Those of us who understand the importance of having “seasons” (cycles/phases) in our journey, tend to spend fall and winter focusing on building muscle size and strength. In fact, it’s very common to align your training phases with the actual seasons, taking advantage of the cover up in the colder months and then leaning out for the summer. If you are in this camp you probably will start planning your cutting phase to start late winter/early spring, giving you plenty of time to trim down for summer and avoid a last minute panic. Whether this is your first cutting phase or 10th, these tips will set you up for a successful experience.
1. Less is not more
Even though cutting calls for a caloric deficit, one of your goals should still be to maximize food intake while still losing fat. Starting with a small deficit of 5-10% allows you to do just that. Jumping straight to a big deficit like 20% means that should you need/want to adjust your deficit, you will be eating even less food (say it isn’t so!). While larger deficits might get the scale moving more quickly in the short term, they are also harder to stick with and can easily backfire.
2. Just say no to extreme restrictions
You CAN enjoy treats during cut!
While cutting, you may choose to adjust your macro ratio, but it shouldn’t be so drastic where you go from eating 200g carbs to 50g or start putting foods like bread, bananas or your favorite treats on a banned food list! Overly restricting food groups can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food or, worse, eating disorders like binge eating. And, honestly, how long would you be able to maintain that? Remember, if you won’t be able to sustain it throughout your cut, it will offer little benefit. Lowering your calorie intake doesn’t mean eliminating food groups.
3. Keep rocking the protein
By consuming less calories you will encourage the body to use more of its own resources for energy, preferably fat stores. During the process, however, we want to minimize lean tissue loss as much as possible. Remember metabolically active tissue (aka muscle) boosts your metabolism rate. Staying on top of your protein intake will aid in keeping it around. In fact, you might consider adding a little extra protein.
4. Diet breaks do a body good!
Deficit eating should not become your new standard of eating. Plan to take diet breaks every 4-6 weeks or so and return to normal eating for a week or more. Extended periods of dieting will lead to a new LOWER maintenance. It may be tempting to continue eating at a deficit, especially if you are steadily seeing progress. Don’t do it. Take the break!
5. Fat loss does not equate to crazy cardio
Many of us, especially those who have experienced weight loss in the past from doing extensive cardio, may think it is the perfect time to reintroduce cardio as the mainstay of our fitness program and, as a result, start adding more of it to our regimen. After all, we’re trying to create a a deficit, right? Wrong. This is a mistake! Recall what Alwyn Cosgrove, author of the best-selling series New Rules of Lifting, said about the hierarchy of fat loss – nutrition is most important and activities that do not maintain muscle or increase metabolism (aka cardio) are least important. The reality is that your training should continue to be based in strength. No need for excessive cardio shenanigans!
6. Manage other stress
Deficits are stressful to the body and can be stressful mentally. Plan for it by including more relaxing activities in your program, such as low intensity/casual walks, meditation or whatever helps you to unwind. Make sure you are getting sufficient quality sleep as well. Here’s a great app that can help you establish a meditation practice www.headspace.com.
7. Outsmart your deficit
No one likes to feel deprived and one way to avoid those feelings is by including more nutrient dense foods in your meals! Keeping the volume of food high with low-calorie high fiber foods like veggies and fruit may help you avoid those diet-like feelings. Bonus: You’ll boost your nutritional profile at the same time.
8. Have patience and manage expectations
Like every other phase of your fitness journey, cutting requires time, consistency and patience. If it is your first time cutting, you may have high expectations, however, just like building muscle takes time, losing fat does as well. Don’t expect your clothes to be suddenly falling off you after two weeks. You can speed the process up by truly being consistent with your efforts and keeping a positive mindset.
9. Remember, you are an individual
If you are starting your cutting phase with a friend or are following someone else’s journey via social media, resist the urge to start comparing your progress. It is tempting, but it can also be the perfect set up for disappointment. Two people following the same program, eating the same foods, etc. can yield very different results. Think about a few of the factors that come into play here – age, weight, height, genetics, body composition, hormone balance, lifestyle habits, etc. Don’t fall into the trap of judging your progress by another’s. Whether fast or slow, celebrate your progress!
