Introduction: 31 years old female student in Italy

catdevrandom

Hello all!

I've been a member of MFP for some time now, but only recently I started using it again. I figured I'd do the proper introduction here

I'm a Brazilian student in Italy, 31 years old female. My goal is better general fitness. At 58kg (128lbs) and 1.62m (5'4") I know I am not overweight, but my clothes were getting too tight for my taste. In addition, back, shoulder and neck pain from sitting too long are not fun companions when one is trying to do a PhD, so it's time to do something about it!

Back when I was in Brazil, I was following an excellent diet created by a nutritionist and I was fairly active, mixing my activities between running, weight training, Pilates and some swimming (yep, I had a lot of free time and an amazing gym membership!). At that time, I reached my lowest weight as an adult of 51.2kg (113lbs) and my objective was gaining some 2-3kg (4-6lbs) of muscle. Gaining muscle proved to be very hard, and I was in the process of figuring out with the nutritionist when I had to move (this was October 2012).

But the move to Italy made me gain some 8kg (18lbs) - and unfortunately it was not muscle, as my jeans would be happy to tell you. It was the drastic change in my activity level (from running 3x a week to basically no activity), a new relationship (apparently I eat more when I'm happy!) and, of course, the Italian food, which is way too starchy with all the pasta and pizza easily available (it's the default cheap food for low-income students around here).

Although I had my nutrition plan in hand and I know well which foods I should be eating, I found it extremely hard to apply that knowledge to my new life as a student in a completely new place. At this point I must mention that I was an ovo-lacto-vegetarian for 7 years, but after moving to Italy I realized I would have to go back to eating fish if I wanted to eat something other than pasta, pizza and cheese in the student cafeteria of the university!

In the activity front, I tried to keep doing some activity, in the gym or swimming every now and then, but it was way too little to keep my weight in check. I also find it extremely hard to be motivated during winter. And yes, Italy might be seen by most folks from northern countries as a hot place with mild winters, but try to see this from the point of view of a Brazilian girl from a place of eternal Spring (temperatures never below 12°C/54°F and rarely above 28°C/82°F, all year round!)

But now Spring is back and I'm back in the fitness bandwagon! I started tracking what I eat and I'm paying attention to the portion sizes with the help of a digital scale for the first time (before I was relying on eyeballing it. Worked while in Brazil, not so much in Italy...) Let's see how this goes

Thanks for reading and cheers!
-catdevrandom

AsaThorsWoman

Good luck meeting your goals!

What are you studying?

catdevrandom

Thank you!

I'm studying the use of technology for education, more specifically the use of digital games for learning. Interesting topic, quite fun

Cheers!