Feminine 101

In January 2024, I began a “health journey.” This is to share where I came from, what I’ve achieved, and how I got from point A to point B. Please note, I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or any other sort of health professional. I’m just a woman who took her health in hand and made some changes. If you wish to start at the beginning of my story, you can click here.

Sometimes, stalls happen. Sometimes you fall “off the wagon.” Sometimes, you even gain a few pounds. It is incredibly disheartening! Like, why am I even doing this? disheartening. Like, I’m going to eat three slices of pie, disheartening. Like…well, you get the point. Losing thirty pounds in three months only to grind to a halt suddenly is beyond frustrating–especially when you’re still doing the things you did to lose those thirty pounds. 

.

In my case, I noticed that desserts started creeping onto my plate more regularly. I was snacking more, usually healthy things like nuts and dried fruit, but not with the original levels of control. I was feeling the hunger more and was not as easily satiated. 

.

My goal date was creeping up, and I was twenty-five pounds from where I had planned on being. But, in mid-June, I sat down and re-assessed my goals. I really dug into what I was doing and where that reality diverged from my “rules.” I re-calculated my goal dates, giving myself plenty of room to shed pounds slowly and at a healthy pace. I drilled down on my rules because they had worked. 

Really, the culprit was that my discipline was slipping. I was behaving as though I had reached my goal and had relaxed into maintenance mode. But, I still had a way to go. So it was time to buckle down and get this thing done. 

.

And, it worked! I was able to peel off another ten pounds in a month and a half–in time for our summer vacation. I also decided that I could no longer make my old clothes work anymore. The pants were all falling down and all of my belts were way too big to even form a bandaid fix. Every t-shirt was like a tent and it was definitely time. That was a pleasant reward.

.

Vacation, as you can imagine, saw me pack on extra pounds, but I was prepared for that. My husband even encouraged me to relax a little and enjoy. After all, I know how to lose weight. Six pounds loaded on over the span of two weeks is not a life-changing number. So, when I got home, I buckled down and sent those pounds packing. It took one week. 

.

But then I stalled again. For a month, the needle didn’t budge. I was ten pounds away from my goal and going nowhere. My new end-date came and went. I was thoroughly demoralized. 

.

What now? Had I really made the changes to my life to effect lasting transformation? Or was I just pretending to be healthy? Was this it? Did I come all this way to camp out within spitting distance of the finish line? Um, no! But what to do about my mindset? You see, the discouragement gets to a person; it’s a blow to your motivation, so the mind has to change.

.

I started looking up YouTube videos of people who had lost weight on a quest for inspiration. I watched several different ones before I stumbled across the channel of Amy Fritz who lost 93 pounds. I found her wholesome, sweet attitude to be very uplifting in a way that seemed to set me up on my feet. Her question and answer videos were also very helpful because people were asking the same questions I was. But the thing that finally nudged me back into action was one of her “grocery haul” videos where she talked about the foods she ate in a day as well as the things she bought and how she prepped for the week. 

If what you’re doing isn’t working, it’s time to do something else. 

.

One of the things my YouTuber said was that she started out with intermittent fasting to great effect, but found that she needed to evolve as her body and nutritional needs changed over time. This was huge to me. One of my struggles was that I was getting hungry earlier and earlier. It was hard to wait until 10:00 or 11:00 to get started eating. So, getting “permission” to alter my rules as my needs changed was revolutionary. It shouldn’t be, but it was. I started with a piece of whole grain toast slathered in peanut butter. 

.

I watched this young woman load her plate up with food. Admittedly, it was a lot of rabbit food: salads, fruits, and veggies. But she was eating more substantial things, too, like chicken, cottage cheese, yogurt, and so forth. I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to use “rabbit food” as a filler, but it didn’t. It certainly fitted my criteria, though. 

.

For breakfasts, I started eating a carb, sometimes half a bagel with cream cheese, sometimes, toast. I would add peanut butter, or a fried egg. Then I would fill the rest of the plate with fruit–usually apples, grapes, or berries. 

For lunches, I would make a giant salad (one time Miss Amy made hers in a huge mixing bowl) topped with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, chicken, shredded cheese, dried cranberries, and my favorite dressing. Then, I would add fruit to the side. My kids have often remarked how huge my salads are. But lettuce and spinach are basically calorie free and the things that do have more calories, like meat and cheese, were used in much more limited quantities. Another thing I eat is a wrap–basically a sandwich with a tortilla (I love the Mission Carb Balance variety because they’re yummy and low calorie). I follow the same principles as the salad, though, and add lots of veggies and lettuce as fillers.

.

As an aside, she would take a package of chicken breasts, cut them up, season them, and roast them in the oven at the beginning of the week, then put them in the fridge. So she could just throw it on her salad quickly throughout the week. This, too, is revolutionary! Making it easy to make good choices is really important and removing the steps of remembering to thaw the chicken, then cook it is a game changer. Obviously, other meats can work in this capacity, too.

.

For afternoon snacks, well, she had one. And this here is another area where I get off track so easily. Grazing constantly on snacks is a bad habit even if your snacks are healthy. So, structuring and planning an afternoon snack (my go-to has been plain yogurt, fresh berries, and a drizzle of honey) has simultaneously given me permission to indulge, and the discipline to do so properly. 

.

For dinner, I still eat what the family eats. However, I cook up a lot more veggies and give myself a heaping serving of those. I don’t find it challenging at all to stop eating in the evenings so that’s not been a struggle for me. But I understand some do, so plan on carrots and nuts or a low calorie something sweet. 

.

Some of you have heard me mention calories a few times and you may recall that I did not want to count calories. That is still true. I don’t and I won’t. That doesn’t mean I ignore the calorie count altogether, though. I drink sparkling waters because they have no calories and add pickles to my noon meal wraps because they’re flavorful and low-cal. 

.

A phrase I have encountered more and more is the term “intuitive eating.” It means you intuit or use your instincts to choose healthy foods, then pay close attention to your body’s signals so that you know to stop when you’re full, etc. This is not a way to start. I think you need more structure than that, especially if you’ve cultivated years of bad eating habits. You have to create new, healthy habits before you can intuitively choose your foods. Those habits are the structure for your caloric intake. If that structure involves eating ice cream from the bucket at 9:00 p.m., your impulses will be out of whack and intuitive eating will drive you straight off a cliff.

.

That being said, “intuitive eating” is the model I was unwittingly working towards. Learning how to fill my plate with things that don’t set me back has helped develop the game plan of how to accomplish that. 

The needle began to move again. 

.

A final note: I started doing pilates six days a week. With the weather growing cold and the days getting so short, walking outside every day is not practical. I decided that I, straight up, need to make myself do this. And the changes, the muscle tone are coming. So take heart. Look for something to boost, to fuel yourself onward.

To continue this story, click here.