I lost 2 stone and kept it off by taking a long term view. I knew I couldn’t go on a diet, too prescriptive for me, and all the diets I have been on did work, but when I started to eat “normally”, the weight crept back on. I knew I would only lose weight permanently if I tweaked my diet a bit. I wasn’t a one for breakfast, I used to force myself to eat it because we have been told we should eat it. If I ate breakfast it set in gear eating mode for me, it made me hungry. My natural way of eating is lunch and dinner, with the occasional treat and I embraced that. I don’t calorie count, instinctively I cut back the next day if my diet is a bit piggy the day before. No food is forbidden to me, it is just food.
Cutting out breakfast, and walking 4 miles a day (the oft mentioned 10,000 steps) worked for me, but slowly which is where the long term view comes in, it took me a year to lose that 2 stone. I am also middle aged, I was worried I was going to get that deflated balloon face because of quick weightloss. The slow weightloss meant that did not happen.
I eat the same food as my OH, eat the same treats but I am more mindful about what I am eating and why. I now know I am intermittent fasting (think it is 16:8) but didn’t know that when I started eating that way. Plus the 10,000 steps a day is a random figure that some people made up in Japan to flog a pedometer (I think that is what it was), but it gave me something to aim for.
I think sometimes you diet for an event, and you want to speed diet for that event. You need to change your mindset I think. Time is going to pass, and half a pound weight loss every week adds up over a year. Too slow for some but it worked for me. I lost weight for my health too. I was not ill but as you get older the health part overtakes the aesthetics, if you look good at target weight, that’s great, but health is wealth when you get older. As a bonus lots of little niggles cleared up, the aches and pains that I thought were set in for life.
Here endeth the lesson! Sorry to sound so preachy. I know how awful it feels sometimes to be carrying excess weight around, I did it for years. I felt reborn when I lost 2 stone, which isn’t even that much, but in terms of making me feel alive again, it felt like a mammoth weight off.
