Hitting new lows

[Guzzi]

Back in 2011 I was in an accident that left me very immobile, I piled on a LOT of weight.  Eventually i did something about it and by 2014 I reached my peak of fitness and was at my lowest weight I'd been in my adult life, it was great!  Then my health took a nosedive and I became very ill.  A little weight crept back on...

 

I've been trying to get my weight back to where it was back in 2014 since September.  I've lost 7Kg and I thought I still had another 3 to go but reading back through my old log I found out that the lowest I'd been wasn't 63Kg after all but 66.9!

 

I am officially back to my old weight and then some!  I'm sitting at 64.4Kg right now.  Woohoo!!!  Now all I need to do is keep going until I lose my Bingo Wings.  

[Mr.Six]

Happy to hear it Guzzi!  

[Guzzi]

1 minute ago, Mr.Six said:

Happy to hear it Guzzi!  

 

Why thank you Sir!  

 

I'm hoping to keep going until I lose my "problem areas" but it's slow going.  I think I'm losing around 0.5lbs a week, but that doesn't matter, it's still progress and I'm happy to accept it. 

[Mr.Six]

Slow going is generally healthier and more sustainable.  Your progress is tremendous!

[Captain Kohana]

Congrats, Guzzi - awesome that you've been able to battle back after what sounds like some pretty serious adversity.

 

Question for you: throughout your ups & downs, were you ever able to find a different measurement of health & fitness that really spoke to you rather than your weight?

 

I have been guilty of giving that number too much power over how I feel about myself in the past. I will actually say things like: "there's no way I'm going to xyz event unless I can get down to ___ pounds by then." And then I'll inevitably fail to be within a few pounds of that arbitrary number a couple days out, know I'm not going to make weight, and back out of something that I otherwise might've enjoyed...all over a couple of pounds. A binge normally isn't too far behind as the "why bother?" thoughts creep in pretty quickly.

 

So I wonder if you ever tried to find a different type of benchmark to measure your health & fitness by that actually stuck? And if so, how did you train your mind away from relying on the scale as your most impactful source of feedback?

[Guzzi]

20 hours ago, Captain Kohana said:

Congrats, Guzzi - awesome that you've been able to battle back after what sounds like some pretty serious adversity.

 

Why thank you!   

 

Quote

Question for you: throughout your ups & downs, were you ever able to find a different measurement of health & fitness that really spoke to you rather than your weight?

 

I have been guilty of giving that number too much power over how I feel about myself in the past. I will actually say things like: "there's no way I'm going to xyz event unless I can get down to ___ pounds by then." And then I'll inevitably fail to be within a few pounds of that arbitrary number a couple days out, know I'm not going to make weight, and back out of something that I otherwise might've enjoyed...all over a couple of pounds. A binge normally isn't too far behind as the "why bother?" thoughts creep in pretty quickly.

 

So I wonder if you ever tried to find a different type of benchmark to measure your health & fitness by that actually stuck? And if so, how did you train your mind away from relying on the scale as your most impactful source of feedback?

 

The short answer is "yes".  After my accident both me and my partner of 14 years realised the importance of being each other's next of kin and we (finally!) set a date for our wedding.  That of course meant I had to lose weight, I mean who can possibly get married looking like they really look, right?

 

Of course I went about it in all the wrong ways, I ate as little as possible and practically starved myself to the point that I spent my wedding night throwing up the wedding meal because my stomach had shrunk to the point that a three course meal was waaaay too much food, even though I didn't eat everything on my plate.   

 

And I'm betting you can guess what happened after the wedding.  Yup, most of that went straight back on.  Doh!  I knew I wanted to shift the weight again but this time I didn't want the same thing to happen again.  By this point my recovery was getting to the point that I was able to do more in the gym and I started seeing results, my strength and mobility were really improving.  I was also getting involved with the community here and I began to see the light.  

 

So, second time around I decided that I wasn't trying to lose weight, I made my focus eating properly and working on my recovery.  I cut wheat/yeast out of my diet because I was intolerant and made a concerted effort to eat Real Food(TM), ie nothing with ingredients I couldn't pronounce.  I started taking progress pictures and gauging my progress by them rather than the scale.  It worked too.  I lost weight a lot slower but my entire attitude towards food changed, and it stuck.  I'm still eating properly and taking progress pics.  I only weigh myself once a month and even that is only because I track it in my Battle Log.  

 

I'll see if I can find any old pics to show my progress...

[Guzzi]

This was me in hospital (please excuse the dodgy pyjamas) so this is basically the weight I was at the time of my accident, I put A LOT more weight after this.

 

 

And these are my latest progress pics:

 

 

I find this to be a far better tool than weighing myself, in fact the reason I weigh myself in kilos is because that means nothing to me, I don't know what 64kg is in real money so I really don't have any "I need to reach X weight".

[Captain Kohana]

Hey Guzzi. Thanks for the response...and what a transformation! Very impressive - you should be really proud of yourself.

 

I actually took some "before" pics on Monday (which I haven't done in the past when trying to turn things around), so I think I'm going to do my best to devalue the number on the scale and instead just use progress pictures as my primary means of getting feedback on how I'm doing. Secondary feedback will no doubt come naturally from how my body feels in clothes, my energy level, and my cardio if I'm doing something like a pickup game of basketball or a trail run with some challenging hills.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to respond and sharing your journey!

 

Cheers,

 

CK

[Guzzi]

 

8 hours ago, Captain Kohana said:

Thanks again for taking the time to respond and sharing your journey!

 

No, no, no!  Thank you for the encouragement, no matter how far you come there's still that fat person inside thinking "does my bum look big in this" so it's great to get positive comments.  