10. Look at the big picture
Of you that is! Make sure that you are taking progress pics. Very often we zoom in on our (not so) favorite trouble spots, not noticing changes taking place in other areas. Our bodies really don’t care that you’d like to trim a few inches off your thighs or tummy. Fat loss happens where it happens. Period. Make sure you’re looking at the big picture to truly assess your progress.
Bottom line: your fat loss (cutting) phase, just as any other phase in your program (muscle building, maintenance, reset, chill) should have a beginning and an end. Staying in any one phase for too long can have adverse effects (read: no ONE phase will give you *all* the results, so cycle through them for continued results).
Take your phases slow and steady. Approach with INTENTION, then take a break. Be diligent in developing the habits you need (in the kitchen and in the gym), but resist the urge to focus solely on calorie burns or excessive cardio. Use some or all of these tips and you will be on your way to killing your next cut!
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Hi. I’m Liane and I’m one year into a plan. I was never good at the small details but great at the big picture. This is why I came up with a two year plan but ended up flying by the seat of my pants and still, to some extent, am. But let me start at the beginning (see, flying by seat of pants).
When I was in high school, I was a serious athlete. I played three seasons of sport (field hockey, basketball and softball) and had the body that went with this. In the 80s, the muscular with some body fat body wasn’t something to have as a teen (then again, it seems to never have been the body to have). I thought my butt was too large, my tummy too large and I hated my muscular calves. I wanted my best friend’s tall lithe body. I look back on those pictures and wish I had that body again! I was so cute and fit (my tummy was just lightly rounded but I couldn’t see it). BUT, I didn’t diet. It wasn’t big in my group of friends who all seemed to just eat.
The summer after I graduated I went and worked as a pool-side cocktail waitress in a bathing suit at a resort. Talk about horrible. I was a late bloomer and working with these college women who were much more developed. At the same time I started drinking alcohol and eating to deal with the emotions I was feeling, being away from home. I gained 20 lbs in that summer. Yup, the freshmen 15+ before even becoming a university freshmen. Ugh. I began to play Division 1 field hockey at university and along with eating less meat and more veg, I lost the entire 20 lbs during that year. I felt good about myself. I hadn’t starved myself but cut out a few small things. And then my sophomore year came and a new coach. She made us all get our body fat taken by caliper. I was told that at 22%, I would have to lose a lot of weight – I was fat. Yup, not just asking me to eat a bit less to get a lower body fat percentage but that I was fat and to lose weight. All my insecurities came back. And so I began to starve myself. I probably ate between 800-1000 calories most days, though more on weekends. As you can imagine, in the next three years I did lose a lot of weight but my hockey performance declined a lot. My coach had ruined me. But I was skinny.
Throughout my 20s, I was constantly trying to keep that very skinny body shape. I would under eat, workout for hours and smoke. Yuck. But I was skinny for the most part.
When I wasn’t doing these things, my weight would balloon. And as I got older it got harder to go between heavier and skinnier. The worst was when I ended up tearing my ACL while playing rugby. I couldn’t exercise for months in the same way and I ate because I was unhappy. So I gained again.
Up, down, up down, never actually learning how to eat the right way. But I kept around a decent body weight and I doubt anyone would have ever called me ‘fat’ (though I felt that way). In 2004, I moved to London for a job. In the first few months, I lost weight despite drinking lots of beer with my new field hockey teammates and felt fantastic at my dad and stepmom’s wedding. I didn’t really eat a lot because I was a bit broke and I was walking everywhere as the transportation was expensive (and I didn’t have a paycheck right away). I then met my to be husband. He is a born and bred Londoner. And he loves food. He was the first guy I met who told me to eat more, that I was too skinny and that he couldn’t understand women who ate salads only. He loved my bum and hoped that I would get curvier.
That led to the two of us sharing our love of food and cooking. He taught me Indian dishes (as that was his background) and I showed him how to barbecue. Over the next couple of years, we both slowly gained weight, though I did more so due to eating his size portions. I called it my boyfriend weight. But I was happy. I didn’t even care about losing weight before I got married though I was sad to have a tummy in my wedding pics (Indian style wedding so tummy showed!) Eventually, I actually weighed myself and saw that I was 170 lbs. Holy cow. This was by far the heaviest I had been at 5’6″. I found MFP and lost 20 lbs quite quickly (I put myself in for a 2 lb a week weight loss). I ate very little, which felt natural to me. A few years later (and a year ago), I saw pics of myself looking quite fat faced and decided to weight myself. 165. Darn it. Gained weight again! Back to MFP where I quickly lost 5 lbs.
