It's Not That Hard!

https://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=6277456 

Way back in December 2016 over on the SparkPeople site I'd written a blog about the struggle to maintain weight loss as we get older.  And today, a good Spark friend BROOKLYN_BORN  dug out that old blog to comment on it at the ex-Sparkie google docs site. 

When I weighed 240 pounds back in 2000 (that was a typo in yesterday's blog -- I first lost the weight which I've kept off in 2000 and not 2020) I could actually eat "more" calories because I was burning a certain amount of fuel lugging around that excess 90 pounds.  Yeah.  Those extra pounds were just like carrying around, 24/7,almost 2 big bags of dog food: and pumping blood through it, too!!  Well, pretty clearly with my weight creeping up and up back then I was still eating more calories than I was burning but I COULD stay steady at the obese weight while eating more than I could eat after losing the weight. And another factor that made it possible for me to eat more then:  no question, my metabolism revved higher when I was younger -- when I was 50 in 2000.  Even when I was 65 in 2016.  

So back in 2016 I was wrestling with the reality that . . . I had to continue to eat MUCH less to sustain the weight loss as I got older.  Maybe 1200 to 1500 calories a day.  Max.  And of course I still do. Which means of course that as I get older I've got to be more and more conscious of packing optimal nutrition into almost everything I choose to eat. As metabolism slows, there is not much waste space for empty calories.  

But, I decided in 2016, although I was finding weight maintenance a struggle, it really wasn't that hard.  Specifically, it wasn't as hard as lugging around the excess weight 24/7!  And so at that point it was worth it to me to track calories: calories "in" for every item of food I ate, and calories "out" for the exercise I undertook pretty much every day -- very often at they gym, on the weights and cardio machines. 

Well, I hadn't read that 2016 blog for years: and it was fun to reread it and also to check out the comments from many Sparkies -- some of whom stayed with Spark to the "end" and others of whom departed at some point along the way. 

However, for the past couple years I've no longer been tracking calories in and out. Beginning in 2019, I began to experiment with intuitive eating, using the book of that name written by Tribole and Resch.  Intuitive eating meaning that I eat when I am hungry (the good stuff, though: whole minimally processed mainly plant-based foods, not junk food) and stop just before I'm full.  And keep my body moving every day, so long as it feels good: but not to the point of exhaustion.  The "two hour" rule works well for me: two hours of gardening, or two hours walking Henry my golden retriever in total, or two hours of XC skiing or golfing or kayaking or  . .. some combo thereof! Yup, housework works well!  Today I was cleaning my elderly Volvo, inside and out: and that was quite a vigorous session! I also regularly do a quick routine of body weight exercises; four sets of 10 "pushups" (really "plank dips), sit ups, mountaineers, squats.  Followed by a pretty elaborate yoga based stretch and balance routine: probably the most important of all! 

I do a little intermittent fasting too -- generally not eating between 6 pm and noon the following day: mostly because when I pay attention to how I'm feeling, it's apparent that I'm just not usually hungry at that time. There's plenty of interesting info out there about intermittent fasting: Dr. Jason Fung (a Canadian nephrologist/diabetes expert) has quite a lot of useful (and free) material in his website. 

But: beyond the techniques of intuitive eating and gentle exercise and intermittent fasting:  my focus these days is much more on taking care of myself.  Less "disciplining" myself, less  "motivating" myself, less "efforting", less "setting goals and achieving them".  Really, intuitive eating and intermittent fasting aren't even as hard as calorie counting. Not even that hard!  More just trusting myself to listen to myself and respond accordingly, in the moment.  

And my weight?  Not my absolute "lowest achievable" and like most women I'd always like to be about 10 pounds thinner!  But the body that results from this combo of nutrition and movement is good enough.  Acceptable. My clothes fit. I'm feeling comfortable in my skin. My fitness tracker signals most days that I am not stressed! 

It's all an experiment of one.  What works for me now clearly wasn't effective in the past and might not work for me later. . . but right now, in the present, it's making me pretty happy! And that picture was taken at our first golf game on Prince Edward Island earlier this spring!