Shutterbean Weight Loss!
I only made that the name of this post Shutterbean Weight Loss because I have seen that it has been googled a gazillion times. SEO, do your thing!
So, let’s talk about my weight loss. If this kind of thing is triggering for you, I advise you to stop here.
I do have to let you know that I am still very much on this journey, I am by no means an expert.
As Ina says:
Ha! The journey hasn’t been fun. It’s been hard and my hard work has paid off.
If you want to hear about how I decided that I am worth the effort and was tired of making excuses, let’s gooooo.
This is me now. Strongest I’ve ever been!
This is what I looked like 55lbs. ago. This is June 2022.
My overalls were getting tight and my yoga pants were STRETCHED tf out.
There was more of me to love.
This is me now…feeling comfortable showing my whole body, dancing!
Feeling good in my body!
I fit in my wedding dress (from 2006!) better than when I did back then!
What caused me to lose weight?
I felt tired all the time and was sick of losing and gaining the same 10+ pounds repeatedly.
I couldn’t hike up a hill without feeling winded.
A lot of my clothes didn’t fit and I didn’t want to buy new ones.
With grief and COVID quarantine times (read: sourdough bread/pizza obsession), I weighed 40lbs. over what I weighed before my Mom died (in late 2017). I was living (read: struggling) with the extra weight of grief. It was heavy and I was sick and tired of carrying it around the past few years. I didn’t recognize who I was and wanted to find myself again. I knew I felt better when I was moving regularly but I couldn’t commit to a practice because it was hard for me to do it on my own. After about 5 years of putting in half of the effort, finding discipline & accountability in a workout routine jumpstarted the process of shedding lbs.
To be clear, my intention on this journey was to build a workout routine. I didn’t have a goal weight in mind. I still don’t! My goal was to make exercise a habit. It was one part of the process that started a domino effect.
Let’s break it down!
What helped me on my weight loss journey:
- Food journaling
- Podcasting with Benjamin Russack
- Workout Routine
- Eating Meeting
- Food Adjustments/nourishment
Food journaling:
When my Mom died, my relationship with food became complicated. I didn’t want to cook. For a big chunk of time, I was working on it not being fair that I was the only one left in the family that entertained and cooked. I had to feed all the men in my life but nobody nourished me and I got really bitter about that.
It messed up my relationship with this blog too. My mom was my writing muse and with her gone, I lost the magic that came in being creative with food. My focus switched from food to time and I leaned heavily into journaling/handwriting.
In an effort to create a stream of income, lose weight, and practice my handwriting, I created my first food journal in 2018. My life/work fell apart after my Mom died and this was my attempt to reboot it. I’m so glad my food journal has helped so many people in the process!
Each food journal has enough pages to track 12 weeks of daily eating. After going through about 9 of them, I REALLY realized what my patterns with food were. I also figured out what foods made me feel bad/messed up my digestion.
I would do really well with checking in with myself throughout the week with this food journaling practice and then abandon it on Friday. Two drinks on a Friday night led to me overeating and I got off track with nourishment for days…and sometimes weeks. My problem with drinking is that I sometimes do it to eat. Alcohol makes me compulsively eat and when I am around other people who eating and drinking, I keep up the pace of eating (especially if there’s a binge involved!) and cannot say no.
You can read more about my food journaling experience here.
Podcast Episodes
My conversations with my friend Benjamin gave me valuable insight into my relationship with food. After my Mom died, I really lost my way with food. I ate to numb. I ate to grieve. I stuffed down a lot of feelings and overindulged my family with rich foods because I knew that I could easily show my love for them when I was in the deepest pits of depression. Also, I am the only female left in my family so eating around men (who eat fast & with volume) reinforced bad habits of binging and compulsive eating.
Episode 1: A First Course
Episode 2: The Main Course
Episode 3: Dessert
If you listen to these episodes, you can get a better understanding of my history with food. I really got into it!
Workout Routine:
As I said, the discipline of a workout routine is what jumpstarted the weight loss. Tracking my workouts with my monthly calendar template really helped.
Checking in with others (sharing my stats on my watch) really helped too.
You can read a little more about my workout routine.
I never had this discipline in my life and I am really proud of all of the work that I put in. Dance became really important in my life. I loved dancing as a kid so it’s one of the best ways to do my inner child healing work! It helps me work through a lot of my feelings instead of eating them.
You can see some of my favorite dance workout videos here.
YAY DANCE!
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Eating Meeting:
After my conversations about food on Look Just Tell Me What to Do, my friend Sam inspired me to check out a small/independent recovery group for overeaters. I’ve been attending it weekly since August 2022. I refer to it as the Eating Meeting. We meet each week and share our struggles and triumphs with food. Most of the group is older and female so I feel incredibly blessed to have mentors and guides through this process. Being able to talk about my relationship with food and gain perspective on that has been incredibly valuable on this journey. Yay accountability!
Food Adjustments
The biggest adjustments I have made this past year include lowering the importance of alcohol in my life and taking out the foods that cause me to compulsively eat.
I have been focusing on food being for NOURISHMENT, not for numbing.
That’s my word for the year – NOURISH
The questions I want to be able to answer:
- What is nourishing to/for me?
- How do I nourish myself?
- What is NOT nourishing?
- What is necessary for growth and health?
The foods that cause me to overeat include:
- bread
- crackers
- chips
- cereal
Whenever I ate those things (to excess!) I always felt bad about myself and it would start this whole rumination process of having to do penance or making it up at another meal. My brain goes WILD when I’ve had bread, crackers, and chips. The easiest way I said no to all of that was just to go gluten-free. I have experimented with bringing it back into my diet but I’m not sure it works with my body anymore. It causes inflammation and digestion issues. It also gives me brain fog. At this point I occasionally miss sandwiches, donuts and pizza but I’m fine without it.
I focus on all of the things I CAN eat instead.
Maybe I’ll make another post about that?
I still eat rice and potatoes. I have cheese. I eat meat when I’m craving it. I would say that my way of eating is kind of like WHOLE 30, but I have cheese and rice.
As a result, I haven’t added as much food content here on my blog in the past year which kinda bums me out. My most popular recipes are usually desserts or really indulgent things which is not healthy for me long term. What works best for me is eating the same things consistently. Having to come up with new recipes that fit in my new way of eating has been kind of challenging but now that I have made some lasting changes, I think I’m ready to get back to making new things. Meal prep has been super helpful as per usual.
(I mapped out what I eat in my binder system)
Here’s a post about what my GO-TO breakfasts are:
Gluten Free Lunch Ideas (what I eat for lunch!)
Gluten-Free Dinner Ideas (my favorite dinners this year)
There was also a piece that I had to unpack- that I can’t eat like everyone else and that’s okay!
The biggest lesson I have learned in this entire experience is this:
If your goal is to lose weight, have a workout routine, or nourish yourself, the bottom line is that you have to put the effort in. You can’t hope your way into getting fit without doing the work.
If you give yourself time to experience the discipline and magic in routine, you can get to where you want to be. Paying attention to how food makes you feel both mentally and physically is also super important.
I hope this inspires you to look at what small adjustments you can make towards a healthier version of yourself.
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help if you need an extra boost. Finding other people who have the same goals is a game changer. We all need a cheerleader. My Mom was mine and I’m pretty sure she would be proud of me for taking good care of myself.
Thanks for reading this post- about Shutterbean Weight Loss!
