Finding Health, One Bite at a Time

For the past few years, I’ve struggled with my weight. Hell, I feel like I’ve been at battle with my body for as long as I can remember. But my health journey really kicked off when my weight crept up after college, and now despite trying my best to eat less and move more, it doesn’t want to come off.

And that’s been hard to process. Really hard. I’ve tried calorie counting, intuitive eating, low carb, Whole 30, Weight Watchers, Noom, etc. Yet every time, I’ll drop a few pounds, but stay stagnant once I’m past that initial 2-5 pound drop. Inevitably, after a month or two of stagnation, I’ll get frustrated with the lack of results, binge on pizza and nachos, decide I need to get on a new plan and start the process over again.

Several months ago, I realized that I’m a Gretchen Rubin Obliger, and that accountability was key for me. Through one of the many health podcast groups I’m a part of, I connected with a health coach (Taylor, and she’s awesome! Check her out at https://www.habitcoach.org/). Working with her has been tough too, but it’s forced me to stick with something long term.

Yet, I’m not down a bunch of weight. And yes, that’s still extremely frustrating. But I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that my screwed up relationship with food and my body is something that’s going to take time to reset. I may never get down to that college weight again, but I’m still thankful for this journey. My relationship to food is shifting. Over the past few months of working with Taylor, I’ve realized a few things:

1. Consistency is key. I follow Rachel Hollis (she can be problematic, but a lot of her work is great), and one of her practices is to choose a word each year that represents what you want to achieve. My word for 2020 is consistency. I lack it in a lot of areas, but food and finances take an especially hard hit. Since I tend to lose weight s u p e r  s l o w l y, I’ve realized that I need to stay consistent to see any results. That point in time where my weight loss stalls on a diet and I give up? I’ve started to wonder what would happen if I just push through – weight loss or not. Would I feel better? Sleep better? Eventually push past that plateau?  Maybe, maybe not. Either way, though, I should give myself the chance to see what happens when I actually stick to something long term.
2. Mindset changes everything. Duh, Kendal. But my mindset before working with Taylor around food, and why I ate the way I did, was effed up. In a recent call, Taylor told me she was proud of how much I changed the way I talk about food and my diet. She’s right, I have. Before, I was full of excuses. I HAD to go through the drive through because I had a busy night and didn’t have time to cook. There was NO WAY I could work out that day because I stayed up late the night before watching Fraiser (side note –  if you’ve never watched Fraiser, you are missing out). My mindset now? Everything is a choice – and I have the power to choose.. If I go to Chick Fil A between evening meetings, I made the choice to do that versus eat a few different healthy snacks I keep in my desk that can make for dinner in a pinch. By recognizing where I’m going wrong, it’s a little easier to steer the right way.
3. …But I’m still a work in progress. Choosing Chick-Fil-A over the healthy options on a school board meeting night? Yeah… that happened just last week. But I’ve come to realize I need to, as the song suggests, LET IT GO. I recognize what I chose to do, acknowledge there were better options, and try better the next time. The guilt is still there sometimes, but I’ve realized that when I shame spiral, it’s usually straight down into a plate full of tacos and pizza and beer that end up making me feel MUCH worse.
4. Find what works for you. I’ve done a bunch of diets, which may not have been great for my metabolism, but it has been great to see what I like, don’t like and what works best for me. Focusing on getting protein, fat, fiber and greens at every meal (ala Kelly Leveque or the Nutrition Addition’s Megan Kober, two of my favorite people to follow) feels best to me. I like three solid meals a day, not 5 small snack-y meals, and I feel great when I get a 12-14 hour fast in every night. I’m not counting calories, which can lead me to a numbers game (…hmm I have enough calories to fit a whole cheesesteak in today as long as I eat nothing but that and some rice cakes), but at the same time, I have a light structure to keep me in line. One day, maybe, intuitive eating will work for me, but for now, this makes the most sense.  

Just to reiterate, I haven’t lost a ton of weight. In fact, I’m only down about 5 pounds from where I was when I started working with Taylor. But I felt like sharing what’s working for me and what I’m learning might be helpful, since I know weight loss is so ingrained in our society. My mom, sisters and I talk about it incessantly, as do my colleagues at work. Yet, I’ve come to realize that I’ve felt lonely and isolated about my struggles with weight loss. That I’m not doing it right, that something’s wrong with me, that I’ll feel this way forever, blah, blah, blah.  

I know I want to change that, so I’ll be sharing my struggles, wins, losses, etc., here in this space. Sure, it’s another way to stay accountable as I continue to find what’s right for me in my health journey. But maybe it’ll also help others to realize that the struggle is REAL, and we’re not alone.