“I need to lose weight! I’m desperate. Do you have a diet plan to help me? I need to lose 30 pounds quickly! I’ve gained so much weight during the pandemic and need a plan to help me lose it!”
This is some of what I hear on a regular basis as a health coach and trainer and my answer is always the same. “I don’t offer diets, but rather a 360 degree approach to changing your fitness, wellness and nutrition for the long haul.” There are reasons why we gain and lose weight, and all of those are important to explore. This is a story of one woman’s journey from restricted eating and macro/calorie counting, to Intuitive Eating and improving her relationship with food. I’ve loved watching her journey and growth, and wanted to share it, to inspire you to turn inward and not just to the next new diet that’s out there.
I would like to introduce you to one of our member’s, Stephanie.
“My health and fitness journey began in July of 2017. I take that back, I have always strived to lose weight and had tried many other times and succeeded for a while, but never changed habits to the point that the transformations became permanent. In July of 2017 I had just turned 43 years old and had just fallen off the wagon AGAIN from doing a low calorie diet. I was frustrated! Even eating 1200 calories a day, the weight wasn’t coming off like it used to. I didn’t want to go into middle age feeling frumpy and not feeling comfortable wearing the clothes I like to wear so I made a decision to try a program my friend had used to lose weight. They claim not to be a diet because technically there is a behavioral component that is designed to help you delve into your relationship with food and help teach you habits that are meant to help you keep it off for good. I just wanted to feel better in my skin. I didn’t have a huge WHY at that point, I just knew subconsciously that I would be more accepted and more attractive if I were smaller and more fit. I started my journey at 5’6” and 156lbs. Hardly obese, but I didn’t love how I looked. My goal at that point was to lose about 15lbs. I had been working out about 3-4 days a week in a non-structured way, but I wasn’t completely out of shape.
“I felt like crap and looked better than I ever had.”
I lost 13 pounds the first 30 days on my program. It consisted of eating their food every few hours. No thinking involved, except for one meal you put together yourself which was lean protein and three small servings of non-starchy vegetables. EASY. Convenient for my hectic, no lunch break job. Effective. (Looking back of course it was effective! I was eating less than 1100 cals a day and only about 85g of carbs). I felt great. By mid October, so 2.5 months into program, I was down 35lbs. I felt like this was enough, so I started to transition back to eating some whole fresh foods. It felt good. I ramped up my activity at this point because I had energy. I wanted the next step. My program had a little side group of people who wanted to take it up a notch and workout hard and change their body comp. This was more involved because it involved challenges where you had to track everything that went into your mouth and report to the group daily with your calorie and macro breakdown. These were determined by your goals. My first goal was fat loss. I took my calories back down on the advice of a coach to anywhere from 1000-1450 over the course of about 1.5 years of challenges (9 total). I shed fat and gained a bit of muscle. I weighed 114 with 14.9% body fat at one point. I learned SO much about the science of nutrition and fitness. If nothing else I am grateful to have this knowledge. I can look at a food and see how the macros probably break down and guess the calories pretty accurately. I weighed and counted so many foods that now I can eyeball ounces like a champ. This is knowledge I am very glad to possess.
As time went on I noticed while my body “improved”, my quality of life had taken a nosedive. I had constant thoughts about food. How many calories is that? Can I afford one more carb today? I have had 3 pieces of gum, am I allowed another? I stressed every time we ate out. I felt resentful and jealous of the people I saw enjoying ‘off limits food and drink’ at restaurants. My energy outside of my 6 days a week, 500+ calorie burn (because that gave you the most points in the challenges) was crap. I had no energy to go out and walk or do anything else physical. I lost my period. I was irritable. I had no sex drive. I wanted to sleep a lot but then couldn’t get quality sleep at night. Meanwhile I was getting praise from everyone about my motivation and dedication and being so “dialed in”. I was getting compliments on my too thin body. I still found flaws in it. Finally after my last challenge where I took calories down to 1050 a day and carbs under 60 and got minimal results, I had a zoom call with a coach in tears about why this was happening. He suggested going on a thermogenic aid to rev my metabolism and cut out all raw veggies and only eat cooked ones. As a pharmacist, I was not about to take a stimulant. So I said, enough is enough. I felt like crap and looked better than I ever had.
“I’ve learned that your ideal weight isn’t an arbitrary number dictated by societal beauty standards but rather the weight you can sustain while nourishing your body and exercising in ways that you enjoy and don’t feel like punishment.”
