When You Loose Weight Then Gain It Again

March 25, 2022 Post a Comment

As a teen, I was driving in the auto with my mom when she mused, "I would really like to lose 15 pounds."

"I'd really like to lose 50," I replied, in the style 1 says they'd really like to win the lottery. The number seemed completely and totally out of reach.

Despite being generally salubrious, I had always been overweight, and losing 50 pounds seemed well-nigh as realistic as joining the Olympic figure skating team. Although I had one-half-heartedly dabbled in good for you eating and exercise for years, I never truly committed—and I couldn't imagine that I ever would.

But a few years later, right earlier I left for college, I was getting a routine physical when my doctor gently brought up weight loss. "You know," she said, "this is a great time to make changes. Your whole life is changing, so you can really set new patterns."

This resonated with me. I could tap into the so-chosen "fresh starting time effect," which says that the beginning of a new bicycle (like a Monday, a new month, etc.) is the all-time time to start a new addiction. I could use my transition into adulthood to delve into a make-new healthy lifestyle. (Looking to conquer your weight issues? Prevention has smart answers—become 2 Gratuitous gifts when you subscribe today.)

Taking action

kelly burch

At my doc's proposition, I signed up for the Weight Watchers online system the aforementioned week that I moved into my dorm room. Tracking Points was a great way to know exactly what I was eating, although dining in the college cafeteria sometimes made it catchy. Meanwhile, I used most of my free time to visit my university'southward beautiful gym.

Soon I was making piffling signs for the desk-bound in my dorm room: "Goodbye 220s!" "Goodbye 210s" and finally, most exciting, "Farewell 200s." I was extremely proud of myself for losing weight during freshman year, a fourth dimension when then many students tend to put on the "freshman fifteen." I was looking and feeling great, and whenever I saw my handwritten signs I vowed to never let the scale striking those numbers again.

Over the next few years I continued my healthy habits. Although I stopped tracking Points, I wrote down what I ate in a food journal in order to keep myself accountable. I continued to tap into my newfound love of fitness, running 5ks and learning to lift heavy weights in the gym. Slowly simply steadily, the pounds continued to disappear.

Iii years later beginning my healthy journey, for the starting time fourth dimension in my memory, the scale hitting the 170s. I had made information technology. My BMI and body fat per centum were excellent, I was undeniably fit, and I had lost fifty pounds.

Piffling did I know that 4 years subsequently I'd have gained all the weight dorsum, and then some.

MORE:How To Start Walking When You Have 50+ Pounds To Lose

Undoing the progress
When I recollect about what went wrong, information technology all comes downward to getting besides comfy.

I had lost fifty pounds relatively slowly, over 3 years. I did it the "right" way, avoiding fad diets or extreme measures. I truly felt that I had made healthy living my lifestyle. Merely after 3 years I was utterly ill of writing downward everything I ate or entering calories into an app. I just wanted to consume intuitively and to implement what I had learned without such a structured system. So I stopped tracking, and that'southward when the pounds started to creep back on.

At first, I told myself that my body was adjusting. In part, this was true. When I hitting the 170s I had been exercising almost 2 hours a day, at to the lowest degree v days a week. At the time I had no kids and a light work schedule, so this was manageable, merely in the long-term information technology was unrealistic.

When the regain started, I was busy: I was then focused on launching my career, getting married, and setting up a business firm that at first I didn't notice what was happening. I was still following a by and large good for you lifestyle—eating tons of salads, fresh fish, and spinach omelets with merely occasional "treats"—simply I wasn't every bit strict as I had been earlier. Getting to the gym daily was impossible, and I began grabbing an occasional drive-thru lunch betwixt appointments (fifty-fifty though I once viewed fast food as completely inedible). It didn't happen more twice a month, but it was symbolic of the many small-scale means I had permit my health slip.

When I hovered just below 200 pounds a year later, I told myself that that is where my body returned to naturally. When I saw 210 (about 3 years later on my lightest) I spiraled into denial, non stepping on the scale for a very long time. Effectually that fourth dimension I tried on a apparel that had fit at my slimmest. When it didn't zip, I mentioned the demand for slimming underwear. "At that place's no way it's going to shut," my friend said gently.

Virtually of what I was eating was pretty healthy, and I was still a regular at the gym; I was even working with a personal trainer. In fact, I focused more on exercise than nutrition because working out was fun. I loved practice only hated tracking calories, and I told myself that was fine: Although I was heavy, I was still fit.

MORE:15 Teeny Tiny Changes To Lose Weight Faster

Back to reality
The pounds continued to pile on, and I eventually reached a betoken when I couldn't deny that information technology was a problem. I was only 26, yet my knees and hips were aching. I was frustrated, embarrassed, and heartbroken—and I was also aroused.

I have a body that requires extra work to stay lean. I cannot not just "eat healthy and exercise," that simple phrase we hear and then oft that makes weight loss sound unproblematic. For me, sustained weight loss and maintenance was always going to be intensive, difficult work, and I wasn't notwithstanding ready to accept that. I had a infant and a career and I didn't have the fourth dimension or energy to put in the try.

When my girl was nearly ii—I was 27 at the fourth dimension—I realized that I could no longer claim "babe weight." I was near 20 pounds heavier than when I started college, which was terrifying. Somehow, I had managed to lose fifty pounds and regain 70.

I started my recommitment to weight loss by contacting a nutritionist and a new personal trainer. "You're doing everything right," they said. "Let's requite information technology a month." But a calendar month came and went, and despite their assurances that I would see a modify, the scale did not budge.

Around that time I read nearly The Biggest Loser weight loss study. Doctors followed contestants from the TV show for half-dozen years later the cameras stopped rolling. They discovered that about of the contestants regained the weight they had lost, but through no fault of their own: Research showed that the sometime contestants' resting metabolisms were drastically slower than those of their peers. Their bodies were sabotaging their efforts, fighting hard to regain the lost weight. "It is frightening and amazing," Kevin Hall, PhD a federal researcher and expert on metabolism told the New York Times.

The study ended that nearly anyone who loses weight will have a slower metabolism, making it harder to maintain the loss.

When I read that line, I cried. For years, I had known that I had to work extremely difficult to lose fifty-fifty a little bit of weight. And I knew that if I wasn't meticulous almost diet and exercise that I would gain it back. Only deep downward I wondered if I was lying to myself or just making excuses. This study confirmed that I really practice have to work harder than most people to see the same results.

Every bit frustrating as that is, I'one thousand now willing to requite it another shot, so I'm back to tracking every bite that goes into my mouth. I've recently lost about 10 pounds, but I still have about 50 to lose, again. I know I'm unlikely to see the 170s, which I believe was the minimum for my large build; instead, a good for you body fat percentage and a weight in the 190s would exist just fine with me. In guild to accomplish that I can't get discouraged, or resentful. Merely similar anyone managing a chronic health condition, I demand to accept my state of affairs and piece of work toward the best possible outcome. For me, that means tracking my food, probably forever.

At least this time, when I feel downwards, I can remind myself that the seemingly incommunicable goal of losing 50 pounds is doable. My own story is proof of that.

Kelly Burch is a freelance writer living in New Hampshire. You tin can connect with her on Facebook or on Twitter @writingburch.

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Source: https://www.prevention.com/weight-loss/a20515835/i-lost-50-pounds-and-gained-it-all-back-heres-what-went-wrong/