But then I began to read more in the forums. Some women were posting about eating more, especially as they didn’t have a lot of weight to lose, which I didn’t. I wanted to get to 145 minimally, so I went with 1 lb a week. Lost some weight and then went to 1/2 lb weight loss goals. I was doing some weight lifting on the machines which made me feel like I was getting a bit stronger. My input of calories slowly went up to 1900. And then I just stayed there. It was frustrating. I wasn’t really losing a lot of weight, but the ladies I friended encouraged me to read more and take my time. I eventually got to the EM2WL group on MFP and it was there that I finally figured out how to do this. I didn’t want to lose weight only to gain it again. I was 45, darn it, and I wanted to start eating for my lifestyle while also losing some body fat.
I joined the website forums and began to post. I started doing Stronglifts 5×5 as it seemed like a great programme. I lost those final few pounds to get to 145 as I was eating more (who knew?) and I decided that I would try to figure out my true TDEE so I could do a healthy cut to get to my final goal weight of 140.
I’m still in the midst of doing this. I’ve slowly added 100-200 calories and held at that level for a month at a time. I’ve had setbacks such as breaking a rib and getting a major chest infection which has influenced how much and what I could do as workouts. But I’ve held strong. I’m now eating the way I hope to for life – I haven’t given up a single food but I’m trying to keep my protein intake a bit higher (to keep my muscles) and watch my portion size. Amazingly enough, I’m eating almost at dinner some nights what I used to eat all day (around 1200 calories). I’m still in the midst of figuring out my TDEE (I’m at 2400 calories currently) and once I get to the point where I am gaining weight steadily, then I’ll know it’s time for a small cut of 10-15%.
I’m one year into my two year plan. I didn’t know how to get to where I was going, but now, I have more of an idea of what I need to do. I’m no longer really listening to the scale in the same way I used to. For me, it’s a tool to figure out my TDEE but not to figure out if my body is where it needs to be. I’m using measurements and my mirror as my guides. I’ll never been a fitness model, nor do I want to be one, so I’ll always carry a bit more body fat than others. I want to be able to have pizza and beer while still feeling fit. I want to still be playing field hockey at age 50 (I’m almost 46 and going strong on a team in London). And, if I live to my 90s like my grandmothers did, I want to be in the best health that I can, with strong bones from lifting and eating well. Yeah, those are good goals.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy a good night’s sleep. But for some, getting 8 hours sleep has become an unaffordable luxury, taking a back seat to what are perceived to be more important tasks. Sleep is now just an afterthought where we simply ‘get by’ on a few hours for as long as we can before finally crashing or we play catch up on the weekends. Many of us don’t know or minimize the role sleep plays not only with our fitness goals, but our overall health. Racking up a sleep debt should be avoided as much as possible.
Your Body on Too Little Sleep
It’s important to understand what activities (oh, yes, things are happening) take place when we sleep to better understand why we need it in adequate amounts. During our deepest sleep, our muscles relax and our energy is restored. It’s during this stage that HGH (Human Growth Hormone) is released and tissue growth and repair occurs, including muscle development.
When our bodies are robbed of sleep we put our immune system at risk, impacting its ability to fight bacterial infections like the common cold. Short term memory, alertness and our decision-making ability decrease as well as our energy level. When sleep is missed long enough, it has been shown to be a risk factor for increased high blood pressure, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
How Sleep Debt Impacts Your Fitness
When we talk about fitness most likely the first topics to spring to mind are exercise and nutrition. Rarely, if ever, do you hear someone ask how much sleep they should be getting. Granted, when it comes to fitness exercise and nutrition are major factors, however when you are slacking on your napping, you put both your performance and nutrition goals at risk.
Hormone imbalances caused by too little sleep increase cravings for comfort foods.
