Weight struggles and realizations

I don't think I ever posted a personal post before, but I think this is an issue that touches a lot of people and I think sharing makes it easier.

I've always struggled with my weight. I was a big baby who was constantly hungry. As a kid I was always the tallest one of my class till 6th grade and I was always hungry. I'm actually not that tall (1m74 or 5'8 1/2), but I did grow up faster than most kids and developed puberty younger than most girls. I'm an emotional eater.

My parents divorced when I was 8 and I kept on eating. One year later my Father left to live one year in France, I missed my dad a lot and kept on eating. Then I went to visit him and he was chocked by my weight and controlled my food. I lost around 10 pounds which is a lot for a 10 years old. Almost a year later my maternal Grandmother died of unnatural causes and I took the weight back and then some!

In my teens I lost and gained back some weight at least 3 times. I actually never knew life without the yo-yo effect. At 17 years old, I left my small town to move to Montreal for my school. I decided to lose weight and I kept it low (with a lot of variations of course) till I was around 23 years old.

At 21 years old in a shitty pub

When I was around 25 I started to gain dangerously weight, plummeting to a size 20 (22UK 50 in EU). I lost back some weight two years later and kept it stable at a size 16 till recently.

At my biggest ever at 26 years old

In November I decided to resume my weight lost and come back to a healthy weight. I lost 30 pounds (13,6 kilos) so far.

Realizations

To end up on a positive note here are some realizations that are currently helping me to carry-on smoothly with the weight loss:

• Exercise is good but doesn't make you loose weight. Your body as a tendency to compensate by spending less energy the rest of the day and making you hungry. I lost weight many many times, but never significantly by going to the gym. 

• Diets do not work. Counting calories isn't sustainable and the weight always creeps back up. You can't succeed by being constantly hungry. 

• If you do not loose weight one week it might be water retention, but it certainly isn't muscle gain! You do not gain a pound of muscle in a week!

• The low fat high carb approach doesn't works for me. I need fat in order to feel full and not overeat. I'm now on a ketogenic lifestyle (similar to paleo) and it is so much easier to lose weight. 

If you are also struggling with your weight (under or over) and feel like sharing your story, I would love to hear it!

Judith