Vindrea's Diary

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Vindrea

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Hello everyone! :) This is my first entry here, and my first diary as well! I was a lurker here for quite a while, reading other people diaries and posts, until I gathered my courage and decided to register.
I have never done any documentation online of my weight loss, so this all is new to me. Everyone seems very nice and supporting here and that also motivated me to register. Some info about me:

* I'm 28, female
* My height is 167 cm
* My current weight is 76 kilos.

According to my BMI I'm about 6 kilos overweight. My goal is to reach 60 kilos, and after that see if I need to loose more.

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A bit of my background if anyone's up for a story time:

I was always on a bit chubby side. Only when I was little, maybe up to 12 years of age, I was so skinny that my family nick named me 'little ant' :) When I was a teenager I started to gain weight as my body was developing. I always was the most 'feminine' from all my classmate girls. At the age of 14-15 I had problems with my menstrual cycle and was prescribed contraceptives. It helped to regulate the cycle, but I also gained a lot of weight. At school I dealt a lot with bullying and kids making fun of my appearance and my shyness. And at home I was the only child, so my parents allowed me everything, especially eating whatever I want and as much as I want. We never ate fast food, but I was constantly overeating of whatever my mom used to make, plus there was always sweets around.

We didn't have any scales at that time, so I don't know for sure what my weight was. When I was 17-18 (we finally got the scales, yay!) I weighted about 75 kilos. I started to really worry about my appearance and that's when all the self-hate and dieting started. I lost about 10 kilos at that time, but I wasn't feeling healthy. There were few times when I tried forcing myself to throw up after a meal, but luckily it never became a habit. I remember when I finished high school and got into uni, my weight has returned to what it was. During my last year of studying I got back to dieting and skipping dinner, and at the end of the year I weighted 60 kilos.

At 22 I found a job in another city. I had to move out from my parents and rent a one bedroom apartment. It was a stressful office job - sitting all day in front of computer and eating irregularly. I was trying my best to stick to my old routine (eating little amounts, skipping dinner), but I still gained few kilos back. I have to say I was in a very unhealthy relationship with myself. I didn't love myself, every time I would look into a mirror I wanted to cry. All I could see were flaws and how disgusting I was. Everything was wrong. I had an awful job, I was single for more than 2 years and that didn't help with my self esteem.

When I was 24 my weight was around 70 kilos. At that time I met my current boyfriend and a year later we moved in together. It's because of him, first time in my life I was able to look at myself differently. He loves me the way I am and he never cared about my weight and always was patient with compliments of how beautiful I am. It helped a lot with my confidence, knowing there is a person who accepts me and supports me no matter how I look. I got so relaxed about myself being with him, I completely ignored my weight. We ate whatever we wanted (fast food, chips, sweets, beer once in a while) and I have to say it felt really good! But of course it couldn't last forever. Last year during spring ( about 2 years after my last weight check) I felt most of clothes don't fit, and sure enough - my weight was 82 kilos. I was heaviest I've ever been.

I started to panic, but my boyfriend calmed me down saying if we work together- we can fix this (he also gained about 10 kilos). We completely quit added sugar and meat, and ate only vegetarian/vegan meals. At the end of last summer my weight dropped to 74 kilos and I felt amazing! And it's all because this time I tried to be smart about my weight loss - I ate 3 times a day, plus snacking in between. I ate full meals and included variety of beans, wholegrains, seeds, nuts and loads of vegetables and fruits. When autumn came we kinda neglected our new eating habits and got back to eating unhealthy. We had a lot of stress at that time with our jobs, money, plus there were problems with our landlord and we had to change our apartment. Healthy food was last thing on my mind.

On New years day I promised myself that this year I will loose weight for good and will stick with it. I'm 28 years old and my whole life I was dealing with weight issues and distorted view of myself. When I was younger I always surrounded myself with dreams of how slim and healthy I want to be, and I always believed that in the future I will be able to reach it. I think the future has come and it's time I need to do this, or else I will continue to dream and feel sorry for myself... I wan't to establish a healthy relationship with food. I already feel that last year was a good start, I lost about 8 kilos at that time and it was pretty easy and fun (compared to dieting and skipping meals).

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My current plan for weight loss is:

* Eating 2-3 full meals a day. Sometimes I don't have time to have a lunch at work, but I always have one or two bananas, one apple and a good handful of nuts on hand. It's enough to fill me up.
* No added sugar, eating only fruits
* Reducing cooking oil intake (1-2 tbs per day)
* 3 liters of water per day
* Only one cup of coffee per day (I add no sugar, but I do add almond milk)
* I do not plan to count my calories (I used to in the past and it's an absolute burden for me)
* Regulating my meal portions. I use medium size plates and the amount I eat is enough for me to feel full, but not stuffed. But I do have a habit when finishing my plate - go and take a second one. I want to stop doing that.
* Choosing healthy options if I want to snack - fruit, nuts, rice cakes etc.
* Exercising. I'm extremely lazy when it comes to exercising, I don't enjoy it, especially when you can't see any results that fast. But I decided to exercise 3 times per week at home using weights that I have (I have 1 and 3 kg dumbbells and a weight rod with 1, 2, 5, 10 and 15 kilo weights), plus I have an exercise mat, stability ball and resistance bands. I have a lot of stuff, I just need to start using it lol! I want to exercise a specific region for a day ( one day I'm exercising my upper body, second day - my middle body, and third day - my lower body). I want to do it in this way because I'm looking for a way to not get overwhelmed with pressure and to not get bored. Later I want to register at a gym, but not for now. My main goal is to just start exercising and make a habit out of it.
* Getting 7-8 hours of sleep per day

I started this plan last week when I weighted 77 kilos (didn't exercise yet though), and today I checked my weight - 1 kilo is gone. Of course I should weight myself at the end of the month for a more accurate numbers, but I am still very happy :)
I guess that's it for this first entry. I do apologise for any inconsistency in my sentences. English is not my first language and I do struggle when writing larger chunks of text.

Any thoughts, opinions and suggestions are more than welcome! I will update this diary at least once a week and share current results and how everything is going :)
 
Hi Vindrea and welcome to the forum! I LOVE your plan and I'm very glad you've come to realize you're a wonderful, worthy person and you have a partner who agrees. Best of luck!
 
Hi @Vindrea! Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your story with us! Your plan looks great and well thought out. Just want you to know that we all believe in you and that you can do anything you set your mind too!

Don't hesitate to ask any questions or for advice along the way. Accountability and support is so important in weight loss journeys! I wrote a post I think may help you out with your new plan!

Hope that helps a bit. But other than that I believe in you Vindrea and know you will achieve your goals! :)
 
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Hi @Vindrea! Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your story with us! Your plan looks great and well thought out. Just want you to know that we all believe in you and that you can do anything you set your mind too!

Don't hesitate to ask any questions or for advice along the way. Accountability and support is so important in weight loss journeys!

Hope that helps a bit. But other than that I believe in you Vindrea and know you will achieve your goals! :)

Thanks a bunch for your welcome and support, Kelli! I really hope I will be able to stick with my plan. One thing is to write it down, and the other - to follow it thoroughly. But I feel this forum is going to be a huge motivation to not give up and continue. I feel inspired just by reading other posts, and now I started my own diary! :)

Your website is wonderful and I've read the link you shared, thanks a lot :)
 
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So today I had only about 5 hours of sleep. Went to bed at around 4 am and woke up around 10 am. We have some urgent tasks at work that we need to finish asap, so I was staying at home from monday and working full day and even night on monday and tuesday. I feel exhausted. Luckily I finished all the stuff today, so now I can go to sleep like a normal human being! My work allows me to work from home whenever I want and that is both a plus and a minus. A minus mostly because I'm really bad at organizing my work hours. I push my tasks till evening and then I have to spend the night working on what I could have done during the day. It's like being a student all over again.

I haven't done a lot of exercising as I planed to yesterday. I did some upper back stretches and short exercises before bed, because I get neck and shoulder pain if I work long hours, even if I try to hold a good posture and take short breaks every hour. But these exercises help a lot, and the pain has reduced in the last few weeks. I do them every evening.

Today was also very sunny. A nice positive break from the rest of the days that were gloomy, mixed with rain and snow and overall just felt 'meh'. And it's amazing I couldn't go out and enjoy the day for at least few minutes because I'm glued to my work.

* My breakfast was two hard boiled eggs, half of avocado, almost half a plate of cucumber, spring onions, hemp seeds, a teaspoon of greek yogurt, herbs and a black bread slice (not wholegrain, our small grocery store near by apparently didn't have any wholegrain breads). I love breakfast like that, it looks cool on a plate and it tastes delicious.

* My lunch was two bananas and a small apple.

* On the evening we made tortilla wraps. We make them almost every evening since last week lol. It's our number 1 meal for the evening at the moment. And it takes like 15 minutes to make. Cooking rice is the longest part. For the filling I used chopped lettuce and cucumber. Also in a pan I cooked sliced tofu, red paprika, brown rice, beans, sliced leek and added some cumin. For the sauce I used vegan mayo, salsa, garlic and herbs. These tortillas are so delicious it feels we can't get enough. I wonder when we're going to get tired of them.
 
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Hi Vindrea & welcome to the forum. I loved your introductory post & love your plans & also love that you have come to the realization that you are well worth loving & looking after. I'm sure you will succeed in becoming healthy & fit. It's much easier when you are not being hard on yourself. If English is not your first language I must say your grasp of it is excellent!
 
Hi Vindrea & welcome to the forum. I loved your introductory post & love your plans & also love that you have come to the realization that you are well worth loving & looking after. I'm sure you will succeed in becoming healthy & fit. It's much easier when you are not being hard on yourself. If English is not your first language I must say your grasp of it is excellent!

Thanks a bunch for your welcome Cate! :)
 
A little bit of update.

I checked my weight today and it's 76 kilos. I was worried it to be higher because last weekend we visited my parents and ate some delicious but heavy food that they cooked for us, bless them. However I refused desserts and drank a lot of water , I'm very glad I didn't give up for temptations.

I didn't do a lot of exercising yet, I either forget or I'm stuffed with work. There's been so little time in these weeks. I know I shouldn't be looking for excuses, if I really wanted to exercise - I would find at least few minutes. But maybe that's the thing, I'm not really looking forward to it. And the more I don't do it, the more I guilt trip myself. Argh.. Today! I will do it today!

I'm glad at least we walk a lot. My work office is on top of a hill and I always choose the stairs to climb it. It's high enough to make me out of breath when I reach the top. I've been doing so for a few months now. Me and my bf go for a walk often too, especially when the weather is good. Also in the last few days our lift was broken and we live on the 7th floor. Oh what joy it was to climb to 7th floor carrying grocery bags and wearing thick winter coats. But in a way I'm glad that happened.

Another thing I keep on thinking, is that I keep on overeating. I'm cautious about it and I still do it. I tried drinking half a liter of water before eating ( one time I think I drank a full liter!) and while it does make me full and I do eat less, but maybe 20-30 minutes after I'm hungry again ('Half hungry' if that makes sense, but still hungry). It's annoying and I'm not sure if it's even normal. I tried to cover that feeling with more water, but it digests so quickly and I'm still feeling hungry. I don't want to start snacking on nuts or fruits right after I had my main meal, it's usually my 'in-between meals' thing.

If I don't drink water and eat until I'm full, I can control my hunger later, which comes out few hours after and it's not that wild. If I drink water before a meal and I eat less - the hunger is more ravenous and I can't stop thinking about it. I'm a bit lost at this point what to do. At least most of what we eat is vegetables and grains, so it's not that I'm overeating junk food. We started to eat steam cooked vegetables every other day for dinner. And I love it. It fills me up and I love the taste of vegetables cooked that way, plus it looks so nice on a plate if I don't overcook it of course. I serve additionally some brown rice or chickpeas. Of course we didn't give up on tortilla wraps yet lol, but I stopped adding any sauces for my wraps.

I'm a little bit sad my weight didn't budge at least a little bit since my last weight in. But I'm trying to focus more on what I'm eating and avoiding unhealthy things, and not numbers on a scale. Of course if my weight will remain the same in the next months, I'm doing something wrong lol. My next goal is to exercise (!!!) and somehow find a way to not overeat.
 
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Heeeey :D I'm a newcomer as well, and this is the first time i'm commenting on someone elses diary! I identify a lot with your story, because i've been chubby my whole life too... Although my parents always tried to make me eat healthy food, i'm a very picky eater, and at times they just wanted me to eat something and i would eat whatever felt good to me (fries, chicken nuggets, cereal, bread, pasta... nooo vegetables!). I'm 158cm and, as of yesterday, i weighted 69,4 kg. My highest weight was 71kg, although i think i was heavier in highschool (nut much, but like 1/2kg) but i didnt really care. I'm trying to reach 58kg.

Reading your diary, as well as others here on this forum, has helped with my motivation, especially about exercising (not really a fan either). I hope it does the same to you!
 
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