I'm not looking forward to this

fivelongmiles

Okay, so, quick summary: dancer, trained professionally, injuries, took a break, never quite happy with body. Fast forward to last year, just as I'm slowly coming back: workplace didn't feed us enough to cover the long, gruelling, physical hours of work (they provided all meals) and I lost weight rapidly in the first few weeks until it was sorted out. I've spent the time since training hard at gymnastics, dance and in the gym, and I've finally put enough muscle on that I think it's time to get rid of some fat from round it. I could probably have recomped if I'd made the decision earlier, but I ate a bit too much for a few weeks and added more fat than I would have liked, so I'm just going to do it the traditional way!

Some "before" photos:



A close-up, since my arms/phone covered my stomach in the full-length one:


And an arm, because I miss the definition and want to be able to see it coming back:


According to the scale at my mum's house (I know, terrible way to measure it, but it gives me a rough idea) that's 21% body fat. Ideally, I'd like to get back to 15% eventually, but I think that'd put me underweight so I may need a bit more muscle at some point.

The main thing that's always a struggle for me is a medical non-issue. My blood sugar feels like it drops very low and I get weak, dizzy, confused etc. after only an hour or so. They can't find a medical reason other than "exaggerated physiological response to hunger" so I tend to eat too much most of the time (pretty much unavoidable unless I want to be so dizzy and weak that I fall over all the time) and can only burn enough calories to level it out if I'm training a lot - so, secondary goal is to get back to the fitness level to be able to do that. Wish me luck!

Also looking for friends if anyone wants to add me.

fivelongmiles

End-of-day-2 update!

I had a small deficit (150cal) yesterday. Today I'll hit maintenance (gymnastics day) and then tomorrow is a "rest day" (no official training) so I'll get some gentle exercise somewhere to avoid stiffening up and to create a little bit more of a deficit. I set my MFP calories to maintenance in case of blood-sugar-feeling issues. That way, on a good day I have a deficit and on a not-so-good day I can create a deficit on top of that with a bit of exercise.

My new best friend is sugar-free jelly because it fills up space. I just wish I hadn't had so much of it right before warm-up... Thankfully, it had mostly worn off by the end of warm-up and I made some good progress. I think the conditioning plan I've started, to even out imbalances caused by my various injuries, is actually working.