From obese to healthy: what I’ve learnt

[treesandteas]

In 2023, I was clinically obese, I had lost my periods, and felt overwhelming shame and self-loathing. My New Year’s resolution wasn’t to lose weight. It was to heal my relationship with food, get my periods back, and to feel like myself again.

I am now a healthy BMI, but most importantly, I eat well. I love to exercise, I like myself, I am active and enthusiastic about life and my periods are regular again.

I had previously always been overweight or obese. I spent my teenage years and 20s endlessly yo-yo dieting.

If you are struggling or feel like the task is too great, I thought it might be helpful to share what I had learnt.

1. Don’t go on a diet. I’d tried Slimming World, Weight Watchers, high protein, low carb, etc. It never worked. In fact, food rules made me feel like there was something wrong with me: none of my friends had to count syns or bring salads to parties to stay trim.
2. Eat more. This is the biggest thing for me. Moving away from the mindset of restriction (I can’t eat too much of that, I mustn’t have that) and instead think about what you can ADD to a meal. Herbs, spices, seeds, a sprinkling of feta, a spoonful of kimchi. What can you add to your meal to nourish your body?
3. Learn about food and use this knowledge to love yourself. I listened to the Zoe podcasts to learn how food can be the most powerful tool we have to improve our health every single day. Each time I eat well, I am doing it because I love myself and want to take care of my health. Ultra processed “low calorie alternatives” are about self-loathing. I never felt good putting unhealthy food into my body to line the pockets of an industry that thrives off of my insecurities.
4. Think long term: I lost over 20% of my body weight in 12 months. This might sound a lot, but my goal was modest: half a pound a week. I could have aimed for more, and lost the weight in a few months. But I chose to take it slow so I wouldn’t have to diet. I ate out with friends, enjoyed new foods on holiday, ate cake on my birthday - all things I would have felt bad about if I’d aimed for faster weight loss. Which in turn would have made me feel deprived, then ashamed, until I binged. All before starting the cycle again.
5. Habit stack. I now eat 30 plants and run 15-20 km a week, but this didn’t happen overnight. For the first few months, I ate more veg and tried to do 10k steps a day. When that was a habit, I started couch 2 5k. When that was a habit, I started adding high probiotic foods to my diet. If I’d tried it all at once, I would have been overwhelmed and failed.
6. Remember, it might take a little while, but you will look like what you do. If you build healthy habits into your life, get your steps in, and eat mostly healthy, with the odd treat here and there, you will look like somebody who does those things. Take it slow, enjoy the journey and feel yourself evolve into a healthier, happier person.

You are worthy of loving yourself whatever your size and weight. There is a world of joy to be found out there from eating nourishing food because you love your body, and exercising because it’s fun. Experiment, find what you enjoy, and never forget that you deserve it.

Wow!! That is such an amazing achievement, well done to you!

Thank you! You are right that I’ve changed my mindset around food in a way that means I don’t feel restricted, but I wanted to share the things I’ve learnt about how I changed my mindset and how I built those habits because I tried the calorie counting method for years and it didn’t work long term.

I disagree that weight loss is just about burning more calories than we eat. By sharing this post, I wanted to highlight the ways I’ve made long term sustainable changes that have impacted my weight, but studies have also shown that calorie counting alone is an ineffective way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight in the long run (source).

Thank you, I still struggle with it

“Each time I eat well, I am doing it because I love myself and want to take care of my health”

This sentence from your OP jumped out at me. I assumed that obese people like me didn’t love themselves so it’s interesting that wasn’t the case with you OP.

Amazing

You talk a lot of sense

Well done! 👍

Nothing to really contribute other than well done op and I agree with your message.

👏 👏👏 Absolutely fantastic! Well done OP!

What a great post, so refreshing to see good, healthy advice rather than people condoning fasting or 1200 calories a day like I see so often on here!

Thank you. This is really inspiring and much needed for me. Can you tell me the podcasts which were most useful? Where did you access them? I don't have any Apple products. I would love to listen to some.

Thank you OP. I hope you don't mind but I've shared your post to this thread, I think we could learn a lot from you.

I think this is a fantastic message but I do most of these things and I am still overweight! 😭

So inspiring OP! Thanks for sharing your journey. You should be so proud of yourself.

Can you share a sort of meal plan or what a typical day looks like for you now?

The link seems to be broken, at least for me.x

I have recently been trying a new way of doing things after years of having no luck with diets and now encroaching menopause making it even harder. I decided to change my mindset from one of restriction and punishment to one of nourishment and joy and abundance… really all very similar to what you say you’ve been doing? so to hear it all worked for you is so encouraging! Thank you for your post.

Weird, it works for me. I must be doing something wrong because I posted a link to this thread on the other one and it doesn't work for others on there, but it does for me.

It's under weight loss chat, title Sustainabke and not overly ambitious weight loss 2025: 1 stone by June

Thank you for your post. I've been struggling for the last ten years to lose weight and I have a lot to lose. Last week I committed myself to cutting out as much UPF's as I sensibly could, start cooking from scratch and delete the calorie counting app. It feels scary and having real butter instead of a low fat spread feels like I'm going against everything I've been told for the last decade but everything I've read recently makes me really want to give this a try and hopefully lose weight and improve my health

I'm a dreadful cook. Can you give any ideas or tips of how you prepared your veg to make them more exciting?

Well done in your achievements. It sounds like you've done well mentally as well as losing the weight.

Thank you.

Well done OP, and I would like to add my thanks for writing such a sensible and inspiring post. Some of the weight loss advice trotted out on MN is ridiculous, unhealthy, and unsustainable in the long run.

Well done, you put in the effort and got the results

Thanks again for this post OP - I have come back to it. I might book mark it! It mirrors the advice from “Why we eat too much” by Dr Andrew Jenkinson. I find it sooo hard to eat without calorie counting as it’s all I’ve ever known!

OP - I never stated weight loss was only about consuming fewer calories then you expend. But that is how to lose weight. How you successfully do that will depend on other factors too as we're all different, but that's the simple truth.

The OP never said her change in mindset didn’t lead to eating fewer calories.

I am another who lost significant weight (well, 3 stone) through changing my mindset to ‘nurturing my body with good and tasty food’ … but I am not stupid and don’t need faux apologetic observations of the obvious.

The point is that changing your relationship with food, changing your mindset and your attitude to food leads to eating less of the stuff that makes you out on weight.

Do you have a problem with that?

Hi OP, well done on your health overhaul.

I’ve been focussing on eating high fibre meals for the last couple of months - nothing is off limits but trying to eat three 10g fibre meals every day really makes you focus on nutritious food. I’ve not been counting calories at all. I’m very short (5-1), with thyroid issues, and middle aged, but the weight has been coming off at 1-2lbs a week with seemingly no effort at all except the meal prep (I like to eat something different every day so it’s involved a fair amount of recipe hunting).

I'm waiting for haemorrhoid surgery so this diet has been forced on me, but I feel really good in myself after two months on it, so plan to stick to this way of eating for good, now.

I used to have a really sweet tooth but as that now brings me pain in the bum, two months of cold turkey on sweet things has really got me out of the habit and now when I see my partner eating the supermarket cookies or chocolate cake, I feel a bit disgusted. I can’t say I’d feel the same if someone presented me with some home made cake but I’m hoping to get to the point where I can just have a slice of those things occasionally again but they aren’t a daily part of my diet.