been overweight and underweight in one lifetime

I was slender, occasionally dipping into underweight, most of my life.

Relatively recently I gained some weight and hit my highest weight ever, in the "overweight" range.

Even more recently, I lost it and I'm back down to slender again ... and have maintained that for a year.

I've been both. But when I was underweight it was from anorexia. I naturally tend towards being overweight, I've only been thin in the past when I starved myself and it made me sick and unhealthy & weak.

Finally have made health a priority now- I lift weights, do hiit cardio, walking and hiking and am in the best shape athletically now that I've ever been in my life! I finally eat enough protein and have my sugar addiction under control. I also quit alcohol. I'm now losing weight slowly and steadily in a healthy way using myfitnesspal and a mild calorie deficit.

I'm hoping that when I get to a healthy weight I will be able to maintain. I plan to reverse diet slowly up to maintenance calories and continue to train at the gym and be active.

missafwilliams wrote: »

Thank you for sharing @Machka9 . I like to hear there is hope and it is possible.
I have to ask, how did you do it?
Any tips please?

How did I lose the weight?

I entered my info into MFP, selected Sedentary as my activity level, selected 0.5 kg as the amount of weight I wanted to lose, and MFP gave me the number of calories I could eat.

I weighed and measured everything and logged meticulously.

I also exercised and ate about half of my exercise calories back.

And I stuck with it for 16 weeks until I was comfortably within my normal BMI range ... then I took a 1-month break ... and then I stuck with it again for another 16 weeks until I was in the lower half of my normal BMI range.

missafwilliams wrote: »

Who can I identify with this?
Do you still struggle with maintaining the weight?

Losing the weight is easy. Maintaing well now that's a different story.

Yes I have been everywhere from underweight to obese as an adult.
I find losing much more challenging than gaining or maintaining. I am about 10 lbs overweight still.
I'm pretty good at maintaining a weight. I plan to keep logging my food intake and monitoring my weight for life.

missafwilliams wrote: »

Wow, that is a beautiful transformation. @courtneyfabulous . Was it not hard to shake your previous habits off. What made you decide that enough was enough. .
What would say helped you get your sugar addiction under control?
Any tips?

Yes this has taken half a lifetime to get right it feels like... I'm in my mid 30s now and my issues with food started way back in childhood with me loving food a little too much, especially sweets.. i was a chubby kid, then puberty hit and I wanted to look like the girls in magazines and on my favorite tv shows. This was in the 90s so anorexia was practically mainstream, it was just kind of accepted, almost expected (remember in Clueless how the girls would not eat lunch in public?? Ugh.), so that's what I did.

After a couple of years of practically starving myself I got to be bony and weak and was constantly getting colds & the flu and had no energy, memory loss, mood swings... I think I realized enough was enough when I started having auditory hallucinations (hearing things like my name being whispered, strange noises no one else could hear, etc). That was probably from a combo of malnutrition and sleep deprivation because I was surviving off caffeine for energy in the absence of food. Something about feeling like I was starting to lose my mind scared the hell out of me and I suddenly quit all caffeine and started eating again. It took me about a week to gain enough strength back to function. I also immediately gained 30 pounds in the span of 1 month too due to having crashed my metabolism. But then I just focused on eating healthy and I eventually stabilized at a healthy weight for the rest of my teens.

Then in college I began to gain weight- probably from drinking alcohol & eating pizza like every other college student ever. Then when I started a desk job after college it got worse due to being more sedentary & work stress. I half heartedly tried diets and and a little sporadic exercise, but nothing consistent enough to have a lasting effect.

Finally in my late 20s I was fed up with being overweight and went on a structured diet called the 6 week body makeover. It's all about extreme clean eating & portion control. This was both a good and bad thing. Good because I learned I could lose weight while still eating- I ate small meals every 2 to 3 hours. It was great to finally not be afraid of food! I lost 35 pounds in 3 months going from a size 14/16 to a 4/6. I liked how I looked again but the diet was overly restrictive- no salt, no sugar, no fat, no dairy, no bread, no processed food, no restaurant food, etc... and too low calorie so it wasn't appropriate for maintenance, and every time I ate more or something off plan I would gain weight!! I eventually put the weight back on slowly as I lost my will power to keep eating bland food and only about 1000 calories a day.

After that I looked into clean eating but without calorie restriction, thinking maybe that was the answer. I went all organic, gluten free, etc. This was when I started trying to get a handle on my sugar intake. I realized I'd been a sugar addict practically my whole life- even through my anorexic years (the only time I'd been without it is those couple years during that strict diet but even then I would sometimes sneak gummy candies or chocolate). I realized I was at a point where I literally couldn't get through even 1 day without several servings of chocolate, a sweet drink, a pastry or cookie, ice cream, etc. So I gradually retrained my palette to be satisfied by the sweetness of only fresh fruit, or dried unsweetened fruit. This took a while and was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I now am able to enjoy chocolate again and certain sweets in moderation, but still have to stay away from really high sugar things like cupcakes or donuts or restaurant desserts because they give me bad cravings for more.

I also had developed a bit of a wine addiction over the years and decided to stop this too. It had gotten to the point where I was having 1-2 glasses on week days and 3-4 on weekends. I dropped it to 1-2 glasses on weekends only, then none at all. Funny the wine was much easier to ditch than refined sugar was. I also realized wine made me VERY bloated. I didn't notice when I was having it all the time but when I was just having it occasionally it was really noticeable! That's part of why I cut it out altogether- anything that causes that much of a reaction in the body can't be good.

Eating more healthy/clean helped me feel healthier but not really drop much weight. Then I developed some female health issues in my early 30s that put me into a really bad state of health- severe anemia, pain, depression, no exercise... I eventually got a hysterectomy about a year and a half ago to solve my health problems. Afterwards I was in the worst shape of my life and heaviest I've ever been. So I decided to focus on healing and then on getting back in shape. I took iron & vitamin supplements to fix my deficiencies, walked 3 times a day because that was the only exercise I could do at first, and ate nutritious foods. I eventually got stronger and eased slowly into hiking and body weight strength exercises. About a year ago I joined a gym and got a personal trainer to help show me how to lift weights and work out properly. I also did cardio on the elliptical at first but gradually transitioned to hiit cardio like sprint intervals, stairs intervals, plyometrics, etc. I realized I actually really love exercise! I'm not sure why I never really got into it before??

All this and I was in much better shape (more muscle, energy, strength, stamina), but still quite overweight which was frustrating. I started following some people on YouTube that had lost weight and gotten into body building and I realized they all tracked their calories and macros and used myfitnesspal to keep track. So I decided to try it...

At first I just tracked my current diet and realized I ate at or above maintenance most days, and I also ate far too little protein!! So I did some research and made adjustments and as soon as I was eating the right calories and macros I magically started losing body fat! I've been doing that for about 3 months now and am down 10 pounds and only need to lose about 10 or 15 more. I LOOK like I've lost a lot more than 10 pounds too due to body recomposition- gaining muscle plus losing fat.

I finally feel like I have a handle on how healthy weight loss works and finally have a healthy lifestyle too. It feels so good!! I wish it hadn't taken me quite so long to figure all this out though, but that's just the way life is sometimes. Also I think having had such poor health for a few years makes me really appreciate my good health now and want to maintain that for as long as I can and support my body as much as possible rather than abuse it like I have in the past.

Sorry for the LONG post but hopefully it may provide some insight or inspiration.

There's always hope!
Take care!