting before, even if you kept your level of activity up but ate poorly you would go back to gaining weight pretty quickly because it’s all about the calorie deficit and then knowing your maintenance calories.- I recommend using My fitness pal or a similar tracking app to work out roughly what you need based on your average level of activity a week/ day.
SELF LOVE:
As a serial weight loser (and gainer) I have always struggled with the concept of self love- like hang on a minute: I’m supposed to love myself and want to change? How is that possible?… Well I’ve worked out it is through having extreme amounts of compassion for yourself and giving yourself kudos for where you’re at right now. Ok so you’re overweight/obese, and maybe you’re only just noticing/ feel able to do anything about it, that’s ok, being overweight probably served you in some or many ways for a period of time (or in my case, my whole life)- your body and your brain thought they were doing the right thing for you, seeking comfort in food and stillness… But maybe that is not the case any more. Without sounding too airy fairy, we can honour the decisions we made before because they served a purpose- protection, comfort, whatever but now, maybe we don’t need those protections so much so we can start making small changes and try something different.
How do we know we need to try something different? Well, are you happy? If you could wave a magic wand would your body look or feel the way it does now? If not what would it be like? Before I started incorporating exercise into my daily life I didn’t exactly know what I wanted from my body because our relationship was pretty dysfunctional- mostly it felt like my body let me down, which is inaccurate, we are a team but I hadn’t given it what it needed to strengthen and support me better because I didn’t know. Or obviously in theory everyone knows you should move more and eat less for a healthier life but in practice what does that mean for you? A thousand choices in one day make a lifestyle. And change doesn’t come overnight so when you feel bad because you’ve taken yet another photo where you tried unsuccessfully to hide your chin/s and that just made you feel angry at yourself because you ate a whole pizza last night and so you think (dysfunctionally) ok well I won’t eat !AT ALL! today then and now I’m going to go for a jog even though I never go for a jog. And then your body hurts or you can’t run for more than 30 seconds and you hate yourself even more because you feel like you’re trying but your body won’t do it, so then you go home and try not to but then get so hungry you feel justified in ordering take away and eating ice cream, but you don't enjoy them because you don't feel like you should be eating them because you're already overweight... repeat cycle for ever. Exhausting no?
When you have been overweight and or/unfit for a long time the ideas you have about yourself get skewed into myth which we just accept as facts about ourselves:
“I don’t like walking”
(*you actually might not like walking because of chaffing/ sweating/ appearing out of breath/ how uncomfortable your body feels/ pain in your body/ how tired you feel afterwards)
“I don’t do exercise”
(*you’ve never found an exercise you like/ other people in a class made you feel bad for being there/ you didn’t feel like you belonged/ you had a parent/child reaction to the fact that someone was making you exercise/ you have negative associations with exercising from childhood/ you don’t like exerting yourself/ you have limited energy and feel you need to save it for essential things)
“I’m just fat”
“If I lose weight maybe my partner won’t find me attractive any more”
“If lose weight what if I get too hot and it will be really exhausting turning people away?”
(*come on you know you’ve thought it)- actually this relates to an important point made in the book “ fat is a feminist issue” where they talk about women adding a layer of “fat” as a level of protection against unwanted attention... so don’t dismiss this, it was certainly something I think I subconsciously subscribed to. If you’ve ever received unwanted attention from people just based on how you look or appear it is not difficult to work out ways to disguise or diminish yourself- which is a societal problem we can’t fix right now but is very important to keep in mind- sometimes things come from a place of self protection. I remember a university friend showing me some pictures of us at uni and I remember saying “who the hell is that?!” she has bones! Her arms are this big- my arms are THIS big now! I mean I had been overweight for so long I couldn’t even remember what I looked like before, what the shape and lines of my body were supposed to be. Something I am rediscovering.
Someone once told me you can’t work from negative motivation eg telling yourself. “move faster fatty, you’re so slow!” and if you’re ever talked to yourself that way I know you know what I mean but you’ll also know it doesn’t really make you feel good. I really struggled with this because it is harder to be compassionate to yourself than other people, it is hard to say to yourself during a workout: I know you’re tired but you’re doing well to be here but I also think you can dig a little deeper and put a bit more effort in- this too shall pass! We are so used to talking to ourselves negatively that it feels alien to treat yourself kindly- it feels like you are letting yourself off or..well it just doesn’t feel right but you wouldn’t speak to a friend the way you speak to yourself and it’s a life long challenge to try to like ourselves as we find ourselves now but to also recognise the ways in which we might want to change for our future selves. So the answer to loving yourself now and being able to change is compassion and understanding, establishing where you’re at now without judgement and where you might want to be and how to get there in a safe and realistic way.
As I mentioned above, I have “lost” (makes it sound easy/accidental) another stone since then and actually when I worked it out I realised that I only weigh myself (and therefore have a record) when I am trying to lose weight or have already started or decided I need to. It is pointless and terrifying to get on the scale or try on those trousers that used to fit you when you have no intention or idea of how or what to change- it’s not wise for your mental health and it is why there are patches where I’ve “gone dark” on my fitness pal for example but when I look back at pictures from that time I can see that I was very overweight, more so than when I’ve weighed myself and “know” how much I weigh. Anyway my point is that I have actually lost around 50lbs which is… a lot of weight. I would also say that I still have another 30-40lbs to go before I’m considered to be a healthy weight which I’m working on next and after being overweight and obese for most of my life it is important to me to try to reach and maintain this next target. I'm aware that my after pictures may well be someone's starting point and my before pictures might be someone else's target and that's why I’m not putting my weight on here because everyone has different body compositions and I’m also trying to reduce body fat whilst increasing muscle mass over time- It might be that I don’t reach a “healthy weight” but I’m fit and well and have a good routine for eating and exercising and that will be enough for me- I’m keeping it flexible because that it one of the things that helps in your journey- being adaptable and having a flexible mindset.
this is my actual data from my fitness pal, you can see I've returned to more or less my starting weight (recorded) in the first pic and the second one shows my highest weight down to current lowest over time- the long spikes or straight lines are were I didn't input any data for months and sometimes years- I went dark.
As you can see from the data above, I have gained and lost and regained the same lbs over and over again but this is the only time I have managed to lose two stone, maintain it, then keep losing another stone and know that I will keep going. Mentally I have always just wanted to get to end of the torture (being on a diet or exercising) for an event and when the event is passed it’s like phew back to the old ways that are so comfortable and well trodden. The things that are different this time?
You want me to tell you it’s a supplement or an amazing diet or exercise regime, something you can copy and buy but I’m sorry it just isn’t that. But it is:
ACTIVITY:
Building daily exercise into your life (eg. walking more using car less)
Getting outside every day
Building sustainable workouts into your life
Moving around every hour so you are not sedentary the rest of the time.
MINDSET:
Treating yourself with greater compassion
Combating black and white thinking
Dealing with reasons you might emotionally eat
Not trying to do it alone, join a group or get an accountability buddy
NUTRITION:
Knowing what you’re eating now so you know what to change
Swapping processed foods for more natural ingredients
Eating more whole foods
Reducing your sugar intake
You can start to do all of those things this week or just one, there is nothing there that is impossible, hard for sure but not impossible. You just need to take the first step and if I can, you can.
Here's a reminder incase you need one!
