Diets are for the ton!

Well, I guess I am not alone with my struggle of constantly trying to loose weight, right?

I´ve been a thin child and a thin teenager ... then I started to gain weight. In my "highest" moments I weight about 100 kg.

Was I happy? Definitely NO! 

Did I try to loose weight? ALWAYS!

My biggest success happened when I was 29 turning to be 30 years old. It was the time when I found a program that totally worked for me. It was / is a extremely expensive program for women only, a guided diet combinate with special training. 

The fact of being so expensive was an important part of it. Otherwise I would not have taken it that serious.

Long story short: I lost 30 kilos in a time period of 11 months!

How amazing it felt when I was slim for the first time in my adult life! 

People didn´t recognize me on the street anymore. I had so much fun buying the clothes I really wanted to wear. 

I do remember one situation which will always stay in my mind and I will always be able to remember that feeling of happiness and immense gratitude.

In that time I was working in the baby and children section of a big clothes shop. Usually when our colleagues got the order to reduce prices they would tell us if there were stuff we might like. 

So one of my colleagues from the woman section told me as usual: "Hey, I´ve got jeans here for minus xx % (I don´t remember the reduction anymore). There is a model in size 46. Do you wanna try it on?"

I beamed at her. "Well, that´s really nice of you, but I don´t wear size 46 anymore."

"Ah sorry, I forgot. Of course!" was her answer while she blushed. "Which size are you wearing at the moment?"

Good question. I didn´t know. Loosing weight happened so fast and because of that special training my body changed into something really beautiful. 

We both were curious so I started to try on jeans. 

At one point there was a loud scream hollering through the woman section ... and an extremely happy me was running barefoot to all the colleagues in the shop. With a big grin and with tears in my eyes I showed them the label:

"Look!! I am fitting into a jeans size 38!!"

Boy, that was one hell of a crazy time in my life! 

What happened then?

I was slim and as much as I enjoyed my life because of that ... I was not happy in the big picture. 

My marriage was rotten and my father died in that period. So without really recognizing it I found myself gaining weight again. It was frustrating to find out that being slim doesn´t make my life better.

Of course I was unhappy to be overweight again. 

Of course I tried to loose weight again several times. 

But it was not that easy anymore. The motivation and the drive was gone.

The good thing is that a Highly Sensitive Person does not just take this situation as granted. We HSP always search for the reasons of everything.

I do know my body and I do know why I was overweight most of my adult life. Two reasons:

Nr. 1: I am a "frustration eater" as we call it in German language. I eat tons of  junk food when I am angry, stressed, bored or unhappy. 

Nr. 2 - a little more subtle than Nr. 1: I needed protection walls around my woman body. I was sexually abused when I was a teenager and therefore I was never really able to cope with my femininity. 

It was when I came to Malta 7 years ago when I finally was able to loose my longing for protection walls. It was here in Malta when I learned that the trauma of my young age is over, that I am strong enough to protect myself and that I am able to say NO and STOP! 

In the last couple of years I also shifted to natural and healthy food. Though I still had my bad days where I ate every junk I bought and suffered from eating all those shit afterward, slowly slowly eating healthy became a new habit. 

That made me loose weight without even being on a diet. 

The last big break through in that field happened with corona (THANK YOU, pandemic, for that personal chance!) 

Thanks to exclusively home cooked and natural meals, thanks to no need of frustration eating any longer my body is transforming into something beautiful again.

Not "that beautiful" as it was back then, because I am not doing that kind of training which shaped my body so well. I am not doing any sport at all ... except some swimming in the sea and going on walks.

Instead of that my new way of feeding my body became so natural, which feels sooooo much better than being on a diet!

There is NOTHING I am not allowed to do! I am allowed to eat and drink everything I like. Who would dare to control me? The difference is: I don´t WANT to eat everything anymore. 

The more I changed to natural food the more I got disgusted of junk food. 

I just remember that time in the beginning of the lockdown when I bought a big -bar of Milka chocolate. Hello? I was raised with Milka chocolate and I would have known the different between Milka chocolate and any other brand - blindfolded. 

But now ... it tasted like ... just awfully sweet and absolutely not like chocolate at all. I was so disappointed.

On the other hand I´ve been to Soul Food, an Italian vegan and vegetarian restaurant in Valletta the other day.

I ordered a fresh smoothie with cucumber, apple and mint, some water and a vegan Buddha bowl with only fresh ingredients. 

Sweet Jesus and Mother Mary!

That was soooooo delicious!

I guess I am in love with that Buddha bowl!

And you know what? 

Not only did it taste like heaven. It also felt so great to eat that healthy, fresh and vegan meal! 

I enjoyed it immensely and I was proud of myself at the same time.

There was absolute no reason for regrets or feeling ashamed or feeling weak.

It "simply" was an absolute pleasure to enjoy that delicious dinner in that amazing Italian restaurant in the centre of our beautiful capitol Valletta. 

You can ditch every diet when you are aware of two important things:

Nr 1: What is good for me and for my body?

Nr 2: What is the real reason for me being overweight?

Be honest to yourself and try to figure those things out. And then, when you find out that a packet of potato crisps or a meal at any kind of fast food restaurant doesn´t really make you happy ... 

you will find your personal and natural way of reducing weight. And the best part of it: you will not even call it "reducing weight" or "diet" anymore. You will call it:

ENJOYING LIFE AND SOME GOOD FOOD AT THE SAME TIME!