Hey, I've lurked this thread for a while and I've been wanting to talk about how incredible I think you all are- having such a supportive community around body positivity and strength is super cool. It's always been very interesting to me bc as a kid, I'd always felt a bit uh... weird around "gym bros" or whatever I called them back then, which may have been down to my own insecurities as someone who was pretty weak and unfit (and also just high school guys not usually being the nicest). Took a fair amount of maturing for me to realise that most people who train are doing it to feel good about themselves and not to flex or whatever; pessimistic af I know, but yea. I really love reading this thread, it's one of the bastions of positivity on the site I think - every post is celebrating the achievement of the poster and others without putting anyone else down, and that's just incredible. You guys rock!
With that out of the way, I do have another reason to make this post (and I apologise if this isn't the best place; ik most posts here are about pushing boundaries and such but still). When I was younger I mostly maintained a healthy weight, ever so slightly on the bigger side but not enough to be any cause for concern or anything. Then around when I started secondary school I realised I was trans & not being able to express that led to lots of feelings of envy and depression that took me a long time to recover from; I gained a fair bit of weight during that since I sorta ate as a coping mechanism and never really went outside since I struggled to make friends without feeling like I was putting up a facade. Eventually I started college, started making moves towards being who I am etc. and slowly but surely improved my mental health to the point where I can confidently say I feel happy and well-adjusted the vast majority of the time. That weight I gained never left, though, and my inaugural college year was done online, so there was no travel for me and as such I still didn't move around much. So yea, during covid I fell back to my old habits and gained even more weight to the point where I'm definitely unhealthy now.
In my second year of college we were allowed to go to campus for the first time! I made friends, I started going out, and this resulted in significantly more activity than my body had seen in like 7 years. To that end I was able to lose a little weight, but I never broke the eating habits, so it's kinda been a cycle of lose a little -> gain a little -> repeat. I'm not really gaining a significant amount more these days, so at least there's that, but I'd like to try losing it and eating healthier. I don't feel much of a desire to build muscle or anything - just wanna be more comfortable with myself at an average weight with better stamina.
So basically I have two questions:
a) how do you break bad eating habits? I've tried to just eat less in general but obviously self starvation isn't healthy, it's just been really difficult for me to stick to eating healthier foods. Doesn't help that I'm a pretty picky eater.
b) how do you maintain an exercise regime? I understand that eventually it just becomes routine and all, but how do you start that routine in the first place? I've tried walking and I do enjoy it but it's difficult rn during the winter months since it gets dark so early and I don't live in a very safe area. So in addition to maintaining motivation, are there any good at-home methods that I could use till it brightens up outside?
Any other advice unrelated to these questions is also super appreciated! Thank you in advance & keep smashing your goals, you guys are super inspirational.
