Weight Loss and Overall Health after 40: It's not as complicated as you think

 

I’ve struggled with food and body image for most of my life. Weight loss was a constant rollercoaster in my life.  But the real life changing moment for me was when my father was diagnosed with cancer.

 

I was incredibly close with my dad and suddenly our lives changed when he woke up one day with a tumor growing out of his neck. It was a rare thyroid disease and it started a rollercoaster for our whole family.

 

It was how I started to truly understand the power of food.

 

I started to see food as medicine and the power that it has to both heal our body- and destroy our body.

 

My dad tried the conventional medicines and they just weren’t working. His cancer was a rare form and no matter what the doctors tried, the cancer wasn’t going away. So he started looking at more unconventional and holistic methods.

 

Things like the alkaline diet, eating foods that would balance your pH systems, and fasting.

 

This really sparked my interest and I dove into intermittent fasting and ultimately, holistic medicine, integrative nutrition and Eastern medicine.

 

It opened my eyes to an entirely different world.

 

I still wasn’t ready though.

 

As I progressed through my thirties, I had my babies and gained 65 pounds with both of them. I would see weight loss and then fluctuate up and down in a really unhealthy way. I would have to work REALLY hard to keep it off. Weight loss felt like a rollercoaster.

 

I was constantly trying something new- but they all had one thing in common, they were super restrictive.

 

Things like Whole30 and Paleo, and while a lot of people have some success with them for weightloss (usually temporary) it wasn’t working for me.

 

I love food and I love to enjoy food. I love the whole experience with food and sharing it with others.

 

And so anytime I would do any of these diets, it just created so much anxiety for me. And it was just always so restrictive that I was always setting myself. For failure. I was never able to really stick to anything.

 

It wasn’t until 40 that I really started reevaluating my life. My marriage ended, I was burnt out at work and just completely unhappy with my body.

 

I knew I had to make a change.

 

So I decided that I had to stop the dieting. I had to quit the restrictive diets because it was making me absolutely miserable.

 

I was so tired of living in that guilt and shame vortex because when you set yourself up for failure with super restrictive diets, you're going to crash and burn.

 

I took a life-changing trip to Costa Rica and came back ready to REALLY change the way I was living.

 

I decided to get certified as an integrative nutrition coach and it reignited my fascination with this lifestyle. I started looking at food from a holistic standpoint and the power of what it can do to heal you. And I was starting to heal too.

 

I learned that this doesn’t have to be complicated.

 

For me, it started with simple changes and relearning how to eat.  I had to let go of the bad habits I had growing up and that’s when I really started to see change.

 

I finally let go of restrictive diets and started to love food again.

 

I think back to college, when I was so obsessed with low fat food and losing weight, I would dump a ton of spray butter (gross) into oatmeal and hope and pray it would make me lose those few extra pounds.

Now I know how wrong I was, now I incorporate good fats, good proteins, lots of veggies and all the good stuff into my meals and I'm FULL and SATISFIED and STILL MAINTAINING my healthy weight.

 

My entire mindset has changed and I finally got my life back.

 

I don’t diet anymore, I don’t eat ‘low fat’, I don’t count or track. I am living again.

 

And you can too.

 

PS. If you want to hear more about my story make sure to tune into episode 2 of my Wellness Revolution Podcast!