Weight Loss Struggles | Clare Henney

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I have lost a lot of weight since I started my fitness journey during this pandemic. A lot of people, friends, family, and co-workers alike, have praised me for finally making the effort to be healthier and losing the excess weight. Some have commented that I shouldn’t have waited for a pandemic to happen before I made the change. Honestly, it’s not that I waited. It’s more that it was a difficult journey for me and this is the only time that I finally got over the challenges that go with losing weight and being healthier. 

Losing weight has not been easy. As I have previously written about, it is a complete lifestyle change and it entails a lot of adjustment not just on my part but with the people around me. It’s a commitment and a lot of hard work. It’s paying off and people may be seeing the benefits, but they do not see how much I had to do and how long I have been doing it to make it happen. 

Photo from happyveganfit on Pixabay

Here are some of the challenges I have been on during my weight loss journey:

Saying No to Friends and Family

By going on Intermittent Fasting I had to say no to friends and family when they invited me to eat during my fasting periods. Sometimes I try not to explain this to other people and simply avoid being around them during my fasting period just to make things easier. Aside from that, I also watch what I eat so it also means saying no when I’m invited to eat when I am past my calories for the day or when the food everyone else is having is something I know wouldn’t be good for me and my fitness journey. It’s not easy turning people down. Filipinos have an eating culture where everything revolves around eating so believe me when I say that this is a big challenge.

Workout Time

I work out for at least an hour a day, but usually, it lasts more than that, up to an hour and thirty minutes. At one point I spaced out and was not even looking at the time and I realized I had been working out a total of 2 hours! Devoting that much time to working out sometimes means taking away free time that I usually spend with family and friends. Sometimes I feel guilty when I do that, but I know that it is helping me to be healthier so I still push myself to do it. 

I work out every day unless I don’t feel well enough to do so and that’s another issue that I deal with. People tell me that I shouldn’t work out every day but I have this fear that if I stop a day or two, I might not be able to get back into it. One time I got too sick to work out and I immediately got back into it when I started to feel a little better. I’m just afraid of losing my momentum on this. I’m not addicted to working out. It’s far from it. I still dread putting on my workout clothes every morning. I still stare at my mat and the elliptical and make up excuses not to work out…but I force myself to do it. If I didn’t, I’ll just gain weight all over again and I don’t want that!

Shopping for Clothes

During the first year of the pandemic, I had only been working out 30 minutes a day, five days a week. No diet, no fasting. Still, I lost weight because my pants were loose to the point that I needed a belt to keep them up by the end of 2020. I had to buy a new set of clothes in early 2021 but by the end of the year, the dilemma was that I again lost weight, this time more than the previous year. It is getting frustrating because I keep having the need to buy new clothes, which is a big deal financially. While my problem before was finding clothes that fit, now it’s worrying that the clothes I buy might be wasted if I lose more weight later on (which I still want to do). I am currently holding off on buying new clothes even if everyone is pushing me to do so, but I don’t want to keep buying them every time I lose a significant amount of weight. That’s a complete waste of money. I know I look silly with my clothes loose and all, but I haven’t reached my goal weight yet, so I am trying to stick to my current clothes for now. 

Body Image Issues

This is probably my biggest issue at the moment. I know it and can admit to it, but I still haven’t been able to deal with it. I know I have lost weight, everyone says I have and my clothes are bigger now than they used to be but whenever I look at myself in the mirror or look at photos of myself I still see the old me. I still see a big face and a big body. I try to condition myself to accept the “new me” by posting photos online to get myself used to the fact that I have lost weight. I guess I am hoping that the more that people tell me that I have, my brain would eventually believe it. 

I am hoping that 2022 is the year that I get to my target weight. Will I stop working out, fasting, and being on a calorie deficit? Not likely, but I would probably go easier on myself when I achieve my goal weight. There’s still a bit to go but I think this is the year for that. Fingers crossed, it’s going to happen!