How I'm losing weight without starving myself, and building a healthy relationship with food.

So I’m in a really good place right now. I’m eating balanced, healthy meals that make me feel satisfied but not gross. I’m practicing portion control and eating whole foods that I cook myself (mostly). I’m NOT calorie counting (I know that I usually eat around 1400-1600 calories, some days less, some days more, but I track portions and food groups, not calories). Every day I drink a magical chocolate protein shake that tastes like dessert. It keeps me full for hours, gives me so much energy that I’ve cut down on coffee, and really helps with cravings. Plus, I can use it to make guilt-free peanut butter cups.

[It Happened To Me: I found a way to make healthy peanut butter cups that taste BOMB. And I don’t even feel gross the next day, because they’re healthy, because that’s how it works when you eat healthy food all the time…]

And yes, I’m losing weight, but more importantly I’m losing inches, and I’m doing it the right way.

I started the program a few months ago, when I saw my high school friend Lesley posting about it on facebook. I’ve done almost every fad diet there is, so I’ve seen a lot of hopeful facebook posts and been through my share of clickbait rabbit holes.

No seriously, here is a list of all the diets/eating programs I have tried. In parenthesis is the number of times I’ve tried:

Medifast (5x)

Weight Watchers (1x)

Atkins (2x)

South Beach (lost count)

Keto (1x)

Paleo (1x)

Jenny Craig (1x)

HCG diet (only 500 calories a day) (1x)

I have survived on almost nothing. I have survived on diet pills, diet coke and saltines (WHATUP 2002, don’t miss you at all!). I have exercised too frequently for too long or not at all because I’ve been so starved. I’ve been through years of really stressful teaching positions that led me to put on weight (talk to me about cortisol if you doubt that stress can and will affect you metabolically), and do drastic things to get it off.

So believe me when I say that when I saw Lesley’s posts on facebook, I approached them with a healthy degree of skepticism, because I really didn’t think it was possible to have a healthy relationship with food, exercise and your body. I thought I was doomed to spend a life treating my body as something bad that needs to be controlled and kept in line.

Last spring, when I started seeing Lesley’s posts, I was opening the medicine cabinet right when I got into the bathroom so I didn’t have to look at my reflection when I washed my hands. That’s how bad it was.

Then I found the 21 Day Fix. It’s all about clean eating, portion control, 30-minute at-home workouts, and a daily superfood shake that tastes like goddamned dessert (and can be made into peanut butter cups). The 21 Day Fix has brought so much simplicity to my eating and exercise routines.

I never thought I could workout at home because I craved the community my gym provided. But the 21 Day Fix comes with a different style of community. Instead of going to the gym, I belong to a challenge group on Facebook full of people doing the same program as me. They’re all over the country, which is WILD, but so cool. We have tons in common, and no one cares when I post about how my cat tries to interrupt my workouts by farting on my dumbbells, so I’m happy. I love these groups, and the people in them. I think they are what makes the program work as well as it does. They keep me motivated and on track.  

My home gym 

It takes time. I do a meal plan for the week every weekend, and I stick to it about… 80% if I’m honest, but I still eat so much more healthily and save so much money because PORTION CONTROL.

The most important thing about 21-day fix is the focus on having a healthy and positive mindset. I got to the point where I realized that I’m capable of losing weight. I can eat less and exercise more and take pills and cut out whole food groups. I’m great at that. But until I fix what’s happening in my head… I’m just going to gain the weight back. Until I learn to change how I think about food, and how I think about my body, there’s no point in any of it. And that’s what 21-day fix has helped me to do.

I used to look at a huge Snickers bar and think “BAD. BAD FOOD. I’m bad if I eat this. If I eat this, it’s a bad day, and everything else I eat may as well be bad too because the day is a lost cause and I can go back to eating good food and being a good, healthy person tomorrow.”

Now, I look at a huge Snickers bar and I see it for what it is. It’s going to taste amazing, but it’s going to make my blood sugar rise and then drop, leading to me wanting more sugar, and if I eat more, I’ll want more, and I’ll feel sluggish for the whole next day. Some days, I decide that it’s worth it to splurge, and I do, because this program is a lifestyle, not a diet, and sometimes you have to eat a Snickers bar. But I make a decision based on information rather than emotion, and whatever decision I make, I have a group of people to support me because they’ve been there too, because we’re all in this together.

So I’m about to begin this journey where I co-host a fitness and nutrition challenge group with Lesley in October. I’m nervous, but I’m excited. And I’m looking for 5 people to join me in this challenge group. 

So if you’re ready to... 

• change the way you look at your body and food
• feel more comfortable in your own skin
• lose pounds and inches
• build a healthy mindset
• save time and money
• see lots of pictures of my cat trying to work out with me and eat all the great food I make

GET IN TOUCH! It’s a journey that you don’t have to go on alone. Join our crew. You'll love it.

I also started a facebook group around having a more healthy mindset around fitness and nutrition, so if you want to join that, ask and I’ll add you!

