I spent years thinking I was doing 'everything right.'

I was reasonably active, ate salads, hiked, and cooked at home most nights. It was hard to see what was so different when I looked at other people's lives.

And yet, year after year, I continued to gain weight. About 2-5 pounds a year. One tough year, it was closer to 10, but that was unusual. My ex-husband and I were building a home, and I was the general contractor. It was as awful as it sounds.

By 2009, I had gained 55 pounds. I had problems with digestion, energy, depression, and cloudy thinking.

My body felt like an albatross. I spent two decades thinking something was wrong with me. That turned out to be a trap that disempowered me to create real change.

Once I stopped counting, fasting, or wasting time blaming, I was able to account for how I was navigating my life. 

Think patient observation over big resolutions. Little by little, the truth unfolded. I was able to identify what was upending me, make the corrections, and finally lose the weight.

It was behavior, not biology.

A new newsletter series.

For the next few weeks, I'll outline how I approach day-to-day life differently than I did then. You'll get a look under the hood, as it were, of healthy weight living.

Like a BEFORE & AFTER–but your life.

This is part 1.

Casually eating fast food.

Let's use a trip to Costco as an example. 

I recently rejoined Costco because I needed tires, kitchen appliances, glasses, and the crazy good deal on olive oil. 

I was a member years ago when I had a family and then a restaurant. Now I'm a solo city dweller who prefers to buy food as needed (and avoid spending hours in a metal box).

In my old life, my ex-husband and I shopped once a week. After all that stocking up, did we go home and cook? Nope, we grabbed a meal in the food court.

That's not an accident. The entire experience is designed to make it hard to leave. Which means you spend time browsing on your feet. Which means you're hungry and a little tired after checking out. 

And voilà, an unplanned eating opportunity of obesogenic meals. 

Scroll up real quick to see the menu. That's entirely ultra-processed and highly processed food. All of it. Which is another way of saying fast food.

Is there a salad on the menu, maybe? I don't care about that, and neither should you. I bet that's ordered one time to a thousand of the hot dogs. That's a structure issue, not a willpower one. 

Fast food leads to overeating, triggers sugar cravings, and is nutritionally void. So yes, it puts on weight, especially in these circumstances.

BEFORE me allowed the environmental and social pressure (everyone's doing it!) to practically lead me to the counter.

It was almost unheard of not to eat a hot dog or pizza. We ate as a matter of course. We did it as a couple and as a family.

Taking a step further, I didn't understand how detrimental this food was, even in one meal. But, I'll be honest, I casually ate fast food here and there because:

1. It's everywhere
2. I still thought a calorie was a calorie

AFTER me doesn't eat unplanned fast food. It's truly that simple.

In my weight loss program, I refer to this as creating defaults, or 'rules are better than decisions.' Believe it or not, it's much easier to say no always than to do something here and there.

'Here and there' creeps up. Never does not.

Not the food court at Costco, nor drive-ins, because I'm peckish, and no takeout from fast-food adjacent casual restaurants. This is why no-recipe cooking is so crucial. It's easy to make food.

Modern life is filled with endless opportunities to eat. To the extent that people have forgotten what it means to be hungry. We just go from one trigger to another. Worse, we see others doing it, and that makes for slippery thinking.

It must not be that bad if we're all doing it. 

Everyone has to eat.

I'll only have one (giant) slice.

Etc...

I was hungry and tired after shopping, but instead, I ended up eating some of the shrimp salad I had just bought. I grabbed a fork, opened the package, took a few bites until I wasn't hungry anymore, and scrolled Insta until I was ready to go. 

No, I don't miss the pizza. That comes with painful weight struggles I'm thrilled to have left behind.

What I need is peace and nourishment. Maybe you, too?