Some insight & advice, for anyone who wants/needs it.

For anyone who's ever felt restricted, lost or confused about changing their lifestyle to lose weight, here is my perspective/story, and advice to go along with it.


I've been here on MFP for over 2 months now, however I've been trying to lose weight for 5 months (have been tracking the entire time, though). In that time, I've lost just over 41 pounds. I'm 10 pounds lighter than I ever thought I could be, I fit into jeans that are a size smaller than my original goal (and are actually becoming baggy!) and aim to lose another 10 - 15 pounds because now I know I can. I can almost see abs that I never thought existed. For once, I'm not the fat girl in the group. I'm now aiming for the best because I know that I can have it, as ANYONE can, if they push themselves hard enough.


However, in this time, I've felt extremely restricted - and I attribute this to my personality. I'm an all or nothing, very precise kind of person. I don't forgive myself for stuffing up. Therefore I try not to stuff up as much as possible, mostly to avoid the profound self hate that comes along with it. Hating yourself is never good.
As we all know, it was Easter this weekend. This means (for those who celebrate it) a lot of food, chocolate, family gatherings (multiple in my case!). It's easy to fall off track. And boy did I fall off track. I allowed myself 3500 calories for Easter Sunday. I was okay with it. I've done this before. I did it for Christmas, and I did it for New Years. I did it, logged every last bite and made sure I only ate what I planned on eating - hence, I was even restricting on "free" days. However, I got back on track the next day. Didn't try to compensate for it, just did it and kept going the next day, and continued to lose weight. Well, not this time.

Easter Sunday: ate well over 3500 calories, and for the first time since starting this, didn't stick to my plan. How could I? It's kind of hard to log when you've just been eating petit fours and various kinds of Swiss chocolate mindlessly for 10 minutes non stop. I Didn't restrict - and by the end of the day, I absolutely hated myself for it. I tried to come up with ways to make up for it - fasting, excessive cardio, excessive deficits for the next 2 weeks.....anything. Mentally made plans, which did not happen.

Monday (yesterday): I woke up feeling absolutely terrible for the day before. Mentally and physically. Instead of getting back on track, I proceeded to eat a total of around 4000kcal. Of what? Mostly chocolate. Hated myself even more. I was in mental agony. "How could I do this to myself? Why was I doing this to myself? I've lost over 40 pounds, &^%&@^#()_! Do I want myself to gain it back?!" I told myself, in tears. I hated myself, well and truly. I hated myself so much that it was like I was continuously eating, and deliberately sabotaging myself as punishment for being such a failure. Punishment for not restricting enough, for not logging every last calorie that went into my mouth. I'd lost control. Like I didn't deserve to lose weight, like I didn't deserve the body that I've worked so hard for. Finally, after 5 months of being so strict on myself, after feeling so burdened for tracking my calories, I broke. I couldn't do it any more. I needed a mental break.


Today? I probably ate more than yesterday. Maybe I'm over exaggerating? I don't know. All I know is for once, I don't care. I'm not going to hate myself for it. And here's why:

Today, my "binge" and excess of calories was for once, free. Didn't log any of it. Not even one bite. I deliberately allowed myself one entire day where I wouldn't log. I would eat like a glutton and not care. I don't even know what it was that broke inside of me, but I did it without feeling guilty. I usually wouldn't have had it in me to even let myself walk into the store. But I started by going to the grocery store, picked up a basket, and told myself that I was allowed to buy and eat whatever I wanted, and however much of it I wanted - and for once I actually felt free, like I didn't care.
I wanted iced doughnuts. I walked through the isles of the grocery store feeling free. I compared this with my usual mindset when grocery shopping, which is usually something along the lines of: "Woe is me, I can't have all of that chocolate. Or those cookies. Or that cake."
And then I realised, that this "free" feeling wasn't that good of a feeling - in fact it didn't feel good at all. For once I would allow myself to eat what I wanted without hating myself, and I didn't even want to. I had no boundaries and it wasn't that great at all. I almost went to the seafood section instead to buy some of my usual fish fillets that I love so much (they're fantastic with lime and ginger!). However I told myself that I would do it, so I just did. I bought the iced doughnuts. I bought some chips, marshmallows, biscuits. And a large iced coffee. I honestly thought I would have bought more, but I didn't want more. I almost put half of it back, but I didn't. I proceeded to my car, sat down and just ate. Didn't care what I was eating, for once in 5 months. Was it good? No, it wasn't. I ate a bit of everything and instantly felt sick (understandably). Physically sick. Why was I craving this? Had I really felt restricted and upset because I couldn't do this? "I want abs, dammit!" was pretty much the only thought I had. It's so not worth it. In fact I still feel sick.

I still had the rest of the day of "freedom" to go. I promised myself that I would have dinner with my family and eat whatever it was without logging or caring. Usually I have my own lower calorie version of their dinner and recently that had made me feel disconnected. So today I would eat whatever was in my sight at home if I felt like it. No logging, no obsessing over calories..I did it...Only God knows how much I've eaten today, and I'm not going to dwell on it, because for one day in my life, I don't care about the numbers. And you know what? I don't like this feeling. It's not freeing, only different.

On another note, in the grocery store I saw a fit girl. This probably sounds super creepy but she had awesome legs! What did I think to myself? "She probably has chocolate and cake in her shopping trolley, she probably never watches what she eats, and her figure is awesome. Why should I feel bad for eating all of this?" She had skim milk, bananas, lettuce, bread, yogurt and frozen peas in her trolley. How ironic.

According to the scale, I gained 5 pounds since Saturday. Of fat? I doubt it - I know better than that. Even if it is fat, so what? If it took gaining 5 pounds of fat to realise this, so be it. At least now, I'm mentally free. I'm no longer restricted. I don't feel burdened by this life. I don't feel miserable for trying to better myself.

I apologise for this ridiculously long, possibly meaningless slab of text. I don't even know if anyone's going to read this. I do hope it helps someone if they're feeling restricted. Feeling restricted is the worst feeling in the world. Especially when you feel it's the only way for you to succeed. My advice? Don't restrict yourself, because eventually you will break. If you have a free day, let it be that - a FREE day! Free days mean nothing if it's not actually free.
If you do feel restricted, and want to get out, let yourself "loose" for one day and see how you feel. It helped me break this mental barrier of restriction and it's the only reason why it was worth it. Other than that, I feel terrible. There's nothing "glamorous" about eating iced doughnuts and a bunch of other processed crap and not caring about it (eventually your stomach is going to care about it). Eating nothing but crap will only make you feel like crap. I should have learned this from my pre-weight loss life, but I guess I'm stubborn. I'm not saying don't eat junk - quite the contrary. I'm saying, eat junk but don't feel bad about it. Don't feel bad about having to change your life to lose weight. Appreciate that all the hard work eventually pays off. Just like eating an excess of calories every day is going to pay off, in a negative way. It doesn't have to be one extreme or the other.