Hormone Mayhem When our sleep is routinely shortchanged, our hormones get out of whack. Hormones like cortisol, the stress hormone, are elevated and can increase our cravings for comfort foods (aka high fat/sugar foods). Grehlin, the hunger hormone, is increased while leptin, the satiety hormone, is decreased. When you add that all up you have a sleep-deprived, comfort food-seeking zombie who can’t tell if they are hungry or full. Even the strongest-willed person can be undone in the kitchen when faced with that hormone brew. More often than not this results in an energy imbalance leading to weight gain.
Earlier we mentioned that HGH is released in large quantity during deep sleep. When that period is cut short, muscle growth and development can be impacted. What could be worse than giving your best effort in the gym yet only reaping half the reward.
Inconsistent Effort When the alarm goes off after 4 or 5 hours of sleep it is very tempting to hit the snooze button 2, 3, 4 or more times before you force yourself to get out of bed. Early morning exercisers will likely miss scheduled training to get a few more zzz’s. If you train later in the day it is probably equally as tempting to head home after a long day of work rather than the gym. String a few missed workouts together and you are bound to see an impact on your progress.
Injury Risk Decreased alertness means increased risk of injury. If you do happen to make it to the weight floor of your gym, your chance of getting hurt increases greatly with decreased alertness.
Poor performance Let’s face it, when you are dragging yourself around all day because you’re sleepy, it’s hard to be at your best and that includes when you’re training. When we give our bodies adequate rest, our hormones are better balanced which is likely to leave us feeling patient and even-keeled and with more energy.
Getting more shut eye
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention recommends 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Establishing a bedtime routine can help with getting your mind and body ready for sleep. Here are some ways to increase your chance of reaching that optimal level of sleep on a regular basis:
Avoid big meals and stimulants before bedtime If you have trouble falling asleep because of tummy troubles, opt for lighter meals when it is close to bedtime. Digestion halts at night and occurs at a much slower rate than during the day. Limit consumption of stimulants later in the day which can make it harder to fall asleep.
Set regular sleep and waking hoursGoing to bed and getting up at the same time helps to regulate our Circadian Rhythm – the 24-hour internal clock that controls our biological processes. Don’t try to make up for missed sleep on the weekend by sleeping in. It throws off our internal clock, upsetting the regular sleep pattern our bodies prefer.
Dim the lights and shut off electronics Bright light delays the production of melatonin, a natural hormone which helps you sleep. Turn off the tv and silence electronics such as smart devices, which can impact getting a restful night’s sleep. Stay off social media. It gets your brain filled with information that’s not conducive to relaxing.
Find a comfortable temperature This tip can be a challenge, especially if you share your bedroom. The recommended optimal temperature range for sleep is anywhere from 60-67 degrees. While this will fluctuate according to personal preference, it’s a good reference point. Temperature regulation is important not only for comfortability purposes but because it also is closely related to our biological clock and circadian rhythm.
Wrap up
Next time you think about putting sleep at the bottom of your list of priorities, think twice. While some mornings it may be tempting to crawl out of bed to hit the gym after a poor night’s sleep, you may be better off catching those extra zzz’s. Sometimes skipping that workout to sleep reaps more benefits than dragging yourself to the gym.
When it comes to general health and fitness, sleep can be a game changer. Too little quality sleep increases risk factors for poor health conditions as well as impact your fitness progress. Sleep is fundamental to leading a healthy lifestyle. Start prioritizing sleep to keep progressing on your fitness journey.
Russell Forrester puts the criticality of sleep into perspective with this great TED talk. If you still think you are doing just fine on a few hours sleep, you’ll want to watch this.
Kiki has been bugging me for a while now to write about my weight loss and fitness journey, so here I am finally getting the courage up to writing it. I say courage because in the past year I have come to realize quite a few things about myself that I was ashamed about for a long time and have finally come to be able to face the truth. Yes, I too (as many women do), suffer from binge eating disorder (BED), but let me start at the beginning of my journey, because I couldn’t always admit, or understood that this was going on.
