#but ik i also need to get back on top of my healthy habits so 🤷🏾‍♀️

[imfemalewarrior]

hi mx. femalewarrior! im a moderately overweight afab person (this isnt abt my struggling w femininity and identifying only somewhat and not fully--anyway) and i did exercise today! i biked a while to the store... a store in which i bought a few sweets as a prize for doing the exercise thing. i get that my depressed brain craves the glucose bc it slightly makes up for the lack of dopamine, and i do feel :) when i get a nice pastry, but i still feel bad morally! (1/2)

ik i HAVE to bribe myself to work, but it still feels yicky, y'know? like, why do the work in working some stuff off just to put it right back? it especially doesnt help that since im poor i can't do the whole fresh veggies and meats and w/e thing. its cans and what you can get from a dollar tree for me. do you have any exercises that don't feel like exercises so i don't feel as if i did a lot n "deserve" that sugary thing? i wanna lose some weight but it seems so daunting! [2/2]

(my answer) 

So, instead of having a weight goal, why not make other more sustainable goals regarding exercise? More and more research is coming out that it is habit and lifestyle/genetics that affect your health much more than weight (look at women olympic weightlifters, world’s strongest men, and open water swimmers like Lynne Cox as examples). Some example goals are: exercising a certain number of times per week, so maybe start with a goal to exercise 1 or 2 days every week, and then increasing the number based on what time you can set aside to do this. Or a goal could be “find an exercise I enjoy” and then find different exercises each week to try out to figure out what you enjoy doing (dance classes, yoga, aerobics, swimming, martial arts, jogging, walking, weightlifting, historical martial arts from various regions of the world, dagorhir/LARP/SCA, to name a few possibilities). Maybe once you find one you enjoy it will help you with getting that dopamine (I feel, I also have depression). And after you find one you enjoy you can then work on setting up exercising a few times a week. 

So basically, eating is not going to “undo” what you just did, it can help support you in doing more of it. If bike riding is what you enjoy doing, but you need more reason than only bike riding for now (like going to the store and getting something to celebrate the bike ride), then that’s ok, especially if it becomes a regular activity for you and you replenish your body with protein, vitamins and minerals from protein/plant sources (even canned/frozen! they still have things your body needs, it’s not fresh or nothing!), and drinking water. Right now it’s more important to focus on recovering your mental health and setting some sustainable goals.

Doing this is going to put demands on your body that will cause it to change in response. Many of them will demand your body develop more muscle, which weighs more (example: when I exercise regularly I gain about 20-30 pounds of muscle easily, I know this from being weighed at the doctor’s office during times when I was not physically active and times when I was physically active, other than that I don’t weight myself, I don’t own a scale, instead I just make sure I get enough nutrition and energy from my food and usually practice my dance and martial arts a few times a week). So, in other words, you’ll get hungrier, and you deserve food for that. Perhaps plan a nutritionally balanced meal to give your body the nutrition it needs to repair and recover from an exercise session in addition to the sweets you crave? 

Canned food is not necessarily evil/bad, I eat canned beans and tomatoes and frozen veggies. What COULD be bad depending on how your body processes certain vitamins/minerals is the salt/sugar content of some canned food (some sugar is not bad especially if it’s supposed to be there like in fruit and pastry, but sugar is unnecessarily added to a lot of things you wouldn’t expect, especially low/nonfat food like milk, yoghurt, etc). So when I go and I buy canned tomatoes (as an example) I check the salt content and try to get one with low or no salt (especially since I’m going to season it a whole bunch and add salt on top of whatever the manufacturer added). (Note: some people can’t process salt very well, so they need to eat more salt in order to get enough of it processed in their body, so for them a high salt diet is what’s healthy, but this is not true for everyone). Beans and legumes are also sources of protein (what your body will need to repair and build muscle for an active lifestyle) along with eggs, and eggs can be pretty cheap (I have seen them at walmart for like a dollar). 

Another option is to shop at international food stores (I do this to get a lot of rice and flour and spices for much more reasonable prices than most chain stores charge). 

I talk more about different factors in this video (it is slightly off base from your question but that’s because it’s the only video I have up right now I’m planning on more in the future). 

-FemaleWarrior 

[notyobabygirl]

hey girl! this will be long i’m so sorry 🥺

i’ve gained weight since quarantine started which is also around the time i started dating my bf. we eat out a few days a week and i get 0 exercise now. my days consist of me waking up around 8am, babysitting until 5pm, going to my bf’s house until 1am, coming home & spending the rest of my night watching my shows and snacking until i go to bed around 2/3/4am. growing up my weight would fluctuate a lot: in elementary school i was chubby, in middle school i magically lost it all and was skinny, freshman/sophomore year of hs i was a literal twig and super unhealthily skinny, junior year i gained a little weight but was still skinny, and senior year (last year also when i first met my bf) was probably the best my body has been. it’s funny because last year i thought i was fat and was insecure but now looking back, i was literally perfect and i would kill to look like that again. i see how easy it was for me to gain weight over the years and i want to make a change in my habits so bad but with my schedule and with gyms being closed where i live it’s hard. i’m gonna try to not make excuses though lol but my issue is once i start, i want to see the results asap or i get really unmotivated. ik a girl from my school who has lost 70lbs since last year and she posted a tiktok about it and it made me feel better like i could do it. i have a weird relationship with food though. i would literally starve myself in 8,9,10th grade and now i love food and i actually have an appetite. my weight gain has also caused me to be insecure in my relationship. i’m constantly wondering if my bf is less attracted to me or if he notices it. he’s never mentioned it but i have to admit i was so much hotter when he first met me than i am now. and all his past girls that ik of are relatively skinny and i think about that too and compare myself :/ in the back of my mind i know i’m really insecure about gaining weight but i usually don’t let it get to me. but tonight i decided i wanted to ‘see what i look like from someone else’s view’ so i set up my phone using flash and the back camera and turned/posed so i could see how my body looked. i actually did a few of these videos (i was wearing a tight cropped tank top and baggy sweats). and i feel so disgusted by myself. i knew i gained weight but i looked like a whale from certain views. most of the weight i gained went to my tummy and arms sadly. from behind my arms/shoulders look so fat and my stomach is the biggest it’s ever been. most people wouldn’t consider me “fat” but i feel huge. i want to start good habits (eat better, exercise more, etc) but i don’t know where to start or how long i’ll last. i know it’ll be worth it in the end but i need motivation right now to even begin. i’m so sorry that was a literal book to read, but it would mean a lot if you had any tips on staying motivated, how i can eat healthier and exercise while having such a strict schedule? i don’t necessarily want to “diet” and the amount of information that is out there on eating habits and working out is so confusing. like everyone says different things and contradict each other that idk what i exactly should do to reach my goals. i want to lose general weight (especially in my tummy and arms) and overall be more confident and happy. thank you 🤍 sorry again for the length of this!

hi hi! well first of all I dont think your boyfriend got any less attracted to you at all! boys are also pretty oblivious. dont worry about what he thinks because its not important. he loves you for you and clearly if he has never even said anything then that proves my point even more! also wanna say I have taken self timer pictures of my body and I was mortified too lol. like I swear it made me look 10x worse than I did so dont look too much into the pictures. adding exercise into your diet will help so if you want to wake up before babysitting (I dont blame you if you dont lol) then that would be a great way to start the morning and get it over with. but If you dont then after babysitting take an hour to go to the gym or do workouts at home. to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficient. if you do little to no activity during the day and just eat shit all day then it will catch up with you (it did to me beginning of the year). dedicate ATLEAST 30 minutes into doing something. I have been so into walking for an hour and listening to podcasts, its like my fav things. eating healthy is the most important part though, tell your boyfriend you are eating healthy and you will go with him to get food but you won't always get something or you will find the healthiest option. growing up I always thought that eating healthy means eating gross foods but eating healthy can be soooo yummy. tik toks really helped me find recipes as well as going on Pinterest or even just going to the grocery store and experimenting. buy healthy snacks, veggies, skinny pop, halo top, hummus, rice cakes and pb, fruits, frozen fruit, smoothies. that helped me start losing weight and replacing unhealthy foods with good healthy ones. the grocery store is like the first step and getting into that mindset like ok im going to eat healthy is important. you know you can do it, anyone can do it. you just have to be ok with saying no to eating out and stuff. drink sooo much water, I have a 40oz hydro flask and I think I drink close to like 2 gallons not kidding. also tea!! I love tea so much. If you dont buy the junk food then you cant eat it! I know you can do this, you got this!!!!!!

[unicornninjabitch]

You: no one asked for another one of these

Me: yeah i know sorry i just have a lot of emotions and shit lately

(Haha thats a lie all i feel lately is annoyed and pain)

Anyway yes I’m going to complain more about life cause i have some emotions i need to get out and shit. Okay I’m very much a night owl, I have been my whole life, I work better t night and just love the night sky and shit. However 8th grade I was really, super, hella depressed cause of family stuff and school and being totally alone and you know the depression (thanks genes!), so I’d be absolutely TERRIFIED to be left alone with my thoughts. I’d stay up all night on youtube or some cringey website or on tumblr just so I didn’t have to lay in bed and think. Also very closeted, very depressed baby Alex had no idea wtf a healthy coping mechanism was, so I cut and it was bad like an every night thing cause after I did I was suddenly really tired and could almost sleep instantly once it hit like 2-3 am. Anyway I fucked my sleeping schedule up at a very young age, so that habit never left and the earliest I go to bed anymore is 12-12:30, whatever im used to it, not good for me but whatever. Then summer started and I didn’t sleep till like 1am-2am so I chalked it up to “it’s summer whatever”, but then it was 2 am-3am and I thought that was a one time thing, but nope. Now (as in the past week/week and a half ish) I’m lucky to get 2-3 hours of sleep and even then I’m up at like 9 am. As you can imagine this has lead to a good amount of problems, but first one additional thing. Now it’s just me and my mom at our house, but because of hour cuts and paying for school and catching up on bills and other shit we don’t really have a ton of money which means we don’t have a ton of food which means what we have we have to make last. With that being said back track to me getting 2-3 hours of sleep, now my body’s tired and I’m exhausted I just wont go to fucking sleep, but I’m hungry as hell. We didn’t have cereal and milk for awhile, so that left me with pasta like I said I’m exhausted so pasta involves cooking, but I couldn’t do it. I knew I’d be too tired half way through the water boiling to finish let alone eat anything. Also cause we don’t have a ton of money I’d get 2 free meals a day in school so I wouldn’t go a whole day (or week) without eating real food (i mean it was gross government food but it got the job done), but in summer I didn’t get that so I just havent eaten really all summer like i could probably count on my hands how many actual meals ive eaten all summer. So the not eating mixed with the not sleepings fucking awful as you can imagine.I had a headache so bad I had to close my curtains put on sunglasses cover my head with a blanket and put my ice on my head in an attempt to help ease the pain, but WAIT THERES MORE. Every bone in my body constantly feels like it needs to crack and im just constantly really achey (idk if that has to do anything but it hurts like hell) Ive tried stretching and resting but it doesnt help, BUT THERES EVEN MORE!! The not eating!! I can feel my stomach being totally empty besides some water and that shit fucking hurts (idk how baby Alex did that shit) AND A FINAL THING your boy was born with god awful child bearing parts and guess what came up?! That’s right devil week so i feel like someones just stabbing me with a pitchfork while also trying to eject food thats not there. Therefore the past few nights Ive basically been clutching my stomach and head, the heating pad isnt helping, and pain killers arent helping much.

At this point youre probably like “dude just some nyquil” which yeah youre right i should but we didnt have extra money this week to buy any and we dont have any so thats why i didnt do that. Also like I said before I /am/ tired, im really fucking tired and i dont really have thoughts its more like fast and loud static and like energy i have to get out or i get uncomfortable, so the past few nights (last night was really bad) Im up clutching and rocking and snapping and tapping my feet just trying to get rid of that energy. It comes a little bit in the day i was talking to a friend and typing so fucking fast while also thinking about some oc idea and then BAM no energy at fucking all like i had to lay down. This also leads into ive been trying to read out loud to myself so i can try to get my voice lower cause my voice bothers the hell out of me, but i cant focus for longer than like 5 minutes cause of loud static and extra energy and being tired and my eyes being tired so its really frustrating.

The thing is i go to a psychiatrist for my meds and what she told me (idk if this is true everywhere or just how she is) that i had like textbook bipolar but becaue at the time i was ike 14/15 they didnt want to diagnose it cause i was still young. Bipolar runs in my family, just like depression and anxiety, so i wasnt super suprised by that and as i got older i got less scared (theres nothing scary about people with bipolar btw i just didnt know what to expect or think cause of how i saw it in like movies and stuff) i thought maybe i wasnt and i just had highs and lows like everyone else, but looking back i can see that the highs and lows were really extreme and like i said before i was super suicidal last year and just kinda gave up and earlier this summer it took a lot of energy to do anything, but this isnt like doing reckless things kinda high like it normally is and it fucking suck ass guys. On top of that my ever so supporting lately mother was like “look up manic episodes” so i told her i know what it is but she just pushed to look it up so i did and of course i made a joke about increased sexual activity (which my virgin is not) and looked like yes i know. (side note dw too much im going to the doctors tomorrow and im gonna see what i can do about my meds and stuff).

So yeah sorry for another shitty life update (not including tons of dysphoria, isolation, and more self hate but whatevs)