I believe the shift to intuitive eating was an imperative step to my mental health and my quality of life. Being type A personality wise, I can see how I let the tracking and perfection of my journey get out of hand. I felt in control. I got results. I won challenges. I was praised. I was being looked up to and inspiring others. It was addictive. I am SO grateful that I ultimately stopped and took stock of the way my eating had gone from “dialed in” to get results to “disordered”. I had an epiphany where I thought, I cannot do this for the rest of my life. I want to travel and eat all the foods. I want to stop snapping at my husband. I want HIM to enjoy more foods without feeling guilty for eating them in front of me. I hadn’t eaten fruit in almost 4 years! I wasn’t happy. I did a lot of research and with the help of Tracy Steen and the Move Daily Membership I realized that whatever I did going forward would have to be sustainable and conducive to a fulfilling life. Even if that meant gaining weight. It’s been a really hard transition. I’ve gained a lot of weight. I’m back up to about 140-145 (although a LOT of that gain is actually muscle because I am actually giving my body the nutrition to grow new muscle tissue). I am MUCH more metabolic. I went from a BMR of about 1250-1300 calories to 1550-1600 now. I am doing a significantly larger amount of NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis -like walking) activity and enjoying it immensely. I am sleeping better. I am learning to eat when I feel hungry, and recognize my internal cues. I am using the knowledge of nutrition science I gained during my tracking days and choosing foods I know are balanced and nutritious about 90% of the time. I’ve learned that your ideal weight isn’t an arbitrary number dictated by societal beauty standards but rather the weight you can sustain while nourishing your body and exercising in ways that you enjoy and don’t feel like punishment.
“I think someone who is holistically well and happy naturally looks beautiful and I want that for myself.”
If someone came to me now wanting to lose weight I would most definitely have them peel back the reasons why to go beyond the superficial. I would encourage them to dig deep into their history and find out how they got to this current place. If they wanted to go forward I would encourage them to find ways to learn about the nutrition of the foods they eat. I would coach them that maybe tracking might be good FOR A SEASON to learn these things and understand the impact of certain macros/calorie levels have on them as an individual. I would absolutely de-emphasize the scale. I have learned that as your body composition changes, the scale becomes a much less reliable tool to measure progress. I would encourage measuring and journaling things such as: how are you sleeping? How are your energy levels? How are your hunger levels?
I would emphasize moving daily in a way they enjoy, starting with NEAT and eventually adding in structured workouts if they enjoyed them. I would make sure every step they took, their mental health was being addressed and their relationship with food was being explored.
My goals for my health and fitness have changed greatly. I am de-emphasizing numbers completely. I don’t care what I weigh. I care how I FEEL. I care how I progress and get stronger in workouts. I care about resting my body when it needs it. I care about remaining functional and mobile as I age. I care about navigating menopause in a healthy way. I care about helping others not dig themselves into a disordered eating hole like I did. I care much more about quality sleep. I care about surrounding myself with people who love and accept me for me regardless of my weight. Yeah of course I want to look good too. I think someone who is holistically well and happy naturally looks beautiful and I want that for myself. I want to inspire people not because I am skinny and lean but because I am doing what’s best for my body. I care about gut health and staving off long term health conditions. I care about improving my relationships. My goals now go WELL above and beyond the physical.
My biggest take away from learning about intuitive eating is trusting INTERNAL cues versus EXTERNAL cues. Diet culture, no matter what diet it is, is by definition something that gives you a structure of how to eat, what to eat and when to eat, your body signals be damned. You’re hungry? Drink some water and wait another 45 minutes until you’re “allowed” to eat again. You’re full? Well keep eating because this is all you’re getting the rest of the day. I lived that way for SO LONG, it’s like all I knew. Now I am relearning my own cues, much like a child. I stop and really assess my level of hunger. I’m still working on slowing down when eating…this is a constant challenge for me because I was always so starving by the time I was allowed to eat again, I ate at the speed of sound. Plus having a demanding job with no lunch break doesn’t help. If I can master eating a bit slower I will have an easier time assessing my fullness cues I think. My relationship with food is so much better. I eat all the foods now, including fruit and even rice! While I am mindful of portions, I don’t disallow anything at all. I can’t allow myself to restrict anymore. It is detrimental to me and I will never go back to practicing that again. I brought my “trigger foods” back into the house and I’m working on just living with them and knowing I can have them if and when I want. It helps prevent the desire to binge on something when you know it isn’t off limits. If I have a day where I’m not proud of my nutrition, I have compassion for myself and allow myself to live in the grey area. I am letting go of perfection on this journey, and simply starting over on the next meal. I like myself more for having gone through this and being self aware enough to course correct when I needed to.”
Perhaps you are in the same space that Stephanie was once in, and are looking to find a way to make peace with food. We can help! Two things that I would recommend:
- Join a community where the leader promotes a healthy relationship with food over just getting skinny. Check out the Move Daily Membership here.
- Go on your own journey of exploring Intuitive Eating as a strategy to loving your body and being friends with food. Read Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole
