Working My Ass Off

Feb '14, weighing 5kg LESS than Jan '15

It’s January 5, 2015 and I’m at the gym looking down in disbelief. How did this happen? How is it I gained so much when I had a whole thought-out and documented plan to get fit in 2014?

Bigger hips, a rounder ass, and fuller breasts would not have bothered me. Voluptuousness is stunning. There are so many women who naturally have the shape that made Marilyn Monroe so alluring. However, when I gain weight, I look pregnant. The pounds don’t go anywhere else. I can’t tell you how many well-meaning students in Asia asked me if I was going to have a baby and who just looked confused (rather than embarrassed) when I said I wasn’t. When I get fatter, my core feels heavy. It’s a constant state of bloat that doesn’t go away.

I began 2015 weighing more than I ever had in my life. 80.6kg. 177lbs. More than when I tried to lose weight before I turned 40 last year. The internet agreed that it was too much. It may not be enough to get on Biggest Loser, but if I continued the trend of gaining 10kg every two years, I could easily be contestant material in 10 years. Not to mention that my metabolism came to a screeching halt in the last couple of years and I don't imagine it will experience any resurgence.

How did it happen? That’s easy. After not meeting my goals by the time I turned 40 last July, I just gave up. After I finished the half-marathon in September and ticked that box, I secretly and consciously gave myself a pass to forget about it. I ran 13.1 miles without stopping!! Of course I deserved fish & chips and six different pints of craft beer. Weekly. Then there was the long weekend in Lyon in October where I ate nothing but butter laden dishes morning, noon, and night. Then winter came and with it fat-hiding jumpers and pyjamas put on when the sun sets at 4:00 pm.

There was the discovery of the Hungarian Chocolate Balls. Actually, I don’t know if they really are Hungarian or if they’re called Chocolate Balls, but what I do know is that they are sold in the shop next door and are possibly THE most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. For nearly two solid months I had one or two of those after dinner. Dinner which, though healthy-ish, involved several portions. Once a week there was half of an extra-large pizza delivered with fries, Cokes, and unnecessary dip. There were post-pub cheeseburgers, post-work cheeseburgers, and post-waking up cheeseburgers. There was cheese, Spanish ham, chorizo, and countless full-on taco nights.

Oh and Italy. Like the lover you know is going to wreck your life but whom you just can’t get enough of. The eleven days in December flowed by in a constant stream of pasta, pastries, pizza and mind-blowing foodgasms. Followed by Christmas and all its gloriousness. New Year’s Day came and went without resolutions. I felt so gross. My clothes didn’t fit. I started absent-mindedly stroking the beginnings of a double chin.

1 of about 3 pictures of me in Italy because I didn't want to see my body

And then I booked a trip to Iowa and made a plan. Lose 10kg (22lbs) before I go to Iowa in 16 weeks, but in a way that I would be able to maintain. In other words, “lifestyle changes” rather than starvation or kale cleanses. I narrowed down my bad habits to these three: 1) unnecessary sugar/desserts, 2) too big and too many portions, 3) alcohol. I started by eliminating the easiest one first, sugar and desserts. I’m more into savoury foods and usually just eat chocolate and sweet stuff because it’s there (as a result of living with a sugar addict). The first week back to work after the winter holiday, I was met with everyone trying to pawn off their leftover Cadbury’s from Christmas. There were mountains of chocolate on every staffroom table. I grit my teeth and resisted.

Every website I looked at dedicated to weight loss recommended keeping a food journal. I rolled my eyes at this, thinking it was so lame. But I was willing to do anything, so every evening for a month, I crawled into bed with the laptop, entered the data into my Word document, and calculated the calories. It made me accountable as for some reason, I felt it would be embarrassing to have to enter in “Hungarian Chocolate Balls”. And in order to be able to honestly enter “1 medium portion”, I started giving S a lot more than myself and putting a portion away for lunch the next day. I ate an orange for dessert and brushed my teeth soon after. Who wants to disrupt that clean and minty fresh mouthfeel?

Alcohol was trickier as I do love me some wine while I cook, but then I discovered that two glasses of wine has over 300 calories, which is like eating a big slice of cake or pizza. I could only have 1500 a day and it just didn’t fit into the calorie budget, so I *mostly* cut it out during the week.

When I tried to lose weight last year, I made Friday the “cheat day”, but somehow it always ended in a three day binge involving pizza. I decided cheat meals were acceptable but not entire days. And cheat meals could not involve sugar/desserts or fast food. The weekends are still my Achilles heel, but I’m getting better.

To help create the calorie deficit, I added more exercise to my routine and started walking to and from work every day, which is 45 minutes each way. It’s actually about the same time as the bus when you factor in walking to the bus stop and waiting for the bus (which is never on time).

The first week, I lost 1kg. That was all the motivation I needed to continue. I honestly think that if I hadn’t seen a result after the first week, I would have given up. I became a bit obsessed and spent hours looking at websites, searching for recipes, reading success stories, reading (often conflicting) articles about food and nutrition. It was a bit over the top, but motivating.

After a month or so, I noticed a shift in my thinking. During the first month, every time I walked past the countless pubs, restaurants, and chippers on my walk home, I felt a sense of sadness and longing. I felt I was being denied something that everyone else in the world got to do. Oh woe IS me. Why can’t I have a kebab or a pint with a side of crisps? Then I remembered my 20s. Long nights in bars, chain smoking and flirting with strangers. Jukeboxes, pool, and correcting the bad grammar of the graffiti in the toilets. I have no desire to go back to that lifestyle, fun as it often was. So couldn't bad food be like that? A thing of the past—a closed chapter? Not having a cheeseburger is not denying myself pleasure anymore than not going to night club is. I’ve had more than enough cheeseburgers in my life. I’ll always have fond memories of all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets and foot-long subs with extra mayo.

I reached the goal and the fact that I did is more satisfying than the thinness itself. When I do feel tempted by something I just remind myself how much exercise I would have to do to burn it off. 20 seconds of pleasure is not worth the 45 minutes of torture on the cross trainer machine. I definitely still indulge in naughtiness such as craft beer or pizza, but I figure out a way to make up for it. It’s a constant balancing act but the calculations have become almost automatic.

In the last two years, I've been astonished to discover that if I set a goal, I can accomplish it. I've never been a goal-oriented person. I drifted through university in a daze, found travel destinations by gut feelings, and have always approached work as a series of tasks to be done as efficiently and effectively as possible. But these goals of running and weight loss are physical and tangible.  I've never had big GOALS in the realms of my personal and creative life. If I could only figure out what these more elusive goals are, I might be able to start a plan to reach them....