I’ve missed you all. It’s been a little weird to go from writing blog posts twice a week, to twice a month, to nothing in June.

June was a tough month for me. I’m not going to lie. It was full of many highs and some lows.

After a few days of “doing it (the deficit) on my own”, I had a heart-to-heart with Steff. I needed a break. My adherence to my deficit calories was atrocious. I was not sticking to them. I was eating probably 200-300 calories more than my maintenance calories. Steff had tried to encourage me to eat at maintenance when we ended our nutrition together in May, but I was just so determined to finish what I had started. In reality, my body and my brain were screaming for a break. It was time to listen.

Steff and I agreed that I’d spend June at maintenance and reassess July 1. Remember that maintenance means eating the calories necessary to maintain your current weight — within reason, of course, as the scale can fluctuate a few pounds here and there from your cycle, if you’ve eaten a carb-heavy meal and you’re holding onto a little more water, etc. So don’t freak out if the scale goes up. It’s also not an excuse to go off the rails. It’s just a chance to add a few more calories to my meals or eat an extra snack.

As a refresher, this was my list in my last blog post:

• Continue to meal prep on Sundays
• One day, one meal, one workout at a time
• Continue to eat in a calorie deficit
• Reassess my physique in 6 weeks
• Continue to love life again
• Maintain the same activity level (gym 4-5x a week)
• Continue to make smarter choices when out at restaurants
• Find a therapist 

I’ve stuck to most of it, but here’s where I stand with this now:

• Continue to meal prep on Sundays
  • Still do this unless I’m having fun at a Women on the Range event (photos below!)
• One day, one meal, one workout at a time
  • Not doing great right now with regard to one day/one meal. I spent most of June saying, “well… I’ll just ‘do better’ in July when I’m back on the deficit calories”. My workouts have been great though!
• Continue to eat in a calorie deficit
  • 🙂
• Reassess my physique in 6 weeks
  • I’m reassessing my physique 4 weeks later as I type this blog post and while I’m feeling OK, I don’t feel as lean as I did in May and I feel bloated most days.
• Continue to love life again
  • Definitely doing this! I’ve spent a lot more time with friends; reuniting with a college friend, Emma, and my college roommate, Ali. I went to the beach with my best friend, Becca. None of this was possible this time last year. I hated who I saw in the mirror so much and just couldn’t fathom that others could possibly want to be seen with me.
• Maintain the same activity level (gym 4-5x a week)
  • Check! In June, I was doing doubles (6 AM strength, 7 AM burn) on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then either 6 AM strength on Fridays and/or double (7:30 AM burn, 8 AM conditioning) on Saturdays. It just depended on my schedule, but I’d get 5-6 workouts in a week. Every so often, I’d go on runs/walks (only once a week and usually on Sundays after meal prepping. One of the things I had to learn was “make the gym fit your life, not make your life fit the gym”. I had been doing the 1×1 with Steff 3x a week so my schedule was pretty consistent for 10 months. Now it is up to me to make sure I am hitting the gym and finding a routine that works for me.
• Continue to make smarter choices when out at restaurants
  • I followed this for the most part, but I definitely indulged more than I had while I was in a deficit. For example, I went to IHOP with my best friend and while I did get an egg white chicken fajita omelet, I also got triple stack of chocolate chip pancakes (omelets come with your choice of side: hash brown, pancakes, etc.). I was following the “eat what you want, add what you need” mantra. I needed protein (egg whites/chicken), but I wanted chocolate chip pancakes. I ate every single bite and had no regrets. What did I do? Used it as fuel for my Saturday double. It’s not something I do every single day or multiple times a week. The last time I went to IHOP was July 2023 (I remember it because I bought my first Louis Vuitton wallet at the Natick Mall just minutes before. Drops $1,100 on a new wallet… spends $20 at IHOP. I know. Balance…? haha).
• Find a therapist
  • I actually did submit an email request to a therapist in the middle of June. I never heard back, so this was a little disheartening to me. A few friends suggested I call the therapist instead of twiddling my thumbs. Unfortunately for me, I’m very much a “Well, I initiated the conversation and nothing happened, so my part is done and now it’s on them” when it comes to these sorts of things. On June 30, I submitted requests to 3 additional therapists. As of today’s posting, I have heard back from 2 of the 3 additional therapists and both said they couldn’t help me at this time. Oh, well. I do have another list of therapists I’m going to reach out to ASAP. I’m optimistic I’ll find someone!

