Mistakes I made During My Weight Loss
1. Counting calories
When I first made this decision, I thought it was smart. To me I was just making sure I didn’t go out the maximum calories a day. However, I didn’t realise it got worse as my journey went on, I started tracking every single thing I ate then along came the guilt then planning for the next meal never treating myself to chocolate just sticking to the 3 basic meals trying to make them the healthiest they could be. It was just a ruthless cycle I couldn’t escape.
Even when I had reached my goal weight and didn’t want to lose anymore. I still found myself tracking my calories unconsciously. Another thing I would do is even if the food was healthy, I would still avoid it because it was high in calories. I thought I was winning by not eating the high calorie food because then I wouldn’t feel guilt, but I was letting my thoughts win, controlling my every move.
When I went out for dinner, I always checked the menu prior to going to check the calories to see what the lowest amount was, and I would order that. This was just so I didn’t feel bad or guilty about the food I was eating. However, one thing—or should I say person—that has helped me is my boyfriend. He could always spot when I was worrying about calories and encouraged me to always get what I wanted. When I would tell him what I was going to order I would always hesitate and sound less confident because it wasn’t what I really wanted. He would give me a pep talk about overcoming my fears and I would end up getting what I wanted with a big smile on my face.
If you get too strict it’s hard to get out of the cycle. You’ve got to try and always keep in mind that it is the food quality that you eat, not its caloric content, that decides how it will affect your metabolism. If you give yourself freedom to pay attention to your body, you'll start making choices based on what you feel like you need next rather than the do's and don’ts of particular foods. You can begin to determine what is best for your body, right now, by adopting the mindset of interest and awareness about how food makes you feel.
2. Checking my weight too often
At the start of my weight journey, I weighed myself to see my starting weight just so I could see my progress. However, I started to become obsessed with watching the numbers go down that I would go on the scale about five times a day. keeping a mental note if it gained as little as 0.5 kg, making sure I lost it again. I was having panic attacks about little things which was really damaging to my mental health because I couldn't focus on the positives about how well I was doing.
I came to realise how much harm I had done to myself because one time I made lunch but because that morning I gained weight I didn't want to eat it. without thinking I threw it in the bin, I instantly regretted and started crying hysterically, thinking “what is wrong with me?”. I called my boyfriend who calmed me down, told me to make my lunch again and that he was scared for me which is the last thing I wanted to do. So, he helped me stop weighing myself. I started to slowly cut back on how often I was doing it because I couldn’t go from 5 times a day to 0 so this is how I did it. I started with two twice a day, once a day, twice a week, once a week then once a month.
Ways that also stopped the intrusive thoughts on having to go on the scale was mediation. It helps you learn to accept and handle ideas and experiences, even the challenging ones. By reducing the guilt, you experience when you eat and increasing attention while muting the chatter in your head, meditation can support you mentally as you embark on a weight loss journey.
Another way is that writing in a journal is a terrific way to process and accept difficult emotions. No regardless of how difficult or confusing your thoughts are, putting them down on paper is the initial step towards processing them. As you release them from your head and into a notebook, you could discover that journaling provides a form of relief for your emotions.
3. Thinking any sugar is bad
I didn't fully understand dieting when I started losing weight, so I thought the right thing to do was to cut out all junk food out of my diet i.e., chocolate. I was so strict I would eat no sugar; people would praise me on how strict I was, so I kept doing it. For Easter I asked my family to buy me no chocolate but still they got me little chocolate things, which stressed me out. I cut as much sugar as I could for a whole year before I started realising how much harm it was doing to my body. I was feeling dizzy throughout the day, having to sit down. My boyfriend told me that he knew when I wasn’t having enough sugar because when he would look at me, I looked more tired and faint.
He knew when something was up because it’s not like me to be tired, I’m quite a bubbly energetic person. I'm now having to learn how to diet properly I still get dizzy, but the difference is now I listen to what my body needs. I think about what I have eaten today, each time I'll do this I've realise how little sugar I’ve had so I quickly grab chocolate bar without hesitation. It’s not something that will fully go away but along as you understand the importance of a balanced diet and knowing nothing is bad for you as long as you have it in certain quantities. A few weeks ago, at work I was just standing, and I stumbled a little I had to go and tell someone that I had to go and get sugar. So, it is an ongoing learning experience where I'm having to rewire my brain, you have to listen to your body.
How to help with this is acknowledging what you need to eat to give your body energy to live your life to the fullest. you need sugar to function, it's good for you but not in vast quantities just like anything else so don't treat it so differently, just be as careful as you normally would.
Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean it will be easy. You’ll how to overcome a lot of challenges but it will be all worth it in the end if you've made the decision for you and no one else. During my weight loss journey there's been many ups and downs, I’m still learning on how to navigate myself to living a healthy lifestyle.
