Inner controversy and spells

"Diet"

When people think of diet, many consider it as cutting a lot of foods out of their diet regime or some think it as taking on a type of vegan diet to Mediterranean diet, which is true in a sense.

As for me, my diet years ago consisted of going to Chick-fil-a after playing sports as a treat. I had no restrictions, I ate what I wanted, I ate more what I liked. There was no consistency with what I ate as "healthy."

I was a little picky about my food touching. I didn't see a problem with eating fried food, greasy food, drinking soda, eating ice cream. My mother said I have a young body and should be able to lose weight by playing sports or working out. That mindset didn't help when I didn't eat a good diet.

My mother told me of the days she was skinny because she walked everywhere, played sports, and did many activities to account for the food she ate. I on the other hand, in my down time would prefer to stay inside and play games, read manga, watch anime, if possible. While still eating anything.

Our thought processes didn't co-incide with the fact there was no understanding of a healthy diet.

Activities did not mean "Healthy."

Everyone is affected by a diet, and not just because we decide to eat it. As in how our bodies are effected, such as, our genetics decide what we might not be able to eat like allergies from food.

Other ways we are effected that could impact our diet is the environment, emotion, influence, metabolism and even education.

I say education because if you never learn about it or never intentionally want to know, you would likely go to ignore anything that might wrong your decision. An example would be like eating ice cream everyday when you get off work or finish class as a way to relax, but if you saw anything saying that it can be bad for you, you are more likely to ignore it like "it's my decision", which it is, but not if you want to change.

I started my change when I bought a scale. When I saw it, it was not very good. I looked up what is a "healthy weight" for my age and height of the time. I realized I was very overweight but not obese.

I started looking and learning what makes a healthy diet, like not eating ice cream, cookies, cakes, etc. So I understood I need to cut sugars but that is very hard to do when I was addicted to it. Sugar is a addiction, specifically processed sugars unlike natural sugars found in fruit, which is much better.

However, this condition to change and make progress was me barely poking the waters to see if it'll work. I wanted to wait where I had time, so I was going to wait till summer vacation from class. Except, COVID-19 occured during my spring break, making me stay home much earlier than expected.

Using that early start, I began by watching what I ate, so not eating a lot of fried, greasy, or starchy foods. However, I needed to replace that with more fruits and small snacks that were "healthy." That didn't happen for some time, but I did look at my portion control and realized I also had many servings of the food I liked.

I still played sports after COVID-19 stopped restricting people from their homes.

While being home, I used that time to include morning warmups/exercises that worked on getting my heart up and that helped. We happened to have a tredmill, not a fancy one, just an old one for cheap. I used it every day except the weekends to walk for an hour holding 5 pound weights. Even if it wasn't heavy, it did help with endurance because I would hold it up, not relaxed by my side until I finished the hour. I talk about this because this is what I did during my first journey of losing weight.

Going as far as I went, I cut out drinking sodas in total. I would say I've been mostly soda free for more than 5 years now. I would only drink sodas for special occasions, and even then I wouldn't finish the soda can.

Using exercise and watching what I ate. From 2019 to 2021 I went from 215 pounds to 170. Losing 45 pounds. I was happy I lost the weight and happy to be able to move without losing my breath easily. However, as I said, this was my first journey. During christmas, the holiday Reeces were out and I was so excited that I would buy 3 large bags and every time even 1 bag was gone, I bought another. My addiction to sugar didn't help me here.

I gained most of the weight I lost over the next 2 years. I still sat around 190 for some time when I realized how far away I had gotten from when I was lighter.

I just knew I wasn't back at 215 and I was happy enough that I wasn't back there. I learned about losing weight but I still couldn't figure out why I had no motivation to lose it again.

Motivation is a major reason why or how people can lose weight.

I just happened to lost my motivation because I was stressed from classes. I had no time to concentrate on myself. During the summer I worked, while in class I was busy. Too busy to work out in the morning anymore. Too busy to care about what I ate for most of the time. I stopped using the scale, afraid it would show how I've lost my progress.

It wasn't until I started gaining weight again that I finally used the scale again, looking at it every once in a while to check it. However, when I saw it hit 200 pounds, something struck in my mind. I needed to stop messing around.

I began watching the scale again, and watching my diet. As before I was working out but not eating well.

I began looking at healthy food like greens, like asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprouts, etc. Also just vegetables in general. I bought fruit instead of cookies. I also looked with my mom at foods with low calorie.

I did avoid eating fried food, by cooking more, or making foods with more vegetables. Also looking at eating more fish and shrimp.

Getting all this healthy food is good but that wasn't all. I learned that when you wake up, you shouldn't eat anything for the first 2-3 hours you're awake, except water.

I also made it a condition that I would only eat until I'm satisfied, not when I'm full. To help my portion control. If I did want something sweet, I would reach for an apple instead of cookies.

When I did have a craving for sweets, I made it as another condition that I would only eat something sweet like a cookie until after eating a meal, as in eating it as a desert. I learned as to why eating it as a desert helps, because like alcohol, it's not good to eat sweets on an empty stomach or your cravings will come back faster/stronger.

A condition I used at the beginning of my progress of all this was to not eat at night or past 9 or 10 p.m. because at night your body is supposed to rest, not use it's energy to process foods. Plus eating right before sleeping isn't good because your body can't do anything with it like when you exercise, so instead of using it, your body stores the nutrients good/bad and that can be another reason to gaining weight.

I'm still in the process of losing weight, I currently got back down to 191 from 200. This time my goal is to get to 160, if not less. It'll take some time but I know I have the materials and support to make it happen.

I know its titled as "Diet" but it's also more than just what you eat that decides how you may gain or lose weight.

If there are those who have their own stories of their journey with diet and weight. If you want to share you can comment about it. ^-^