Reclaiming My Health: A Positive Side Of 2020
/After over 10 years together, going exclusive and really having an overall flourishing love affair, WW (Weight Watchers) and I broke up in January 2020. It was really a super difficult decision to make. But let me back it up for those new folks that might not know how I got to this tough decision.
I saw the picture below (left) on 1 November 2009, the day after Halloween, I had hated how I looked but really how I felt in that picture. Uncomfortable in my own skin and wanting to retreat out of the picture as much as possible.
Note: If you don’t know I am 1/2 the team of Silver Snakes from Legends of the Hidden Temple. The most winningest team in the show’s history. Just sayin’! ;)
I walked into my first WW meeting on 2 November 2009 and never looked back. WW, not only helped me lose 62 pounds/28,1kg, but it improved my relationship with food, taught me tips on how to recognise emotional eating and allowed me the space to work on self-love (the thing I have and continue to struggle with the most).
Left: October 2009
Right: February 2012
In 2012, I hit Lifetime with WW (this means you hit your goal weight - that you decide - and maintain for 6 weeks). Around that time I actually started working for WW as a Receptionist then Leader. To this date, it is one of the most fulfilling roles I have ever played. I had the honour to be a small part of people’s journeys to change their lifestyles/lives.
Again for me and many others, WW isn’t just about the pounds lost but the life gained.
Now in the following years from 2012-2015, I did a relative good job of keeping the weight off. I would gain some back, refocus with the support of friends/my meetings and inevitably get back to goal or close enough to.
But in October 2015, I left WW and started a full-time office job. Within the first month I regained 10 pounds/4,5kg that I could just never lose and kept tacking back on to it. I finally got close to being back at goal in 2017 when life changed again… we made the decision to take this amazing job opportunity and move to The Netherlands.
When we arrived, I vowed to get back on track and join the WW in The Netherlands. They had 1 meeting in English on Saturday mornings, which the wife and I would attend. Now that was a great comfort being with other ex-pats who had also been with WW for awhile in their home countries.
But the biggest hiccup for me was tracking. Tracking really changed my relationship with food and working to stop seeing it as a way to soothe a problem (for just one example).
Have you ever had those moments where you eat a bunch of shit to get back at someone but it’s like you get all the calories and not them? No? Just me? Cool cool cool!
The issue here was the Dutch app was well in Dutch. I could’ve used the American app but it didn’t have the local products already loaded in. At the beginning I saw this as a way to “practice my Dutch,” but really it became a huge frustration on trying to quickly track something or look something up. Since I would go to Google Translate first.
What would I do then? Just not track or half track.
And with the meetings being only on Saturday mornings, we could go a month without going if we were traveling (remember when you could do that? Ha).
I had found some success during the winter of 2018 since I wasn’t traveling as much and refocusing. But it quickly came back on when we work stress picked up, work travel escalated and we were both just getting lazy.
I finally had enough. In January of this year, I finally said no more. I couldn’t keep giving money away if I wasn’t going to be fully committed.
It was BIZARRE to not be a WW member anymore after all that time.
As the beginning of 2020 started to see COVID cases and our travel to Tokyo for the marathon in March was canceled and the lockdowns started, which halted all of the work travel. I saw the writing on the wall that THIS was my time to finally go 100% all in on reclaiming my health and stop all the talk.
We were able to sneak a week-long trip to Disney World Florida right before the Lockdown started in Amsterdam and seeing the photos only motivated me to make a change.
Enter MyFitnessPal stage left on 12 March.
I had briefly dabbled in MFP before but just to compare it to WW since I was never a calorie counter. But I thought it’s free, it has a good database of local Dutch products and it was in English. :)
I didn’t want to overwhelm myself so I gradually brought back the healthy habits I had learned through WW.
I also recommitted to my lovely Peloton bike.