Upon turning 40 (4.5 years ago), I was very unhappy with my body and weight and the fact that hiking was getting hard for me. I live in Arizona and hiking is one of my husband and my passions, especially at the Grand Canyon. Well, it was a trip to the canyon that finally snapped me into reality and made me make the decision to do something about my weight that had ballooned to 185. I am 5’7” and 195 was the highest weight that I had gotten to in the past, so I was closing in on that number again! I decided to give online weight watchers a try and had (what I thought) was great success, after all I dropped 45 pounds in about 4 months! Of course, I quickly hit a plateau and continued to increase my exercise, while sticking to the very low “points” that weight watchers was allowing me; rarely to never eating back my exercise calories that continued to increase with my cardio/calorie burn obsession!
After about a year of weight watchers, I decided not to renew my contract and to switch over to MFP, where I discovered that there was a whole group of Cathe Friedrich obsessed women out there. For those of you unfamiliar with Cathe, she is a workout DVD genius and my guru! I had been lifting weights with her DVD’s along with her cardio DVD’s during the whole weight watchers process. It was a breath of fresh air to meet all of these women with the same workout commitment that I had. Well, long story short, I got hooked up with Kiki through other mutual Cathe/MFP ladies and started to read her blog posts and watched her YouTube videos. This is where I first got hooked up with EM2WL and started to realize that the health industry has steered us women in the wrong direction when it comes to “losing” weight.
After many conversations with Kiki, I was convinced and finally understood that eating really low restricted calories was always going to set someone up for failure, especially when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off and that the healthiest route was to eat to fuel your body and to lift weights, heavy weights! As I mentioned, I had been lifting weights all this time, but never understood why I was never able to make any progress in muscle development and that I had actually lost much of my muscle. Oh, and I should mention that during this plateau, I didn’t understand why every time I would feel like I made some progress I would fall into a binge tailspin. For 9 months, it was 2 steps forward and 1 huge binge step back. Every time this would happen I would absolutely loath myself and shame myself etc, but never understanding that it was partly my body’s way of telling me to “feed me”! (Of course there are also psychological reasons for the binging as well).
I finally let her convince me to do a metabolism reset after being at the plateau for a good 9-12 months and losing and gaining the same 5#. Silly me, I thought that I would reset my metabolism for 6 weeks and then start cutting again. I didn’t understand why after that 6 weeks I had gained a good 10# back and why when I started cutting it didn’t just fall right off!? After more conversations with Kiki and more research, she finally got me to understand that it wasn’t a number that I could assign to my reset, that it could and would take time, quite possibly a LONG time. She also convinced me to join a group of ladies who were starting STS (a 3-6 month Cathe weight lifting program), while bulking (eating above calorie requirement). She did warn me that I would gain weight and boy did I. I gained about 20# back, bringing me back to around 160. I was a little scared, as was my husband starting this process but new it was going to be for my good. After STS was finished I decided to try a cut. I lost some of that weight, but I could tell that my metabolism still wasn’t healed, so I started to eat at what I thought was maintenance and stayed there for a long time.
I should mention, that after I lost all the weight with weight watchers, I told my husband that I thought I wanted to someday compete in a figure competition. I had an unwritten goal of competing before I was 45. Well, I talked about this goal for about 4 years and finally, a (very devout Christian) friend of mine finally pointed out that maybe the fact that I kept bringing this topic up every few months, that maybe, just maybe God was directing me to actually go for my goal. I should mention that within all this time of weight loss and resets, I was born again (which is why she felt it was God calling me to this goal, for whatever reason). We both figured the reason was not because he wanted me to compete, but one much more deeply.
This conversation occurred in December of 2013 and around the same time, my husband got fed up with my talk and said that I needed to just do it! After much discussion with him and other women who had competed and a TON of prayer, God led me to an online trainer who came highly recommended and who was also a Christian. I signed a yearlong contract that began on January 27 2014 that included a nutrition and training plan, with the intention of competing on November 1, 2014. You are probably wondering how did it go!? It didn’t.
After starting with my trainer, I quickly started seeing results, not only in fat loss, but overall improvement in my cardio ability as well as muscle development. I couldn’t and still can’t believe the amount of muscle that I have been able to develop. So why did I not compete? As I said, I felt God had me on this journey for a much bigger reason than simply competing and as it turned out, it has been a journey of healing and learning about nutrition and coming to a place where I can finally admit that I do suffer from BED. Do I still struggle with BED? Constantly! Have I binged during this new goal phase of my life? Sadly yes, but with God’s help I am working on it and have only had 2 major occurrences in the last 9 months, which is a great improvement from binging every few weeks.
