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What's possible
Jul. 28th, 2014 03:18 pmApparently, I am now the guy who goes to an afterparty and ends up in a feely-feels conversation with a person I've just met.
I can't remember how we got on the topic, but one of the ladies from a team we played while I was in LA made comment about how she'd lost 50 pounds in the past few months. I mentioned that I'd lost 50-ish pounds myself, a few years ago. She lamented that she was having a hard time adjusting, and had already gained some weight back.
I told her that I'd had the same experience--when you've grown up overweight and managed to shed the weight, you only have two settings: Fat Kid Mode, and Super-Hardcore Weight Loss Mode. Maintenance is the hardest part, by far, of any significant weight loss. Nobody is there to teach you how to eat like a normal person.
I had to learn for myself how to treat food like fuel, to have it be an experience that I enjoyed for taste, and enjoyed for health. I had to undo years of plate-cleaner habits, or at least hack my way around them. (seriously, why are bowls and plates so damned huge?) I had to teach myself how to stop being afraid of food, and how to be moderate about eating the things I loved that weren't so good for me. It was a years-long struggle, but eventually, I stopped having to count calories and go to extremes.
I (somewhat drunkenly) told her that, yeah, it's a really difficult thing, because you have to teach yourself to think differently. And yet, it is possible. I realized that it's been... eight? Nine? years since I lost the vast majority of my weight. I've been skinnier in that time, and I've been fatter, but overall I seem to have found a pretty happy medium. I'll eat my vegetables because I now know how to enjoy them and to cook them well, and I'll eat my hamburger after a particularly tough 3-hour skate practice, when I bloody well feel like it.
She said that she felt better after hearing me say that. I hope she was sober enough in the moment to remember that conversation the next day. :)
I can't remember how we got on the topic, but one of the ladies from a team we played while I was in LA made comment about how she'd lost 50 pounds in the past few months. I mentioned that I'd lost 50-ish pounds myself, a few years ago. She lamented that she was having a hard time adjusting, and had already gained some weight back.
I told her that I'd had the same experience--when you've grown up overweight and managed to shed the weight, you only have two settings: Fat Kid Mode, and Super-Hardcore Weight Loss Mode. Maintenance is the hardest part, by far, of any significant weight loss. Nobody is there to teach you how to eat like a normal person.
I had to learn for myself how to treat food like fuel, to have it be an experience that I enjoyed for taste, and enjoyed for health. I had to undo years of plate-cleaner habits, or at least hack my way around them. (seriously, why are bowls and plates so damned huge?) I had to teach myself how to stop being afraid of food, and how to be moderate about eating the things I loved that weren't so good for me. It was a years-long struggle, but eventually, I stopped having to count calories and go to extremes.
I (somewhat drunkenly) told her that, yeah, it's a really difficult thing, because you have to teach yourself to think differently. And yet, it is possible. I realized that it's been... eight? Nine? years since I lost the vast majority of my weight. I've been skinnier in that time, and I've been fatter, but overall I seem to have found a pretty happy medium. I'll eat my vegetables because I now know how to enjoy them and to cook them well, and I'll eat my hamburger after a particularly tough 3-hour skate practice, when I bloody well feel like it.
She said that she felt better after hearing me say that. I hope she was sober enough in the moment to remember that conversation the next day. :)