I know there are many people who don’t agree with therapy or don’t believe in it — and that’s OK. You are allowed to have your own opinion. 🙂

For me though, to be the best version of myself, I have to work through the demons that haunt me, and I have to work through those demons with someone who is objective and can provide clarity. I’ve always known I’ve struggled with disordered eating. (You don’t just get to be 240 pounds or put on 60 pounds in a few years without something being a little off upstairs, if you know what I mean.)

Maintenance was hard for me in June because I just couldn’t control myself. I was hungry all the time, even with eating 175-200g protein per day. I’d buy food that wasn’t single serve and would have 4-5 servings in the bag and I’d eat the whole damn bag in one sitting. I could hear Fat Kate saying, “well, the bag is half empty so you might as well just finish it” and I would. I did this all the time. I even did this on June 30 with a bag of cookies. I had been eyeing them at CVS for a couple of months and finally decided that it was time to try them (yes, the day before my deficit… * eye roll *).

I’m very much a “let’s weigh out the pros and cons” kind of person. I was 50/50 on starting my deficit back up. I went out for a walk on June 30 after I finished my Sunday meal prep. Sometimes my walks/runs are just simply a way for me to reset or reframe my thinking. I decided to write out my list of pros and cons for starting my deficit back up. The pros outweighed the cons and it was settled. It was time to keep going.

Or was it? Well, as I learned on July 2, I wasn’t actually ready to commit to another round of being in a calorie deficit. My daily calories were looking an awful lot like maintenance calories. I just wasn’t ready. And it’s OK.

Let’s talk about some of these.

PROS: My face looks so bad right now with acne. I am someone who tends to make a “mountain out of molehill” so I picked and picked at a small bump on my chin that turned into the mega zit of all zits. The left-side of my face has several picked over zits, too. My acne had been under control for many, many months until June. That “mass”, well after a doctor’s appointment and an ultrasound, turns out it’s a hernia. Yikes. They’re also unsure if there’s a cyst or extension of the hernia on the outside of my belly, too. Thankfully I’m not bothered by it too much right now, so no surgery unless that changes.

CONS: I am the queen of self-sabotage. Steff learned this about me pretty quickly when we started working together. If something is going well, I don’t want it to go well anymore. I get so consumed in my thoughts that I can’t separate fact from fiction. (Yet another reason to find a therapist!)

I wish I could be the perfect robot who is able to switch on and off throughout all of these phases, but I’m just simply not that person. I’m Kate and I’m a little messy and a little unhinged sometimes, but I try to give 100% every day, even on days when I only have 10% of me to give. I hope some my vulnerability helps you see me as human. ❤

Enjoy some of my favorite pictures from June! Highlights include:

• Passing my Certified Group Fitness Instructor exam and becoming a coach at the gym that changed my life (yes, Steff went from “Coach Steff” to “Boss Steff”. Eeek!)
• My boys turning 5!
• Dinner & ice cream with Lindsay in the middle of a thunderstorm just before the skies opened
• Quick day trip to the Cape with Becca
• Women on the Range event at the Fitchburg Sportsmen’s Club becoming buddies with 2 women I had never met before but ended up in the same group with (Becca was too busy being a superstar archery instructor at the event to join me *eye roll*).
• My college roommate, Ali, getting engaged and spending time with her, Georgia (her puppy), and Adam (her fiancé); plus a quick hike in Borderlands!
• Spending time with my fellow Toastmasters (offsite at Dean Park, becoming the 2024-2025 club president)

The ultimate goal is to finish my fat loss phase and to definitely finish that before our trip to Aruba in May 2025. This most likely means another 12-24 weeks in a deficit with consistency and discipline, 2 things I’m lacking a little bit of right now. This belly fat is stubborn as heck but when I set my mind to something, I’m stubborn as heck, too!

See you soon(er than last time!),
~ K