The Five Little Ducks Blog

“So, I have made a decision,” I announced to my mother the other day. She braced herself, wondering what kind of choice could require such a bold and decisive introduction.

“I have decided to start eating breakfast again”.

Her shoulders relaxed, as she exclaimed, “Good! We have been worried about you.”

Many of you would know that over the past couple of years, I have been working on my goal of losing weight. I have largely done this through regular exercise and the practice of Intermittent Fasting (adhering to an eating window between midday-7pm daily). And I have had success. In September 2021, I weighed 94 kg, and was wearing size 14-16 clothing. I now weigh 68 kg, and wear size 10 clothing. I haven’t reached my goal weight of 64 kg yet… but I have decided to let go of this goal and move into a phase focused on overall health and weight maintenance.

Here’s why:

• Number 1 reason: I am tired of starving myself. While skipping breakfast for a season was easy, and was a very effective way of reducing my caloric intake, my body doesn’t seem to be coping with it anymore. My weight loss has plateaued, any deviation in my diet results in instant weight gain, and I reached a point where I felt like I was starving for several hours a day. Lunch became an extremely important meal, and if lunch was late… my moods plummeted and I became irrational and short-tempered. As my husband said to me one day at 12.30, as I was looking for what to have for lunch, “you’re a different person when you haven’t eaten.” He’s not wrong.
• I feel that intentionally skipping breakfast for a couple of years has led to patterns of disordered eating, and created an unhealthy mindset around food. I was putting all my trust in not eating until 12pm, but sometimes midday would roll around, and I would feel too anxious about eating again, wouldn’t know what to eat, and would eat a banana and call that lunch. Other days I felt so hungry that I ate breakfast around 10-11am, then felt guilty, and skipped lunch so that I wouldn’t exceed two meals per day. Often, I would feel guilty about *wanting* to eat, and carried around that guilt, even when I hadn’t given in to temptation.
• The level of mental effort and calorie deficit it would take to lose more weight is too much for me now. I don’t think I can sustain what I have been doing anymore. I don’t want to get through my day with a foggy head and a gnawing stomach any longer. In addition to needing to reduce my caloric intake to achieve my weight loss goal, my fitness has increased to a point where I need to work harder to get my heart rate up. I am already exercising extremely regularly; most days of the week I rise early to do intermittent running for 50 minutes or more, followed by a light weights and sculpting routine, then walk to my kids’ school and back twice a day… I feel that I am doing enough.

“I don’t want to get through my day with a foggy head and a gnawing stomach any longer.”

• I don’t want to feel mentally unwell about food and my body anymore. I want to make peace with the body I have and just be grateful for my good health. I don’t want my motivation for exercising to be “I want to be skinny”. I don’t want to continue living under the words “not good enough”. I want to be a good influence on my kids, students, and anyone else I am leading.

Over the past week, I have started eating breakfast again. I have sat there, nearly in tears of gratitude, as I have allowed myself to sit down and eat a bowl of porridge or some peanut butter toast, and let go of the guilt. I then go through my morning, not obsessing about food because my mind is clear and focused, and I feel full and energised. Then, lunch time arrives, and I get to eat again!

As I move into this maintenance phase, here’s what I plan to do:

• Keep exercising. For most of my life, I didn’t enjoy exercise. Now I genuinely enjoy my long power walks, and consistently surprise myself when I am able to run for longer stretches.
• Keep moving. I work out in my lounge room, led by YouTube videos. Sometimes I have 30 minutes to work out, other days I only have 10 minutes to spare, so I will work out for 10 minutes. A little bit of movement is better than no movement. Ditch the ‘all or nothing’ mindset!
• Adhere to a broader Intermittent Fasting window of 12 hours on, and 12 hours off. I genuinely recommend having a time when you cut off eating. For me, this is 7pm. Once I have finished my dinner, I brush my teeth and tell myself “I’m done for the day. My nutritional needs have been met.” This cuts off any temptation for mindless grazing on chips, chocolate, or cookies once the kids are in bed.
• Avoid grazing on snacks. I do have a sweet tooth and I’m quite obsessed with chocolate and homemade goodies, so most days I will mindfully enjoy a treat in the afternoon. But besides that, I try to avoid reaching for snacks outside of meal times, and if I am genuinely hungry, will have a piece of fruit.
• Keep doing things in life that bring me joy and fulfillment (outside of eating). I love singing and serving at church, I am learning to play the piano, and I enjoy spending time with my family and friends.
• Ground myself in who God created me to be, accept that He gave me this body and my genetic makeup, and immerse myself in His Word when the old doubts come creeping in. I also need to accept that I will age, and not see this as something scary. I must not measure my worth by the number on the bathroom scale.

I deliberated about whether this was a post worth sharing, and worried about what people might think (would they think I am weak, mentally unwell, egotistical, or full of myself?). I showed it to my husband and he said it might be encouraging to others on a similar journey to mine. So many people have asked me about my weight loss and how I achieved it, so I suppose I wanted to be honest about what has worked, and what the impact has been. I always imagined writing a post about how I lost weight once I had reached my goal weight, but now I have shared this post instead.

I could very easily slip into old mindsets and eating patterns- and I wanted to make a public statement to create accountability with myself. Yesterday I changed my weight loss goal on my Fitbit account, to align with my current weight. I felt guilty about that, like quitting my goal was a failure of my will and ability to see something through to its end. But sometimes letting go of a goal is the right thing to do, and I want to be ok with that.

Blessings,

Hannah xo