I have been on a journey of learning how to love myself. For years and years I thought it was sinful and selfish to love myself. Instead of being accepting of myself, I focused on all of the things that I did wrong and needed to do better.
For years I dieted because I thought being smaller was necessary to be loved and accepted. I dieted out of hatred for my body and the need to prove myself to others. This included counting calories (for months and months only eating 1200-1400 calories and beating myself up if I ate more), eating only grass fed/organic/local/homemade foods (the Real Food movement, and this lasted for YEARS and I still struggle with it today), Trim Healthy Mama multiple time, Paleo, Raw food only, and more that I’m probably forgetting.
Because of how this made me feel mentally, I decided to drop dieting, which has been only positive.
Only problem is, the “Body positive” movement is anti-weight loss in any way, shape, or form, despite how healthy or unhealthy you are. For over 2 years I thought weight loss of any sort could only be done by “dieting” and I was completely against that. In fact, despite my love my Balance 365, I still thought that weight loss wasn’t a good thing.
The only problem is, I’m unhealthy. Not necessarily because of my weight, but my large stomach, heavier weight/fat, and unhealthy habits contributes to a lot of things: bad reflux, high cholesterol (and low HDL), and extreme exhaustion. I’m also hypothyroid. Sure I have mastered quite a few healthy habits, but very few involve the things that could contribute to true bodily health and fat loss.
I’m at a good place mentally and yesterday I decided that I’m ready to start focusing on fat loss. I also need to focus on eliminating and reducing foods and drinks that contribute to my bad reflux. It affects my sleep a LOT. It takes me a long time to get settled at night. Sometimes hours. I didn’t get to sleep till like 3:30 this morning despite going to bed at about 9:30/10. Then I end up sleeping all morning, which isn’t a good thing.
The symptoms of my reflux include constant burping (like not able to control it and when I try, I have pain from gas in my lungs/esophagus), shortness of breath, lump in my throat, excess production of mucous in my throat (swallowing doesn’t help), have a cough or feeling the need to cough, and constantly clearing my throat. It’s miserable. It’s always there to a degree but it’s the worst at the end of the day and when I lay down.
Some things that I just decided to do that aren’t a big deal so I wouldn’t even consider them habits (for my reflux):
- Eliminated citrus
- I try to eat several hours before I lay down (not always possible but really important)
- Sleeping elevated
- Limiting high fat foods for dinner
- Limiting spicy foods for dinner
- Eating frequent, small meals
In addition, I will be focusing on these, one at a time:
- Reduce coffee to one cup per day (drinking more hot tea)
- Eliminate fried foods
- Reduce high fat foods
- Reduce garlic and onions
- Reduce/eliminate spicy foods
- Reduce tomatoes and tomato products
- Reduce/eliminate chocolate
- Reduce/eliminate mint
I have been so anti-diet that I didn’t consider what would happen if I have to eliminate or reduce things for health conditions. When you feel bad, you tend to be able to handle doing what is necessary to feel good. I regret judging people who have done this.
Balance 365
I have mastered a LOT of foundational habits and habits that help my mental health. That was my first priority. Sleep hasn’t been mastered because of my reflux (though I do a lot of healthy habits before bed).
These are the habits that I feel good about:
- Sobriety!
- Meal planning
- Meal prep
- Self care
- Taking meds morning and night
- Nighttime routine (wash my face, brush my teeth, take my meds, and read)
- Planning my week in my Happy Planner and keeping up with it most days
- Cleaning habits (keeping up with dishes, laundry, making my bed, etc daily)
- Cooking balanced dinner almost every night
- Eliminated sodas (because of reflux)
- I drink water or decaf tea instead of soda
Currently I’m working on movement (in addition to the things I’m doing for my reflux). I’m trying to do things with friends. Today I did yoga with my neighbor and tomorrow and Thursday I’m hiking with a friend. I’m hoping that I’ll slowly be able to develop a habit if I have some accountability of exercising with good friends. I’m also not focusing on hard exercise, but on things that I enjoy and help me with my mental health.
These are things that I will work on in the future:
- Mostly just working through the workbook one thing at a time:
- The Story of You
- Balancing each meal, one at a time (protein, fat, carbs, and fiber in good amounts)
- Mastering internal signals
- Habit Accelerators
This may seem like a lot but I don’t feel overwhelmed by it because I’m literally just doing things that make me feel better. Hopefully fat loss will just happen because of the healthy habits. Technically you’re supposed to do things one at a time, but I can’t wait till I have movement mastered to focus on reflux and I don’t want to wait till reflux has been dealt with till I focus on movement. Plus movement will help my reflux and my HDL. So they all kind of work together.
Basically, before I eat something I will ask myself, how will this make me feel? Same with trying to get out of movement. How will this make me feel?
But I will take it one day at a time. If something isn’t working, I will make adjustments! That’s the beauty of this program. It’s all about #allorsomething. Doing what I need to in the moment and not having a solid “I have to do this or else” view of things.
Simply Courtney 