Feeling Good

I have been actively trying to lose weight since 2007. I was a really active teenager and youth (referring to my early 20s). My parents were pretty strict about spending time outside the house so sports were my excuse to stay at school longer and I played everything from football and basketball to field events that I sucked at like shot put. When I got into university I was working so many hours (mostly at McDonald’s) and studying so much that there was nothing for my body to do but burn fat regardless of how much I ate. And I ate quite a lot. In 2005 – 2006 I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend and hit the lowest point of happiness in my life. For the first, and only time, I lost my appetite for quite a while and I lost a lot of weight – I was just a size 12 to start with but I went down to almost a 10 and that’s pretty skinny for my frame.

I broke up with him, moved on and got my appetite back. I also got a very sedentary job providing technical support for a broadband provider. I worked long hours and carried on eating at the same rate as I always had and slowly I put on the pounds. By my graduation day in 2007, when I wanted to buy an outfit I realised that I couldn’t fit into any of the Topshop trousers anymore – they only went up to a small 14 and I was a big 14 – and I bought three of them with the intention to fit into them by the winter of that year. I started work for an IT consultancy and landed a project on an out of town project and spent two and a half years living in hotels, eating at restaurants and drinking a significantly higher amount of alcohol than I had ever done. Unlike my more health-conscious colleagues I didn’t utilise the free gym access we were entitled to and football once a week did not negate all the calories I consumed no matter how vigorous the sessions were. My next project was even worse. I wound up on a project where I couldn’t even play football and I ate a lot of burgers and ribs but didn’t go to the gym much. The worst spell was 6 months in Dublin with zero social life and a lot of Chinese and fried chicken meals. I think in the 6 months I was in Ireland I didn’t do any sport there and when I was in London I negated the benefits of Sunday football by immediately consuming several alcoholic beverages in the pub afterwards.

In 6 years I lost weight thrice. In the autumn of 2008 I wanted to visit my health conscious cousin in DC and thought it wouldn’t do to turn up too fat. I ate very little and went to the gym 6 days a week and lost about 12lbs in three weeks so I looked pretty good but still didn’t fit into those trousers. I coined operation 22 then because I figured I needed to lose 22lbs to get to my target size. In February 2011 my friend went on a low GI diet and I decided to join in. I lost about 12lbs again and looked relatively good again but by this time I was so overweight that I really needed to lose about 33lbs to even have a chance of meeting my target. At the end of 2011 I split up with someone and thought stupidly that I could win them back by losing weight so I started watching what I ate and doing a bit more exercise – walking loads, climbing escalators instead of getting the stairs, running – and even decided to cut out alcohol. Again I lost some weight but at about 12lbs when it became noticeable and I didn’t win my lover back, I kinda gave up. By March this year when I was rounding up in Dublin I hit a low point and actually had to buy lots of size 18 clothes because nothing I owned would fit anymore. This was when I started to think I had to make a complete lifestyle change but I was too lazy to actually follow through completely.

I turned up for my sister’s wedding in April a bit slimmer but still wearing the size 18 clothes and slipped back into my old routines that meant I hovered around the same weight for a couple of months. Then I got dumped. Well we split up mutually but the thought of getting back on the dating scene meant that I was I felt a strong desire to take ownership of my weight. I decided that since I can’t maintain any sort of diet for a decent length of time, I was going to have to resort to the simple equation of burning more calories than I eat. My friend and I set our goals on June 4^th. I decided I wanted to lose between 12 and 15kg by October 4^th and I wanted to do it reasonably. I kept a food diary, only ate when I was hungry – with the occasional binge – didn’t cut out alcohol but tried to be reasonable about drinking and started playing 2 sessions of badminton and 2 sessions of football every week. I started cycling to football on Sundays too. In July I started cycling to work a couple of times a week and added another football game a week. Now I cycle to most places and have kept up with the football and badminton sessions. I do a 30 minute brisk walk for lunch almost every day too and have mostly kept the eating under control. It’s about 6 weeks before my deadline and I’ve lost about 10kg. I feel great because I’m totally within my comfort zone and can sustain this lifestyle (less activity will be required to maintain this weight in the winter months) forever. I also ran a 10k race and have taken to cycling 25 miles on a Wednesday to get to my football game and back. I hope I can meet my target but even if I don’t, the good news is that I’m about half an inch away from fitting perfectly into trousers that I previously couldn’t get to do up. That’s good enough for me.

Most people have said to me over the last few years that I look great and I’ve always commented that I know this but I’ve been slimmer and know I could look better. I’m glad I finally found a way to make it happen.