So, the reason I didn’t compete? Twelve weeks out from the competition date, when true contest prep would normally take place, I got a response from my trainer that I was not expecting. She felt that with my BED issues, that she could not get me to competition readiness without restricting my calories too much and with my ED, she knew it was the wrong thing to do. After much discussion with my husband, we both agreed that this is why I hired her and I should heed her advice.
We have now moved into a muscle building phase and the new goal is to compete in spring of 2015 and if I am still not ready, than winter 2015. Needless to say, I now know this is a journey of not only physical health, but mental and spiritual as well and I will take as long as I need to get to the point of competing. My mindset has changed from “I just want to be able to say that I did it”, to “I did it and I won!”
I guess I should add my stats for those of you who are wondering (I started tracking in July of 2012 and unfortunately don’t have pictures for the earlier dates):
July 2012: 158 (end of my second reset)
September 2012 (the start of STS and after a short cut): 152
March 2013 (end of my first official bulk): 164
June 2013 (end of my first cut): 150
December 2013 (during my second bulk): 154
January 27, 2014 (the start of my figure training) 25% bf and 154.5
August 11, 2014 (12 weeks out from competition) 18.8% bf and 134
October 27, 2014 (last check in with my trainer) 17.7% bf and 132
Many of today’s popular diets share a similar characteristic where you eat from a list of approved foods or food types and when you choose not to, you are cheating. Thankfully, it seems, a few diets are getting away from this notion of cheating such as flexible dieting and IIFYM, however, the practice of eating a cheat meal or having cheat days is still widely followed by those restricting their diets.
If what you eat on the weekend is drastically different from what you eat during the week, you are doing it wrong.
As you know, EM2WL does not endorse any specific diet, but we do make the following basic recommendations:
• Eat sufficient protein
• Eat sufficient fiber
• Eat enough food to meet your level activity
Pretty basic stuff, right? Nothing too scary and probably something most people can get with. Sure, there is more to it like balancing macros, whole vs processed foods, nutrient timing, staying hydrated, etc. but at a basic level, this is what it looks like.
My gripe with having a cheat meal has ZERO to do with the quality of the meal itself, but how the meal is labeled and the potential backlash it can have. The problem with labeling foods as cheats is that we are dangerously close to being right back at the good vs bad food mindset. As we’ve seen in the past, this often leads to putting foods on a restricted list, which can introduce binge eating and other forms of disordered eating.
Cheat: to practice fraud or trickery – Merriam Webster
Think about this – When has cheating ever been associated with something positive? Cheat on a test? Bad. Cheat on your spouse? Bad. Cheating death? Ok, that is a good one, but even that seemingly good cheat has an ominous feel to it, like the grim reaper might be lurking around every corner to settle the debt.
Labeling a meal as cheating implies some form of deceit and has negative overtones. I am a big believer that framing things positively impacts how you feel about it. Are you really “getting away with” eating a cookie, enjoying some pasta or anything that is not on the sanctioned food list? If so, maybe your diet is too restrictive. The reality is that you are just eating food. Period. There are no food police or other authority that you need to outwit or who is waiting to lock you up.
Food is food. Every food has a nutritional profile and you should gauge its value for YOUR diet and then make a determination if it is something that you want to eat often or in moderation. In general, eating foods that are more nutritionally dense AND that you enjoy is a good idea. Sprinkle in the foods that don’t offer as much nutritional value, but you simply enjoy eating. Maybe for you that is a 50/50 balance or an 80/20 balance. Whatever that balance is, it is your call to make, but avoid labeling foods in such a way that it may potentially trigger some guilt about eating it afterward.
My name is Jeannetta! I have no idea where to start my transformation story, and I can’t give exact times and dates. What I can tell you is that finding this group on MFP is the best thing that could have ever happened to me. So, I think I’ll start on the topic of MFP.
