At my heaviest, I weighed about 180lbs. The weird thing, for me, about weight-gain is that you don’t realize as the days are passing that you’ve gained that much weight. I had a weird and sudden realization hit me in 2016 when I went to Hawaii. (Think dresses, shorts, bathing suits.) I hated how I looked in the vacation photos. Every photo. I remember thinking it was the angle or the lighting, but in hindsight, I realized it was because I didn’t love my body. Someone, and I wish I was kidding, came up to me and congratulated me on the baby. I’m embarrassed even typing that out. But still, honestly, it isn’t until I lost the weight that I knew how much bigger I had gotten, because nothing else changed. I was dating someone, so it isn’t as though I felt undesired, and my day-to-day activities were the same. I didn’t know I had, over not a long period of time, probably gained about 25-30 pounds.

I didn’t immediately get on a flight back to California and begin dieting. My weight-loss journey is something that’s been through the wringer and brought me strife for my entire life. Unfortunately, many women are trained at a young age to be unsatisfied with our growing bodies and taught to hate ourselves first. (Then we have to teach ourselves, much later, to love ourselves when this should be the default.) This was the case with me. I’ve always been chubby, or thought myself that way, because I wasn’t as thin as other young girls in my class.  So I, also unfortunately, have always lived in a “If only I lost 10 more pounds, then I’d be happy,” world. Weight will fluctuate forever. What’s significant is the confidence you gain when you’re happy with your body. But that won’t always come with weight loss. It comes from somewhere much deeper than that. That’s what this entire website hopefully will help you do — find ways to love yourself just a little more, every day.

Honestly, what I’m going to say might not forever resonate. It isn’t timeless advice. It’s advice that revolves around having time. I lost 30 pounds because I suddenly had the time to. Time to work out, time to cook my own meals, and time to continuously pack my own healthy snacks while I was at school or work. And I did do both, but with the trade-off that I didn’t really have friends or a social life. I got myself into a long-distance relationship so I didn’t worry about dating in a new environment either. Girl, I had the tiiiiiime. Below is what I looked like probably at my smallest.

(April, 2019 – My face is thinner and I’ve lost over 20 pounds)

This is what worked for me.

Cook your own meals as often as possible. I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, 20 minutes outside of a major metropolitan city, where the first method of hanging out with someone was getting brunch, dinner, or coffee. Most of my friends were from the Bay, and the area was way too expensive for any of us to have moved out of our parents’ houses, so in living in my parent’s house, I almost never cooked there. Our kitchen was small and it was easier to just eat out with friends. Sometimes I’d eat whatever my family made, but it’s odd to think in hindsight how rare that was. I went off on that tangent so you know that I know the difference between eating out for most of your meals and cooking at home. Unfortunately, you just don’t know all of the ingredients being put in your food when you eat out. How much salt, oil, butter, or sugar (all caloric additions that don’t necessarily make you feel more full) are being put in food to make it taste good, and taste addictive. Once you learn the basics of cooking, you’ll know how to make your food taste just as good. And guess what? Even if you think it’s bland at first, your taste buds will adjust. After a month or two of cooking at home, ANY time I would go to a restaurant, the food tasted almost unbearably salty. 

Know that in cooking my own meals, I didn’t cut out ANY specific food group. I wasn’t strict about not having carbs, or processed food, or sugar, or alcohol. I know that permanently cutting out carbs, even if it could be seen as a shortcut, wasn’t going to be sustainable for me long term because I love sandwiches, pasta, and rice. The other stuff naturally lessened because once you’re conscientious about what you’re putting into your body, you naturally want to take better care of it. But I listened to my body. I would treat myself to In N Out almost every road trip I took back to the Bay, and go out for Chinese as soon as I made it to San Franciscan soil. Diets don’t work. Lifestyle changes do. In the same vein, when you feed your body more fruits and vegetables, your body will start to crave those food groups. 

