In the summer of 2015 things were looking up for me. I had been going to the gym every single day since late February of that year, and the weight was coming off, albeit at what felt like a snail’s pace. I was in a good routine: wake up about 4 or so, grab some coffee, head to the gym. Weigh-in in the locker room, pop that number in my Fitbit app. Put my earbuds in, get pumped up by my workout playlist, and head to the bodybuilding area.
I had come a long way since February. Back then I had felt like a complete misfit. I was out of shape. I couldn’t do a single situp. I felt like everyone was staring at me, and judging me for even bothering to try to get the weight off at all. But I had made a promise to myself to go to the gym every day, and come hell or high water, that’s what I was going to do. After a while I realized no one was paying attention to me in the first place. Everyone was wrapped up in their own little world with their own cares and troubles.
I had hidden out in the women’s only area at first. That was comfortable. The problem was that as I got stronger, the weights there weren’t heavy enough, and I had to venture to the co-ed area to find the equipment I needed. I had discovered powerlifting when I’d started doing the Crossfit Workout of the Day (WOD). I hate cardio, so eventually I dropped the WOD and started doing Reverse Pyramid Training, which is a method I learned about on the Leangains blog. That blog was also the place I learned about intermittent fasting. Some days my husband would join me at the gym, which was yet another step outside my comfort zone.
I loved lifting heavy things. I felt powerful and in control, which was the opposite of how I felt when I was at my heaviest. Back then I felt like I was doomed to be overweight for the rest of my life, and that there was very little I could do about it. Lifting weights started contradicting that belief for me. The heavier the weights, the better, as far as I was concerned. I would get a high every time I set a personal best for myself. Deadlifts were my favorite lift, and my last personal best was 210 pounds. I weighed about 205 at that point, and there was something about being able to lift more weight than what I weighed that felt really good.
But my inner dialogue kept whispering, You need to go faster! You need to lift heavier! You’re obese! You should be dropping 5 pounds a week! Stop being so lazy! I obeyed that voice. A part of me knew that I was asking for trouble if I increased the weight before I could do the lift with proper form, but I did it anyway.
That morning in June, I packed the plates onto the bar in preparation to do my deadlifts. I can’t remember what the weight was, though I’m guessing it was about 215. I gripped the bar and with every ounce of my strength I pulled. Something popped. There was a flash of yellow in my vision, and I dropped the bar. I felt the pain in my back and I knew I’d done too much. I could barely walk. I gingerly gathered my gear and headed home.
Over the course of the next week or so I was in a lot of pain. I never went to the doctor, because Aleve took the edge off enough so that I could function. This was a major problem. I was functioning, but barely. Even walking around was painful. It felt much better to just sit even though that hurt, too. It felt better to lay down.
Laying around a lot meant going back to the sedentary life that was at least partially responsible for my obesity. I started to panic. I kept going to the gym, but for a while I was only walking. I did it even though it hurt. Staying somewhat active helped me mentally. At least I wasn’t laying on the couch all day.
This coincided with a time where I had started to count calories and track all my food. I became obsessed with my calorie count. I started weighing and measuring everything. My weight loss plateaued. Maybe it was from the lack of lifting, maybe it was from all the stress. As the weeks passed by, I tried to add lifting back in, but it hurt. I wanted to avoid making the injury worse and my recovery time even longer, so I did my best to stay active without weights.
By October I had driven myself crazy with calorie counting. I was fed up. My weight loss was stalling out. I was still hovering around 203 and I could feel myself starting to give up. I was thoroughly convinced that the only thing that would get the weight off my body was heavy lifting, and that was not an option. On the other hand, my foray into calorie counting had shown me that it was not a sustainable path for me. I decided to stop counting calories. My new rule was to simply stop eating when I felt full.
This was a hard time. My back injury was a constant dull ache, and forcing myself to get up and move around during the day felt futile. I did it anyway. I was worried that I would regain all the weight plus some. My consistency faltered over the next three months. Sometimes I was active, sometimes I wasn’t. Sometimes I did intermittent fasting, sometimes I quit. Without the anchor of going to the gym and lifting heavy, I was at sea.
In mid-December, I set a new goal for myself: 6 miles of walking a day. I picked that mileage randomly. I had read an article from some celebrity trainer who said she told her clients to move 3 miles each day as a daily goal. I doubled it because I figured I had a slow metabolism, and also because I wanted it to be a challenge. I wanted something that would be hard, like lifting heavy weights.
After a couple of weeks of consistently getting my six miles, a new year had begun. I had been reviewing my notes from 2015 and I realized I had a big problem with being consistent. So I wrote down a simple plan and promised myself to stick with it.
- Intermittent fasting 6 days a week (eat whatever I want)
- Coffee with half and half 3 times a day during fasting window
- Cheat day on Sunday (eat whatever I want, whenever I want)
- Walk 6 miles every day
I started that year at a seven day average of around 205 and by November 2016 I was down to 157.
In the end, it was the deadlift injury that made me finally slow and and think about my actions. It forced me, literally, to sit down. I had no other option but to look at the data and learn something from it. At that point I started focusing on consistency over the long term.
When I hurt my back, I thought it was the worst thing that could have happened to me at the time. I think I even went through a mild depression as I was trying to figure out what to do. It was a hard time, but I’m glad I went through it. If I hadn’t, I might still be floundering around at 205, struggling with inconsistency.
Hurting my back also taught me a lesson in patience. Whenever I am tempted to hurry to hasten results, I think back to my injury. Patience is an important ingredient in losing weight and keeping it off for good, and I’m thankful that I’ve learned that lesson.
It’s also been a reminder that even when things look the darkest, there’s always a silver lining. The key is that you have to look for it until you find it.