genkijima – Mindflight

Dealing With Partners While Losing Weight

Today I’m going to write about a subject that can be touchy – it’s gonna be a long one. I’m talking about spouses, family members and living partners. They are a huge factor in your weight loss journey. They can undermine and sabotage, usually unknowingly but sometimes completely on purpose. They can also be incredible supporters and the key to your success. Sometimes whether you have a supporter or a sabotager depends on how you approach the situation.

In times past, the opinion of my partner or roommate has totally derailed my progress. Or more accurately, my perception (often inaccurate) of their opinion has been an excuse I’ve used to derail my own progress. I have worried about jealousy, about taking away things they love, and more. Once I gave up weight training because I didn’t like the advice my partner was giving me. That was stubborn and honestly pretty foolish of me. Their advice wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t prepared to listen. So instead of thinking about what they were saying, I gave up, and started gaining weight again.

I am lucky because my spouse is very supportive, and doesn’t act jealous of my success. I’m really grateful for that. Even if she did, at this point, I think I would probably continue my journey – because I’m ultimately doing this for myself and no one else. However it has taken a LOT of work to get to that point. Self respect and self care are like anything else, habits you have to build up if you aren’t good at them. The good news is, you can do it with enough persistence! For example, in the past I have had some long periods where I didn’t think I should put my foot down and follow a healthy plan because it was selfish, while at the same time I was also acting completely selfishly in other ways and in deep denial about it. Yep, I have some serious warts there. The truth is, it’s not selfish to care for yourself because then you can care for others in a better way. You can’t pour from an empty cup.

When your partner is undermining your progress

In weight loss forums I hear quite a bit about people who have spouses who bring in unhealthy food or snacks that they then have trouble resisting. I understand the desire to not disrupt another person’s life in the quest for health. I’ve been terrified of becoming THAT health nut, the one who made life miserable for other people around them.

Compromises are totally possible though. They usually start with a little honest, open conversation. A lot of people will just live in the same way until acted upon by an outside force, so that’s why communication is great! Something I’ve often had a hard time remembering is, most spouses and partners are actually pretty happy to help if you can come up with a clear way to do so. For example “could you please keep your snacks in the cupboard so they are out of my sight and I’m less tempted by them? I don’t want you to have to do without something you enjoy but I’m trying to avoid that stuff right now.”

If you have a spouse, partner, family member, etc who isn’t supportive of your weight loss journey it can also help to talk about why you are doing it, so they know more about what you are doing and that you aren’t going on some extreme crash diet. “You know, I haven’t been feeling very good lately, and I could stand to lose a few pounds. Would you mind if we ate some more salads?” It can start as simply as that.

A hard truth is that sometimes we use our partners, spouses, family as excuses so we can get out of something we don’t really want to do. I’ve done this. I’ve used someone else’s eating habits as a reason to eat more, have things that aren’t good for me, or keep treats around that I find hard to resist. It’s because I wasn’t truly motivated to change, and I was often afraid to advocate for myself. Afraid of what? Nothing direct, but I grew up with an issue around asking for things. I’m still working on that.

What I did in my case was use a weight loss contest as a bribe! I said to my spouse, “look, this is a really good prize, and I think I can win. If you help me out, and support me with what I need to do, I’ll split it with you.” Later when the contest was canceled (I really was winning, but Covid) I continued my healthy habits and she didn’t mind because she saw what kind of a difference it was making for me. A year and a half later and I’m 97 pounds down, which is about three times what I’ve ever managed to lose before.

What do you do when they want to lose, but can’t?

There’s one other problem that comes up. In my case my dear spouse would love to lose weight, and is having some success, but isn’t doing all the things required to lose weight. I’m not very comfortable counseling her about this kind of thing, so I will drop bits of information here and there and try really hard to avoid lecturing. So when she consumes extra calories in the form of sugars and carby snacks, and continues to use a lot of oil to fry with, I bite my tongue – but continue to suggest healthy meal ideas. Yesterday we had good talk about her needs, which are very different than mine, and I was actually able to advocate for my needs too. Sometimes that’s all that is needed, is a good conversation.

Another thing I have to remind myself constantly is that her journey is not mine, and vice versa. I can enjoy being active and eating lots of low sugar foods, and lots of vegetables, because I am a lot lighter than my spouse, who has many health problems that I don’t have. She deals with arthritis, neurological challenges, social anxiety, issues with digestion that are exacerbated by too much fiber, and has a really bad reaction to most protein powders and non sugar sweeteners. She doesn’t need me bugging her about things she can’t control. Instead we need to focus on other things we CAN control like portion size, and making more of my famous loaded salads.

Sometimes the people in our lives just get tired of hearing about our healthy journey. I can understand that, I would have before I got on my journey. So I limit what I say about it, so my spouse doesn’t get overloaded. I channel part of that energy into blogging to try and help others, and giving support to my MyFitnessPal friends. That helps a lot and gives my energy and enthusiasm a good direction.

So if you have a spouse or partner who really needs a health makeover, I think gentle, non confrontational conversations are best – depending on the person of course. Succeeding will prove to them that what you are doing is right, and you can also extend the hand of help. If the situation is dire you might want to tell them that you care about them and want to help them have a healthier life, but they won’t start until they are ready.

Above all, for whatever reason, don’t give up a healthy journey because of anyone else. This is YOUR life and your health, after all!

What if they won’t even try?

A person WILL NOT lose weight or gain health until they choose to for themselves. They must see, deep down, what’s in it for them, choose to do it, and think it’s possible. I can say this from both sides of things. If any of those three things are missing it won’t work. If a person wants to get healthy but doesn’t think they can, they won’t! Or they’ll try, halfheartedly, give up when it gets difficult, and say “see? I told you I can’t lose weight.”

So, in those cases where someone wants to get healthy but isn’t doing anything about it, it can be useful to figure out where their barriers are, just as you may have at the beginning of your journey. For example, do they think weight loss means you have to sweat all day and kill yourself doing cardio? It doesn’t. Maybe they think you have to eat like a rabbit and give up all flavor? It doesn’t. Maybe they think keto, or Paleo, or going vegan, or doing juice cleanses, is the only way? Well they aren’t! Or maybe they have a messed up idea of what weight loss means and think if they don’t lose five pounds a week, every week, they are a failure? Well it’s not! Very successful people lose a pound a week, or half a pound a week, and do just fine!

So, screwed up ideas of weight loss and what it means can be a serious detriment, especially since quite a few beginning dieters haven’t done the massive research on the subject that some of us have, and may believe the ads and magazines giving bad advice out there.

Still, just as you didn’t lose weight until you decided to, they won’t either until they believe they can, and want to do it. Gentle, non pressuring persuasion is probably the best way to go. Cooking healthy, flavorful meals for them when you are together, inviting them on walks, suggesting healthy activities to do together, being a good role model – without lecturing – usually works best. Let them see the joy that you take in life. Invite them along for the journey but don’t overwhelm them with detail at first. Baby steps.

For me I think about how I would have reacted to myself if I came along to the me of two or three years ago – I wouldn’t have trusted me at all! I wouldn’t have believed what I can do! I would have said “you’re nuts, now let me get back to my snacks!”

And yet… here I am.

Genkijima Update – One Year Later

Art of Womanhood, Healthy Living

So you know how some bloggers get all excited about a new weight loss strategy and then a while later you stop hearing about it?

Yeah, I’ve seen that.

I’ve DONE that.

Many times, actually.

NOT TODAY!

This map now has stars all the way up to the house. I’ve lost 86 pounds so far. I have roughly 20-30 to go. I’ve gone from a 50 BMI down to a 29. I want to get to 25 or maybe a little lower. I have so much more energy and can do so many things I couldn’t before and my blood pressure has gone from borderline high, to the low end of the scale. My heart age has gone from 50 to my true age if not lower.

I feel good every day. Even though I’m not to goal yet, I’m still so much better of than I was. A year ago, I was not doing so well. 254 pounds is way too heavy for a fine boned female who’s only 5’3″. I’m not even talking aesthetics or any kind of self worth issue, I’m just talking health. I could feel the strain in my body. My heart would pound with even minor exertion. I was easily overheated. I had to rest constantly when doing active things.

The only reason why I haven’t failed at more diets up until this point is because I haven’t tried more diets. I’ve been really, really bad about losing weight. Everything from excuse making to lack of motivation to deluding myself about how bad the problem really was – I’ve done all that. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been heavy ever since I was a kid. Plus I’m female and have thyroid issues and PCOS and a sedentary job and I’m over 40 – all reasons why I should have a really hard time losing weight.