Pay attention to portion sizes, but usually cooking at home without cutting portion sizes significantly will still take inches off your waistline. If you find yourself plateauing with a long way to go towards your ideal weight, then start making a little less food each week. Your body will adjust, I promise, and you won’t go to sleep hungry. But do it over time — not suddenly in which you’re cutting portions by half without letting your body get used to fewer calories. Use smaller plates or eat out of bowls. Our brains want to fill extra space when we see it empty. We overpack when we have suitcases that can fit unnecessary items. If we have large plates, we’ll fill it up with more food, and then end up eating more food. Using smaller plates tricks your brain into thinking you’ve eaten more than you have. Your stomach is also quicker to feel full before it lets your brain know. In the time it takes for you to decide to go back for seconds, your brain may have caught up to the feelings of satiety your stomach was already feeling.

Find exercise that you like. This is going to mean you’ll enjoy doing it, and it’ll feel less like a chore. I fell in love with hiking, even though it’s still hard for me to make it up a mountain. But nothing gives me the same pleasure. I also took swimming lessons as an extra-curricular activity and would practice on my own. My school also had a “health center” (read: gym) that was included with the price of tuition that I took advantage of. Know that the first time I tried working out here, I would spend upwards of two hours there but literally text the whole time. Learn from me and don’t waste your time like this! Eventually, I would bookmark instagram workout videos and do circuits of those moves paired with cardio (my knees have historically given me a hard time, so I liked the elliptical the best). 

And take classes if they’re accessible. My school’s gym had yoga, pilates, HIIT, barre, and spin classes included with the price of tuition. After I graduated, it was too hard to try to join a gym without those extra amenities but I wasn’t willing to pay those premium prices, and I had to shop around for fitness studios that gave me the most efficient workout that was a good bang for my buck. I landed on Orangetheory Fitness after taking a class with my girlfriend. Another workout hack: work out with someone. She had a membership that allowed her to go twice a week, and she eventually upgraded to an unlimited membership which allows you to go however often you wanted. I joined on the 2x/week plan, which kept me accountable (because those memberships are not cheap) and it was something for us to do together. I say to take classes if you can because having a coach tell you what to do with the added environment motivating you is invaluable, honestly. You can’t really give up, nor can you stop to text (in many fitness studios, phones aren’t even allowed in the room), and you know you’re getting a good workout in usually one hour’s time.

Workout hack: Find cheap, temporary deals on Groupon! During a short, 6-month stint in living somewhere, I used “first-time trials” via Groupon and sometimes Yelp to try out different gyms and classes around my area. I also recommend doing this if you’re on vacation somewhere and need a good workout (just read the fine print regarding whether or not you need a local ID). Many places will offer a free 7-day trial (Corepower Yoga) or one month at a discounted price (Snap Fitness and Crunch Fitness)! You have to plan these accordingly, however, to make the most use out of them since they’re only limited time offers, and you can usually only redeem them once. 

This was a pretty long-winded way of saying: cook at home and work out. Make it as easy and as fun as possible. Find ways to exercise that you genuinely enjoy and try to grab someone you love to do it with you. Some workouts are naturally more solitary, and that’s totally fine, too. Make it yours. Find meals that are simple, taste good, and are centered around whole foods (ie. foods that don’t need an ingredient label, but if they do, have just a few ingredients and nothing you can’t pronounce, usually ending in “ide” or “ose”). 

Know this going in: it’s going to take a long time. There are ways to lose 30 pounds in 3 months. But none of those ways are going to keep the weight off long term, and none of them are healthy. Studies show that over 95% of dieters end up gaining back the weight they lost, and some gain even more. Diets don’t work. Lifestyle changes do. And I’m not telling you to train your body to like the taste of zucchini noodles instead of real spaghetti, either. You’re just making a few better choices throughout your days, because the few better choices you make will end up creating the life you’ve been waiting to live. Every day, you can make choices that better yourself, not because you feel like you have to, but because they’re choices that align with the version of yourself you want to become. 

You should aim to become the person you want to be, not the person you feel like you have to be. 

Let me know if you have ANY questions or concerns!

Love,
Nazara