A sad tale
I’m coming to you today from the same chair I wrote in when I was over 100 lbs heavier. I sat at this very same computer and had the same amount of will power/discipline that I do now. I don’t believe that it was a change in discipline or a change in will power that was necessary for me to change to a healthy life. I did try a couple of diets but ultimately there was no strategy that helped more than embracing the hard parts and enjoying the journey. Nutrition is not actually as difficult as we make it out to be. I’m only an expert of my situation but in my situation it was the choices I was afraid to make that led to my consistent failure. The healthy choices seemed hard to me then as I’m sure they do to many people that might read this blog but today it seems foolish because being unhealthy IS the hard way.
A Glutenous start to adulthood
Healthy nutrition choices have changed my life in so many positive ways that the fear and awkwardness of getting started makes me embarrassed. I can’t believe that I ever let myself get to such an unhealthy place. There were so many things that I felt deeply saddened by. My appearance was the least of my worries at that time but appearance is only ever a symptom. There were other symptoms as well. I was consistently sad and angry in my 20s. I was tired and low energy. I’d often nap 2 hours a day before my kids were born and after those were lost I immediately sunk into depression. Every single day was governed by the pursuit of food or the post food comfort feeling. The only important part of my diet was every night I’d eat 7-8 servings of gummies or ice cream to “help me sleep.” It’s not hard to imagine that it would take that person a lot of energy to wake up the next morning. I lived that way most of the way through my 30s and now it seems hard to imagine ever going one day in that body.
sleep improvements from nutrition
I don’t know if I had a good night of sleep from 2002-2022. My sleep was so poor it was not unusual for me to spend several hours a night on my phone browsing the internet. I’d do my best to escape my feelings of depression and loneliness with the small dopamine release of a community engagement. After I started taking care of my nutrition and health my sleep improved almost instantly. I also began exercising regularly and doing my best to earn the sleep. Between the two changes I went from sleeping rarely to sleeping often. From 4-6 hours of poor sleep on average to 7-8 of quality. People describe me as being a “positive person” or having a “great attitude” and I can point to sleep from proper nutrition.
I look good and i'm ok with it
This is not a journey about appearance for me. In fact in many ways, I see the same person in the mirror and struggle to visualize how far i’ve come. Despite looking far better than I used to, my body image is still fragile and my eyes are instantly drawn to loose skin and pesky pockets of fat that remain. In pictures however, I am somehow able to see the progress more clearly. It’s easier to compare and if you follow along you can see my weight loss plateau around june of 2022. During this time, I had something of break and tried hard to focus on exercising enough to burn off my calories. This strategy never led to more weight loss and it wasn’t until I started doing my best to make great choices as often as possible that my nutrition really rebounded. It wasn’t until I learned to love learning about it that I began to see positive improvements again on my weight loss.
nutrition advice from a non expert
While I’m not a doctor or even an expert. My recipe for success has been to take the things that most YouTube nutritionists agree on and focus on those things. Doing this, I’m rarely hungry and my body responds well. All of these things are subject to change with new information.
My nutrition plan comes down to a few basic principles.
- I minimize/eliminate sugar
- I minimize/eliminate processed foods
- I minimize/eliminate alcohol
- I monitor my macros for quality and quantity
- I do eat lots of whole vegetables
- I do eat lots of whole fruits