Welcome to my blog! The name of this blog comes from a Meetup group, Adventures with INFJs and Friends, which I once joined after moving cross-country for 9 months. As an introvert in a new city, trying to make friends was tough and tiring. Eventually, I started to get a feel for how to be social without compromising on my low energy levels. From there came the idea for a blog to keep track of the mistakes and knowledge I've picked up along the way. Expect posts with tips on navigating personal and professional life, reviews, and journal entries about my adventures, all from an introvert's perspective. I'm just starting out on my blogging journey but more posts to come soon!
I've always struggled with feeling fat, even when I was at my skinniest. Going off to college, coupled with starting a job with unlimited food and snacks, caused me to gain weight as an adult. Not enough to feel too self-conscious but enough to realize that I wasn't at my peak. I lost about 10 pounds during the first year of the pandemic, thanks to the tips below:
Focus on one thing at a time. There are two main inputs to losing weight: diet and exercise. Choose 1 to focus on first to decrease the friction of having to adjust your lifestyle dramatically. The other will come naturally later. The two happened to come together due to the pandemic but in the future, exercise will likely be easier to pick up first for the following reason
Internalize the big-picture “why.” Exercising and dieting became a lot easier once I was able to understand how they caused my life to be better and made the connection between feeling better/bad and my choices. I think being able to see the direct link between my exercise and dieting practices to a bigger vision gave them more meaning. The causal effect kept me going because I understood why it was important to keep trying.
Exercise. It finally clicked when I started exercising when I was anxious. Eventually I realized that exercising helped with mental health and that kept me going. But to begin with, I worked out whenever I felt jittery or anxious because I didn’t want to be mean to Brandon.
Diet. Making the connection between my diet and feeling physically unwell was helpful (ex: overeating caused stomachaches, eating certain foods made me jittery or gave my stomach problems, snacking late at night caused me to drink more water and interrupted my sleep) This helped me decide if I really wanted to eat.
Both. Eventually diet and exercise had a symbiotic relationship. Realizing how I felt while working out was related to my diet helped me make better choices (ex: if I'm doing cardio that night, I really shouldn't eat greasy foods otherwise I'll feel like passing out. As a result, I ate smaller snacks or avoided heavy foods)
Be intentional. In order to make change, you really have to understand your likes/dislikes, your behaviors, and your triggers. You can’t just be on auto-pilot or blindly follow someone else’s program and expect it to work. You’ll need to check in with yourself periodically and rate whether different things you’ve tried are working and if not, why they aren’t, so that you can do better next time.
For a more details, visit my other posts on "Building an Exercise Routine" and "Eating for Weight Loss."
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