My First Experience of Weight Gain

I was always lean during my school and college days, without actually doing anything about it, (thanks to my good metabolism and active lifestyle), therefore never understood the importance of good nutrition and exercise as never needed that. I think this is the case with most of us and we never gave much importance to good nutrition and exercise, while growing up. But then during our times our food habits were certainly healthy, our games were action packed outdoor oriented, our work involved more physical work. Thus our active lifestyle used to help us to be lean and fit without even thinking about it. On the contrary present scenario has food habits which are unhealthy, lifestyle is sedentary, games are confined to computer and mobiles, work is mostly sitting job which makes us fat, lethargic, irritable and unhealthy. That's why in today's world everyone including kids need to put extra effort and be conscious of their food choice, nutrition and exercise to lead a healthy life style.

Like most youngsters of that time I also never understood how one feels when they desperately want to lose weight till the time, I was blessed with my first child. After my first-time pregnancy I was loaded with huge amount of post pregnancy weight. I think almost every woman faces this weight gain issues after their pregnancy specially after their first pregnancy. Due to lack of knowledge we over eat dense food in the name of baby's health, pregnancy cravings and pampering of would be mother.

Though I find few people quite cute with their extra weight but sadly not me, being a tall girl with broad bones, I use to look giant with those extra kilos. I desperately wanted to lose weight and could do anything to get back into shape because I thought I am not looking good with this extra weight.

Let me tell you one secret, right from childhood I always believed that I am the most beautiful person, main hamesha se apni favourite rahi hu, my most favourite time pass was watching myself in mirror and talking to myself in a mirror, not exactly the same words but yes the same intention like Kareena's dialogue ki "how dare you, tumhe koi haq nahi hai itni khoobsurat lagne ka", call it whatever you want, confidence, over confidence, self-obsession, madness. But I call it self-love and believe me nothing is more beautiful then loving yourself, everything becomes beautiful, you become a happy person when you actually love yourself, so those were childhood days but I still feel that whenever you watch yourself in mirror, or whenever you think about yourself, tell yourself straight into your eyes "God! You are so beautiful" or "I just love and adore you" or "I am so proud of you" or any other beautiful affirmations which you can gift it to yourself. I do this everyday which brings an ocean of happiness, gratitude and confidence in me, I don't seek external acceptance or praises from others as my heart and soul is filled with joy of getting praises every morning from myself.

See! Again, I am so overwhelmed with this joy that I forgot I was talking about my weight gain story after my pregnancy. OK, so no more twists and turns or drifting away, coming back to the straight road, my post pregnancy weight gain. After my pregnancy this adolescent love for myself had left my company. The love for myself which you may have felt right now was not my companion at that time, I just wanted to lose weight by any means not because I wanted to be fit or healthy but because I use to hate myself looking at myself in mirror, I thought the only way I will look good now is when I will be lean again, and that my friend was my mistake.

We should strive for better health, toned body not because we hate ourselves but because we love ourselves and want to be our best version, if you will not love your present your journey to future will not be beautiful. In sheer desperation and lack of knowledge about nutrition I started following extreme diet plan. I used to have a glass of milk with a slice of bread as breakfast. I even cut down my other two meals to half. Initially I would feel hungry but with time my body adjusted and BMR got reduced. Bingo! I started losing weight but after 6-7 kgs my weight got stuck. I was happy that I was few kgs lighter but still was desperate to come to my pre pregnancy weight very fast. This led me to join one of the weight loss centres – 10 KG in 2 Months kind of program. The experience was totally new and fascinating for me. I just had to lie down for one hour and they use to give me vibrations or heat through machines and there would be a difference of around 1 kg in my before after weight. Weight loss seemed so easy and It just felt like magic. I was enjoying this session as with the help of this I lost few more kgs without putting any extra effort.

After few weeks when I was just few kgs away from my ideal weight, my weight got stuck to one point and losing weight any further was getting difficult. At that time, I was unaware of the fact, that those kgs which I lost was more of muscle and water rather than fat loss, as fat loss never happens the way I was handling my body, so yes weight loss was there but not the healthy weight loss.

For everyone's information, with extreme diet plan that I followed, body loses water first and then the muscle mass. Also, instead of losing fat its starts storing fat as due to historical memory it feels that food is available with difficulty.

Coming back to my case, though the weight loss stopped moving after a point but the extra few kgs left on my body were not visible due to my tall physique. I started enjoying my new self as I again loved to watch myself in mirror also the compliments coming from everyone was like cherry on the cake.

Then the lightning struck. I started having health issues. I started feeling sapped of my energy through the day and felt tired all the time, with weakness I started regaining weight. As the problem was escalating every day, I decided to get myself tested and my reports showed that I have hypothyroidism.

Hypothyroidism is a life style disease, which was the result of the way I abused my body. So, after months of extreme wrong diet, weight loss plans etc I was with a lifelong lifestyle disease and still overweight.

Now when I look back I both cry & have a laugh on my mistakes, which I did in desperation to lose weight. They were strongly powered by my half-baked knowledge about food & nutrition and false belief of what beauty is. In fact, all these false notions along with my incorrect understanding of real fitness & health and extra eagerness to lose weight led me to that stage.

So, friends here I am sharing what I have learnt, over last few years, in my journey towards a healthy body and mind. I am sure many of you would be in the same phase as I was and might help you to learn and understand the true meaning of what holistic healthy body and life is.

Health and fitness cannot be judged only by weight loss. Weight loss can happen with muscle loss which is not good in long run.

Overall fitness matter. When you are able to do your daily activities without getting tired or irritated, handle strenuous work load, enjoy playing outdoor games with your family members, not scared of gaining weight by eating anything throughout the day, and happy the way you look. The most important one is when your lifestyle doesn't lead to any lifestyle disease.

Ideal weight is just an indicator and there are other factors which also contribute to your holistic healthy body. Remember you are much more than those numbers on weighing scale.

Change is good, infact change is the only constant. Always strive to better yourself. Not because you hate the way you are but because you love yourself. In fact, every day should lead to new upgraded version of yourself.

Always Be happy of what you are, Be thankful of what you have, Accept what you don't have, Admit what you can't achieve, Be patient on what you are trying to achieve, be kind to yourself on what you not able to achieve, be consistent to what you really want to achieve.