Katie (not pictured) stopped going on restrictive diets and decided to eat until she was 80% full to achieve her weight loss. Photo / 123rf
Opinion by Katie Lips
THREE KEY FACTS
A busy workload left Katie Lips struggling with portion control, and by her 30th birthday she weighed more than 100kg.
Katie tried many diets including keto, WeightWatchers, Atkins and using MyFitnessPal to log her calorie intake.
She says mindful and slow eating helped her go from a size 20 to a size 10-12 and has kept the weight off for a decade.
OPINION
Working in tech throughout my 20s, the culture very much encouraged going to the pub in the evenings, and during lunchtimes. That meant that not only was there extra food to be consumed, but alcohol too. A busy workload had already left me struggling with portion control, and these constant outings didn’t help – the combination pushing me from a happy size 12-14 to obese. By my 30th birthday, I weighed 16st (100kg).
I remember looking at pictures of me taken that day and just thinking, gosh, I look older; I felt that I looked 50 when I was 30. I wore big jumpers, scarves – anything to cover the body I was so deeply unhappy about.
I didn’t see it at the time, but my hatred of my body was making my eating worse. I didn’t like how I looked so I would eat more as a comfort for my low self-esteem. It wasn’t that I was constantly reaching for chocolate bars or cake – I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth – but I would regularly eat double portions without a second thought. Breakfast might be a large bowl of granola, followed by two sandwiches at lunch. I enjoyed cooking, but a curry at dinner could easily come with two big helpings of rice, followed by cheese and crackers.
My husband, who I’ve been with for 26 years, is the kind of person who can eat what he likes and doesn’t put weight on – but mine was creeping up and up. He was never bothered by my fluctuating size, but I was horrified, repeatedly going on diets to try to lose the excess weight. In my 30s I tried every one going – including keto, WeightWatchers, Atkins and using MyFitnessPal to log my calorie intake – and would typically last around eight weeks before giving up. Some of them worked – I lost weight – and I think that kept me optimistic each time I’d start a new one, that this time it would really be it.
But each diet was so restrictive that it just led me to really crave the things that I couldn’t eat, made me feel sick, or both. Nothing that I ever tried had that balance right where I could have a bit of everything and be okay. They were unsustainable – no wonder they didn’t work.
Things hit a tipping point after I had my daughter at 38. A few weeks later, I was 17st (107kg) – and that was utterly shocking. I was so horrified; when you’re pregnant, you just think it’s the baby. But my weight had been raised as an issue by the midwives throughout my pregnancy (I couldn’t give birth at the local centre as I’d anticipated because of the excess I was carrying, so I had to do so at a hospital further away with specialist equipment, in case something went wrong), and that had really upset me. Something had to change.
I knew my issue was about emotions around my feelings of self-worth (and eating large portions so as to bury them) as opposed to not knowing what to eat. So when I came across the idea of mindful and slow eating online – and the Japanese concept of “hara hachi bu”, which teaches people to eat until they are 80% full – I thought I’d try it.
It sounded like another thing that was too good to be true, but at that point, I had nothing to lose. I really enjoyed my first slow meal of steak and chips – not the sort of thing you might imagine ordering if you want to lose weight. I can remember to this day just how delicious it was, and how much of it I left on the plate when I realised I was full.
After a couple of days of eating in this way, I realised that I’d eaten all the foods that I wanted to, but in far smaller quantities. I’d been able to leave meals unfinished, felt satisfied, and had no need to go back for more.
I continued reading about intuitive eating online and got a great tip on Instagram, which was to eat when I was hungry, rather than letting myself get ravenous (as was the case on my other diets) and then battling through restricted meals. By eating when I felt the physical need – but very slowly, and just a small amount – my meal patterns radically changed, and traditional breakfast and dinnertimes went out of the window. As I was on maternity leave my social life was barely impacted, though it did mean my husband and I were no longer eating together at dinner each night.
Within a week, I felt less bloated; within a month, I was visibly losing weight and wasn’t hungry at all. It was absolutely brilliant. I didn’t really tell anyone, because I had tried so many times before, and I didn’t want this to be another instance where I thought: “I’ve cracked this”, and then had to deal with the frustration of falling off the wagon. But after a couple of months, I knew that this felt different. I’d lost a stone, and was enjoying the process of keeping it off. I set a goal to lose 14kg (2st 3lb); when I reached that, I set another, for 23kg. In less than a year and a half, using my 40th birthday as motivation, I had lost 6st (38kg) – more than a third of my body weight. I’d gone from a size 20 and over 17st to size 10-12, and just under 11st (69kg).
My attitude towards food is not to cut out anything I enjoy – that would be quite miserable. I sometimes eat chocolate, I eat cheese, but I just eat it in a way where, because I’m now able to listen to my body and what it needs, I don’t overdo it. I eat a lot of lean protein and vegetables, but I might occasionally order a burger at a restaurant (though these days I would rarely finish it).
Over the decade I was overweight, I used to wake up every morning with a sense of regret and disappointment that I still hadn’t managed to tackle this. And when I lost the weight, all of that just went. It was amazing, like I could get on with my life – I felt lighter emotionally, as well as physically. It gave me confidence that I could achieve other things, like setting up my own business, Eatiful, helping others to lose weight via mindfulness techniques. I had tried and failed to run my own company before, and now I see that it was my size holding me back.
I’m 49 now, and have kept the weight off for almost a decade. By changing how I eat, not what I eat, I know I’ll never need to diet again.
A yoghurt or fruit, or a croissant when I have more time on the weekends.
Lunch
Chicken Caesar salad or a sandwich.
Dinner
Chicken wrap with salad, or Thai food heavy in protein and veg. I can still order a burger, or pizza: I just feel satisfied much sooner, which is usually less than half the way through a restaurant portion.
I drink around twice a month now, and don’t keep alcohol at home. I do still enjoy the odd chocolate bar. I don’t think I could live without Dairy Milk.
Exercise before
None whatsoever; running for a bus was tough.
Exercise after
I recently ran every day for a year (though this was for fun, not weight loss). I enjoy a long walk with my labrador each morning.