What does it feel like to be fat? (Episode 1)

Hello everybody,


This blog post is a very personal and emotional post for me in the sense that I am trying to write the experience of absolute worst feeling that I have ever felt about my body. It has been a struggle both to have been over weight and not to be able to stop putting on weight.

This is where I'm at now

This is where I aim to be at

Over these years where I have been obese I've had to endure people insult me for my size, I've had to listen to people comment that I've put on weight (like I've not noticed it myself or I don't look at myself in the mirror) with a smile, I've had to feel like an absolute failure every time I've attempted to lose weight and instead only put on weight or developed some new health condition.


While I think every woman irrespective of her age, color or size is beautiful, sometimes, the world can be really cruel. I've had a boyfriend in the past make ridiculous jokes at the expense of my weight and because it was all in the name of fun I was somehow supposed to understand and laugh along. It literally broke my heart since it made me feel like I was ugly and somehow he was doing me a favor by being with me. And then, there was this other time a very close friend of mine who knew my struggles with weight very well, just casually asked if it felt very heavy to walk around or jump... yes he really was that dumb. It made me so furious that I asked him if it felt light when he walked or if he felt like he would take off when he jumped since he was skinny and all. Yet another time, a relative would constantly tell me every time she bumped into me that the dress I was wearing was very pretty but if I was thinner I would look pretty too or if only my arms were thinner this shirt suited me or if my belly was flatter that skirt would have looked better. This completely got me lost and I totally lost any sense of what to wear. I tried to hide behind loose and baggy clothes, I stopped enjoying shopping because I felt all clothes made me look fat and ugly. At one point I had the smallest closet with barely four tops and one pair of jeans that I thought fitted me the best, because I was too embarrassed to ask the sales lady if she had something in Extra Large.


All these behaviors and statements while in their perspective was perfectly harmless actually took huge chunks off of my self confidence. Weather knowingly or unknowingly the world to me seemed to fat shame me and I endured it in silence each day feeling a bit more disgusted about myself. There have been many a nights where I've cried many a silent tears and hated my body for being the way it was. They have been the absolute worst years of my life... I've starved myself until I fell ill just to lose a couple of pounds, I've run till I developed sever shin splits and later couldn't even touch my shins for months, I never took a million selfies like how every normal teenager would and in the group images that my friends took, I would always stand at the back hiding behind someone so much so that I barely have a few images of mine throughout the time I was in college.


And although these things were told to me years ago I still find that I can't forget the hurt and the pain of it, what absolute horrors I put myself through and it still stings whenever I realize that a person who has never been fat and has no idea how a fat person might be feeling inside despite that brave smile on their face, just decides to mock and make fun.


Please do not get me wrong... I am not hating on the thin/skinny/healthy, I am just requesting the world to be a little considerate and compassionate. Give everybody the time and space to understand their body type and why they maybe putting on weight and why they may not be losing weight in spite the many ridiculous diets and crazy workout sessions. Everybody's body is different, everybody's metabolism is different and not all diet or workout reacts to everybody's body in the same way. It absolutely does not mean that if it worked for a friend and she lost all her weight that it will work for you too or you will lose all your weight at the same rate too.


After putting myself through literally all possible diets that anybody bothered to suggested me, I decided that I wouldn't listen to any of it anymore and start living my life. If I'm meant to be fat then so be it, but at least I will never again let anybody shame me for how I look and I decided to go all out and live every bit of my life to the fullest.


But the past one year has been a game changer for me. I even made a video on my YouTube channel about what finally caused me to stumble upon the right path towards eating healthy and how I slowly but surely embarked on this weight loss journey. (Watch it here www.youtube.com/sriranjanin)


After much research, I fully understood how a human body works and how a certain carb or sugar might not only be secretly leading you into obesity while the fat and proteins take the blame for it. It even explained why it was so hard for me to give up on sugar and fight off unwanted cravings. It even answered why I sometimes got crazy mood swings and why my anxiety and panic was getting consistently worse. Below are a list of websites and links that helped me become aware of what really is healthy to eat and what isn't :
http://www.ruled.me/guide-keto-diet/
https://authoritynutrition.com/ketogenic-diet-101/
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/keto.htm
https://www.facebook.com/SQUATSJC/

Taken at Munnar 5 months ago

Deepika Padukone is my ultimate goal. Who is yours?

Clearly from the above links and my YouTube video (if you have watched it) you know that I am now in a Ketogenic diet successfully for a month. It is a low carb and no sugar diet plan designed to make your body realize fat as an energy source and target fat burning for your everyday energy requirements.


Of course, I did not buy the diet plan or hire someone to do this work for me. I went to a health and fitness store and got a BCA (body composition analysis) done and finally figured out that I had 41.9% body fat and the normal should be around 20% for a healthy woman. I was also over weight buy 20kgs. I was 69.1kgs when I weighed myself before staring this diet and I am ideally supposed to weigh between 51 and 53 kgs for my height of 155cm. My BMR (basal metabolic rate which is supposed to be around 2000Kjs for a normal healthy person) was about 1200Kjs and my goal is to keep increasing while losing fat and putting on lean muscles.


With all this data at hand a few free tools on Google I now count calories, eat caveman style and workout for about 1.5hours a day. By that I don't mean intense cardio which renders you dizzy but weight training with weights that feel comfortable and friendly. I even go for a walk for about 45min every evening as a part of my LISS (Low intensity steady state - Please google more about it as this is the best way to loose weight according to recent studies) workout routine.


I'm aware that this post is already too long so here is were I bid you Goodbye for now. Surely I will be writing a post soon about how long it took me to get used to this diet and how I managed to get through my Keto flu. I will be writing an update on my weight once every month and some of my favorite Keto recipes. Having said that this blog will still be dedicated to beauty and fashion - I will still be doing product review, OOTDs and makeup tricks and hacks.


Here's to a healthy life (both physically and emotionally) ahead and many friends and friendships to be made through the course of this journey!


Love,
Ranju