From Forever Fat to Needing a New Goal | Intermittent Fasting Success

Piggy Muldoon.

That was my aunt’s pet name for me. A hybrid of Miss Piggy and Robert Muldoon, the very overweight New Zealand Prime Minister at that time. I assume I was given the pet name because of my very chubby (and healthy) body as a baby. The name stuck with me through childhood. When I look back at pictures of me before I reached puberty, I was a stick, but the vision in my head that said otherwise was a seed planted.

As soon as I hit puberty, the weight started coming on. I remember an experience my first year in high school during gym class. Our P.E. teacher was helping us doing flips on the mat. I remember her struggling to help me, and then in front of the whole class telling me because of my weight she couldn’t do another one with me. I was about 117 pounds (53 kgs). I was extremely self conscious of my weight. Despite walking 3.5 miles round trip to school most days, I could never shake it. The treats I would pick up at the bakery on the way home to console myself didn’t help. I spent my lunch hours hiding in the library, losing myself in stories where I dreamt of a fantasy life.

Stats

Starting weight: 180lbs/82kgs
Goal weight: 135lbs/61kgs
Current weight: 128-132lbs/58-60kgs
Highest weight: 210lbs/95kgs
Height: 5’5/165cm

The full fat years.

At 16 I went on a student exchange to the United States. I knew this was my opportunity to be more than a small town girl with no self worth. My number one goal that year was to build my self confidence. I came back with a new determination and belief in myself. The one thing I couldn’t budge was the weight. By my mid-20’s I had reached my highest weight of around 210 pounds (95 kgs). I was unhappy and unhealthy. I stopped caring about how I looked in my uncomfortable clothing because no matter what I wore, when I looked in the mirror I didn’t like what I saw. I had tried the low fat diet (thanks, Susan Powter), Bill Phillips Body for Life and unofficially Weight Watchers, with little change other than that my weight finally plateaued.

At that time I was spending part of the year working in a summer camp in the US, where I had few choices in what food was available. Hot summers living in cabins with no air-conditioning doesn’t mix well with a body that overheated easily and had pockets where sweat was never supposed to sit. Wearing less was not an option and being in public in a swimsuit was embarrassing. I came home to NZ wanting change but not sure how to find it. Luckily my mother had the answer. She introduced me to a diet that involved balanced macros. It was essentially a calorie restriction diet but I didn’t have to completely remove an entire food group and it was based on whole foods. Over the following 6 months I lost 50 pounds and had never felt so good in my life. I remember going for walks just because I couldn’t sit still. I went back to the summer camp in the US the following year feeling like a whole new person, but still not where I wanted to be.

Over the following years my weight would bounce from my low of 163 pounds (74 kgs) up to around 180 pounds (82 kgs). Whenever I was in a routine of a 9 to 5 job I would try to stay healthy, the way ‘everyone’ said worked. Eating at least 3 meals a day, ‘healthy’ foods, move more, eat less. I tried the macro diet again but this time it just made me more hungry. I was back to not being able to drop the weight. Then in 2011 I was diagnosed with a large fibroid and underwent surgery to remove it.

There are defining points in your life where you feel like you walked through a new door. The day I woke up in that recovery bed was one of those moments. I had a spark of life back that I didn’t even realize was missing. I went from being so exhausted I could barely get to work each day, to having so much zest for life and things to do that I had little time to eat. I dropped 20 pounds (9 kgs) without changing my diet in any way. I just wasn’t eating. Now, looking back I realize I was fasting but not in a good, healthy way.

Start taking note of every victory you have on this journey - but most especially the ones that don’t take place on the scale. We call these NSV’s (non scale victories). NSV’s are what keep you going when the numbers on the scale stop moving (or may even go up!) What NSV’s have you experienced?

Gin has the answer.

I moved to the US (again) and met my husband. He’s a great cook which makes it hard to turn away from his food. New relationship, lots of good food and wine, the weight crept back up. In December 2018, in the week between Christmas and New Years, my soon to be mother-in-law came to the rescue. She told me about her niece and how she was following this book by Gin Stephens called Delay, Don’t Deny*. She presented it in a way that cut through the weight-loss doctrine we’ve always been told. “All she’s doing is eating at night”. I could eat at night? I didn’t have to finish at 6pm? I didn’t have to eat breakfast? My body had been telling me this my whole life! I ignored it because medical advice told me it was wrong. I remember going to the gym in the morning and not telling anyone I hadn’t eaten before working out because although my body was screaming at me “this is how you’ll lose weight”, my brain was saying “you’re going to wreck your metabolism!” I downloaded the book that night and started intermittent fasting the next day, jumping straight into 19-20 hours fasting and a 4-5 hour eating window.

The first 3 weeks were the hardest. I kept reminding myself it was going to get easier. I would come home from work and immediately start looking for something to eat. Then my body adjusted and I didn’t feel the need to binge as soon as my window opened. The loss was gradual, about 1/2 a pound a week. I had to learn to be okay with that. Over time my portion sizes decreased naturally as appetite correction kicked in. There’s a period between midday and 2pm (depending on what I ate the night before) where I’ll feel hungry for about 10 minutes. This is when my body is making the transition from burning glucose to burning fat. It’s doing its thing and I just let it be.

Late in 2019 I hit a plateau and then my weight slowly started creeping up again. It’s really hard not to panic when it feels like you’re on that weight regain roller-coaster once again. But I kept telling myself to trust the process. To listen to my body. It had been right all those years when I ignored it. I would figure this out. I knew I needed to make tweaks but at this point I wasn’t ready.

Sprint to the end (or beginning?)

Trying on wedding dresses was a great motivator. I had always dreamed of having a flat stomach and all I could picture was what that would look like on my wedding day. It was February and with the wedding coming up in July, I was determined I would be at goal and looking amazing in my dress. That week I gave up sweets and was more mindful about what I ate in my window. On May 31, 2020, I reached my goal weight of 135 pounds (61 kgs). Me. That girl who once heard a radio announcer talk about being 63 kgs and thinking what a wonderful dream that would be. I eventually lost another 5 pounds and now my body has settled between 128 – 132 pounds (58 – 60 kgs).

Although I’m now in the maintenance phase, I keep to the same window. I’m more flexible with it, but I won’t go back to having an afternoon slump from eating lunch. As Gin Stephens says, I came to intermittent fasting for the weight loss but stuck around for the health benefits. I live my life now for the benefits of autophagy, longevity and a healthy and full future.

When I was overweight I had times where I felt like I was being judged because of my size. There were other times I felt invisible in the room, swallowed by the feeling that I wasn’t good enough to be noticed. Finding my life partner? That was out of the question. Who would want me when I didn’t want myself? There have been times I’ve looked back and been truly satisfied that I was living the life I wanted and yet there was always that part of me that wished I could just make this one thing happen. Now it has. There’s times I still look in the mirror and see the old me. That will be a continual work in progress. One day the image I hold in my head will match the reflection in the mirror.