But most importantly I wanted 2 things:
To be consistent - I had chosen that for the mantra before but hadn’t stuck with it for more than say a month
To be kind to myself - I knew I would want to see results overnight but I needed to take a step back and start recommitting to the things that had worked for me in the past
I then started streaking… c’mon folks not that kind. You dirty minds you. ;)
I used the Simple Habits app and every week or 2 I would add another habit I wanted to work on:
Peloton cycling ride AND a Stretch 10 March
Tracking on 12 March
100oz/3L of water on 12 March
Daily meditation (min 5 min) on 17 March
#Plankaday (holding a plank for at least 1 minute) on 23 March
#RONARunStreak (running for at least 20 minutes) on 1 April
12,000 steps on my FitBit on 1 April
Peloton strength class (min 10 minutes) on 6 May
Now this might seem overwhelming and alot, but since it was a gradual increase I was able to fit it around my work day. Plus I wasn’t commuting or really going anywhere so I had the time. Haha.
I was able to track for 190-consecutive days before I missed a day. It was the longest I had done that. Yes there were days I went over, but I just owned any decision I made and used it as feedback.
You are probably wondering how I felt switching from Points (WW) to Calories (MFP). I honestly through it would be a SUPER hard adjustment, but it wasn’t. The act of tracking is really the same either way whether it be 26pts a day or 1500calories. For me it was getting back into the mindset of do I really want this? Is it worth the calories?
1 100% eat back my calories from my workouts. It might not have been all of them but most of the time it was a large amount of them. I handled Fitness Points/Activity Points the same way with WW.
I got back into the groove of tracking, weighing and measuring and planning. Oh it felt like putting on a pair of old pants that just fit sooo right.
I didn’t cut anything out, I just got back to not having something every day so that I would enjoy it more when I did have it. Ever have that? Sometimes foods just stop having that taste until you spread out when you have it. More of a treat. I did reduce the booze, but would still a glass or 2 of wine every night - but not the night before weigh-in. :)
We did start using Hello Fresh in March and that made a huge difference. We have been able to try out some foods we hadn’t tried before and were ordering takeaway far less. Hello Fresh provided all of the nutritional facts so I could easily track them as well.
I made every Wednesday Weigh-In day. I had done every day in the book during my WW times, but with the current situation I just like a little mid-week check-in especially since I tend to go a little bigger on the weekends.
Little by little the pounds/kilos were coming off and I was feeling stronger. The back pain wasn’t as prevalent as I wasn’t lugging around as much extra. The workouts started feeling more manageable. The knee pain reduced since there was less pressure on them while running.
And on 2 September - it happened - I reached goal again for the first time since 2015!
Ooohhh it felt freakin’ amazing.
Yes I know that life is more than a number on the scale but it was something that I had been working hard towards and wasn’t sure it would happen again.
Yes I judge health on more than a number on the scale, which is why I shared above how fitness (Peloton cycling, strength, running) played such a role in 2020 as well.
Yes I can allow myself to be happy about what I saw that day. YOU determine what makes you happy.
Left: January 2020
Right: September 2020
Losing weight is exciting, but maintaining is a whole different beast. You are no longer excited by a lower number on the scale because you want to see the same/similar number.
For the past 2 months, I changed MyFitnessPal to maintenance mode. That was scary as the base calories increased by almost 900. I immediately got that pit in my stomach that I would fuck this all up. But I needed to trust the science behind MFP. I also made sure I wasn’t going to just start eating shit again because I had extra calories.
I also shifted my focus to NSVs (Non-Scale Victories): a faster pace in my run, increasing the weight during one of my strength sessions, fitting back into my clothes from 2015 (the last time I was at this weight), etc.
I can now say I have been able to maintain. Today I was 151 pounds/68,5kg, which is 4 pounds/1,8kg under goal.
I am feeling the fittest I ever have. I am regaining my speed while running. I am getting my confidence back.
This really has been the best year for my health and fitness since 2015 and I am thankful that I made that decision back in March to FINALLY take advantage of a shitty situation and use it as fuel.
I don’t know what 2021 and the future will hold, but I am feeling ready to face it. I don’t want to go back to how I was feeling in March and for the 2 years before then. I want to keep gaining momentum on how I feel today and have felt for the last 8 months.
Left: 2004
Right: 2020
Have you been able to find a positive side to 2020?
