I’m doing just fine, thanks! (TW: WL)

So I thought I’d check in about how losing weight on a vegan diet has been going. So far I’ve lost about 10 pounds, probably more, but I’m at the water retention stage so give me a week, and we’ll see if a couple of additional pounds drop off. I started a little bit before the holidays so as you can see, it’s been steady and slowish. What may surprise some is instead of focusing on how low I can go, instead my goal is to not go too far with calorie restriction and exercise. I want to maintain weight loss. In the past, even with telling myself slow is better, once the momentum gets going, I start shaving calories a little too much or exercise a little too much. It’s a hard mindset to shake, even when I know better than that.

I grew up thinking the more you restrict and the faster you lose, the better. The, “Should you eat that? It won’t kill you to skip a few meals!” Well, it’s wrong! It’s not helpful and I really believe it does the opposite of what people think it does. You can eat ANYTHING. There’s no rule diets have to be all fat-free cottage cheese and celery. I don’t have an issue eating a serving of any particular food and stopping there so I see no reason not to enjoy food I like, like pasta, chocolate, etc. If you are guilty of it, seriously, don’t be the person that polices people’s diets. Even if they are eating too much, they know they are, and shaming/embarrassing them doesn’t help, it hurts.

So this is why, besides here, the only person that knows what I’m doing is my husband. My ******* used to be the world’s worst about policing, being ignorant about nutrition and such (like fuss at me for eating a carrot after school because if you snack, you are bad. Like no, you just scarf your dinner down and eat too much. And somehow, if you leave a few bites on your plate, you’ll get slim. Again, no. I measure my food out and have zero shame about finishing what I rationed!), but now it’s shifted to this person wanting to lose a crazy amount really quickly and trying to get me to help them in that endeavor. That’s just too much for me to handle because I find it sad and frustrating that they even think it’s possible and maintainable.

I’ve still been doing to the protein shake for lunch and snack. It works for me because I don’t have to plan something new every day. I don’t necessarily recommend that. Some people might get bored, some people may not fill up. I still have something to chew, like a small baked potato and/or steamed veggies or maybe a Lightlife hot dog and it’s enough for me to be satisfied. A couple of times, I didn’t want a protein shake, so instead I ate an actual meal high in protein. But for me, convenience is more important. I always make a dinner. I have enough energy to plan that meal out. For exercise, I mostly do an elliptical machine I have that you can do sitting or standing. I mostly do it sitting because that’s what realistically works for me. I’m not the most energetic person and I get bored. So now I can watch YouTube videos and get my heart rate up. We got some resistance bands in our living room also that both me and my husband do a few times throughout the day for strength training. Maybe we’ll get more serious about it one day, but DO WHAT YOU WILL REALISTICALLY KEEP DOING! We’ll go on walks when the weather permits but it doesn’t right now.

I’m also considering working in a few maintenance days here and there to help challenge those aforementioned demons that come to haunt me when I start losing. I actually did that a few days ago when I started feeling sick and didn’t workout and just ate what I wanted and of course, I didn’t gain weight or slide down a slippery slope but I can’t say it didn’t bother me a little. But I pushed through that because it really is the thing I know I need to work on most. I’m really glad I did, too, since I literally only felt sick one day and I think I could have prolonged an illness if I tried to restrict and workout.