76 Point Something: A New Mom Shares Her Vegan Weight Loss Journey

As a new mom to be, the weighing scale gave this author a shock. Here’s her personal story of finding fitness and weight loss in her own, healthy way. 

The scale read ’76 point something’. My vision blurred. And my mind refused to read the numbers beyond the decimal. Doing otherwise, anyways, wouldn’t have averted the risk – of grave disappointment. I hurriedly stepped down, wore my slippers and turned around, pretending – I didn’t care. I wore an edgy smile and treaded swiftly towards the room where I was to spend a few hours before it was time. My body, that I was way too comfortable with and the round solid baby bump that I had flaunted for all these months, had suddenly started to feel ponderous.

I stood in front of the mirror, limping and adjusting myself in vain. I could barely see anything below my face. Then I turned to my magical device with a glistening metal body – my smart phone, which housed an assortment of applications just to make me feel good. At least they followed my instructions. Lol.

Whatever it was, I was awfully disappointed. I couldn’t really wrap my head around the fact that something that I was unperturbed about always, otherwise, was distressing me so much now. Was it the anxiety of delivering a baby in just a few hours or was it the weight really? I had been a fat person all my life except when I was in college and my initial working years – when all I did was starve because of lack of time and resources. But largely I was always overweight and I had never put in any effort to be fit or healthy or weigh just right. Then why did my world come crashing down now?

May be the feeling of – End-of-it -all-now – I had started to imagine myself weighing as much, or more for the rest of my life. And there was no scope of revival. I knew I had gone a little too far this time. The pregnancy weight on my pear-shaped petite body had pulled my confidence level to an all-time low. The only saving grace was my ever-optimistic conscious mind, which kept assuring me that once the baby popped out, I would do just fine. At least I would weigh a few pounds lesser, like instantly. Lol.

It was the 3rd of Oct’2016. I was 34 years old and weighed my heaviest ever – 76 Kgs. 

What a lovely experience pregnancy and motherhood are all about, of course, minus everything that makes the woman look fat and worn out. The body deposits fat at all the wrong places, making her look impeccably uneven from all possible angles. Recovering from a C-section, learning to breastfeed, nursing round the clock, battling postpartum depression and trying to adjust just about everything to the ‘new normal’ does put weight reduction or fitness at the back-burner for some time and sometimes forever. And if not paid heed to, it remains with her, becomes a part of her, forever. And that’s how I had also accepted my future self to be.

20 months later…

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I had just managed to lose about 6 kgs without putting in much effort. For my height and weight, the ideal weight was 55kgs. The uphill climb looked so intimidating that I gave up even before I could do anything about it. By then, we had moved to Germany from India. We were traveling extensively within Europe. And I had no day’s job to go to. I had all the time to eat, chill and relax. And that’s exactly what I did. I carried on with my late night binges, savoring my favorite desserts and hogging on self-cooked Indian food or local delicacies while we traveled.

Then one fine day…

While I was toying with the idea of becoming a vegan – which had bothered me ever since I had read about the dreadful facts of the dairy and the poultry industry and its impact on the environment, I decided to just go ahead with it and experiment. If I couldn’t sustain, I was happy to go back to being what I always was. I married this principle to Intermittent Fasting. I was quite keen at trying this someday, ever since I had come to know that Joshua Fields Millburn from The Minimalist did it to stay fit. I just blindly copied his diet from his website, replaced all the non-vegetarian food he ate for protein with the plant-based substitutes. And what began was the most fulfilling experience of my life – the most rewarding journey towards health and fitness.

What had started as a trial and an experiment is going strong still past 150 days now. And I am extremely happy to see the results in my body. I had lost 12 Kgs straight in just 60 days and continue to weigh 58 kgs even now. I try to follow my diet regime, quite strictly, every single day. Though vegan food is inaccessible and unavailable on many occasions, I have still somehow managed and going pretty strong at it. However I do compromise on the fasting routine at times, when I am travelling or meeting up with friends and family. It isn’t that I love my food any lesser now. It’s just that I have chosen to eat mindfully and I do exercise for my overall physical and mental health. And if doing so, in some way, I am able to contribute to reducing my carbon footprint on the planet, my conviction to do so, just becomes a lot stronger.

Veganism and Intermittent Fasting in isolation, or in combination would definitely help to cut fat and bring you to a comfortable or a desirable weight. But having said that, fitness is something that would come only with physical exercise. So after evading it for all these years, I have finally started to run along with trying to cross-train (practicing yoga and meditation) on alternate days. I have registered for a timed 10k, which I would be running a couple of months from now. But before I settled in for this lifestyle, I did get my blood work done at the 90 days milestone and consulted my General Physician for my overall health status. Everything seemed to be running at it’s perfect pace.

This has been my shortest, however greatly satisfying and most sustainable journey towards becoming the fittest and the healthiest version of myself. 

I had always been that person who had zero will power.  In spite of being a wife of a Marathoner, I could never manage to get myself to do any kind of physical exercise ever. I was lazy. I gave way too many excuses. And self-sympathy was my greatest weakness. I was someone who ate mindlessly, without caring enough about the source of the food or its impact on my health or the environment. I binged on highly processed food every night. I slept at unearthly hours and had devoted myself completely to the jobs, which paid my bills. I had hardly paid any attention to anything that was Me. I was a walking, talking, living pile of everything that was not needed and was inadvertently sabotaging my physical, emotional and spiritual existence. So, if I can, you too can. Believe you me, there would be days, when nothing will go as per the plan, but what would make a difference is that – you never give up. 

It’s never too late if you have realized what’s right for you. It’s never the end really, unless you have accepted it to be. It’s never about anything else that brings you happiness but your own existence. Value it. Respect it. Nurture it.

What has been your personal journey to fitness or reaching your right weight ? Do share your story with us and feel free to post a comment here!

First published at author’s blog

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