This might not be a popular opinion, but sometimes I think with weight loss you’ve really got to be READY. If you aren’t in that space, it’s ok and I think better to accept it than just keep beating yourself up for being a failure. Maybe you just need a break.
If you are ready to get started, here are my suggestions. First, buy yourself some great outfits that fit now and make you feel good again. Why feel awful about yourself because your clothes don’t fit? I’d also think about trying a new plan. Maybe instead of going back to keto OMAD you try something new and fresh that is maybe less restrictive.
Either way, love yourself. You’ll get where you want, and your weight doesn’t define you. You’re still a rockstar now too.
When you’re following the typical awful western diet and constantly grazing you’re riding the insulin roller coaster. That partitions your energy towards storage.
Focus on getting back into IF and controlling your insulin. Don’t worry about having a stellar workout. You won’t. I wouldn’t even hit the gym just yet. I had been IF for 3 years and adding keto sapped my strength. For 6 weeks I was lifting 60% of my previous workouts and I felt like total crap.
Focus on your food. Focus on your feeding window. Get fat adapted. THEN when your energy returns, get back in the gym. If you insist on the gym, cut yourself some slack. Cut the intensity and volume. Just getting there and going through the motions is a victory.
Yeah, I understand.
For me, I had to (and have to) learn to stop being so hard on myself. It only pushed me to fail. And I had to take time to get to know my body so I could start working with it instead of against it. I was going through periods of hardcore bingeing because I was being too restrictive in my eating under the guise of “being healthy”. And I was stressed out because I wasn’t sleeping enough, or eating enough, and was shaming myself into failure. And I was feeling demotivated at the gym because I wasn’t doing exercise I really enjoyed, and I was doing too much.
Be kind to yourself. Grant yourself some grace. Your body is doing a lot for you and deserves some love, even as it is right now. And your body has succeeded before and deserves some respect for that. Talk to yourself like you would talk to your best friend.
My two cents:
Set smaller goals. Short-term ones. And NOT weight-loss based goals. Daily or weekly goals that are realistic, controllable, and sustainable. So you don’t have the endurance you used to have. Ok, but do you have better endurance this week than you did last week? Celebrate that. Use it to motivate yourself. We all go through cycles. No one is progressing linearly at everything all the time. It’s part of the process.
Slow. Down. Give yourself the credit you deserve. You’re at the gym ashamed of yourself while you could be in bed hitting snooze. Showing up is not easy. Especially when you feel like you feel right now. So hi, I don’t know you, but I am proud of you for showing up, and you should be too.
And my last piece of advice would be to focus on your health. Eat healthy. I’m not going to speak to keto (I’ve never tried it), but eat in a way that prioritizes your health and happiness and is sustainable. And work on competing with yourself. Not yourself from March 2020, but yourself from yesterday. And be comforted in knowing that you have done this before, so you are capable of doing it again, you just need patience and respect for yourself. Give yourself a period of time, maybe a month or so, to just be healthy. Sleep enough, eat enough, eat good, leave room for joy, and show up. Don’t worry about your weight or your figure or what you used to be/do. Don’t get on a scale or count your calories or scrutinize your body in front of the mirror. Give yourself permission to not feel ashamed for one month–challenge yourself to do it–and when you are in a healthier headspace, changing your lifestyle to meet your goals will be easier and healthier.
Start small and build on it.