My Fitness Foe, Part 172

When I last checked in it was March & I had hit 365 days on MyFitnessPal. An anniversary that I missed is the year anniversary of when I met with Mari-Etta Parrish, a board certified registered dietitian. You can read about that initial meeting here.

When I started this journey, I was at 198 lbs. By the time I saw Mari-Etta, I was down to 186. This week, I hit 172. I've lost 26 lbs!!! My end goal is 'fabulous by forty', which is two years away. Who knows where I'll end up, but losing 26 lbs in the first year feels amazing.

MY PLAN

I'm at 1,500 calories a day, & that's still regardless of how many calories I burn working out. That means on Tuesday, if I take a 60 minute bike class, I eat 1,500 calories, & on Wednesday, if I run for 30-45 minutes & swim for 60 minutes, I eat 1,500 calories. So for those of you following me on MyFitnessPal, this is why when I log an exercise, it says I only burn 1 calorie. I go in & manually manipulate the calories burned to 1 (it won't let me do 0).

By zeroing out my calories burned, I stay at 1,500 a day, every day. I do this because the traditional way MyFitnessPal works doesn't work for me. I was eating too much because I work-out so much, &, no surprise, I wasn't losing weight. In fact, I actually gained 9 lbs the first year I did triathlons because I was eating so much because MFP said I could.

This is what works for me, me being someone under the advisement of a registered dietitian & me being someone who's training for a half ironman.

What's clicked for me is getting the eating under control & getting my mind right. I've always worked out & even at my heaviest, I worked out more than most people. And I did hard work-outs. But I wasn't mindful about what I ate. I half-ass tracked my calories & I half-ass weighed myself, but I was real unhappy & the hard work-outs & the eating out all the time was some sick way of keeping myself unhappy. Deep down, I don't think I thought I deserved to be happy or healthy. I was obviously completely unaware of this at the time, but looking back, it's clear as day.

Real talk: I went into therapy earlier this year & that's playing a large part in all of this. I have an unhealthy tendency to endure terrible things to prove I'm strong & I'm starting to wonder if being heavy & working out at that size was me trying to prove my strength. Probably. There's a real comfort in that - in feeling strong because of an inability to break. I had no idea it's actually healthier for me to break. And y'all, I'm straight busted right now, but that's another post for another time.

Being well & healthy is something so many of us struggle with, & for me, it's both mind & body, which is new information for me. It's so trite, but I think you have to really want this, to get it & I didn't understand that I didn't want it as much as I thought I did. Go see a dietitian; talk to Mari-Etta. And shit, if you want to go down that road, I've got the name of a great therapist.

Until next time.