I’d done MFP haphazardly in my mid 20’s. I’d always had weight issues. At a very young age, I was considered chunky. I was always bigger than my peers. In retrospect, I ate horribly as a child and teenager. The truth is, I didn’t know any better. We ate plenty of junk. Canned foods, fried foods, refined carbs, you name it. I don’t remember a balance of foods. Everything I learned about food and proper eating habits came to me in my early 20’s. At that point in time, I came home from college tipping the scales way over 200 lbs and about a size 22. I had horrible acne. I couldn’t fit into the latest fashions. I was fat, and I was over it.
When I moved home (Chicago) two things changed. I walked a hundred percent more. I took public transpo everywhere. That meant walking to and from the bus/L stops, walking from those stops to wherever I was going. Then back around again. Running to those stops sometimes. I mean, to go up and down L stairs and ramps, just commuting I had to be climbing a minimum of 13 flights of stairs in a day. If I wanted to go to the corner store/ bar/ most restaurants, I walked.
The second thing that changed were my eating habits. I was eating better and didn’t technically realize it until later. I had more variety in my diet because of our food culture in Chicago (fresh foods, etc). One year later, I weighed in out of curiosity one day. My pants were falling off. I’d lost 30 lbs. That’s when I made the connection between activity and food. Soon after the weigh in, I went and got a gym membership. I not only was doing my daily commute walking, I was doing an hour of interval sprints or the elliptical, and weights maybe twice a week. I’d also started dabbling with that 1200 calorie number on MFP. Cleanses, psyllium tablets, senna tablets, and green tea became a huge part of my diet. I ate but was very restrictive. I was one of those, I don’t eat this and that people, but in private would max a pint of Hagen Daz half the fat vanilla ice cream. I would then justify it by the all the activity, and all the chicken, salmon, broccoli, and sweet potatoes one would enjoy. I would feel guilty for eating out with my girls. When I look back, I had an ED like a mug. I’d lost 60+ pounds, but was obsessed with losing more and getting smaller.
It became harder and harder to maintain. Even though I was doing all the “right” things. The moment I would take a break from working out, I swear 10 lbs would show up so quick!!!!! Even still, I maintained the weight loss, give or take the ten lbs, for almost four years. When I look back, my actions were crazy. I’d started eating more fresh foods, and less prepared/processed foods, which was great, but that all came with binges.
Here I am, covering myself with my children’s bodies.
Fast Forward.
I got pregnant, and had two babies between 2008 and 2010. Yeah I know, my lifestyle changed. I began driving everywhere because I didn’t want to be on public transpo with two kids under two. I ate when I could. I had very little time to work out. The weight piiiiiiled on. I cried and cried. I was miserable. I didn’t want to take pictures. I didn’t want to be intimate with my husband. I was tired all the time. Depressed. Ashamed. I became the mom who let herself go. I’d promised myself I’d never be overweight again, and there I was, fat and ashamed with no self-love —constantly feeling sorry for myself.
My husband, he got me right together one day. He said to me, “I love you no matter how big or small you are, but I am soooo tired of you crying about it. If you want to change it, I’ll take the kids to school so you can get up and work out”. I started working out at home in the basement with a friend of mine to a Beach Body program that was sooooo fun! I was burning like 7-800 cals a session. But, I was also following a 1200 calorie schedule. I wasn’t losing a lb! I did feel better cardiovascular wise, but I was Hangry and I wasn’t losing any weight! That was the day I decided to utilize MFP to its fullest potential. I was going to go through profiles, see who was the fittest in their pictures and friend them.
That’s how I found Lucia. Call it luck or whatever, but I really believe I found her by the grace and mercy of The Lord. I’d started down the supplement trail again. I was doing the BB shake, protein shakes, green tea extract, enzymes, etc! I really, I mean in my gut knew I was not supposed to be taking all this crap. I was desperate again. Upon stumbling on her profile, I remember admiring her gun show. I remember doing a double read of her “About Me”. I remember reading she ate over 2500 calories a day. I remember looking back at her picture and thinking WTF? She is LYING!!! I remember going to her diary and reading her log, and my mouth dropping open. I remember being confused. So I friended her, I started going through her friends list and noticing all the EM2WL peeps, and I went on to friend others. I remember sending her the most desperate message. All I remember from that reply was metabolism reset, and Scooby’s Calculator. That’s when the research began. I felt bamboozled. All these years of starvation and excess cardio???? Even though I thought these ideas were crazy, you know, like the idea of EATING. I done everything else crazy, so I took my cals up from 1200 to 2500 in one day. By the end of the week, I’d lost 9lbs. It wasn’t a great 2500 calories. I ate whatever I wanted for about six months. I leveled out at about a 15 lb loss over the next year and a half.
