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Jul 21

Why Its Okay If Youre Not Having A Dramatic Body Transformation During The Pandemic – MensXP.com

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Lets Start With A Little Background, Shall We?

Weight loss and Ioh, boy, where do I even begin? Its been an extreme push and pull relationship since I was 17-years-old and was first diagnosed with severe Hypothyroidism. To make things even worse, I share an intense, passionate and all-consuming relationship with foodwhich has not always worked out well for me.

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I have seesawed between fat, skinny, chubby, skinny fat, obese, thin, athletic and overweight for almost 15 years now. Obviously, its not healthy, but now, you can understand why weight and I have been in such a long and turbulent relationship.

My childhood was all about sports. Ha! Surprised? Went like wtf? Well, its true. I am talking National level stuff here. I was in shape. Obsessed with physical activity, but all of that ended when I was diagnosed and I sacrificed sports for a career.

Hypothyroidism entered my life and told me straight to my face: Sweety, I am going to make your life miserable from now on. Try and lose all the weight you want, I wont let that happen! Since then, its been all about eating less, eating right, working out, moving more, staying healthyconcepts that were totally alien to me while I was growing up and was in the best shape of my life.

2020 began on a fantastic note for me. I just turned 30 and was already super motivated AF to drop some major kilos. I was a work-in-progress at a fitness centre and was freaking killing it there. My clothes were becoming loose. I was feeling attractive. I was getting compliments. I was on top of the damn world. Life was good.

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March arrived and thats when all my progress went to sh*t.

With the Coronavirus global pandemic slowly progressing from a concern to an actual oh-my-God-is-this-really-happening development, my only source of workout came to a screeching halt. And initially, I took it as a positive thing. I mean, more time at home means more time to work out, right? Well, it was not the case for me.

I found myself more and more dead tired by the end of work by each passing day, and more stressed. Obviously, I could not even step out for a run, which meant I needed to start home workouts and I have always hated doing that with a burning passion. Working out for me means literally stepping out. I need to leave my home to exercise. Simple.

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However, as the kilos kept piling up, no matter how less I ate or how clean my diet was, the internet was being flooded with incredible stories of how people had dramatically transformed their bodies in just 3 months or 6 months.

Super obese people were now sporting abs, women who were struggling with post-pregnancy weight were looking like freaking supermodels.

The one thing all these stories had in common was that they were madly working out on a daily basis. I am talking 1-2 hours of cardio and weight and yoga and anything other workout you can think out. Now, as I said before, working out in my room was the one thing I hated the most, but I started feeling like I had no other choice. Everyone was doing it, why was I finding it so difficult. With that in mind, I started the in-my-room exercisesand I had never felt worse in my life.

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I missed the fresh air of my daily walks, I freaking missed the people at my gym as we danced together in a sweaty, musical ritual. And by the end of 3 months, I had lost a meagre 4 kiloswhich made me almost smash everything in my room.

With a year having gone into the pandemic and my weight trying to give competition to that of a Panda, I tortured myself every day watching these weight loss stories and screamed from the inside that I was not able to do that despite all my efforts.

Somehow, I had convinced myself that if I do not lose weight like others during the pandemic, I was a loser and that I could not do anything else. Suddenly, all my past achievements in life did not matter. I also started associating my worth to the numbers dropping on the scale.

Try and imagine how frustrating I must have felt to watch the kilos pile up despite eating clean, despite working out. Yes, my job required me to stay pretty much chained to the computer all day, and that prevented me from working on my NEAT, but I was still doing everything right.

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One day, around 4 am, as I was staring at my burning vanilla-scented candle and trying to win my war with insomnia, I started wondering if I should just stop. Stop with the fruits and veg, stop running like a headless chicken on my rooftop, stop doing endless situps and planks and just accept my fate of turning into a continentwhen something hit me like a truck.

I.Was.Stressed.From.Trying.To.Lose.Weight.

A process that's supposed to make you feel better, was actually sucking all the joy and happiness from my life!

No wonder I was miserable even though I had lost 10 kilos in 5 months. Sure the weight was coming down even though at the speed of a snail, but what was I losing in the process? I was angrier than ever, my hair was literally turning grey, I starting getting acne like crazy, I was tensed all the time, my endless patience was dwindling, I was forcing myself to be happy (something that came so naturally to me)

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I realized that one persons weight loss DOES NOT have to be my story. Another persons transformation DOES NOT have to be my goal. What will happen if I dont lose all that weight in a limited time? Exactly, nothing! Will my family kick me out? No. Will I lose my job? No. Will my friends abandon me? No way. So? Why was I killing myself over not being able to lose 20 kilos in 3 months like so many others? Why couldnt I be happy with my progress, no matter how small it was?

I started praising myself for my tiny but significant gains. I told myself that I was losing weight slowly despite a severe medical condition and a sedentary job, and that was freaking amazing! I assured myself that I was not unhealthy and was not killing myself if I ate cake or a damn lasagna once in a while. I accepted that my body was differentmy journey was differentI was different from all those people who were going viral for their transformations, and that I was doing nothing wrong.

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Slowly, but surely, peace started resurfacing back in my head. I stopped plotting the death of the universe. I stopped seeing food as my mortal enemy. I continued doing what I was doing with the little workouts, and minus the stress and all that negativity I had createdI realized I was actually killing it!

Once I figured out that it was not some race to lose weight, the pressure just died, and I was proud of my efforts.

And right now, even though I am still not thin yet. And am still waiting for the rains to stop and the situation outside to ease up so I can run again, I am finally at peace with my journey. Because I have nothing to prove to anyone, and being healthy, both physically and mentally, is more important to me right now in this pandemic.

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Honestly, guys, look at what is happening outside. We are the privileged few. While people are dying and families are being torn apart with grief because of Covid, some of us are still healthy surrounded by our precious family in our homes, safe and happy. Instead of coming down on ourselves just because of that number on the weighing machine, how about we thank God to be alive and healthy right now?

The weight will drop, eventually, but its not worth losing your mental peace over it. I paid a price to come to that life-altering realisation...but you don't have to.

Go here to read the rest:
Why Its Okay If Youre Not Having A Dramatic Body Transformation During The Pandemic - MensXP.com

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