Weight Loss
Since high school, I’ve always been 180 pounds, or so I thought. In 2019 I went in for my first physical in 5 8 years. I was 225 pounds. I didn’t own a scale and assumes since I thought I looked the same, all was good. My new doctor told me that according to the BMI charts, I’m overweight. I looked myself closely in the mirror and saw that my mind had been plating the self image of me at 180. I now saw every flab of skin and my belly hanging over my pants. Something had to change.
So what did I do? I joined an expensive gym, that I couldn’t afford so I definitely couldn’t afford a trainer. I walked on the track, did a few things that I thought were useful, and worked my ass of. I maybe lost a pound a month. I started running, maybe 2 pounds a month. Finally I realized that I was going out for dinner every night because I was too lazy to cook. I’ve been cooking my whole life and grew up in a household where we had “eat whatever you want” nights, when my parents were running around with my siblings and/ or me. Between, 4-H, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Go-kart racing, Soccer, Hockey, Horseback riding lessons, Church, you name it, we did it. By 6 years old, I was able to take a box of mac and cheese and not burn the crap out of it. So I know how to cook. I was just lazy. I started packing a lunch, but it was filled with nutty bars, fruit snacks, and a bunch of garbage. I finally have settled on a PB&J sandwich and some home made granola. The pounds started dropping off. Then the pandemic hit. I stopped going to the gym, I lost my job, and I was stress eating. and after gaining 10 pounds back and reluctantly stepping on the scale for the first time in a while, I threw out all of the junk food in my kitchen.
I now track my food a bit closer. I don’t count calories, I just make sure that if I am having a snack it gets portioned into a small cup or bowl and the bag or carton are left where they belong so I don’t graze. I’m trying to cook healthier too, but I keep putting up mental hurdles that something is “too difficult to cook” or “I don’t think I like X ingredient”. I’m working on it. and it is very difficult especially growing up in a steak and potatoes kind of family.
Questions? Comments? Jokes? Want to tell me to be better?