If you just want to chat, I love talking about this stuff, so get in touch!

And Lesley, I appreciate you so much. I was going down a really unhealthy path, and your relentless positivity, your constant support, and the 21 Day Fix saved my butt. Thank you.

Email me
Go to my Coach website (although I haven't really updated it yet)
PS: Yes, I made my Beachbody Coach website URL Leahnopants. 

A sample meal I made that's on-plan... These are fajitas, from before I started eating meat again. Replace the tofu with blackened chicken. 

not good enough.

my before picture is hideous

i’m disgusting

rolls of fat collecting around my middle almost down to my awkwardly skinny ankles.

my after picture is great, but somehow i think it’s just the angle

that i don’t really look that good

i can’t even appreciate my after picture because now i constantly compare myself to it.

i look at myself in the same mirror,

under the same lighting,

in the same position,

in the exact very same spot,

and i think i look fatter now than i did when i took the pic a month ago

and i’m so very disappointed because this is what i do.

i get thin,

i get fat,

i get thin,

i get fat. because i’m

destined to repeat this

disgustingly unhealthy cycle,

to never be satisfied,

to never settle.

but at what cost?

I can’t even appreciate my after picture, because i’m constantly comparing myself to it,

wondering if i’ve let myself go.

i panic.

first slowly, bit by bit,

little drops of fear collecting until i’m lying in a huge puddle of bright red failure, like a scene from CSI Miami, and Callie Duquesne’s about to show up with her perfect body and shiny blonde hair and take pictures of my horribly gory demise from moderately overweight person to thin person who was never totally satisfied with herself to slightly heavier person who’s on her way to becoming fat again.

and i’m trying to figure out when it started, when i first became a person who wasn’t comfortable in her own skin, but the memories are hazy, faded and blurry, strung together at random and mentally photoshopped by years of overanalyzing and my writerly imagination filling in the details that i don’t remember, probably never remembered.

I wasn’t born hating my body

sometimes I get glimpses of it, quick flashes of what it might be like to just enjoy the feeling of the sun on my skin, eyes closed, not a thought in the world, but then

walls of reality slam down around me, ruining everything because for just a second, I wasn’t worried that I look fat from this angle, the stretch marks on my legs are showing, I’ve eaten too many carbs today, and I should sit up straight and suck my stomach in and drink 3 liters of water so no food can fit in me and then lace up my sneakers and run until and I can’t feel feelings anymore and the trees in front of me swim and sway and threaten to swallow me whole

because i’m

not good enough.

no matter how much weight i lose it’s not good enough

i should lift more weights

eat less carbs

cut out processed foods, because gluten is bad! so are things that have more than 5 ingredients! ew!

because we sit here and

judge people’s bodies

judge what food they put in their mouths

and when

and judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

judge

and where the hell has that ever gotten us?

when you strip away

all the things that are supposed to keep you warm and happy and comfortable in your own skin

bulimia is the blanket you choose

you wrap yourself in lies

black is slimming

that’ll look great if you wear some spanx underneath

minimize this, maximize that

[[[and not now, but at some point CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE SO THIN AND STILL HAVE BREASTS? thanks society, for creating an ideal for female beauty that’s LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for 95% of the population to obtain without plastic surgery, because when you get that thin your boobs go POOF,

but that’s a rant for another day.]]]

swathed in deceit

wrapped in illusion

push it up

suck it in

lift

tone

burn

tan

dye

paint

NO

just

NO

because it’s still

not good enough

there will always be jeans that don’t fit

there will always be someone with nicer abs than me

even if i make my body the most perfect thing it can be, abs of steel, muscles coiled around my bones like ropes

there will always be someone else who does it so naturally

so even if i finally build myself the perfect body, there will always be someone else who didn’t have to work as hard because they’re not BROKEN AND SAD like me.

so i’ll never be good enough.

i’ll never be thin enough,

pretty enough,

young enough,

have hair that’s

long enough,

i’ll never squat enough,

bench enough,

run far or fast enough.

i’ll never BE enough

so you know what?

i’m done.

and i’ve been trying to write the ending of this poem for a few days now, because i want to to end with hope, even the tiniest sliver of low-carb sugar-free portion-controlled panic-induced hope. but this isn’t a lifetime made-for-tv movie about anorexia. those always end well, with the beautiful girl in the hospital surrounded by loving family, and then they cut to a scene of her playing some sport because she got strong again, and yay, no more eating disorder. but what they don’t tell you is that you never get over an eating disorder. you’re never fixed. you’re just stronger than you were before, and that’s the best you can hope for. so this isn’t the end of my story. i’m going to struggle with this for my entire life.

but there is hope.

because today, i’m going to eat something with more than 30 grams of carbs in it and

you know what?

i’m not going to have a panic attack.

maybe i’ll stop when i’m full.

maybe i’ll stop when i’ve stuffed myself.

maybe i’ll obsessively cut it in half and then log it into myfitnesspal.

but maybe not.

and tomorrow, i’m going to lie out and read a book in a bikini and every time i wince and cringe and want to curl up into a ball or go inside or readjust myself so i look better i’m going to remember that

my stretch marks are battle scars

my hair might actually grow long again

my lovehandles are a trophy, not a source of shame

and if what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

if we really believe that

then we shouldn’t hide our scars

and if anyone says a word to me about them

any of the marks 20 years of disordered eating left on my body

if someone says one single disrespectful word

i’m going to tell them the story of the battle taking place inside my skin

i’m going to read them this poem.

Goodbye Skinny Jeans: An Obituary

For a long time I kept a pile of jeans that didn’t fit.

Some, my prized Abercrombie size 2s, were from high school, and after the first time I lost weight on Medifast, I rejoiced in being able to wear them again.

Some I bought during that first Medifast run, or the second. Every so often I went to Hollister and tried on all the jeans on the sale rack. It was a contest to see how small a size I could fit into, a contest I told no one about, because of denial, and then shame. My mother’s voice echoes in my head, saying, “Honey, this is a contest no one wins,” and she’s right, but it didn’t matter at the time. I was drunk on the feeling of buttoning those size 3s, stretchy victory wrapped around my hipbones.

For a long time I loved those jeans… for all the wrong reasons.

I loved those high school Abercrombies because they were high-waisted, and actually fit my body correctly. I have no hips. Well, barely any hips. The difference between my waist and hip measurement is about 2 inches. I loved every pair of Hollister jeans, because they symbolized victory (albeit temporary victory) at the end of one of my numerous weight-loss attempts. They were trophies I’d won in the battle against fat and unhealthy and excess and gluttony and insert more twisted eating disorder imagery here. I kept them because they were expensive and pretty and had low numbers on the tags, but more so because getting rid of them meant failure. Getting rid of my skinny jeans meant accepting that I’d never fit into them again, and that, in my eyes, was accepting defeat.

I know we’re always told to dress the body we have now. It’s in the same book with “be comfortable in your own skin,” “love the skin you’re in,” “take pride in your body,” “you are your own worst critic,” and other advice I agree with but can’t seem to internalize. It’s also logical, because in most situations, you can’t walk around naked. You’ve got to wear clothes. So they might as well fit, flatter, and make you smile when you see your reflection in a store window (which in my case means they are often neon, frequently sparkly, and include very short skirts). If you want to buy an outfit and make your goal to fit into it, go for it – some people swear by it – but owning an entire wardrobe full of clothes you don’t fit into is both unhelpful and alarmingly negative. There’s nothing like starting your day grabbing the one pair of jeans that fits off a pile of 11 pairs that are too small. Plus, since you wear that pair so much, you start to wear through them in the upper thigh area, and though it’s less about the size of your thighs and more about the fact that you’re wearing the same pair every single day, as a result, you spend the entire day hyperaware of your thighs rubbing together when you walk. 

From a financial perspective, dressing the body I have right now would be an expensive undertaking for me because every five seconds my body has a new “right now.” Sometimes, it is completely different at noon than it was at 7 a.m. If healthy bodies fluctuate, consider the bodies of people who have been actively yo-yo dieting since freshman year of college, with disordered eating habits tracing back to sixth grade. Some months every day of my period is a different level of bloat. There aren’t enough clothes in the world to account for the weirdness that goes on inside my body on a daily basis. Even if there were, I can’t afford them, and I certainly have nowhere to put them.

I work at a day camp, and on 70s dress-up day I had a brilliant idea. I rounded up my flare leg skinny jeans and offered them up to the guys as costumes. As I watched teenaged and 20-something dudes parading around in my denim victory trophies, it dawned on me: I’m utterly ridiculous.

They’re Abercrombie jeans from 1999. I bought those jeans when people were still worried that Y2K was going to transform all of our technology into steaming piles of gooey red mush (okay maybe not exactly, but forgive me because I just caught up on True Blood). I bought those jeans before I kissed a boy, drove a car, cheated on a Spanish test, or left the country. I bought those jeans before I lifeguarded, taught swimming, and found my calling teaching English. I bought those jeans the year 10 Things I Hate About You was released, but years before I took a page out of Julia Stiles’ character’s book and danced on tables in Munich, Berlin, Rome, Prague, Dublin, Doolin, Amsterdam, and a tiny farming village in Southeast Holland called Well that I was lucky enough to call home for a semester. 

The scene that inspired a lifetime of dancing on tables.

I bought those jeans the same year I bought a pair of platform Velcro sneakers from Costco and wore them under those jeans. PLATFORM. VELCRO. SNEAKERS. FROM COSTCO. I’m going to take a moment and let that sink in.

They looked something like this. Except worse. 

People change. Bodies change. Careers, cities, relationships, and styles change (see above picture: platform Velcro sneakers). Dreams change. Lives change. And so should denim. 

Everything changes, and that’s a good thing. Maybe that means one day, if I work hard enough, my relationship with my body and myself will change.

But I’m starting small.

Goodbye skinny jeans. 

PS: