- Pursuit of Felicity -: 'Eat Yourself Clean' - My weight loss/gain journey.

Hey guys!

Today I thought I'd take a moment to share with you all my weight loss/weight gain journey, and how I eventually came to realise that weight is just a number and not an indication of my overall health and fitness. As I never cared to know about my weight before I hit puberty, I will start telling this story from back when I can first remember being weighed during my 8th grade health class. ?

Please keep in mind that my?interpretation?of 'weight loss' and 'weight gain' may vary from your own, and that I am also writing from the perspective of a teenager/young adult who had no idea what it really meant to be healthy until just a few months ago.?


12 - 17 years old: ?All throughout high school I was a stable, comfortable and healthy weight of 49kg. ?I wasn't eating especially healthy during this time, however I was eating 5-6 balanced meals per day and doing light exercise?(walking, dancing, playing school sports etc) fairly regularly.


17 - 18 years old:? By age 17 my Narcolepsy symptoms had started taking their toll and as a result I gained 6 kg's. ?I stopped eating breakfast, ate very little during the day, and would often fall asleep during dinner. I drank 2-3 glasses of soft drink every day, and would devour whole pizzas after my 2 hour shifts at our local pizza shop twice a week (I could literally only work for 2 hours at a time because my Narcolepsy symptoms were so bad). ?I was obviously a lot less active as well, so I had no way of burning off the crap that I was eating. ?I wasn't actually bothered about this weight gain at the time though (probably because I wasn't weighing myself on a regular basis to even notice) but I do remember certain people commenting on how great it was that I was finally a "normal" weight or how nice it was to see me with some "skin on my bones". ?Even though I didn't consider myself abnormal at my previous weight (and I wasn't), I decided to take these comments in a positive way and continued to eat in this unhealthy manner as though I was doing myself a favour. ?In hindsight I can see that those comments were completely uncalled for - there was nothing unhealthy about the way I looked as a young, active teenager!
18 - 19 years old:? A week before my eighteenth birthday I was diagnosed with Narcolepsy and prescribed amphetamines to take 3 times a day. ?My eating habits hadn't changed (aside from switching soft drink to cordial - not that cordial is any better of course), yet within 5 months I was down to 45kg. ?Admittedly my medication had given me the ability to be more active again, but I honestly don't believe that this sudden and dramatic weight loss could simply be the result of being able to get out of bed and walk around more. ?I know that sometimes amphetamines can decrease a persons appetite and cause you to lose weight that way, but if anything my appetite was better than before! ?I'll never know for sure why I lost 10kg overnight, although I suspect that my meds were somehow able to boost my metabolism.
19 - 21 years old:? By around the time that I was 20 years old I had managed to gain a few kilos back and was once again sitting at my initial weight of 49kg. ?I think I may have developed a slight eating disorder at this point though, because after moving out of home for the first time (I moved into one of the apartments at my Uni for 6 months), I distinctly remember depriving myself of food to see if I could get back down to 45kg. ?Whilst a part of me knew that 45kg was a bit too thin (my hip bones were so prominent that I would physically hurt myself if I gently bumped into things) I still wanted to be that number. ?Anyway.. much to my dismay I couldn't seem to get below 49kg again (probably because I started gaining muscle mass from working in my new job at the bottle shop), so I started eating better and going to the gym instead. ?Although this new approach didn't allow me to lose weight either (I ended up gaining a couple of kilos), the process of eating healthy and exercising regularly helped to change my mindset about what my ideal weight should actually be. ?Looking back, I can honestly say that I felt the best I've ever felt about my physical appearance at that point in time. ?I was (somewhat) fit, toned and slim.. and after I changed my eating habits I was healthy as well. :)
21 - 23.5 years old:??Once I was happy with my weight again, I started slacking off when it came to the gym and eventually cancelled my membership. ?Shortly afterwards I moved to the Gold Coast with my partner, Ben, and to cheer myself up when I was feeling lonely (as I'd moved away from most of my family and friends) I would over indulge in sugary treats like chocolate, apple pie and ice cream. ?For a while there I was able to eat all of this stuff without gaining weight, but before I knew it the numbers starting rising, and by the time I was 23 and a half I was sitting on 57kg. ?Now if, like I once did, you determine how healthy you are on your weight alone, then you're probably thinking that 57kg sounds perfectly fine as I was still within the normal range for my BMI (Body Mass Index). ?I didn't feel fine though. ?I felt tired (more than usual), sluggish, bloated and incredibly uncomfortable. ?I felt like I was carrying a medicine ball around in my stomach. ?I was "skinny" fat. :(
23.5 years old - now:? At the beginning of this year, after following a few clean eating and fitness accounts on instagram, I finally got the kick in the arse I needed to start eating healthy again. ?Towards the end of February my friend Bianca asked me if I'd like to join the gym with her, and as our local gym had a decent deal on at the time, I happily agreed. ?For our first session at the gym we booked in for a free assessment with a personal trainer. ?During this assessment I was told that I weighed 57kg and that I had a PBF (Pecentage Body Fat) of 30%. ?I was also informed that my PBF should ideally be around 20%. ?I wasn't told anything about my muscle mass, water weight etc. during this assessment as we only had our measurements taken and a pinch test done (which we've since found out isn't very accurate).