Okay, so this is where I sell you some magic powder or supplement or weight loss program…

…only I won’t.

But I will tell you how I did it!

Here are the things that have helped me the most.

Learn what portions should be. I used measuring cups and a cheap scale to train myself what I should actually be eating because my concept of what a portion should be was way, WAY off.

Time to adapt. Eventually, the body gets used to smaller quantities and different foods. With consistent effort, eventually these healthy foods begin to be DELICIOUS and you start craving veggies more than junk food.

There is no such thing as magic. That is, no magic pills, no magic supplements, no magic shakes or diets or programs. Weight loss takes work and time and consistency but it’s very doable. The thing is, once I accepted that there was no magic pill/quick fix, it became easier to settle down and do the work.

Learn what works for you. Everybody has something that works for them. For me, it was learning what foods made me hungrier than they should, and avoiding those. I personally used a high protein, moderate carb, relatively low fat plan and tried to avoid refined sugar and carbs as much as practical. I ate a lot of lean chicken and veggies and cooked a lot from scratch. I still have a sweet tooth so Stevia was my best friend.

Research and learn. I did a lot of studying, partly because I needed the information and partly because I was curious. I have read about various issues of diet, exercise, muscle building and fat loss from a number of perspectives. Doing that helps because you will learn more about the nuts and bolts about why things work.

Eat less, move more, and track what you do. This is critical for me. I have to know what I’m putting in my body and how much movement I’m getting so I don’t underestimate my intake, and overestimate what I’m burning off. Keeping up with this means I will know for a fact that I’m still doing what it takes to lose weight.

DON’T GIVE UP. If your efforts aren’t succeeding, change something. Maybe Keto isn’t for you. Maybe you’d do better on Paleo. Or maybe you would do better on a balanced diet with portion control. Maybe Intermittent Fasting works well for you. We all need different things. If a diet is too hard, maybe something needs to change so it can be adhered to more easily.

MOVE! Exercise doesn’t have to be a laugh a minute but it shouldn’t be torture. There are so many ways to move your body. It’s important for building muscle, general health, and maintaining balance and flexibility that the weight loss benefits are almost a bonus.

Remember that you DESERVE to be healthy.

I know I’ve barely scratched the surface here – there is so much more to this topic, but these are the main principles that have kept me going, more than a year after my last New Year Resolution.

Here are the three most useful sites – they all have a ton of information and tools for you and all are free.

NerdFitness – a great site for nerds who want to be healthy. Awesome articles and programs about all aspects of fitness and weight loss, including a community and a cool RPG like goal system.

MyFitnessPal – a calorie tracker (with an app if you want one), community and forum with lots of good health related information. It’s basically fitness social media with a distinct lack of drama. I use it to track my calories, nutrition and exercise, and the community keeps me accountable.

Art of Manliness – a great archive of articles and podcasts with all kinds of interesting information, quite a bit of it fitness elated. Well worth a read by people of any gender, it is a treasure trove of old fashioned skills as well.

By looking at my map you can see that the house is well into the Island of Genkijima, the land of vigorous good health. That was by design. When making the map, I realized that losing weight would help me to feel better, long before I even got near my goal weight. It’s turned out to be true. I noticed some pretty big difference after the first 20 pounds or so.

I still get excited whenever I get to put a new sticker up!

(Side note about the header image: It’s a screenshot of one of the ranches I’ve built in Horse Isle 3, a giant multiplayer open world game. )

Journey to Genkijima

Thoughts About Life

This is going to be a personal post but I hope it still benefits those reading it.

I’ve been overweight since I was roughly ten years old. It started getting out of control in college when I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted. However, I was getting exercise through Kendo and lots of walking, so it didn’t get too bad.

When I eventually got my first car, a few years later, the weight really started to pile on. Add to that a couple of incredibly stressful jobs that involved lots of sitting and being yelled at over the phone and it got even worse. Now, I’ve always had the most atrocious sweet tooth you could imagine and also a really good nose for bargains, so that combination didn’t help at all.

