In 2013 I lost a ton of weight fast. Here's why it didn't stick.
In 2013 I lost a bunch of weight. I didn't have a scale so I'm not exactly sure how much but I got skinny fast. The problem was, I gained it back. Then I went on another crash diet. Then I gained it back again.
Here's what went wrong.
I wasn't enjoying my food.
I was eating "keto" or "ketogenic" in combination with Tim Ferriss' "4-hour Body" method. It was too hard!
I would eat salmon, eggs, and kale for breakfast with olive oil. Then nibble on raw almonds and raw cacao nibs throughout the day. A salad with chopped chicken breast or thigh (cheaper!) for lunch. Dinner was typically a workout then some steamed broccoli with olive oil and maybe some cheese.
I don't enjoy eating this way! I had been a vegetarian since I was a little kid. I don't enjoy meat and eggs. I was trying it out because it was a miracle fix. It felt challenging. But in the end it couldn't last because it took too much willpower to force that food down my throat each day.
Now I enjoy my food and I eat what I want (except for sugar--see my end note about this). I eat slowly, and mindfully. I know what I like and don't like although I don't use this as an excuse to eat crap. I make salads and veggies I love.
I could either not be social or I’d feel guilty if I was.
"Sorry, I have to workout."
"Sorry, I can't eat that pizza with you. I'm going to go home and eat steamed broccoli by myself."
I was training for my first marathon, the Philadelphia Marathon in November 2013. I was running 3 to 4 times a week and going to CrossFit 2x a week. It was great to be in shape but the way I was doing it wasn't sustainable.
2013 after a month and half of NO CARBS.
It was an unhealthy obsession born out of self-loathing.
My inner voice would say things to me like, "you have to go to the gym because you're fat. No man will love you if you're fat," and "Run faster so you can finally prove how worthy you are to everyone."
I was not doing it to FEEL good for myself as much as I was trying to prove something to the world, namely, how worthy I was.
Now I know that worthiness comes from within. It's not based on how I look, how fast I run, or how skinny I am. It comes from being still, going inward, and tapping into an eternal spring we all have access to.
My habits were coming from the wrong place.
I was avoiding foods I enjoyed because I didn't know how to eat them mindfully. So instead I ate foods I didn't enjoy very much as a way to limit my portions.
Now I can eat one slice of pizza that I enjoy and feel satiated. I don't have to worry that I'll devour the whole pizza if I eat one slice.
The habit I really needed was now to listen to my body. What I did instead was punish and restrict my body.
Restriction diets never work.
When we punish ourselves, sooner or later our inner teenager rebels. We all have an "inner teenager" who wants to prove how in control we are and how "I can do anything I want!" When we restrict, it's like we're being a strict parent to ourselves. Our inner teenager hates this and just waits for moments to binge eat and prove that "I'll do what I want!"
Now I know that every action I take has to come from a place of self-love and compassion. I have to talk daily to my inner 6, 10, 14 and 16 year olds and ask them what they need and how they're feeling. "Are you feeling restricted, Little Ali? How does that feel? Are you angry? Upset? Tell me more about that." My inner nurturing voice takes the lead and nurtures all the other voices inside who are asking for my attention.
In this way I never have to rebel because I feel heard and seen.
I still thought that "more is better".
More workouts. Faster workouts. More intense workouts. More radical ways of eating. More dieting pills.
Add in, add in, add more, more...if a little is good then a lot is better.
The truth is, less is often more. Slowing down and doing less has treated me best.
Eat slower. Eat less. Take less pills/supplements. Drink less. Do less. This is what feels best. But in my cycles of addictive thinking, more seemed best. I was always trying to escape the present moment in a desperate search for a better next moment. That moment never came because there is only ever this present moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKIpCPS-oZc
The best movie clip ever on "doing less"
When we do less, we can be more present and this is the place from which we feel satisfied.
I still had magic bullet thinking.
I kept thinking that there was an exact prescription that could cure me. If someone could just tell me the exact amount of kale I needed to eat, then I'd be healthy.
Well, it doesn't work like that. There's no magic bullet cure-all.
