I Had a Cookie For Breakfast
And now I feel slightly sick from it. Before I left for vacation, I've managed to lose 30 lbs after getting blood work done and finding out I have pre-diabetes. That scared the hell out of me and knowing I was overweight, I worked my ass off intermittent fasting for at least 16 hours and lifting weights 5x a week for about 6 months.
Did it work? Wonderfully. I started fitting in clothes I've pushed in the far corners of my closet again and my blood work came back immaculate. I was so happy I wouldn't need to take maintenance medication like both my Type 2 diabetic parents do.
What I failed to realize though is this was one of the reasons I burned out faster last year. I wasn't eating enough with the activity I was doing, which meant my sleep was horrible, and my stress levels were up. Juggling full-time college and part-time work meant I was out of the house 7 days a week so I was exhausted, but couldn't unwind properly because, you guessed it, I was sleep deprived and hungry. A cycle again and again and again.
It got to the point where prolonging the fasted state became a game and I became scared of eating more than once a day. I was scared I'm gonna lose progress if I had breakfast. How ridiculous is that. Thankfully though I caught myself slipping into this toxic cycle and when I went on vacation to the Philippines for a month, I let myself go and eat three times a day plus snacks. I also gave myself permission to just walk for exercise and not try to self-impose a program on myself.
Guess what? I did not gain weight. At all. Before I left, I was hovering between 158 lbs to 159 lbs. After a whole month of nothing? 160 lbs. I did lose muscle yes, but it's insane how slippery the slope is of restricting myself and how unnoticeable the effects on me are until it compounded so much already.
Now, I don't weigh myself anymore. I still haven't gone back to working out in a structured way because I still need to recover from jet lag. What I started doing is more chores in the house to help me get some movement in my day. Most of all, I eat when I feel hungry now. Some days it's three times, others it's only twice.
I have more energy now and I'm more aware of how different food feels in my body. Eating a Costco chocolate chip cookie first thing in the morning is NOT IT.