 

Its great that you've taken the pics, that will really help.  I would suggest that you only do take progress pictures once a month and using an app (like PhotoGrid) to put them side by side, it makes it soooo much easier to compare them.  And then get feedback from someone else because you will probably not see the difference yourself.  I NEVER see the difference, or at least I'm never sure of it, and I think that's just normal.  Everyone seems to say the same thing.  I suppose it comes down to always being more critical of yourself. 

 

If you really want to rid yourself of that "oh no, I gained a pound" mentality then the best thing you can do is chuck away your scales. I mean, if you like/don't like what you see in the mirror then what difference does it make what the scale says anyway?  Eat right and get some exercise and you will lose weight.  If you struggle with snacking or boredom eating then keep a food diary (or use an app like MFP or My Plate).  You don't need to make any drastic changes, just tracking what you eat is usually enough to stop the mindless eating. 

 

I find the 4 Week Challenges to be a really good tool for keeping my focus on the things that I want to work on, I would highly recommend joining in the next one or even jumping in and join in the current one.  

[RedPandaOne]

Congrats girl!!! So happy that all your hard work has paid off for you

[Guzzi]

Thank you @hurley8604!  

[JupiterStar]

Congratulations!!!

[Guzzi]

 

Quote

I've been trying to get my weight back to where it was back in 2014 since September.  I've lost 7Kg and I thought I still had another 3 to go but reading back through my old log I found out that the lowest I'd been wasn't 63Kg after all but 66.9!

 

I am officially back to my old weight and then some!  I'm sitting at 64.4Kg right now.

 

Woohoo!!!!!  I stood on the scales today out of curiosity, it was the twins birthday at the weekend and their mum did a Willy Wonka themed party so a LOT of crap consumed.  I honestly thought I would have gained a little even though I did a 24h fast the next day. 

 

Well, today the scale showed 63.something!!!  That's around 140lbs for all you 'Muricans.   

 

I could never have gotten here if my sister hadn't introduced me to NF, or at least I couldn't have done it in a healthy manner. 

[ZFJango]

Damn! You are killing it like a BOSS! Great job! 

[Wobbegong]

CONGRATULATIONS @Guzzi!!!! Talk about gettin' it done! 

[aishah hope]

Wow! You are amazing. Congratulations!

[WhiteGhost]

On 5/5/2017 at 4:25 PM, Guzzi said:

 

 

No, no, no!  Thank you for the encouragement, no matter how far you come there's still that fat person inside thinking "does my bum look big in this" so it's great to get positive comments.  

 

Its great that you've taken the pics, that will really help.  I would suggest that you only do take progress pictures once a month and using an app (like PhotoGrid) to put them side by side, it makes it soooo much easier to compare them.  And then get feedback from someone else because you will probably not see the difference yourself.  I NEVER see the difference, or at least I'm never sure of it, and I think that's just normal.  Everyone seems to say the same thing.  I suppose it comes down to always being more critical of yourself. 

Your transformation is both amazing and inspiring!

[Guzzi]

On 17/05/2017 at 0:58 PM, ZFJango said:

Damn! You are killing it like a BOSS! Great job! 

 

17 hours ago, Wobbegong said:

CONGRATULATIONS @Guzzi!!!! Talk about gettin' it done! 

 

1 hour ago, aishah hope said:

Wow! You are amazing. Congratulations!

 

59 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

Your transformation is both amazing and inspiring!

 

Geez guys!  You're making me blush!  

 

But seriously, thank you all, I think my heaviest was somewhere around the 15st mark (about 210lbs) and never once back then would I have thought I could end up here, I've literally lost 1/3 of my body mass!  If anyone had asked me back then what my "target weight" was then I probably would have said 11.5st (160lbs) which was my previous lowest weight, so it's just nuts to see myself at 10st (140lbs)!

 

It was a really lovely day here yesterday and I felt quite good so we went out for a drive and did some sight seeing.  I was wearing a skirt that my mother in law had sent me and a tee-shirt, I saw my reflection in a mirror somewhere and I was seriously like "is that really me???  I look so slim!!!  Look at my legs!!!!"  

 

I spent like 10 minutes in that bathroom just prancing around in front of the mirror.  I think our mirror at home must have been meant for a fitting room or something because I swear I looked far better in the other mirror than I did in ours.  

[WhiteGhost]

5 minutes ago, Guzzi said:

I saw my reflection in a mirror somewhere and I was seriously like "is that really me???  I look so slim!!!  Look at my legs!!!!" 

It's an awesome feeling, isn't it. One of those moments that makes all of the countless hours of sweat and pain so worth it.

 

My most memorable moment was about 6 months ago. I was sitting at my desk and when I leaned back in my chair I saw something in my lap. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was my belt buckle - something I hadn't seen except in a mirror for more than 10 years. That meant more to me than any numbers on a scale (which haven't really changed much).

[Guzzi]

 

16 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

...I leaned back in my chair I saw something in my lap. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was my belt buckle - something I hadn't seen except in a mirror for more than 10 years. That meant more to me than any numbers on a scale (which haven't really changed much).

 

Its so true, isn't it?  You can look at yourself every day and see the same thing but then suddenly the picture looking back at you changes.  It's a nice feeling.   Well done on the weight loss, it sounds like you've made a considerable change. 

 

I have a bit of a "thing" about my legs, I have powerful thighs (lots of muscle mass) and when I was 14 or 15 my brother and step dad would tease me about my "thunder thighs" which is utterly ridiculous when you look at photos of me from back then.  I was tiny!

 

I guess it left a deep mark because I still think that my thighs are "big" though at least now I can appreciate that it gives me an advantage in deadlift and squat.   Yesterday I was In Love with my legs.  I kept saying to my bf "look at my skinny little legs!".  It's the first time I've felt like that for a long time.