Finding Your Happy Weight
This series is dedicated to several posts about why you can’t lose weight. If you have lost the same pounds over and over, and want to develop healthy sustainable habits then this is for you! Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss a post.
Have you lost dozens if not hundreds of pounds over the years? In trying to lead a healthier lifestyle, did you end up with unhealthy backlash habits? Many of us lose the weight and then within weeks or months it creeps back up. Then we start all over again. The reason is that barring, any medical condition, real habits were not formed in your attempts to lose weight. You may have the best intentions when you start a weight loss program to create these habits but the foundation was never there. In this series, I want to share my tactics and experience in maintaining a relatively constant weight. I still enjoy food, eating what I like and not being obsessed with my diet. Welcome to this series of why you can’t lose weight and most importantly, how to find your happy weight.
Who am I and why should you listen to me?
I’m Ziba, as you may know as a reader here, I’m a life-long dancer and co-founder of MaZi Dance Fitness for the past 11 years in Chicago, IL. In this studio, I have worked with and trained thousands of women and some men both privately and in a group setting. Throughout all this time I hear the same questions repeatedly, stated in different ways. Why can’t I lose weight? People want to weigh less and be stronger, more toned, insert fitness adjective here. In short, you want to look good and be healthier.
Why you can’t lose weight: MY Personal Experience
In the professional ballet world, I experienced the extreme end of the spectrum where aesthetics and demands on my physical strength were unrealistic. In having no real guidance, I took matters into my hands in a dangerous game with my health that almost ended disastrously. My love and desire for ballet were so strong that I felt that I could will myself to have energy and strength even while starving. Unfortunately, not only was it not sustainable, it was a miserable experience. It was a dark, lonely time where I felt like I was observing the eating world around me. However the experience taught me a lot about myself, psychology, and what I could draw from attempting “weight loss” in such a wrong way. In a way, it led me to answers.
Even after leaving the professional ballet world, the damage I had done to my body was significant. I had crushed my metabolism, lost muscle mass and had psychological damage. The struggle in my mind, was far superior than what was going on in my body. I simply couldn’t make myself eat enough. My physical activity was instantly cut by 80% upon leaving professional dancing. Along with that, I was caught in a trap of not knowing how, what to eat, or when. My weight quickly climbed, as I not only became sedentary but began a stressful endeavor in going to business school.
Why I wasn’t losing weight
What was happening was my levels of cortisol were rising. Additionally, I wasn’t moving enough and my body was hanging on to every morsel of food I did eat. I was miserable. So tired, and very weak and not fitting into my clothes. All in a new environment with no family or friends to support me. It was a very dark time in my life as I had stopped dancing. Not only is was it the love of my life, I was also caught in a trap. An eating disorder I didn’t know how to get out of. Part of me didn’t want to get rid of it. Restricted eating is what I knew and had been a way to feel in control. It felt like home.
What most people with disordered eating don’t realize is that while you feel in control, you’re 100% not. The eating disorder takes hold of you. To get rid of it feels like you have to get rid of yourself too. In years past, I would have shied away from talking about this. However, I’ve seen to many people suffer to stay silent. You are not alone.
The Problem Affecting Most of Us of Why You Can’t Lose Weight
Fortunately, I managed to not binge and purge. As luck would have it, my body doesn’t like to throw up. Some of my friends growing up would throw up with astounding ease, on command. The couple of times I tried it, which was literally about 3 times, I failed. It would take me about an hour to get anything up and another hour to complete the purge. I simply didn’t have time to devote to 2-3 hours of purging. Worst of all, I coudn’t stand how I felt afterwards. It felt as if my body had been beaten and with each heave I thought my heart my stop.
I know bulimia is a difficult cycle to break, as hard as anorexia or binge eating. Seeing what I’ve seen in the studio, with my friends and in ballet, I believe most of us have suffered a form of disordered eating. That’s why you can’t lose weight. That’s why I couldn’t lose weight. You have to work on your mind before you work on your body. In the next blog post of this series I will discuss how to get started on just that.
Hope you enjoyed this first installment Finding your Happy Weight with Why You Can’t Lose Weight! Here’s what I eat for energy, my favorite combination of nutrients, and how to build a home gym for less here. Love, Z