I was still doing a massive amount of cardio and very little lifting. I’d eased up on the supps. Our family moved to Georgia. I didn’t work for 6 months. I worked out an hour a day, but was sedentary the rest of the day. I was still eating 2500 or more cals, not making adjustments for my activity levels. I gained 30 lbs.
I followed a few other eating more groups and found that weight lifting, building your metabolism, moderation, and eating for your individual activity levels were all these groups had in common. By this time though, I’d started feeling really crummy. I was tired all the time, depressed/anxious, low libido, bloating, constipation, rapid stomach fat gain etc. I had a laundry list of things going on. I’d started cutting cals slowly, cutting some of my cardio and replacing with weight training like I’d learned from the groups, and eating moderately, but even still, I wasn’t losing, and I wasn’t physically feeling well. I went to the doctor. I found out I was insulin resistant. Yep, I was on my way to having diabetes. I sigh even typing this. I never thought I’d be here. I had a cry fest for a couple of days, mostly because my doctor prescribed me the Atkins or South Beach DIET. I was so over diets at this point. I’d been on a diet my whole adult life. I did not want to go on a DIET. I was tired of restricting. I was at a place where I’d started to accept my body for the way it was, and appreciate what it could do. And now, the doctor wants me to go on another restrictive diet. A diet I knew I would fail miserably at, again. I’d already been on both previously and hated every minute of it.
But I’m a resourceful old bird. I am. I wasn’t going to be defeated by this. I refused the negative thoughts and started to claim my victory. I headed straight to the diabetes association website. This is where I learned the words glycemic index. I learned how foods effect your insulin, and how insulin contributes to fat loss and gain. I’d already won just by having this information. I was ready. After studying for a few days, I’d found that the damage had already been done to my cells, and while I could become less resistant, there was no science to prove you could reverse the damage to your cells. There was overwhelming science that backed the fact that you could control your insulin levels and keep them normal by the foods you eat. Those foods are medium to low glycemic index foods. The best part, was that I could still have carbs. What? Even carbs high on the glycemic index could be eaten sparingly.
I made the commitment to a total lifestyle change. Well really I didn’t have a choice, I could choose to change or live with a disease I didn’t want. So, I incorporated more foods low to medium on the index, weight training five days, and cardio 2-3 days for no more than 30 minutes. I also try not to be so sedentary during the day. I don’t count calories anymore. I eat when I’m hungry and when I’m full I stop. I drink plenty of water, and get my rest. The glycemic index has been the way for me to get my insulin levels under control. I was able to get my numbers back into normal range without the use of diabetes meds. What’s even crazier is that, the moment I got my insulin under control, the weight started flying off. And guess what? I’m not starving anymore.
I’m nowhere near done, but I am on my way. As of four weeks ago I was down 14 lbs, I’m due to go to the doctor this week. I’m averaging about 5-6 lbs a month as far as loss. I’m getting stronger with every lifting session, and I increase my weight every two weeks. I super set a lot, and lift with intensity.
Hang in there! Listen to your body. If you need help, see a physician. But most of all, don’t give up on yourself. Be your biggest cheerleader and your biggest competition. If I can overcome, I know you can too! I hope this helps someone. My story is a “to be continued”.
Throughout my 20s, I was constantly trying to keep that very skinny body shape. I would under eat, workout for hours and smoke. Yuck. But I was skinny for the most part.
I joined the website forums and began to post. I started doing Stronglifts 5×5 as it seemed like a great programme. I lost those final few pounds to get to 145 as I was eating more (who knew?) and I decided that I would try to figure out my true TDEE so I could do a healthy cut to get to my final goal weight of 140.
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