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| photo: by Danika Brysha |
I wrote in, When Fat is Not Beautiful part 1, about the wakeup call that forced me to admit I was on my way to becoming obese. People keep asking me how I lost weight so here's how I did it - without dieting or stepping on a scale!
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Q: What made you decide to lose weight?
I'd been a yo-yo dieter since I was a teenager but over the years I'd lost the energy and motivation to even try to maintain a healthy weight. I was in denial about how much I was gaining until I saw a family photo and didn't recognize myself in it.
Q: How much had you gained?
About 50 pounds - which is hard to hide when you're only 5'2"!
Q: Did you feel out of place working in Hollywood with women who are size 0-2?
Women here often lose too much weight but, yes, I did feel self-conscious. Unhappiness was a big factor. I was working a super stressful job that paid well but left no time for my TV career. I'd go to bed in tears on Sunday dreading the pressure I'd face at work the next day. I was eating meals at my desk, skipping exercise and numbing emotions with desserts from a nearby French bakery.
Q: What made you realize you were out of control?
Last year I decided to exercise more. I'd played sports in school so jogging seemed like a good place to start. I thought I was going to have a heart attack after two blocks! Morbid obesity runs in my family but I never thought it could happen to me. Yet, without some sort of intervention, I had to admit that I could wind up like my relatives who died of weight-related causes. Fat is not beautiful when it's a killer.
Q: So you went on a diet?
Well, I didn't know how to diet in a healthy way. In the past, I'd starved to lose weight. I knew I needed to change my mindset if I was going to change my life for good.
Q: What do you mean?
I needed to educate myself. For example, I'd never paid attention to calories. I thought I was eating healthy since I shopped at Whole Foods. I was shocked to learn some foods packed a whopping 1,000 calories for the serving size I was eating! I had to learn portion control; growing up that had simply meant stopping after the third or fourth plate at the all-you-can-eat-buffet!
Q: Were you losing weight?
Not right away but that was okay since I didn't have the pressure of trying to see a number drop on a scale since I had decided not to weigh myself.
Q: Not weigh yourself? That doesn't add up!
The scale had always been 'the enemy.' I wanted to weigh less than what those body mass charts recommended - like Zoe Saldana and other stars - but the scale always made me feel like a failure since I could never lose enough. This time I judged success differently. When I ran four blocks instead of two, that was success. When I chose vegetables instead of processed foods, that was success.
Q: I can't wrap my mind around not weighing yourself or going on a diet to lose weight.
I know, it's counterintuitive. It took me a while, too, but I had to take the focus off a number - off of getting skinny - and focus on prolonging my life.
Q: What else did you do?
I didn't make any changes unless I could maintain them for life. That was a major shift because "bad" foods had been off-limits when my goal was to be thin at any cost. For example, I didn't want to quit chocolate so I learned to savor small amounts. It was a radical new relationship with food!
Q: So it was lifestyle and attitude changes?
Exactly. And instead of coming from that place of condemnation and self-hatred like diets often make you feel, it came from treating myself well, being okay when I screw up, not hating myself because of my jean size.
Q: So how did you know when you reached your goal if you don't know what you weigh?
The day I ran 13 miles.
Q: Wow! How long did that take?
I'd been running about a year at that point. I needed time to develop a healthy relationship with exercise, too. I'd been compulsive about it in the past, like punishing myself for overindulging by working out until 3:00 a.m. Now, exercise is a gift I give myself; plus resting a day or two each week. Running long distances takes time but I figure if my friends who are moms can do it, I can, too.
Q: What would you tell someone who feels hopeless and hates their body?
Give yourself grace. It's hard to look in the mirror and hate the image you see but be gentle with yourself. Maybe like me, you need to heal your mind and spirit before your body can change. Growing up I despised my thick 'runner's legs' as a date called them. hips. knees. Now I celebrate that those parts of my body carry me to places I never dreamed. You are special because you are God's divine creation, not because of how you look. You are eternally loved. You can do yoga or bike or diet all you want but those things can never show you heaven's view of you.
Q: Anything else?
Change carries a price. I quit my day job. It was hard to give up the security but I had to in order to change my life and chase my dreams - that's another story though.
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Harder to lose weight than walk on water? Seems like it! Read about the crisis of faith that led me to lose weight in When Fat is Not Beautiful here.
