50 pounds<\/a>. In it I chronicled the path I walked to lose 50 pounds from my high point of 237 pounds just prior to my second pregnancy in 2020. At the time, I acknowledged my belief that the magic bullet was breastfeeding, since that bought me a 500 calorie deficit every day without changing diet or behavior. I was right. If I look at my weight over the past two years, it started climbing up from 187 when I stopped breastfeeding at the end of 2021. For all of 2022 I was hovering around 205, and this year it’s been around 210. They say that most people have a “set point” where your body kind of naturally settles, and for me that seems to be at 210. If I eat decently and do my regular clean-the-house-and-chase-kiddos-around exercise routine I stay around 210. If I eat excessively or make other bad choices about my diet, it goes up. If I make major positive changes to my diet, it goes down.<\/p>\nStill, I don’t like this set point and I’d like to change it. I liked how I looked and felt when I weighed less. As I squeeze into my jeans and frown at how Medium unisex shirts hang on me now, I’m unhappy. It’s also not healthy for me, I am at high risk for Type 2 Diabetes, and that’s nothing to play around with. My A1C levels are OK for now, but that could change if I’m not diligent about my diet and exercise level.<\/p>\n
But mental health plays a role here too. I am a stress\/comfort eater. I love white rice and sugar. Carbs are my best buds. I still crave soda. I have a better grasp on how these things impact me. White rice? Sends my blood sugar through the roof! And yes, I know how much sugar is in a soda. But in the moment, it doesn’t really seem to help. I really, really want that piece of cake. It does lift my mood slightly, and in those tough moments when I’m really struggling, it’s a shortcut that I have been taking a little too often lately.<\/p>\n
Having a look at that blog post, there are a few other things I’ve been leaning a bit too far into.<\/p>\n
I started adding in fast food sides<\/strong> again, because french fries and jalapeno poppers are tastey! But honestly they aren’t that<\/em> good and I should probably switch back to healthier sides, or no sides at all.<\/p>\nSoda<\/strong>. I haven’t gotten to the point of buying it for home, but I’ve come close, and I’ve had it while eating out a few times recently. I just need to put a stop to that. I have my flavored sparkling water and Hop Tea!<\/p>\nI keep eating too much<\/strong>. I need to stop when I’m satisfied, not when the pizza is gone. Do I want that slice of cake? Cool. But I don’t need to finish it<\/em> if I’m feeling better! And news flash: I can throw it away if it goes bad and I haven’t felt like eating it.<\/p>\nSpeaking of cake, there’s been too much dessert<\/strong>. Moderation, lady! Bedtime cookies are not necessary, and easy enough to skip and just go to bed without thinking about them again.<\/p>\nIf I do all of the above, I think I can put a stop to my weight continuing to increase. From there, I can tackle the weight loss<\/em> question again, if I find I need to.<\/p>\nHonestly, what I’m most hoping for is an improvement in my mental health. My life is overloaded with responsibilities right now, and I feel like I’m drowning all the time. Staying disciplined with a diet that doesn’t necessarily help my mood has proven impossible under these circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I weighed in at 212 pounds this morning. I’m not pleased about that, but it’s worth writing about. Two years ago I wrote a blog post titled 50 pounds. In it I chronicled the path I walked to lose 50 pounds from my high point of 237 pounds just prior to my second pregnancy in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16835"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16843,"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16835\/revisions\/16843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/princessleia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}