Aw, thanks Who. I'm blushing!
So... I'll try to answer questions.
I've gone from a size 20 to a 10/12 (bigger on the bottom). I started really losing weight last June, but was slowly losing earlier in the year, so I was probably around a size 18 in June.
I don't weigh myself - when I did I felt myself slipping towards eating disordered thinking, which scared me, so the last time I weighed myself was about 3-4 years ago. (although I did weigh myself again about two months ago but I've lost more since then - I was about 80kg) I was 109 kgs before getting pregnant with dc5. I'm 5' 8", so that made me around a size 18. After having the baby, my weight was obviously higher and I was more of a size 20 (whatever that means, right?). I got used to being big; it crept up and up over the years, and I could still find my size in Tesco or Sainsbury's (the only places I really bothered to shop because I knew I was too big for the other shops).
My eating was completely out of control. I was bingeing on carbs like crazy, and it was all day and into the night (I'm a sahm). The kitchen was always open and I helped myself freely. I had typical addictive behaviours like hiding food, eating in secret, lying to cover up binges, the lot. I consider myself a sugar addict specifically, so cutting that out was my main goal. I tried to quit sugar several times in the past, but the longest I managed was 3 months.
There are several things I've done to make it "stick" this time. Firstly, understanding how badly my health was being affected really helped me. I started getting the shakes between meals, or even only after a couple of hours after eating. That is a Very Bad Sign, so it freaked me out quite a bit. I think recognising that was the final impetus for change.
After trying and failing to make a lasting difference a few times before (I've never really bothered dieting, tbh, just kicking added sugar), I knew I needed to change things or add something to make this work.
I started out changing my food habits entirely. I am an all-or-nothing sort of person, so the advice to do little changes at a time didn't help me at all. I came across a yogic mono diet called the mung bean soup fast. I did some research, and the ingredients are really everything a person needs to survive, and very healthy. The way I was eating was completely opposite - I was barely getting any nutrients because I was loading up on empty carbs all day, every day. I decided to eat mung bean soup for every meal for 40 days. Forty days is a powerful number for change - enough time to break a habit and form new ones.
Once I found a recipe that I liked best, eating the same thing every day was fine. At first, I ate like a starving woman. I didn't understand it - I would eat until full and then a couple of hours I was terribly hungry again. I felt like I was eating MORE this way than before. But I think my body was crying out for nutrients, and at long last I was providing them. After about two weeks, my appetite settled and I was eating normal portions and at normal meal times. I freely ate fruits, nuts, cheese and vegetables as well as the soup, as I was still breastfeeding.
At the same time as starting the mono diet, I committed myself to meditating and doing yoga every day. I had good experiences using kundalini yoga and meditation a few years ago, so I turned to that method again. My daily meditation is called kirtan kriya, and my yoga set is called nabhi kriya (which is FANTASTIC for core work). Like I said, I'm really an all-or-nothing sort of person. I felt like I needed to give this my whole self in order for it to work.
Unlike my previous efforts for quitting sugar, this time I had ZERO cravings or withdrawal symptoms. It was fantastic. For the first two months, I didn't really notice any weight loss but I felt so much better in myself, so much more grounded in my own body (for years I would just ignore myself, how I looked, etc), it was wonderful. I genuinely didn't care about losing weight.
But, inevitably, the weight came off and very quickly. I had to come to terms with losing my "cloak of invisibility" and meditation helped me get over the mental issues surrounding weight loss. I'm still not 100% there yet - I still get a little squirrelly when I lose a bit more weight or I get an unsolicited comment on my body size - but I don't feel the need to hide away anymore, either.
I also employed some visualisations while I was in a meditative state - my favourite was imagining my fat cells as little houses with Doctor Whovian Adipose creatures living inside. My insulin would come knocking at the door, and the Adipose would come out to party with my muscle cells. As soon as they left, their fat cell houses would disintegrate. :) Silly, I know, but it was fun to imagine.
Losing weight is complicated. I think most of my weight was down to me trying to protect myself from others' expectations of me. It was so easy to follow that inner monologue of "I'm not worth listening to; I'm fat." "I'm not intelligent enough; I'm fat." "Why would so-and-so care about me? I'm fat." And so on and so on. Sadly, much of that inner monologue was so deep in my psyche and I put on such a good mask for the world, that I didn't even realise I was thinking it until I allowed those thoughts to surface during meditation.
I also sort of fell into a 16:8 Intermittent Fasting routine, because I didn't want to eat before doing yoga, and I frequently found myself rushing around all morning and not getting a chance to do it until my toddler was napping at around 11am. I didn't even notice I was missing breakfast so frequently for a couple of weeks, and then googled "is skipping breakfast bad for you" and found out about IF. It really resonated with my experience, and I felt so much better not having to worry about eating breakfast and setting myself up for a carb-fest for the rest of the day, so I carried on. I think 16:8 really ramped up my weight loss and that's when people really started noticing.
I really had to accept the comments and looks long before the weight loss was noticeable; it was my biggest fear. Again, that cloak of invisibility was coming away, and I wasn't sure what to do next. Thankfully, I found my inner confidence and just accepted compliments with grace, and did my best to not let other people's opinions affect me one way or another. A daily task, to be sure.
I'm still losing weight. I can feel it, and I do get comments from some people in my yoga teacher training class (we meet once a month, so the changes are more noticeable to them), but it's okay. I'm not actively trying to lose weight as such, but I am curious as to where my body "settles."
Okay, this is a massive post. I hope it helps someone and if you have any other questions I am happy to answer them!
