This weekend I'm going to a friend's wedding and planned to wear one of two fancy dresses I have but haven't worn for years. Both dresses are from my thin days 15 years ago, when I first lost more than 30 pounds...but then, like the majority of people, gained it all back when I stopped dieting and started eating normally.
I've maintained my second 35-pound weight loss for three-and-a-half years now by adopting a healthy eating lifestyle instead of dieting. When I was vegetarian, my focus was on not eating meat. I was overweight then because I ate so much high-fat cheese, white bread and pasta, and junk food. Everything changed when I became vegan. Not only is most processed, unhealthy foods (pretty much all junk food) simply not an option, but my focus is now on eating healthy, whole foods that benefit my body. My taste buds have changed, I cook and bake a lot, and I love what I eat. At the same time, I never feel deprived and, if I really want totally unhealthy and unnatural Swedish fish, I'll have some.
My problem, of course, is stopping myself from eating the entire bag. Or having only one slice of white bread instead of the whole loaf. I mentioned last week that I have not been eating well ever since my half marathon three weeks ago, when the "I ran so much and so hard that I can eat whatever I want!" mentality set in and stayed.
So, last night I tried on the dresses to see how they fit given my recent eating spree. Both dresses were too big!
Here is one of the dresses when I first wore it in 1999 at a wedding with my now-husband.
You can see it wasn't really tight back then. But now, it would fall off me if there weren't straps. I debated still wearing it, but if I were sitting down, anyone walking by could see everything if they looked down my dress because it's so big it bags out. Then I tried to work some magic with safety pins, but it's not super classy to wear a nice dress with a bunch of safety pins holding it together.
The second dress was also too big, and the material and style is such that I can't make any adjustments. So instead, I'm wearing a simple black dress that fits me and dressing it up with jewelry.
I monitor my weight very closely so that I don't gain it back and always fret about a gaining a pound or two. But it was good for me to see the perspective overall, to put on dresses I wore in my skinny days and see they are too big for me and to realize that, at 41, I'm thinner than I've ever been in my life. It's a great feeling!
As for my recent binging, I got on the scale and realized I did not gain 10 pounds like I feared. I am a few pounds over my goal weight so need to get back down, but overall I'm not too bad. I'm not saying that I can eat whatever and how much I want all the time and not gain weight, but I do think eating vegan helps tremendously with being able to maintain my weight loss. Since I eat so well for the majority of the time, my body seems to be more forgiving of the bad days.
I'll be posting my Fabletics review tomorrow then will be away from the blogosphere to attend the wedding. Hope everyone has a great weekend and has fun running, racing, or relaxing! Labels: weight loss
