I’ve struggled with my weight for nearly a decade. Growing up, I was thin and active. I could eat anything and never worried about gaining weight. I really never thought I would be fat. I’ve gained over a hundred pounds since I turned 18. Only recently have I really come to terms with why.
As a teenager, I never ate breakfast (much to the annoyance of my parents). I just wasn’t hungry in the morning. I would walk to school (\~20 min walk). I wouldn’t eat until lunch, when I would usually eat a pair of bosco sticks or single slice of pizza and ranch from my high school’s cafeteria. Not healthy, but not a huge meal either. Often, I skipped lunch altogether if I wanted to save my lunch money for other things or wanted to do something with my lunch period other than eating.
Then I would walk home and either go up to my room to avoid interacting with my (at the time) annoying younger sister or go out with a friend. I lived in a small town and we walked everywhere. We’d easily cover 5+ miles in a day. I’d come home in time for dinner, which was almost always home cooked. We sometimes had dessert and sometimes didn’t. We occasionally had brownies or cookies in the house but I wasn’t allowed to eat more than my fair share of them – if I wanted a snack, it was usually a sandwich or baby carrots and ranch or fruit.
​
So yes, as a teen, I never had to worry about what I ate, because I only ate two meals a day at most, one of those meals was home cooked, and we rarely had much in the way of junk food just sitting around in the house. I walked for at least 40 minutes 5 days a week, often much, much more. I was active in gym class, had horseback riding lessons, and would play a pickup game of soccer with friends a few times a month. I never learned to pay attention to what I ate because it never mattered.
Then, when I graduated high school and got a job, for the first time I could buy fast food and junk food. I started eating all the stuff my parents never bought. I started gaining weight. Then I moved out and dollar boxes of macaroni and pasta sides seemed like such a cheaper alternative than buying fresh foods. I could get a whole pizza for $5. I had a car and had moved to a less walkable town, so I barely got any exercise. I had late morning college classes and would get hungry during them, so I started eating breakfast before going – then got lunch while I was out and ate a boxed dinner at home. I gained more weight and couldn’t understand it. I had never had to watch what I ate before, so why was it an issue now?
Somehow it just never really clicked for me until recently how different my life had become. I wasn’t just getting fat because I was getting older. I was getting fat because my lifestyle had changed drastically and I had never learned healthy eating habits when I was younger – not due to abuse or neglect or an unhealthy family, but simply because my family’s lifestyle was already mostly healthy and it was just never something I really thought about as a teen beyond being annoyed when my mom refused to buy the same junk food I saw in my friends’ houses. I know it sounds stupid and obvious, but somehow that realization that I was healthier as a teen because I lived a healthier lifestyle as a teen really kicked me into gear. I’ve had a lot of success with IF in the past but I’d always fall off the wagon because my partner/roommates weren’t doing it too and I’d eventually give in when they offered me food during my fasting hours.
But now my partner and I own our home and live alone. He’s on board with my diet and knows not to offer food during my fasting hours. I’ve started keeping only healthy foods in the house, only eating once or twice a day, and have been exercising more – not as much as I used to when I was a teen, but more than I was in recent times.
​
And it’s easy. Surprisingly so. I often end up doing OMAD because I’m just not hungry after my first meal. I no longer think about food all the time, only when I’m actually planning my meal. I can still eat what I want and watch the scale go down. I have more energy. And the funny thing is, I can honestly say this is because I’m eating like I did when I was a teenager – when I fasted and often did OMAD without even thinking of it, ate mostly home cooked meals, and didn’t have junk food at arm’s reach all the time.
The moral of the story is, I guess, that finally being able to clearly see the reasons behind my weight gain, understand the huge lifestyle change between my teen and adult years, and realizing that IF and OMAD were something I did naturally when I was younger, have really helped me improve my health, both physically and mentally. I had this weird resentment toward my teen self because she never had to diet and wasn’t overweight, but now I realize if I had kept to the same lifestyle, I probably would never have gained so much weight even as an almost-30-year old. It’s time to start living like I did when I was a teen again! To celebrate, once I get under 200 lbs I’m going to reward myself with horseback riding lessons, which I really miss.
Yeah, you don’t realize exactly why it happens, then you wake up one day and it all becomes very clear. Your life is so much different at 25, 35, 45 … most of us become less and less active as the years pass.
There are other factors, too. We become more affluent, can go out to restaurants more, we keep the fridge stocked full of food. Spend more time having dinners with friends and less time going on bike rides with them.
We care just a little less about looking like advertising models with each passing year. We become parents, then grandparents. Fitting into those skinny jeans somehow isn’t as important when you’re picking up the kids from band practice or babysitting the grandkids.
I went back to college in my mid twenties and lived close to campus, where I also worked. I walked to school and would often walk home for lunch. The building I worked in was a two story building where the elevator was inconveniently located, so I went up and down stairs multiple times a day. The building my main classes were in had an unreliable elevator, so I usually used the stairs. The dining options on campus were expensive and not particularly appealing, so I ate most meals at home and most were fairly basic, even if not necessarily the most nutritious.
After graduation, I found a job in the same town and promptly gained 10-15 pounds, and I was surprised since nothing major seemed to have changed in my lifestyle. Then I realized it was because: 1. All of that walking and stair climbing , even though no Individual part of it was a long distance, had burned calories compared to my new day of driving to work and sitting for hours at a time without getting up. 2. I had gotten in the habit of eating out during lunch since there were a lot of inexpensive options close to work. It wasn’t a lot different than my lunches at home, but the portions were at least a 1/3 bigger on average. Those two things were enough.
I had a similar realization about a year ago. I lost 50lbs my freshman year of college. Yes, while still partying. Meal plan for 2 meals a day (and no $ for extra) and lots of walking (and picking up the habit of going to the gym). It was definitely an ah-ha! moment.
Mine would be the opposite experience. My mom grew up in a farm and her dad always instilled in her to finish everything on the table and not let food go to waste. The first foods my mom introduced to me as an infant was meat and broth. For half of my life my diet was Carnivore + Junk food. Then my parents wouldn’t understand why I didn’t eat vegetables. I was in college by the time I acquired taste for vegetables starting with ones already in the meat stews and discovering many other ways to cook them.