I was about to deliver my daughter after excruciating 60 hours of labor, the doctors decided that there is no other way except to do a C-section and I wanted to have a normal delivery, felt so bad. Before I could even get a hold of my emotions the doctor asked me what was my weight before conceiving. I told him 178 pounds and he said “so you were overweight, to begin with”

I was mortified, I thought that my weight except for maybe glares, awful comments, could never affect anymore but today it did.  Finally, after the C-section, I had the baby in my arms and everyone told me that you lose weight while breastfeeding.

Nothing happened I remained still the same. A year passed and maybe I lost 6-8 pounds nothing more. I was weighing 170 pounds for my height of 5 feet 2 inches, which is quite overweight.

There is something that caught my eye while I would go out for a walk; most of the fat parents had fat kids. No, I am not any fat-hater or fat-bully or whatever but its just something I don’t want to be and certainly, absolutely never for my daughter. Then one day I decided I will lose this weight I have once and for all.

After all these years I am done being this size my size was maybe 16. I am tired of feeling fat, being the fattest and I am tired of never fitting in good clothes.  So I started my journey taking baby steps:

• Start going out: If you are doing a job good for you, if you are a stay at home please go out. There is no better way to at least get your mind off by talking to people.
• Try to be in a crowd where people are slim: As superficial as it sounds, it will always work. Nobody says a word or talks about weight but you will feel it that you need to do something about your weight.
• Do you really need that whole cookie/brownie? Sometimes I really crave that chocolaty taste for which I buy brownies. The size of cookies and brownies is really big; nobody needs such a big cookie. So eat a little and maybe rest you can share with friends?
• Don’t make tempting foods: I love sweets and I love baking however I bake whenever there is a party or if I have friends over for dinner or tea. I know I will eat them so I keep very few pieces at home that too I ask my husband to hide them and give me only when we have tea. Poor him he is the bad guy!!
• Don’t try to compromise the flavor of what you crave and yes I really, really mean it. When you crave a brownie, eat the brownie you like just eat a small piece. I have tried several low fat, high protein, low carb brownies and it never satisfied me. When you are eating a small piece eat the one that makes you happy.
• Start gradually: The most important reason why people fall off the wagon or give up so easily is that they don’t believe in an intermediate or the transient stage. You have eaten let’s say ice cream all your life, you cant change your taste buds to like yogurt with honey on it in a day. You just can’t!! When I started, I ate a half piece of brownie, as I am a chocoholic, every single day. Then I gradually reduced to eating once in a week, in a month and now I think the last piece I had was like 3 months ago or so.
• Don’t go for artificial options: All these low-fat, 2% fat I never buy. I believe my ancestors ate what nature gave them and nature gave them fats. I am sure that must be for a reason right?
• Start exercising duh!!!! I know that’s like so common but its true. You need to exercise, not just for weight loss but to feel good and jazzy!!! Please don’t start with a hard exercise, start with what is comfortable for you. If you don’t want don’t do it every day also. No worries.
• Eat at right times: It’s the toughest one to crack as after dinner, sitting on a couch within a couple of hours we crave something fatty and most of the times at least for me, sugar. There is a trick: boil some eggs or eat some chocolate chips. Eggs are filling and chips are really satisfying.
• When you crave chocolate just eat the chocolate It’s the truth. Chocolate is definitely fatty as it has fats and sugar I agree, still its much better than eating a brownie or a cookie. Try to eat a piece of 70%, I have friends who can eat 100% and see if you crave more. Cookie and brownies are the worst combinations as they have flour, butter, sugar to the extra fattiness of chocolate. Eat the chocolate in its pure glory works like a charm!!!!!!
• Try Lentils Since I am a vegetarian lentil and beans make a great deal of my diet, having a hearty bowl of lentil soup makes me go so much farther.
• Always share I always share my food especially with my daughter. In that way, she loves to eat what I eat and we have such a strong bond. She gets to eat more and I less. It’s a win-win situation.
• Keep your mind busy Whenever I feel bored I tend to munch I am sure you get the same feeling too. Nowadays whenever I get that feeling I start to squat or drink green tea. It works really well for me.
• Try to incorporate as many healthy calories as you can The word healthy and unhealthy now have skewed demarcation. For me, I don’t mind adding butter to my soup rather than having another bowl of soup. If I am having my meal I would like to enjoy it as much as I can.
• Try eating out as little as you can yes it’s really important. I know most of us are tired, have no energy but that’s not as an excuse to not nourish yourselves. Prepare a salad first before making dinner or boil some beans the night ahead so that as soon as you enter the home, rather than tossing a frozen pizza in the oven or shoveling down the donuts you picked on your way home (you better don’t) you have already filled yourself a bit.
• If you love sugar eat pancakes for dinner I know sounds ridiculous but it works. No these are not ordinary pancakes. The flour is red millet, the syrup is honey just 1 tbsp, cooked in butter with 1 tbsp of ice cream and six chocolate chips. Tastes like heaven and its dessert and dinner in one. How about that?????
• I never have soft drinks or juice That’s true I have no taste for them as I noticed you can put on a lot of weight with juices. Most of my friends keep guzzling juice like water. If you really crave juice squeeze some lime in ice cold water and drink it, it tastes divine.

So now you know how I did it. I realized that the key to losing weight is to indulge yourself, the more you deny yourself the more you will crave. You need to take it one day at a time, share with people and eat small portions. I followed the above points, so far lost 45 pounds and I am still planning on losing 20 more. Good luck.