How did I lose weight and keep it off?
I struggled with my weight for what seemed like an eternity.
And now as I stand on the other side - happy, healthy and slim - and experiencing a king of food freedom I didn't even know was possible, I'm still trying to piece together how it finally came together for me.
How did this sad chubby girl....
And unhappy, frumpy 28 year old...
Finally arrive at happy, healthy and slim?
Well, it certainly didn't happen overnight!
2018 Weight Watchers Program Updates (US Freestyle, UK Flex)
The process is similar to what I experienced with my chronic low back pain and sciatica more than a decade ago.
For what seemed like forever I was in misery, slithering out of bed onto a heating pad to begin my day, limping around and attending yoga classes regularly in search of relief.
And then one day, after months and months, I woke up and realized my back no longer hurt. I'm not sure how long the pain was gone before I became aware of it.
Martha McKinnon's Weight Watchers Story: Part 1
Martha McKinnon's Weight Watchers Story: Part 2
Martha McKinnon's Weight Watchers Story: Part 3
More on How Did I Lose Weight and Keep it Off
The same thing happened with my weight...
After decades of struggle, I woke up one day and realized I was slipping into clothes smaller that I had ever worn and seeing a number on the scale I had never thought possible.
I was finally free of the food anxiety that had been my constant companion for decades.
And truthfully I am still trying to piece together exactly what happened, so bear with me as I try to make sense of it all.
I remember reading a famous yoga teacher's comment that if you just kept doing your yoga practice what needed to come into your life would and what needed to leave would, without struggle and strife, but I'm not sure I ever really believed it.
And it's not as though my road to food freedom was without effort. I could fill a book with all the things I've tried:
- Subsisting on salad, fruit and cottage cheese
- Hours of step aerobics and cardio equipment
- Personal trainers
- Gym memberships
- Weight Watchers
- Diets and more diets (South Beach, Atkins, Sommersize, Fat-Flush, Flat Belly, Sugar Busters, etc.)
- "Slimming" herb teas
- "Fat burning" supplements
- Yoga
- Walking
- Nutritional counseling
- Healthy cooking classes in conjunction with The Natural Gourmet Institute
- A year of nutrition school at IIN
- A 20-week Psychology of Eating tele-course
- Self-hypnosis
- Reading countless books on emotional eating, intuitive eating, mindful eating
How Did I Lose Weight and Keep it Off - The Ingredients
I cobbled together my own customized weight loss approach. The major components include:
1. Yoga. I credit yoga for making everything in my life better. Change begins with awareness and yoga helped me wake up and pay attention to my body and my mind in a whole new way, both on and off the mat.
My yoga practice helped me reconnect with my body's hunger and satisfied signals allowing me to be a much more conscious eater.
I learned to stop fearing my hunger and befriend it instead, which was a huge step for someone who ate all the time to prevent feeling hungry. I let myself get hungry and learned that it wasn't life threatening. Now I like to feel hungry before I eat. Food tastes so much better when you are hungry.
By learning what hunger felt like I was able to learn what it felt to be satisfied and not stuffed. I rarely eat past full any more. In the past, I almost always ate too much which left me feeling bloated and miserable for hours.
Yoga also helped me develop self compassion, patience and persistence, qualities that are integral to making lasting changes. I've let go of the need to be perfect and have instead focused on doing my best. And I've learned how to move that little voice in my head with her constant negative chatter way into the background, where she can do very little harm.
Thanks to yoga I move more. I do yoga regularly. I teach yoga. And because I realize how much my body enjoys movement, I walk nearly everyday.
2. Weight Watchers. I credit Weight Watchers with opening my eyes to the importance of portion control, setting goals and becoming accountable. I needed structure before I could find freedom, if that makes sense. I needed a program to bring order to my very disordered way of eating. I remember a yoga teacher saying once, "From strength and structure comes flexibility." I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but I've come to believe that true freedom is a byproduct of discipline, true flexibility a byproduct of strength.
