Health Update: No Longer Morbidly Obese! (workout reviews, nutrition, tools)

Shalom and happy new year!

It's been awhile since I've given an update on my health journey, and it will be the first time I make a video about it. No, I still won't show pictures of myself. My privacy is important to me. My purpose in sharing is that hopefully what I learn on my journey will be helpful and encouraging to someone.

So, where I've been: I've never been healthy. I grew up without knowledge or understanding about fitness or nutrition. I have been trying to get healthy for some time, working through struggles like an injury. The injury happened partly because I was following the wrong exercise videos (I know, I was trying to lose weight here!!). It also happened because of a birth defect I wasn't even aware of. Thankfully, God helped me recover (yeah, it was bad...crippling lame bad), and learn how to change my daily habits to compensate.

Then I started making some progress at consistently exercising at home following some of the Walk At Home videos by Leslie Sansone. I like the older ones where Leslie leads, as I find them easier to follow. I'm not really into the trendy hip-hop stuff. I don't want to look cool, I just want to safely exercise! Additionally, her videos are broken up into 15 minute "miles", which really appeals to someone task-oriented like me. So, I tried to make progress with exercising more consistently, and I did.

But I wasn't making much of a dent in my overall weight. To add to that, life happened (to put it mildly), which really stunk, but it forced me to see myself and how much in danger I was. I was morbidly obese. I needed to figure out something that worked.

I don't advocate any quick fixes, and will delete anybody commenting such "quick fix" programs. (*eye roll* those spam posts are so annoying!!) I wanted to make healthy lifestyle choices that I can live with.

I believe God helped me learn and really take charge of my health. I found exercise videos by another person that gave me a better workout, safely, while being really fun! Her name is Gina B, Up To The Beat Fitness. I also came across Sharona's Hill workouts (hers are pretty leg intense for someone like me, but I really like a few of her videos - fun ones!). After that, things really took off exercise-wise. I made a chart and used stickers I liked to track my exercise goals and consistency (I really like pencil and paper). But my weight wasn't really going down. I came to the conclusion that, despite my best efforts at nutrition and choices, I was eating back my exercise progress.

I know what you're probably thinking. Gosh, Hermit, why haven't you been counting calories or doing Weight Watchers? Because I cook, almost every single day, don't use packaged mixes, and I want to learn habits so I eventually won't need to count calories. I had joked to myself in the past few years that calorie counting must work because a person spends most of their time calculating (with little time to eat haha). But my weight was at a standstill, hovering just on the lower edge of morbidly obese BMI. I needed help to learn about nutrition, portions, etc. Then Gina B. mentioned in one of her videos about My Fitness Pal, how they allow you to put in your own recipes! They also have a huge database of food, very easy to pick the elements of your meal and figure out where you are. I signed on to My Fitness Pal and have really benefited from using it. It's free, by the way. I've been learning about nutrition, food choices, portions, and more. The groups on their community section are really nice too. I've joined one that encourages little habits.

So that's about where I'm at. I've officially broken through to the "just obese" category, which is a milestone for me because it means I'm truly losing weight! I'm learning about exercise intensity which is more important than just time; put in the effort! I use My Fitness Pal as a tool, and am currently extending my non-eating window daily so that I have more feeling of "choice" in the evening calorie-wise. Also, since I'm prepping to move, I don't really have room to exercise. Before I started packing, I was doing well exercising (using my sticker chart) and slowly building muscle which I hadn't really developed before.

My goal is to lose about 113 lbs to get to the healthy BMI category. I am 18.6 lbs down! 94.4 lbs to go!

There are two more things that I want to say.

There is a real misunderstanding about obese people, in that others who are fit think that people like me can "just walk it off" or stop eating so many twinkies. I know from painful experience and from watching others (including those close to me), that bodies that are unhealthy shed fat differently than people who are fit. In my case, I never really developed muscle, so I have to build muscle to start burning more. Think of it like trying to boil water over two different sources of heat. One source of heat is a couple of tealights. The other source is a good burning campfire with nice wooden logs. The tealights take longer to boil the water and might not ever give you a good rolling boil. Some people's bodies are really good at storing energy, not burning it. Just a silly little analogy I came up with. Also, someone who is overweight is more easily fatigued. You would be too if you carried around two 50-lb bags of potatoes all day!

You never really know the whole picture or story behind what you are seeing. Be kind and say a prayer.

The other thing I wanted to say is that you should think about your habits, not just for the new year. Evaluate yourself and how things are going on a regular basis. I try to do that every Shabbat. Try very small specific habits, and attach them to things that are already routine for you. For example, put on your workoutfit when you get up and exercise and shower then! It's harder later in the day to stop, change, exercise, and shower, when you are so busy with other things. Make your small habits fun! I like using paper to see my progress, and got silly stickers to celebrate things, like workout intensity. Find something you like to do to encourage movement or other good habits (a short walk, a craft project, devotional time). Another example is enjoy a nice tea in the evening (instead of snacks), or turn off your devices at a certain time.

Remember, life is happening! Don't miss it!

May God help guide you in your efforts.

shalom!

To see the fun little stop motion / claymation video I made, click Here