Getting healthy takes time and patient, diligent practice. It is a combination of emotional health, the reduction of addictive habits, and self-care.
The diet and health-product industries would have us thinking we need to buy their products and THEN all will be cured! I tried them ALL.
probiotics
crash diets
4-Hour Body method
Paleo
Keto
Vegan
metabolism pills
crazy magic supplements
crazy intense (not sustainable) workout plans with celebrity fitness coaches
juicing
Master cleanse
None of this ever worked because most of this was "health gurus" (read= Woonatics) trying to sell me snake oil. I was fooled! But at least I learned what NOT to do. Don't make the same mistakes I did! Don't buy the magic pills or the magic weight-loss-fast diet program.
I was taking a lot of things in 2013, when this photo was taken. NOT. NECESSARY.
I was still binge eating.
The 4-Hour Body diet and another one I tried by a friend of Tim Ferriss' promoted this idea of binge eating one day a week--truly eating more calories than is healthy to eat all in one day.
"This doesn't seem healthy in my head space," I thought. Now I know for certain it's not. There's no need to restrict then binge, restrict, then binge.
True health comes from having a healthy mind every day of the week and eating the same, healthy way each time we eat.
I don't binge anymore because I can't. My body says no. When I feel full, I stop eating. My body says, "cool, we're done."
These other ways of eating, including the 4-Hour Body, said nothing about LISTENING TO MY BODY. That was the main problem the whole time!
Painful childhood experiences taught me to dissociate from my body. I look back and call myself "a floating head". I was in my head but not my body. I had no idea what my body felt like and when it felt full. The only thing that helped me was therapy, somatic healing (massage, etc), and reading the right books--the ones on healing and learning how the body works. My reading list is here, if you're curious. Also, yoga. Yoga has been proven in many studies by different researchers to help us be more present in our bodies, helping us get healthy.
If you are starting a diet or way of eating that promotes binge eating sometimes, run, don't walk the other way! Red flag for a snake oil salesman trying to steal your money!
I believed in snake oil > real medicine.
My belief in snake oil rememedies started in high school when I got one of the most painful skin illnesses ever: plantars warts. These are warts on the bottom of the feet. THEY. HURT. SO. FREAKING. BAD. It's like walking on a knife....every step!
I went to the regular doctor and they gave me a white paste to put on there and it kindof burned and they didn't go away. Also, I don't think I liked the doctor very much. Too cold.
Then a family member said, "I cured mine with colloidal silver and tree sap!" and gave me some extra. I used these "home rememdies" and my plantars warts went away. This was a family member I felt warmly about and I appreicated the loving attention.
It could be that the first medicine worked and by the time I tried the home remedy they were getting ready to go. It could be the very real "placebo effect" helped me heal and it could be the very real effect of healing after given loving attention.
The problem was, as a young person, I didn't understand that science based medicine matters. The reason the doctor prescribed that white paste was not arbitrary. He prescribed it because after testing it in trials, it was shown to WORK. The ones tested that were shown not to work, did not become medicine. The reason colloidal silver is not prescribed, is not a conspiracy by doctors. They don't prescribe it because it's never been shown to cure anything. Without science based medicine we would still be bloodletting and drinking beer to cure Vitamin C deficiency.
Many of us have a story like this in which a cold doctor ruined it for us and we got the nurturing, warm care of a well-intentioned person pettling snake oil. Warm care DOES heal, but we get the false impression that it's the snake oil curing us.
I finally read a couple of books on why science-based medicine matters and finally saw a real doctor and got prescribed Wellbutrin for my depression. This real, proven medicine works for me. It could still be the placebo effect but studies show it works better than a placebo.
I recommend diving into the website Science Based Medicine and the podcast The Skeptics Guide to the Universe for more on why evidence matters in medicine.
But isn't not eating sugar deprivation?
You may ask.
No. Because I don't consider sugar to be a food. It's a drug. It's the cocaine of food products. A green plant was taken and refined and refined into a white powder and then added to everything to make it addicting--to make us immediately crave more. It has no fiber and no micronutrients. It's not food.
And the proof is in the results. When I quit sugar I felt AMAZING. I didn't feel deprived. I felt happy, healthy, and whole.