In these strange times, we are all currently going through I myself have found that working from home and motivation to leave the home has become a struggle. With this, my workouts, activeness and food have suffered the most, as well as my mental health and none of this was helped by the beginning of summer being somewhat of a cold wet one.
Taken into account the unusual situation we all find our selves in, plus working from home with my husband 100% of the time. I was then also put on furlough and then subsequently laid off. My motivation became an all-time low and to be honest I even took some weeks off from doing anything and became quite sick for 3 weeks.
So when I finally snapped out of it, gave myself a shake and proceeded to work hard. I managed to find a new job, dealt with my 'demons', took some vacation and enjoyed our hot summer which arrived just in time, it gave me the energy to refocus on the future which includes my health, the biggest of my goals and focus.
This led me to look at where I was, where I had been and where I wanted to head to. I use a weight app to store all my weights that sync with my Fitbit Aria and I have used it since the day I started my journey back in May 2013! I decided to dig into that data to see how things had been going since the start of 2020 and the pandemic.
It showed me what I already knew, that yes I hand been slowly putting on weight since November 2019 (which was when I was at my lowest weight) and this had only sped up and got worse since March this year when we were sent to work from home. I have managed to put on around 25lbs (11kgs).
What intrigued me the most when digging into the app was what more this could tell me. If I could look at the dates and weight and put a reason or story to it, could this help me get further this time and be able to read the signs or see what I did to undo my progress some times?
So I went right back to the beginning of my journey to my first weight input in May 2013 and followed the data until I had dates, weights and changes to look into.
I ended up with a couple of dates/weights that intrigued me. I was at my lightest twice between 2013 and now, a couple of slow climbs, a year in which I seemed to be on it and losing it again and I wanted to see what I could do with this information.
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| My weight graph from May 2013 to today... |
Then my husband reminded me that I kept food diaries, meal plans and I loved to take lots of pictures! So I dug into Google photos, my Facebook feed, my old notebooks and Apple Notes.
I found so many answers!!!!
For example, I was at my lowest in August 2014 and then suddenly it stopped and the curve began to climb and kept climbing. Why had I given up in August when I was doing so well??
Turns out it was the month and year of when I was out running and ruptured my quadricep, which led to pain, numerous weeks off, rehabilitation time and then the mental fight of being scared to get back out there and try to run again with the constant worry it was going to happen again!!
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| This was when I ruptured my left quadricep... |
Another one was that in March 2018 I seemed to sort my self out and started to progressively over the year lose all the weight again, which got me back to my lightest ever again in Nov 2019. Digging around in my 'data' I found a blog from me in March 2018 titled This needs to stop... where I openly discussed how I had been yoyo dieting, putting weight back on, full of excuses and getting nowhere.
I could then also see how I had had a very active 12 months from getting our puppy, cycling to work, starting at my Gym with a PT, starting group classes, back out running and doing races. The 'data' was all there on my Facebook and Google photos as to what I had been doing to be so successful.
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| Vår Ruset in 2018 |
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| Baby Rey back in June 2018 |
SO what has this all taught me?? Well, I can now pinpoint exactly what worked for us (I say us because my husbands' graph matches mine, showing how we fall and fight back together), what didn't work for us and use this information to really push forward this time and try to avoid the setbacks or if not avoid them completely, at least recognise them quick enough to fix it before its too late.
For example, I know if I go out drinking on a Friday night, I will eat out on Friday night, be sedentary on the Saturday and hungover which will lead to takeout and maybe more alcohol, which will then lead to an even more sedentary Sunday where I am tired, grumpy, feeling bad from eating takeout food, no energy and will then order another takeout for Sundays dinner!
The result is three days of bad food, calories, saturated fats, no workouts and a lot of detoxing to do!! Now I am not saying this will make me not drink but it will certainly make me look at the Saturday and Sunday a lot more closely and try to stop the regular patterns from happening. Trying to eat better and be more active despite the hangover!
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| Group workout with my work team started late 2018 |
Only time will tell but I really feel that data in this way can really teach us a lot about ourselves and how to move forward with our long term goals...
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