How not to lose weight — Be Well

My average adult weight that makes me feel comfortable with myself is 44 kilograms or approximately 7 stones or 97 pounds. Unlike those who want to lose weight, I seek to stabilize my weight, or try to put on weight.

When you are small with a petite frame and active, diets are not the best option. I have learned the hard way that I have to eat, even when I don’t feel like it. Since I was a teen my sense of smell has been very poor and I’ve thought that perhaps because I can’t smell what I’m eating, that I don’t enjoy food as much as others with a normal sense of smell do. My sister used to tell me off and advise me to eat a whole sandwich, not just half, for lunch, at work; and I used to never eat breakfast, and only eat lunch on the weekends because my partner had prepared it for me.

Well, there are all sorts of fascinating weight loss meal plans “out there” and combination treatments for slimming, including exercising, but let me tell you this:

If you want to lose weight, don’t starve yourself or get sick and thus lose weight that way.

Twice I have had a major weight loss due to illness, the first when I traveled by myself from Australia to Malaysia and came back sick and lay in bed for 5 or 6 days without eating. My sister marched into my room with the scales and pointed to them. I hopped on to find, to my surprise, that my pre-illness weight of 40 kilograms (we use metrics in Australia) had whittled down to only 35 kg. “You’ve got to eat something” my twin sister told me. So I took a spoonful of soup that day and the next day a few more spoonfuls and a bite of bread.

The thing is it took 10 years for me to put the 5 kg back on. At age 30 I had a little private celebratory moment. A sigh issued from me as I regarded the scales with satisfaction 10 years after I had lost weight due to not being well, because 40 kg was my optimum then, the weight then that I felt okay with.

Roll on the years and 20 years later, my healthy-for-me weight climbed a notch or two to 41 or 42, and then a few more to average 44 to 45 kg. At 42 kg I announced to my best friend at work that if I lost more than 2 kg that I would start to feel weak. I wasn’t sedentary because my job was and is in records management, which involves packing, moving around and lifting boxes of inactive records, and performing a lot of out-reach (i.e. getting off my chair and seeing people personally and visiting other work sites).

In January 2017 at a Doctor’s visit, to my surprise, the Nurse weighed me and I was down to 36 kg. My doctor wasn’t happy and told me that according to the Body Mass Index (BMI compares your weight to your height, and is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared) I should be 41.6 to 56 kg. As I write this on 19 January 2019, my weight is 38 kg or 6 stones and my BMI is 17 which is “under-weight”.

My trusty BMI tape measure tells me that when I line up 1.5 meters (my height) with the weights, that to be at the bottom of the “Healthy” range with a BMI of 20, that my weight should be 45 kilograms. In reality, my weight actually varies between 44 and 45 kg on “good days” and I feel perfectly fine at those weights, so the BMI prediction is pretty accurate for me, I think.

Of course, as my partner pointed out, this measurement doesn’t take into account one’s age, build or ethnicity and other factors apart from height, weight and gender. There’s thus a “fat measurement” which for a healthy woman is no more than 80cm, and I used my trusty BMI measuring tape and got — just shy of 80 cm for me! That’s good news for me and a measurement that I aim to maintain. I’m glad I had this padding for my recent sojourn (temporary stay) at hospital, because the Nurses needed some fat on my stomach, to inject Clexane.

Back to the topic: How not to lose weight

Don’t stress and worry so much. Stop being up-tight, and curb any tendency to be highly-strung. Face all your little fears ( yes, you may be surprised to find a ton of tiny little fears that are just as debilitating as the bigger ones ), really look after yourself — apply or say the following:

I love and approve of myself. I trust the process of life.

DO listen to your body and pay attention to it. Do eat right and exercise. Do have a DEEP acceptance of things that come your way (not the same as liking things, but this is about making the most of things). Do have a positive frame of mind and focus on what you want with faith and purpose.

Do seek professional medical attention if you see symptoms or warnings of an illness or disorder within your own body system. I learned a big lesson and lost 6 kg in two weeks from the 3rd January 2019, due to ignoring warning signs and then being admitted to Emergency Response of Royal Perth Hospital and being discharged on the 7th January. You can read about that, by clicking on the Story below, if you like.

Now I am getting my weight constantly back to between 40 and 44 kg from 38 kg. Even a 1 or 2 kg decrease from my healthy weight for me (44 kg ) can make a big difference with me.

When you think about people who have too much weight and want to lose weight, perhaps also think about the other end of the spectrum, about those who are small and have to keep on weight.

How to Lose weight: Be un-well

Wrong !

If you want to lose weight, go for a safe and true and tried method or plan. Going down the paths that I went down, even if unintentionally, only causes trauma for yourself, and stress and worry and a lot of work for others.

My best wishes to all, for maintaining a healthy weight and for truly caring for one’s own body. You only have one, so look after it well.