Our personal trainer then created a little strength training program for us, which mostly focused on our arms and legs. ?We followed this program 3-4 times a week for about 8 weeks and attended various different classes (body pump, yoga, pilates etc.) before taking 6 weeks off for our placements/internships in May. During those first 8 weeks at the gym the numbers on the scales showed that I had lost 2.5 kg's. ?I was happy with this as I knew that I had been gaining muscle, so I figured that the amount of fat I'd actually lost must have been more than the scales were showing. ?Whilst out on my internship I continued eating clean and got my daily exercise from walking around the school that I was at.

About a week after I'd finished I headed back to the gym with Bianca and noticed that I was still the same weight. ?I put this down to eating clean and the fact that I hadn't been working out. ?Another week on and I decided to pay to get a full body composition scan done. ?The results showed that I was definitely still sitting at 54.5kg, carrying very little water weight (which is a good thing!) and am just within the normal waist-hip ratio. ?On a less positive note, the results also showed that my skeletal muscle mass is below the normal range, and that my BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) is below the normal range as well. ?The PBF (Pecentage Body Fat) results were a complete contradiction to the results from my pinch test 4 months prior though, as the scan showed that my current PBF was actually 32.3% (so higher than before, meaning that the pinch test was completely inaccurate). ?I was then informed (by a different assessor this time) that I shouldn't have been told that 20% is the ideal body fat percentage, and that I should personally fall anywhere between 18-28%. This being said, 32.3% still puts me over the normal range, and with my skeletal muscle mass being below the normal range, my health is still considered to be at risk. ?I am now being encouraged to lose 4.5kg of body fat whilst also gaining 6.5kg of muscle.. and that's just so that I can be considered "healthy". :\

So what have I learned? ?What am I going to do now?

In a nutshell, the last 12 years have taught me that I am the happiest, most confident and comfortable in my own skin when I am a) eating well, b) physically active and c) feeling healthy. ?Not when I see a certain number on the scales, fit into a certain dress size, or get an unusual amount of compliments.

So am I happy, confident and comfortable in my own skin right now? ?Well.. not so much. ?Although I do eat very clean and practice a bit of yoga, I rarely ever go for walks and I no longer do any strength training. ?I also quit the gym last week because the payments no longer fit into my budget, so I couldn't get back into strength training even if I wanted to (unless you guys have any ideas on how I can build muscle at home?). ?I'm also extremely bloated and/or constipated most of the time and I have no idea how to change this (please help me!).

I haven't given up though! ?I am determined to find a way to shake this constant bloated feeling and to find other ways to get physical activity into my day (housework, playing xbox kinect,?horizontal dancing, walking to the post office etc.). ?I am also determined to get rid of our bathroom scales, and to give away any clothes that just straight up do not fit me. ?Most importantly though, I am determined to keep eating clean and trying out new healthy recipes, because I now know that my diet alone was the single most contributing factor to my recent hair growth, diminished headaches, and the?improvement?in my Narcolepsy condition. :) ?????????????

I hope you guys have enjoyed my honesty today and that I have somehow inspired you to re-evaluate the importance that many of us still place on numbers. ?I mean we wouldn't judge our friends based on their clothing size or how much a set of scales say they weigh, so why should we use these numbers as a means of judging ourselves? ?I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

Source: http://www.pursuitoffelicity.com/2013/07/eat-yourself-clean-my-weight-lossgain.html

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