I ended up tapering off of a rigorous fitness schedule. The harsh reality is that this is where most 'lifestyles' go. After keeping it up for 18 months, I finally burnt out, ended up gaining 20 lbs...
But that's the good part!
Most fitness experts warn that a yo-yo will often put you well above your former heaviest weight. I'm sure it does if you go back to the unhealthy choices. In my case, I just balanced healthy and unhealthy, but I wasn't circuit training and I wasn't counting calories.
I've been easing back into figuring out what I want out of a lifestyle change. Fuck fitspo. Sorry if you're into it, but I can't keep up with the brainwashing it takes to pretend I'll ever enjoy exercise or sweating. I DO enjoy the results-- increased energy levels, overall healthier well-being including more balanced moods, better sleep and so on. Because of that, I can concede that fitness is a benefit whether I like it or not and worth challenging my aversion to it. That's about all you'll get out of me though.
I'm starting a new self-experiment for lifestyle changes, namely intermittent fasting. What makes this attractive is that, as an author, it's very common for me to skip meals and since black coffee is my friend, this is not a huge sacrifice to keep it up as a practice. I might be going a little hard at the start by doing 20/4 (20 hours fasting, 4 hours eating). Today, I'm going to eat a fat, protein, veggie packed lunch at 2 PM (avocado and crab meat smeared on cucumbers, flavored with garlic and salt) and pack on the remaining calories for dinner around 6 PM. I've been warned that most women end up hanging around 15-16 hours fasting, 8-9 hours feasting-- if thinking about food becomes obsessive or intrusive on my writing, I will definitely adjust on those days. The point being, I do intend to go for skipping breakfast and concentrating on getting the bulk of my healthier calories in a lunch to dinner timeframe.
I do have BCAAs that I take prior to my floor routine (and combination of crunches and pushups) and the long walk (3.5 mph, between 45-70 minutes depending on the route) and I take a multivitamin and a Neuro Health dose after lunch (while I can't say for certain the Neuro Health actually does anything, there's nothing in it to create negative side effects either so why not?). Because the fasting may cause some energy slumps at first, I try to do all heavier activities within the first few hours of waking up.
Also, I only plan to aim for the stricter side of fasting for 3 months. If I can lose 20-30 lbs in that time (not unheard of), I will be continuing on with the 16:8 model for maintenance and possibly switching to more vigorous exercise if my joints are up for it.
Using MyFitnessPal to record food and exercise, but I'm also going to keep a separate record involving additional heavy activities like housework and cleaning the fish tank that are kind of indeterminate in their caloric value. My overall goal is still to get back down to 135, my weight when I was in my early 20s, therefore full grown, healthy, realistic. I'm hoping to be in the 150-160 range in a few months time. If I feel okay to continue fasting and I'm doing so responsibly, I will, but by that time, I may be ready to take on a few hundred extra calories and change up exercise. I have to admit that, while I don't enjoy exercise, I have a more positive attitude towards kenpo and sometimes yoga. I would like to incorporate more martial arts into my routine but it's very necessary to get off some of this super stubborn weight that gets in the way.
Of course, this is largely due to the way my genes decided to deposit my weight. I have tiny wrists, large muscular ankles and calves, broad shoulders and hips and the bulk of my excess weight camps out at my upper thighs and upper arms (after losing 50 lbs, I didn't lose any pants size or inches around my upper legs, to give you some insight. I only lost an inch around the upper arm. While there is flab there, I won't deny it, you might be surprised by how much solid muscle is the cause of its mass).
I know Chyna got shit for her obvious steroid use, but she said something many, many years ago that gave genetically muscular girls like me serious hope. She said, and it's safer to say I'm paraphrasing, that she had two choices: to be fat or fit because there was never 'skinny' in her future. She might not have chosen the healthiest path, but I admired that she was at peace with her body type. When I was very young, my body made me proud. My gymnastics teacher tried to scout me to be a power gymnast (but holy shit, they make it expensive to train as a gymnast!). When the rest of the girls were wearing shoulder pads in the 80s, my family cut mine out because I had the look that was coveted then. It's hard to be proud of my body now because of the misconceptions of both curviness and that I do live a much healthier lifestyle than most people I know that frustratingly doesn't show. It is literally more trendy to be heroin addict skinny than a thick girl who works out and eats right.
I would never condone addiction and I have no sympathy for it, especially not coddled like it's a fucking disease. In fact, it was a heroin addict that validated that sentiment for me: I picked up the drug willingly, I do the drug willingly, we all know that the risk is addiction. It's always for a selfish reason-- that we would rather hide a mental illness, want to drop a few pounds, or haven't got it in us to just end it or deal with what is fucking us up.
That is pretty damn aware of their selfish choices to me and the kind of accountability you need to either admit you want to change or are secure in the consequences. In her case, she also has no kids or living family members, so I can't hate her for damaging the people that love her or depend on her either. And yes, I do have a history with addiction. I deserved no sympathy for it and it was a shit alternative for seeking valid treatment. Don't fucking self-medicate your grief or inadequacies with illegal hard drugs. Stick to pot-- which I hope will eventually become completely legal one day. It has too much potential in human and global healing to be stonewalled forever.
The point here is that it's often more fashionable to make bad choices so that people can congratulate you for overcoming them. We almost ignore people who are making the right choices, encouraging self-sabotage so that they can be visible for the triumphant return to acceptability. I'd like to make it clear that I am *mostly* doing this for me. Sexual abuse might have encouraged me to let myself go a bit, but the main culprit was the medication I was using to mistreat a mental illness. I'm sure I've told that story in multiple places, but I haven't snapped back from that yet. While emotionally, I have been able to heal a lot, part of the reason I have been stable is because my circumstances have allowed me to avoid working in the general public (away from people) while I raise my nephews. It's very likely that my gentler holistic methods would flop when thrust into a high-stress environments again, but I do like to avoid chemical bandaids so that society can deem me acceptable. I'd just prefer to avoid 99% of people anyway.
My goals are set for this new experiment so we'll see how it pans out. The idea is to drop as much of the weight as quickly as I can while still doing non-demanding exercise, then ease up on the demands once the goals are met. It is some form of the lifestyle I intend to keep but with the reward of being a lighter version of it. I think it has less potential to create a rubber band snap back into bad habits so I'm crossing my fingers. I need the sort of diet that works even when I face health issues that prevent physical exertion so this is what I'm trying. Good luck to me...
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