Painfully Joyous

-Plan a 0 kcal intake daily: my 0 kcal plan was/is having 1 cup of coffee, 2 cups of water, 2 cups of green tea and 1 cup of herbal tea of any kind. I am not allowed to have anything else until I drink all of these. It motivates me to drink more water and tea, on top of that I lose appetite while drinking so much stuff, it also takes me 6+ hours to drink this much. (more f4sting hours, yay!) 

-You might not be able to go for a walk or jog everyday, but you can walk inside your home everyday. Add small steps to your life; you have clothes to take to the laundry room? Take them one by one instead of taking them as a pile. Going down the stairs and no one is around? Go back up and then down again. Waiting for water to boil in the kitchen? Pace around. 

-48+ plus hours of f4sting makes you bInge? Just do 24 hours. 24 hours still makes you binge afterwards? Do 18 or 16 hours, everything is better than losing control. 

-Don’t fight with natural cravings, try to appease them, otherwise you will bInge and all of this won’t be sustainable. For example; if you know you will crave something sweet just before your period, instead of saying ‘I won’t have any sweets’ and not doing anything just to devour something unhealthy afterwards, prepare yourself something sweet and healthy like a fruit platter or a protein bar. If you give in and eat that protein bar, you will still feel less guilty and less out of control. 

-Keeping the feeling that you are in control is very important, otherwise you might lose motivation as well. 

-Don’t lose motivation when you maintain for a few days or even a week, maintaining is much better than gaining. And if you keep going that stubborn w4ight will go down as well, there is no way it doesn’t, l00sing w4ight is maths after all. 

-PurgIng and laxatives are not long term fixes. BP will make your body hold onto water on top of fking up your teeth and stomach lining. Chew and spIt if you must, but dont bp. Laxatives will work for awhile, maybe even for one or two years, but they will fck up your bowels so bad that you will end up not being able to take a shIt without them. Gut health is very important for wl, your guts are where calories are consumed. (Go for natural laxatives and fiber instead: coffee with lemon juice, dried figs with water, boiled sweet potatoes.) 

-Consistency is the key: 400 kcals every day of the week is better than f4sting for three days and then having 1200 kcals the rest of the week. 

-That being said, accept hiccups here and there: people will expect you to have a slice of cake on your birthday, they will be watching you during a vacation, of course you will have a few pieces of chocolate during easter. Going out with friends? They might force you to share a dessert with them maybe. You are not your dis0rder, you are a living human being with a life and sometimes you need to let yourself enjoy f00d if it is inevitable. This doesn’t mean let go and e4t everything during outings or anything, but don’t let guilt kill your motivation. Instead take it in with a ‘I had to eat xxxx yesterday, so I will do better today’ mindset. Preparing beforehand also lessens the guilt, like f4sting during the day if you have a dinner planned with friends. 

-Boredom e4ting is real, find low kcal things and only have them during those episodes if you can. Cucumbers, pickles, lettuce, nori snacks are all very low kcal. 

-Learn the hours or things that trIgger your bInges, avoid those things if you can, or schedule things to do in those hours. You can’t e4t at the same time if you are shaving your legs in the shower. 

-There is no magic wand, don’t expect your body to create miracles for you and just lose 10 kg in a week. The human body is actually coded to not lose more than 1 kg a week. Anything more than that is already a miracle, you are doing fine. WL just takes time, as annoying as it is. 

-Slow progress is actually better than fast progress, because fast means you might be just losing water w4ight, also the slower you lose that w4ight the harder it is for you to gain back, because your body gets accustomed to that w4ight. 

-Find safe foods and drinks for yourself and keep them under your hand at all times. 

-Sometimes you will have to cheat to do better: Allowing yourself a small piece of candy or a drink with kcals during your f4st to keep going is better instead of passing out and then having to eat. If you break your f4st you will consume more kcals after all. 

-Get people around you used to the fact that you are a person with no appetite, instead of letting them know that you are di4ting. When someone offers you food or snacks, just say ‘I don’t have an appetite’ or ‘Oh, I don’t like that kind of food’, instead of saying something like ‘I am being careful of what I am eating’ or ‘I am doing intermittent fasting’. It will be sooo satisfactory when someone finally says ‘I am not offering you (snacks) because you don’t e4t/like them anyway’. 

-Similarly, if someone calls you out for losing w4ight; don’t say ‘Thank you’, say ‘Oh, did I?’, that’s the appropriate reaction of someone not ‘di4ting’. 

-The progress will get slower as you lose w4ight, this is why most people lose motivation at some point, return to old habits, and then end up back here at their SW. Don’t fall for that, the lower your BMI gets, the slower it gets. Think of it like this; a smaller engine will need less gas to keep going, since your body is getting smaller your metabolism also needs less to keep going. It doesn’t mean ‘your metabolism is getting slower’, it just needs less now because you w4ight less now. It is still working for you, don’t worry and keep going.