Keeping a food journal, becoming aware of my patterns, learning what a reasonable portion looked like and trading in my highly processed, refined carb heavy diet for a healthy balanced one were necessary steps for me. It helped me connect with how different foods made me feel after eating them.
I'm glad I did Weight Watchers back when it was a selection-based program because I learned about the number of servings of starch, protein, dairy, fruits and vegetables that were reasonable for me.
Through it I learned that my body responds extremely well to small amounts of starch - 3 to 5 servings a day. I'm not sure this balanced approach to healthy eating is so clear with the Points approach.
But for Weight Watchers to really work for me, I had to change the way I worked with it. In the beginning, I believe it contributed to my food compulsions and obsessions. Or maybe it's just the part of the process of learning a new way of being. Having my food limited made me extremely uncomfortable, so I learned to tell myself that I could have anything and everything I wanted. With nothing "off limits" I was able to calm down and relax.
3. French Women Don't Get Fat. My relationship with food changed forever the first time I went to France. Reading about the eating philosophy espoused in this popular book helped me embrace the concepts of slowing down and savoring my food and choosing "real" food over "diet" food that I was introduced to in Paris. The more I have weaned myself from low-fat, low-sugar, low taste, low-satisfaction, processed food, the more my cravings have subsided.
I love to celebrate with food, but in a happy, healthy, balanced way. Food used to be my primary source of joy. I was out of balance. Now I have lots of sources of pleasure and joy in my life, and food, while wonderful, is no longer primary.
4. Mindless Eating. This book changed the way I look at food forever and may have had the biggest impact of all.
I'm not sure that it would have been as strong an influencer decades ago. And since there is no going back, I'll never know for sure.
The book helped me see that I'm not broken, I'm merely human. Being around food will cue our desire to eat.
By following it's suggestions, I've found easy ways to manage my "mindless eating habits" with dozens of strategies including using smaller plates and bowls and keeping trigger foods out of sight.
By embracing the belief that, "The best diet is the one you don't know you are on," I have been able to lose those last few pounds in a way that has felt easy and effortless, and dare I say, fun?
What Makes My Weight Loss Different This Time?
I've lost weight and gained it back dozens of times before, but this time feels very different. I've already kept the weight off through life-challenges that would have derailed me previously, including the death of my dad that was preceded by nearly a month spent in his hospice room which was situated just across from the kitchen where goodies were always available and volunteers made regular rounds offering freshly baked cookies.
I finally feel like a normal eater. I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am not. I rarely eat past full. My cravings have disappeared. I am comfortable throwing food away. I can co-exist with chocolate, cookies and ice cream. A pint of ice cream can last in the freezer for weeks and sometimes forms ice crystals before it is finished! (This still astonishes me when it happens.)
I am still facing menopause, something that I was really worried about several years ago. Now I believe that millions of women all over the world make this transition easily and naturally. I hope to be among them. And if not, I'm cautiously optimistic that I have the tools to cope with whatever life has in store.
I'm far from perfect. I still get tripped up at times, but never for long. Food has lost its power over me. I am free at last. And what is most exciting, is realizing that if I figured it out, YOU CAN TOO!
You can make peace with food while finding your naturally slim weight and living a happy, healthy life. The key is to be persistent and incredibly patient with yourself.
Watch Martha Tell Her Own Weight Watchers Success Story
Martha McKinnon's Weight Watchers Story: Part 1
Martha McKinnon's Weight Watchers Story: Part 2
Martha McKinnon's Weight Watchers Story: Part 3
If you liked How Did I Lose Weight
French Weight Loss Secrets
An Essential Weight Loss Ingredient
The Best Exercise for Weight Loss
How I Became a Weight Watchers Lifetime Member
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Linda
Thank you for this post and also for your insightful and amazing blog! I have been following your blog for the past several months--thank you thank you thank you for excellent recipes, sound philosophy on all food issues and the courage to write as you have today. I am right on the cusp of many of these perceptions and find your writing to be very encouraging. Thanks for sharing your journey with us--
Martha McKinnon
Linda.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I tend to be a private person, so I appreciate you recognizing what it took for me to write today's post. My goal is to encourage, you and other's who are on the cusp, to stick with it! By being kind to yourself and sticking with it, you too will find your way to food freedom. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.
