I want to be obsessed in the healthiest way possible, dedicated like an athlete. Training my body for life.
My mom has also started eating healthier from today and exercising. Because of hereditary weigth issues, she carries a lot of weigh in her hips and thighs, and so do I. She also has high blood pressure, occassional cholesterol problems, the beginnings of arthritis, fatty liver and hypothyroidism (or hyper...). She can do it I think, but like my grandmother, her mother, she loves food, and so do I. Even our eating habits are hereditary though she is not nearly as bad as me. She has disclosed to me many times that she crash dieted/extreme dieted in her youth to lose a ton of weight by surviving on about 200 calories/day, so the ED behavior is kind of hereditary, too. But, I don't want that to continue, I want her to follow my example and cultivate a healthy eating mindset so that she doesn't have to be on the roller-coaster forever like she has been.
I am currently Obese (Class 1), I want that to change and I have realized, overtime, that I need exercise to help me get there. In the past, when I was just dieting to lose weight, I felt physically weak and deprived. I also felt like the weight loss was really temperamental. Like, I could easily gain it all back, and I did...and then some. I feel like exercise is not only a tool in my arsenal but should be a primary focus. I've often read that diet is 70% and exercise is 30% of weight loss but I don;t completely agree. While the diet portion is extremely important, exercise, for me, had a multitude of effects that dieting alone doesn't:
- You have to drink water and lots of it. I was not a water-drinker before but now it is a necessity. So much so that I have pretty much dropped my diet coke habit because it just tastes like tainted water.
- The water helps you "go". I am anemic and constipation is a side-effect of taking iron supplements as it restricts bowel movement. That coupled with eating low-carb means trouble. Water helps with that as does exercise, I feel.
- Sweating: This may be psychological, but when I sweat I feel proud, as if it's symbolic of fat leaving my body. Because, I'm anemic I'm also cold all the time which means that exercising helps to warm my body up.
- Skin: I'm constantly washing my face now and I've noticed my skin is looking more polished because of this. As well, it's well-known that sweating helps release toxins from the skin. I don't know much about that, just what I'm experiencing.
- Mood: As someone with significant experience with clinical depression, much of which was related to body-image, the endorphins from exercise makes me smile and feel happy and not a lot of things do that for me.
- Sense of accomplishment: when I'm only dieting I always feel like I'm not doing enough. When I'm exercising now, I know that I'm doing enough, it's just a matter of adjust calories or time spent working out.
I just checked and saw that I need to get down to 191 lbs to go from Obese (Class 1) to Overweight and to 159 lbs to get to "Normal Weight". 191 is the magic number right now.
From tomorrow, I'm also doubling down on my diet and eating more regularly and in smaller portions. I want to eat about 4-5 times/day as opposed to the 2/3 times I'm doing right now. And, of course, no processed carbohydrates (rice, bread, pasta, sugar etc., and no fruit) for the next two weeks. My big goal to scratch off my list is from my quirky, personal list :
- Not having to wear uncomfortable, torturous control garments such as Spanx under a dress to hide lumps and bumps.
