Inna Shukshina

A slim figure is, first and foremost, a different way of life. Slim people eat little and move a lot, or at least do one of the two. It is simply impossible to sit still, consume cakes and sandwiches by the kilo and have a great figure. Yet we often deceive ourselves, believing that the slim people around us eat as much as they like and do no sport, they just have “the genetics, a different metabolism, they got lucky”. Yes, there is a small percentage of such people, but slimness alone does not guarantee health — you also need healthy eating and sensible physical exercise.

Let me let you in on a secret — a great many of the slim women around you pay enormous attention to their food, their treatments and their exercises. They may not talk about it to you specifically, or to anyone at all.  There is no other way. Simply believe that those over 25 who have a great figure put enough effort into it and lead a different way of life. Even if this will not be true for everyone, it is a very useful attitude for you, so believe it!

A different way of life means shifting the emphasis from food and motionless rest to a more active life. Food comforts and entertains us when we are bored or when we have little strength.

My excessive extra weight — 94 kg — was gained because of having children close together and a sedentary way of life: two pregnancies in a row, infants. Although, thanks to my height, I did not look very fat. From the 6th month of pregnancy until the moment the baby started crawling, I was very tired and had no time to prepare normal food. First I had a big belly and a little girl aged 1 year and 2 months who demanded a lot of attention, and then two infants hanging on me. My husband’s help did not save the situation — they needed their mother specifically. My husband took over the housekeeping, and cooking does not interest him much, so we ate pasta with sausages, sweets, sandwiches and dumplings. There was also borscht every day, with my help and advice, but it did not save the situation. The children did not even let me take a proper shower, let alone anything else. I tried to compensate for the lack of strength with an abundance of food.

The conclusion I drew: food poor in useful substances does not satisfy you and provokes even greater hunger. I could eat three portions of pasta and still want to eat. Later I found my dietary lifesavers — healthy and filling for a long time.

I looked with sadness at my photos where I am a size 44. And I was only 26, my contemporaries were still bouncing around at discos… It seemed to me that this could not be brought back. There was no motivation to lose weight, because I thought: “So I will lose 10–15 kg, and by enormous effort at that. But I will still not weigh 65 kg, so what is the point? I will not be satisfied with the result anyway.” I do not know why, but I was sure that my figure had gone irretrievably. Or that even if I lost weight, I would have flabby skin, stretch marks and folds.

Yes, I envied those who were slim and had never faced the problem of excess weight, because before my pregnancies this problem was unfamiliar to me. I really did eat a lot and did not gain weight.

The first negative contribution to disrupting my metabolism came from fasting. I began fasting as a student from another city, at 18, with little money. I was told that breaking the fast is a sin, so it is a sin. My diet was roughly this: porridge made with water, lunch — vegetable soup, dinner — pasta without butter with salted herring, or boiled potatoes with a pickled cucumber. This diet consisted mainly of carbohydrates, there was an enormous shortfall of fats and proteins and of calories in general. I lost weight, I felt dizzy, but I kept all the fasts strictly. It brought me no enlightenment: I judged those who did not fast, quarrelled with a neighbour who criticised my diet, and with my mother, a doctor, who kept going on about the balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. After all, we have our own, Orthodox doctors who will tell you that all of that is nonsense and that fasting is good for everyone, without explaining how very different a fast can be.

Later I learned that for some Muscovites a fast means prawns, avocado, red fish, honey, caviar, vegetables and fruit; that priests have their food cooked by women at the church and are far removed from the concerns of preparing food that students or young mothers face. Whereas for ordinary folk a fast means buns, sweets, pasta, potatoes, herring, fried, salted and pickled things — in short, everything that  makes you fat or harms your health. I lost weight down to 56 kg, which at my height of 174 cm is an obvious deficit, and what I most likely lost was muscle, not fat. I was unsteady on my feet, I lost my first pregnancy (I badly wanted meat rissoles, but it was Lent and I was not given a blessing to eat meat…) and decided that the cause was my diet.

From that moment I stopped denying myself anything, my weight went up, and I began to gain kilos. From the moment I started eating butter and chicken often, my well-being improved. Yes, now my pregnancies went well and the children are healthy. But every pregnancy added 10–15 kg, which stayed with me. I was terribly hungry. Apparently, in order to get the necessary quantity of micronutrients out of impoverished food, the body begins to demand more and more (like sifting a tonne of ore to get gold).

On top of that, I began to have problems with my pancreas and stopped being able to digest vinegar, vegetable oil, eggs, and salted or dried fish. That also limited my choice of products.

Waking up in the morning, I would sit down on a chair and realise that I could not get up from it: exhaustion came over me from the very morning. The thought of doing fitness on top of that and eating little, in such a state, filled me with horror; it seemed to me that I would simply collapse with no strength left. I made attempts to exercise and watch my diet, but because there was no quick result, I gave up. Caring for myself was not among my values; it always seemed to me that the less you think about yourself, the more spiritual you are: it is better when you do not think at all about what you eat, do not even use medicinal cosmetics, do not think about your appearance… How good it is that my views have changed.