I tried, various times, to lose weight. Once I tried Atkins and lost ten pounds rather quickly – but that was an expensive diet and so it didn’t last long. Plus the fruit cravings were terrible. I swear I could smell a mango from the produce section as soon as I entered the grocery store. Another time I did Paleo and that worked great but was too expensive, and also I broke a tooth so all those veggies were out for a while. I’ve tried shakes, tried fasting (a little bit) tried just restricting my calories without logging. For a while I lived in Nevada in a tent and ate lots of beans and rice and very little else, and lost a bunch of weight. I managed to keep it off for a while too but then money issues continued and more stressful work and I gained it again.

My biggest issues were the fact that exercise is super, SUPER boring, which I have little tolerance for, walking is rough during hot Arizona summers, and my life was seemingly consumed by stress and long commutes.

Well. I got a better job, and more money started coming in, but I still gained because all the cool, nice people I work with LOVE to cook and they just LOVE potlucks, and of course the candy bowl, and it’s still kind of hard to walk while at work. I had little motivation.

At the beginning of this year a “Biggest Loser” competition came around, with a $400 prize, and that was enough to make me really, really want to win. I figured a three month period of aggressive weight loss would be enough to get some good habits started. In December I’d finally gotten a weight set and started seriously trying to become stronger, because I wanted to be more self sufficient, and let’s be honest, also wanted some moderately buff arms. I began to see results.

On January 6 I started logging my calories with a goal of 12-1500 calories a day. Just existing in a sedentary state I burn 2200 calories so this could give me a solid two pound loss every week, and I intended to maximize this with what muscle gain I could manage and with plenty of movement. However, I didn’t want to blog about it on here till I was well begun on my journey. Because I really, REALLY hate to be a stereotype.

As of this writing I’ve been on plan with no lapses for 26 days. I’ve lost about 13 pounds. I feel more energetic, I fit better behind the wheel of my car, my waistbands are looser, my watch slides around more, and I’m stronger. I’ve recently started making my cardio days my lower calorie (12-1300 calories) and making sure that I get at least 100 grams of protein per day. No food groups are forbidden though I minimize processed starch or sugar. I weight train three times a week with stretching and bodyweight stuff like squats on my rest days, and I walk 4-6 days a week, trying for about a mile. Mostly it’s laps inside my building where there’s air conditioning. I love weight training, it makes me feel really good and I don’t have to do it for hours.

Here’s the really interesting thing. One of the hardest things about pretty much every diet I’ve ever tried has been the cravings. But I just realized today that I have actually had very nearly NO cravings or excessive hunger even though I’ve probably cut my daily calorie intake in half (at least.) And I have cravings all the time when I eat what I want, when I want! I haven’t even looked longingly at the candy bowl. I’ve had chocolate twice (2 squares of ultra dark) and sugarless gum maybe three times, oh and I think three cough drops. In 26 days.

I don’t want to go back. I feel so good. I snack all the time, but maintain portion control and always keep it healthy, and I know for a FACT that over the long term I’ll hit my numbers as long as I stay on plan. I don’t deprive myself. Since my weakness is freshly baked bread, when I bake some I’ll have ONE slice of it, log it, and leave it alone for the rest of the week. If I want rice I’ll have a cup of it or less. Knowing that nothing is totally forbidden has kept me from wanting most of it.

I’ve gained some muscle, and lost fat at the same time, because I keep my protein high and lift heavy. No puny five pound weights for me. At the moment I’m doing sixty pound weighted squats, twenty five pound kettlebell swings, and thirty pound dumbbell rows, plus a bunch of other stuff including exercise bands. Plus lots of countertop pushups, because I’m still too heavy to do proper pushups.

I have a goal of converting 95 pounds of fat into carbon dioxide and water, and I’m thirteen pounds along. Now we get to Genkijima. That will bring me down to about 150 pounds, when I should be 130 ideally, but that extra 20 pounds of weight will hopefully be mostly muscle.

Since I haven’t been slim in so long, I have been doing a lot of thinking about all the things I’ll be able to do when I don’t have a small person’s worth of weight draped over my frame. I started calling it the Land of Slim, but realized that was a pretty lame name. So I picked “Genkijima.” “Genki” is a japanese word roughly translated to mean “energetic health.” A person who is “Genki” isn’t just healthy, but they are cheerful and have an upbeat outlook on life. “Jima” means “Island.” Tomorrow I’m going to buy a big piece of posterboard and draw a map of the land between where I started and this mystical island. with little spots I can color in for every pound lost.

Genkijima may be a place I’ve never visited in adult life, but I know the way.