The Health Kick Chick

In the almost 3 years since I last posted, so much has changed in my life. Along the way, I lost my drive to be fit and struggled hard on my fitness and health journey. I wanted to post about it, I did. But then I thought, who the hell would want to hear some chick posting on and on about her failed attempt to move her butt and stick with a diet plan? Boring! And yet, we all struggle so here I am. Laying myself bare.

I decided 2 weeks ago to love myself enough to make a change in the way I eat, to start working out again and to love myself back to goal. 

I’ve decided that I don’t have the patience, desire or attention span for calorie counting. I tried that over and over again and wasn’t successful. Weight Watchers also lost a Lifetime member with their repeated updates and program changes. 

I only look for a few basic things in any weight loss program. It must be:

• Sustainable - I have to be able to stick with it not just to lose 10 lbs before a big event but for the next 20 years, at the minimum.
  
• Inclusive - I’m not giving up entire food groups to lose weight.
  
• Affordable - As much as I think I’d love to spend hundreds of dollars just to get thin, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to go to drive all over God’s earth just to find ingredients/foods either.
  

And the newest addition to my list is:

• It can’t involve counting/tracking - It just isn’t intuitive to me anymore and there are millions if not billions of people who maintain a healthy weight without apps or food journals

So what does that leave for me? The No S Diet. 

And yes, that little badge pretty much sums up the entire diet. I know you may be thinking, that’s not going to work. You need to do much more than that to lose weight! But do you? I think about how many calories I’d cut out a day by just not eating snacks. I usually have a snack of string cheese before breakfast on my commute and then a piece of fruit with or without nut butter either between lunch and dinner. Then I’d have a scoop of ice cream for dessert. By conservative estimate, that’s roughly 400 calories saved daily. You can, however, indulge on some “S” days (an “S” day is defined as either Saturday, Sunday or a “special” day). It’s not a cheat day, however as the diet creator just warns that you don’t overdo it.  

I did overdo it the first two weekends I was on the diet and still lost but I felt sick to my stomach on Saturday and will have to learn to do better. It’s all a process. 2 weeks in, I’ve already learned where my sore spots are and have to focus on them. Moderation is a bitch to learn! On the process, I’m also learning to be okay with hunger. I’m not starving and my body will equalize. At least, that’s what I tell myself when my tummy rumbles.

Now, for the hard part. You’re not going to lose a ton of weight per week on this diet (allegedly, as with any diet it’s YMMV). I’m okay with that. I figure that I either continue not doing anything or caring and staying neutral or I make a change and lose slowly. The average is ½ pound per week, which in all honesty is what WW promoted when I was a member. I’m sure some weeks will be higher or lower but given my general malaise, I’d rather lose 13 lbs a year not tracking or counting vs 50 otherwise. Also, I can see myself on this for decades to come. It’s how my grandparents ate and they lived well into their 80′s.

My next step is to get better about fitness. I resolved this year to get to 10k steps daily but had an allergic reaction to the nickel in my Fitbit and never continued. I will, however, commit to doing dance, walking or yoga as my forms of exercising (of course with some strength training thrown in).

Wish me luck! 

Change: -0.60 lb