Andrea
Great inputs, Martha. I have been enjoying your blog - not quite sure where I came across it but I find it to be honest and refreshing - no gimmicks but thoughtul insights. I am always on a quest for better health and my weight, while not considered overweight, is always a struggle for me. I am in that mental mind game right now, needing and wanting to buckle down and stay on track but other mental struggles are telling me to eat! eat the ice cream, the cookie, the pizza...
And I know its ok to eat some of those, but I feel like I am eating it far too often. I just downloaded the mindful eating book,,,and anxious to check it out. Also, I am from the Phoenix area too! Though living in Taipei for a few years for work - it adds to my challenge of eating as some of my go to items from home are just not as available here, so have to look for alternatives. I normally can figure it out, but certainly miss popping into Safeway or Trader joes!
Martha McKinnon
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for your comment. I completely relate to the mental food struggles you describe. I think it's natural to comfort ourselves with food and living in a foreign country could easily exacerbate this tendency. I'm currently in Paris and just read another powerful book on the flight over. It's called, "How to have your cake and your skinny jeans too: Stop Binge Eating, overeating & Dieting For Good. Get the Naturally Thin Body You Crave from the Inside Out. It's by Josie Spinardi. You may find it as insightful as I did. She believes the answer is stop dieting and instead, reconnect with our natural instincts, with a concept called, "Hunger Directed Eating," another name for "Intuitive Eating." She addresses several of the issues that appear to have been overlooked in other books I've read on the topic, including many of those addressed in Mindless Eating as well as the challenges of the "hunger" feelings brought on by eating too many refined carbs.
How much longer will you be in Taipei?
Kimberly A. Herter
Hi Martha,
I came across your website by accident.. It is truly wonderful... I'm struggling with
my weight and was considering joining weight watchers..The money of course stops
me from joining.. Do you still think it is worth trying? Or should I just count calories?
Also, for exercise.. Do you really only walk and do yoga? You look amazing.. I've been
walking and do strength training.. I keep reading at my age (52) that women need to
strength train with heavy weights.. I've have a short yoga dvd I enjoy.. but can yoga
really strengthen muscles like weight training??
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks for your information.. Kimberly
Martha McKinnon
Hi Kimberly,
Thanks for your comments. When I first joined Weight Watchers, I had reached to point where I was desperate to change so was willing to do whatever I needed to come up with the money for Weight Watchers. I saw it as an investment that I needed to make. Of course, everyone's situation is different. So, only you can know whether counting calories is enough or if you need to pay for a program, like Weight Watchers. The great thing with Weight Watchers is that once you become a lifetime member you can continue to attend for free as long as you stay within 2 pounds of your goal weight.
Yes, right now, I only do yoga and walk. I have done weights in the past and may do them again in the future as I need to but I am stronger now than I have ever been in my life thanks to yoga, which involves using my body weight to build strength poses such as plank and lots of sun salutations.
Again, everyone is different. There is no one way; just the way that is best for you, which changes over time.
Warmly,
Martha
Kimberly A. Herter
Hi Martha,
Thanks so much for the advice. I think I'm also at that desperate
point in my life where I've had a enough. I'm actually joining WW
today.. I need help on all fronts.
Thanks for the advice about yoga. I'm starting to really like it. It's
very hard though, harder than weight training. I want to feel strong
and if yoga can help me look even a little like you, I'm willing to
give it a try.
Kimberly
Martha McKinnon
Hi Kimberly,
Congrats on your decision to take action and join Weight Watchers and give yoga a try. Yoga really is a lot harder than people realize but I love it. I wish you lots of success!!
Martha