Your denial and excuses story

I was always a slightly chubby kid, always a curvy/chubby teenager, onward as an adult. I kind of just believed that was my body type, as I'm built similarly to my mom... The thing is that she was fairly slim until menopause, and I've always been like this. My sister and I have really different builds, I joke that she an elf and I'm a hobbit. I got stuck thinking that this was just what adulthood would be like for me.

When I was pregnant a couple years ago, I was really proud of myself for having a healthy, moderate weight gain. The problem was after when I used breastfeeding as an excuse to eat as much as I wanted of everything... Sometimes eating twice as much as my husband, who is 8 inches taller than me and has an active job. I kept saying "I'm just not one of those women that lose weight breastfeeding".

It was my "wake up call" that my son is turning 2 in a few months, and I've been at my full term pregnant weight since a few months after he was born. I decided to take control and not blame environment or genetics for my out of control eating habits.

[Edited because words are hard ]

At your worst, did you see yourself as obese/unfit? Not most of the time. I had a kind of final realization of my unfit/obese state after a few incidents in the last year.
What were your go to excuses to be that way? I don't eat as much as other people and I don't eat packages of cookies or bags of chips so I am okay. I don't like to exercise so I don't need to do it.
What popular myths were your go to? Weight loss is hard. You have to do weird or extreme things to lose weight.

I was never in denial about being fat, I was in denial about what it took to lose weight and keep it off. I made a lot of excuses for eating too much. I tried every type of diet out there looking for the magic solution. There were none, there are none. I was fat until I was 40 when I'd had enough. I lost about 70 pounds and kept most of it off for quite awhile, but my weight still went up and down, until I had gained about 30 back over five years. My weight was always in the overweight range even though I'd lost all that weight.

Two years ago I decided to start logging again, then learned how to weigh food, account for exercise burns, and flash forward to now: I'm 44 pound lighter and I have been maintaining for over a year.

I was in denial until I saw pictures but my excuses were my age and the fact that I had kids and my husband loved me the way I was. My myths were slow metabolism and thyroid issues.

judiness101 wrote: »

At your worst, did you see yourself as obese/unfit?

I've let myself get obese twice. The first time I knew I was overweight and out of shape, but was in denial about how bad it had gotten for a couple of years until I saw a photo that snapped me out of it. (I'd always been someone who was average if a few lbs more than my preference without worrying about what I ate, and had never dieted, which meant I had no sense of how it worked. That proved to be helpful once I figured out that it was possible, since I had no baggage from years of dieting or pop advice.)

The second time (I started regaining after maintaining a loss for about 5-6 years), I knew I was obese and unfit basically as soon as I was.

What were your go to excuses to be that way?

None, really. The first time I simply felt out of control and didn't really feel like I was doing anything to gain the weight, but I would have agreed that I was being too sedentary and not watching my diet.

Hmm, thinking back, this is not entirely true: I definitely did think "but I don't eat that much" at that time and felt it was unfair that I'd gotten fat. I got over that when I forced myself to really be honest with myself about how I ate and how many calories things probably contained (I was working late constantly at a job that let us order in food from all kinds of restaurants and also had a lot of travel/opportunities to go to fancy restaurants, and I rarely cooked for myself). I also briefly had the "I don't have time to cook/work out" until I saw that plenty of people in my same situation did and then forced myself to figure out how to do it.

The second time I was disgusted with myself, but other stuff was going on that simply meant I wasn't ready to deal with my weight and relapse into a sedentary lifestyle. But in both cases I certainly would have placed the blame on myself.

What popular myths were your go to?

Can't think of any. Toward the end of my maintenance period I'd told myself that I could stop watching what I ate in terms of calories so long as I ate "real foods" (my version of eating "clean," and which for me contained plenty of fat--before that I didn't count calories, but I had carefully watched portion size and monitored higher calorie items), but once I knew I was gaining I didn't really have any question as to why. It was simply a matter of not being motivated and not knowing how to get motivated/care enough.

back in the day i always accused my being large on the fact that i had "a slow metabolism," which is hysterical to me now. a few years ago i came across a receipt that i still had in my pocket of my coat. it was from mcdonalds and was my lunch the day i was at work. a big mac value meal, a crispy chicken wrap, a double cheeseburger, and two apple pies. right. slow metabolism my foot. i was literally eating myself into the grave and the sad thing is i would have gone to my grave swearing i was eating okay and it was a because my metabolism crawled like a turtle.

I didn't make excuses, and I knew I was overweight. I resisted food logging because, reasons, but once was emotionally prepared to use food logging as a tool, I was able to face just what I ate in what portions. Making better choices and portion control have helped a lot, and I expect that I will need food logging as long as I have control over my food choices.

At your worst, did you see yourself as obese/unfit? yes, definitely.

What were your go to excuses to be that way? blood sugar/reactive hypoglycemia. i could not get it under control and had to eat in order to correct the lows. i was eating moderate carb/low glycemic load foods and still crashing. i couldn't do moderate exercise without crashing and needing to correct. i couldnt eat without crashing. it was a cycle and i couldn't figure out how to stop it.

What popular myths were your go to? i didn't have any. i literally had to eat to correct my lows. can't really let a blood glucose in the 40s go.

medication followed by a very low carb diet helped me get to where i could eat and exercise without a blood sugar crash.