Changes I Made to Lose 20 pounds in 5 weeks (ish) - And How I Gained It Back
I was always a generally skinny kid growing up despite eating a lot of junk food. Boy oh boy did that catch up to me. I was always 100-120 pounds as a teenager. That is until I got pregnant at 19 years old. I ballooned up to 150ish pounds but since I walked and took the bus all the time I actually lost all that baby weight and was back to being under 120 in just under 1 month after giving birth. Didn't last long.
By that time I was taking a few classes and by the time I had to start my internship I decided to try to lose weight the healthy way this time.
I did!
I only know I did this in 5 weeks because I had to fill in those stupid time sheets so that was exactly how I knew how much time had passed. I also weighed myself everyday (not exactly recommended but I did it anyway).
So today I will share with you what I did to lose that weight and why I gained it back (again).
Not really sure what snapped my mind to want to do randomly lose weight again but I'm glad it did because I proved to myself that I was able to pull it off even when I had a "job". By that I mean interning which is unpaid work. Fucking sucks.
So from Day 1 of my internship I woke up each morning to squeeze half a lemon in a cup of water and chug it quick. I always loved that feeling of room temp lemon water down my throat. It felt like a weird "activation" or even a burst of alertness in the morning. It really felt like it was activating my metabolism.
I used this app called My Fitness Pal where I documented every food thing I consumed. I mostly ate foods with a bar code but other times I put in guess work where one wasn't available like a sandwich, example. This was back when it was a free feature, but now this is behind a paywall, those mothafuckas 👎
My 7 am breakfast was not exactly a big breakfast. To the best of my recollection I ate a chobani yogurt with ground flax seed and chia seed (1 tsp each) and a Luna Bar particularly the peppermint chocolate because that was my favorite. Sometimes I switched flavors. Then I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Sometimes I'll literally measure cereal and milk! Lol I just really wanted to be accurate.
I packed a lunch which always was something I can scan with a bar code to determine calories and macros. I ate Michelina's frozen meals (my favorite was this penne pasta with shrimp and green bell pepper. I usually had pretzels/sun chips and dark chocolate covered almonds in fun bags. It was a relatively light lunch too and basically the same damn thing every day. I had lunch probably around 11:30 or 12.
I get off of "work" around 3pm. I honestly don't recall what I had for dinner. I would take a look at My Fitness Pal and determine my calories/nutrients/other shit I was short on and try my best to use that to dictate what I ate for the rest of the day. One thing I remember eating was measuring 1 cup of mixed baby spinach salad with 1-2 tbsp of ranch dressing exact ones used in the pictures. Ate a lot of Jello too if I wanted a sweet with low/no calories. Snacked a lot on celery. A favorite snack was hummus and pita chips (counted and measured, of course) Sometimes ate more Michelina's lean gormet meals too.
BEFORE YOU SAY IT!!!!
Counting calories is definitely a hot topic and has torn opinions across the board. Some say it does more harm than good and isn't efficient for losing weight. Could be true but at the time it truly did work for me for losing weight. At the end of the day no one should be so obsessive over what a person does to their own body. The issue isn't extreme enough to dictate nor care what a person chooses to do with how they eat WHEN IT DOESN'T AFFECT THEM.
That was basically how I ate for 5 weeks. Doing this habit made me able to maintain effectively continue to do this on weekends so that definitely was not a problem. I loved the routine.
I also weighed myself every single morning when I woke up after using the restroom. The reason why it's not recommended is because weight can always fluctuate due to water weight or any other factor. Any weight gain during this period can discourage someone and eventually make them quit since it wasn't doing anything anyway (in their minds). Luckily for me, I was literally losing fractions of a pound EVERY DAY! I never recalled gaining any weight back through those 5 weeks. Because I was a young spry 25 year old with an ok metabolism. My ego kept inflating so that encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing. Some days were better than others. Once or twice I recalled being SO HUNGRY I'm glad I was dirt poor during this time or I would have stuffed my face with high sugar or junk food. I barely had enough money to buy this food.
Michelina's was a god send to me. It used to be hella cheap. Back then it would be like 88 cents each. Sometimes there would be a BOGO offer at Target and I'd save even more money. I doubt prices or offers would be anywhere near that today. Plus I learned how terrible frozen meals are since then. Also, I bought a Halloween fun pack of pretzels from a clearance so that was another money saver.
On the topic of exercise, the only exercise I did was a daily goal of 10,000 steps each day tracked by my FitBit (free phone apps too). It was a struggle since I had a desk job. I proved to myself that it was absolutely possible. I did take public transportation so this definitely helped a lot. I never did any other exercise even though looking back I definitely should have at least done some strength training. I am convinced I would have lost even more weight if I did.
That's it.
By the time my internship was up I was finally down to 120 pounds again!!!!
So how did I gain it all back?
It was not right away but over the course of 5 years when I gained it all back. Shortly after I finished classes I moved to another state. I gained 10 pounds but I was luckily able to maintain 130 pounds the 1 year I lived out of state.
After I moved back to my home state when I was about 30 years old at that point and split from my partner. One pivotal moment in my life I remember being so depressed more than normal because a guy I was talking to ended up ghosting me so I was a couch potato for a few weeks stupidly dwelling on that bullshit. I still weighed myself like once a week or something so I did noticed the gradual weight gain. Before I knew it I was back at 140 pounds at age 30. Fucking sucked.
Though the years that progressed I gained even more weight and then 150 pounds became my new normal. I tried to get back to losing weight but it was just too difficult for me to commit to what I once committed when I first lost weight the healthier way and I was going through a series of highly stressful and depressing moments kmin my life to focus. Ate junk food but still walked 10,000 steps but it did little to help. My body likely just adjusted to the steps.
Here I am today. I am 34 almost turning 35 years old in a couple months and now at my highest weight of 185 pounds. I am no longer working so I am back to a stay at home mom.
It hurts to type this all out to relive my triumphs only for me to slip back into gaining even more weight than before. However, I wanted to type this out even if it's just me being the only person who reads this so that I can encourage myself to hopefully lose weight even healthier than I did before.
So far one change I am currently doing is going back to my steps. No longer 10,000 goal but I know it will eventually surpass it because I am currently using Step Bet which calculates your own personal step goal and if you continue to make it through each 3-6 week game, you win a share of the pot! You not only win your money back but get a share of the pot that is paid by the people who did not make their goal. Currently, my goal is 9,118 steps for an active day and 11,280 for a power day. I have to do 4 Active Days and 2 Power Days with a bonus day off if you want. I always do.
That's all I do for now.
My weight is not budging so I know I have to amp it up a bit. Now I am going to go back to counting calories through my FitBit app and get back into exercising again. A new thing I need to do that I didn't do before is to calculate my resting heart rate or something else I forgot what it was called but it's something for my CICO. Stands for Calories In Calories Out (something I did not calculate before). My Fitbit gives me a baseline for my burned calories a day but what I need to do next is figure out how to better track my calories in.
Sorry my post is getting out of hand and long by now but this is my plan. Lay off the sweets (so hard!) and start exercising more. Learn to eat healthier!