Just For Today: The weight loss side affects they don't tell you about.

"I just wanted to go back to the same optimistic feeling that I had when I thought that thinness was the answer"





She says everything I have ever felt about weight loss in a far more eloquent, poignant way than I ever could. I first 'met' Andie about two years ago when I stumbled across her blog during the early days of my weight loss. For anyone who was there, is there and is on the way to being there watch this; listen to this. I've listened to it four times already and it hits home every time. For a long time, every time I gained weight again I felt like I'd failed myself, I felt like I was a fake having an instagram account about being fit. I felt like I was 109kg again. Out of control. Angry. Worthless. The day I realised that losing weight wasn't a beginning (fat and sad) and end (skinny and happy) process, that it would be a life-long struggle against my own body, was one of the darkest times of my life.

But you get better. You get better at not binging and wanting to purge. You learn that mistakes are as par for the course as triumphs. You learn that falling makes it easier to get up; it makes you stronger. You learn, most importantly, to take it day by day. If I were the wake-up-in-the-morning-and-say-a-matra-in-the-mirror type girl mine would undoubtedly be: "Your body does not define your worth as a human being. You do not lack value because you are not perfect. You are stronger, wiser and more driven than ever. You are fine."

Did this video touch anyone else? It's one of the things I wished 'they' had told me when I started losing weight for a long time but in hindsight I think it's the most important part of the journey: once it settles into your bones it's what will stop you from giving up every single time.

Let's Talk Orthorexia

 I’ve been a long-time believer of not advocating a one-size-fits-all diet or lifestyle for anyone for a couple of reasons. One, because it’s what the dietician I went to in the beginning did and that lead to an eating disorder and reckless weight loss that resulted in severe metabolic damage. Two, because I know firsthand that the single most important part of weight loss and healthy living is knowing exactly what your body does and doesn’t need. Had I known what I know now about PCOS and hypothyroidism I don’t think I would’ve gone down the path I did. Does that mean I would take it all back given the chance? No, probably not. It made me stronger, way better informed and more courageous than ever. I understand that this is not the case for everyone. Somewhere along the line we- women specifically- were led to believe that looking good means being healthy and vice versa.

Often times I feel judged when I tell friends and family that I don’t eat carbs, grains or sugar. People tend to naturally assume that you’re jumping on a bandwagon, becoming obsessed with weight loss, or just going through a phase. I came across this article the other day and it got me thinking. It goes into some detail about Orthorexia, a term used to describe an unhealthy obsession with being healthy. The author goes into some detail about those who religiously follow, talk/share on social media about their healthy lifestyles are fuelling a dangerous trend of obsession that is tantamount to an eating disorder. I have often thought about whether the way I conduct my lifestyle is unhealthy: if it is worth it or if I’ve just shifted my obsession with eating bad foods to one of restricting. But I have long-since come to the conclusion that this isn’t an obsession with being skinny, or restricting myself, or having a “sense of moral superiority over other people” as the psychologist in the article claims it is. Sure, sometime I wish I could eat a whole pizza and not care about it or that I didn’t have to inconvenience everyone with my picky eating. But at the end of the day this journey has become about so much more than vanity and superiority: I can’t eat a whole pizza because at a very baseline physical level my body can’t tolerate it without causing physical pain. I don’t post on instagram about my weight loss because I think it makes me better than anyone; I do it because I wish I’d had more people to sympathise with during my own struggles. Although articles like this have merit (I believe a lot of people use the recent revolution of healthy living as a mask for or to glorify eating disorders), they highlight something very wrong with the public opinion on Paleo, sugar free eating etc: for some of us it isn’t a choice or a phase or a fad. Come hell or high water it’s a necessity, and we shouldn’t be labeled otherwise.