A few months ago I said to myself: it is not about the weight, it is about the insufficient amount of useful substances in my diet. I can weigh far less but eat in a balanced way, and I will be healthy, I will have a lot of strength and energy. I do not even want to hear about fasting; I do not want to go back to a carbohydrate diet and be unhealthy… I began to eat dairy products every day and meat every other day.

The first impulse to change came from treatment with a homeopath. I was given strength in advance, so that I could start changing something. My mood lifted (and excess weight is often depression too).  The lift was enough to give up sweets and baked goods. My well-being improved immediately, and I understood that with sweets I had simply been poisoning my body. The swelling went. Then I began taking natural vitamins — extracts from fruit and vegetables, which I ordered from abroad. I had always been rather sceptical about vitamins, but here I understood that my body was depleted from frequent births and breastfeeding without a break (3 children in 5 years, one after another). My strength increased immediately.

After that I completely changed my diet. The weight began to come off little by little when I was finally able to take cooking fully into my own hands, along with control over buying food. But it was very hard. I used to have a poor attitude to meat because of the numerous articles about its harm. As a result I consumed an enormous amount of carbohydrates (pulses and fish did not and do not suit me at all). Now I have discovered that even a small piece of lean boiled or baked pork or beef gives a lasting feeling of fullness.

I used to economise on everything (on myself), but now I have started investing money in myself: in training courses, in vitamins, in cosmetics; we hired a nanny for 4 hours a day and started buying healthy food. It turned out that what is given for free is not valued. A course downloaded from the internet could lie around for years, but when I spent money and bought weight-loss courses and a fitness course, I immediately started using them in order to get my money’s worth.

I eat 5 times a day. 3 substantial meals, 2 snacks, such as 1 apple or a glass of kefir.  Breakfast — muesli with milk. It keeps me full for 4 hours or more. Lunch — for example, a piece of meat and stewed vegetables (from a packet, frozen), a slice of brown bread. Dinner — different options: it might be a cottage cheese bake or the leftovers from lunch. I have cooled towards soups: they do not fill me up, I have to eat a main course as well, and it turns out that because of them I eat more. I simply drink a lot of water between meals.

As for unhealthy foods. I believe that bans on food are harmful and provoke breaking them and feelings of guilt. So I introduced these rules for myself: I forbid nothing, but I limit. For the first 4 months I gave up sweets altogether; now I allow myself to eat them on holidays or on trips, in moderation and rarely. On trips and long walks, when we do a lot of walking and everything burns off straight away, I can eat a small pizza and ice cream. The main thing is not to consume sweets routinely, every day or with every cup of tea.

The weight comes off slowly but surely: 2 kg a month. 12 kg have gone already.

So first of all I can give this advice: invest time and money in yourself! There is no need to spend money on miracle pills, miracle belts and teas. Better to find a competent specialist who will guide you. Buy a season ticket to a swimming pool or fitness club. Or exercise at home with a DVD. Do not economise on healthy food.

By the way, about money. I acquired the motivation to have more money, and our income grew. I also started doing extra work from home, and the money I earned I invested not, as usual, in the children, but spent on myself. I also bought training courses in design. Work helped me become more confident in myself.

Before, when I thought about an approaching celebration, I thought mainly about the menu. Now I think about where else we could go with the family, how to spend the time actively. This is very important: then there will be no temptation to sit at home all day and eat. It is not always expensive. For example, recently we went to an amusement park where families with many children get free tickets once a month. A visit to the swimming pool costs us 70 roubles, and we started trying to go there at least once a week. Only my 5-year-old son swims, and we take turns walking with the younger ones. And even if we then go into a café and order one big pizza for everyone, it will be lower in calories than a table laden with homemade festive dishes. Besides, I can choose something healthier for myself, such as meat with salad/

Recently I understood that simply being thin is not an ideal worth striving for. Slimness and health are a completely different way of life, in which there is always room for sport and in which you no longer want to go back to your former diet. It is for life. You can be thin but with a high percentage of body fat and a low percentage of muscle — unhealthy, unfit, sluggish.  A slim, toned body with a low percentage of fat is a completely different matter — strong, enduring, trained, healthy. That is my ideal, the one I am striving for. I have also learned to eat unhealthy foods slowly and to limit myself to a small piece. That is, when the whole family is eating ice cream, I do not look at them longingly but eat a couple of spoonfuls. And that is only if I like the taste. And no more than once a week.

My journey has only just begun, so I will keep you posted .

http://www.matrony.ru/na-puti-k-strojnoj-figure-lichnyj-opyt/ this article of mine was published on the portal matrony.ru  13.11.2012