There is a huge (pun intended) difference between a naturally thin person and a former obese person who is now thin! How do I know this you ask? Well I will tell you! In my opinion, naturally thin people are not as carb sensitive as those of us who are or were once obese. I watch my family and friends eat and I'm here to tell you, most do not exercise and most eat a fairly balanced diet. I don't' see them gaining weight when they go a little crazy with carbs. Evidently, I do.
Not to bore anyone, I won't retell my SI Joint horror story BUT, I will just say that for a period of about 10 weeks, I did not exercise. But I did eat. I continued to eat the way I had been eating for the whole time I've been in the maintenance phase.
Basically, my maintenance phase consisted of exercising 3-5 times a week for at least an hour each time and keeping my daily calories to roughly 1200. My goal weight was 155 and I've been steadily maintaining 142-144 without any problems. I had gotten down to 136 at one point but that was too hard to sustain. I did not have to pay attention to carbs and protein while maintaining, I just ate what I wanted....some days were carb heavy but most days were protein heavy.
During the period I could't exercise, although my calorie intake continued to be 1200, I somehow managed to put on a solid 7 lbs! (my fresh daughter will tell you it was also the period of my new bread machine! brat!!!) I am now weighing in at 149 which while still below my goal, is still too heavy for me. I did see 150 one day (yea, I'm a daily weigher!) and I almost fainted! My clothes are tight and I'm not comfortable. I've been back to the gym full-on for about 3 weeks but it wasn't until last week that I took a hard look at my almost-daily food journaling. My carb intake is just too damn high for me to lose weight!
So, last week I went back to basics and Im keeping my carbs under 50 grams and my protein over 60 grams. This is what I did to lose the weight in the first place.
My protein gram intake has easily been in the 80-100 range and surprisingly, my total calories are coming in under 1000. I am not beating myself up (today!) I'm just getting my head back in the losing game. I have said it many times, I may have won the battle but the war continues and when you don't pay attention, this is what happens.
I just recently read somewhere that a regain after losing the weight doesn't make us a 'failure', what it makes us are actually 'successful failures'! The analogy used the Challenger Shuttle disaster. That was truly a failure. However, I'm not sure which Shuttle it was, but one of them was on the platform in the countdown to lift-off phase and at 2 minutes to go, the computer detected a problem and shut everything down. The Shuttle didn't go up that day, no one was hurt, and it went up another day after whatever the problem was was fixed.
I am sure I am not relaying this exactly like I read it but what it was saying was that sometimes there are no do-overs but other times, we have the ability to fix something and get back on track. Make sense?
In other news....My surgeons office asked me if I'd consider being a 'model' for some billboard or something like that. I am still not sure. My initial reaction was HELL NO! However, after sleeping on it, I've decided to go for it. If nothing else, it will help in my motivation to lose these 7 pesky lbs by April 4th! Actually my goal is to lose 5 lbs by then. Wish me luck!
