Women in Minnesota vowed to improve their health and lifestyle after the worst of their lives in the COVID pandemic, eventually losing about half their weight.
Like many other Americans, Rochester Katie Schmidt, 43, was fired in June 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
She said she had been working for the same nonprofit for 10 years at that time.
“During the pandemic, I was thrown into another life,” Schmidt told Fox News Digital in an interview. “It was a really dark time. For many, I think so. I certainly felt it.”
It was then that Schmidt began to evaluate his future goals.
“While I was doing that, I realized that my weight would hinder me,” Schmidt said.
At the time, Schmidt said she was about 100 pounds overweight, had high blood pressure, and had low energy. She also said she was suffering from depression after losing her family.
“I just felt terrible,” Schmidt said.
“Building self-care habits and skills”
So, after researching various programs and methods of weight loss, Schmidt said she joined in November 2020 and landed on WW (formerly known as a weight watcher). At that time she weighed 240 pounds.
Schmidt had tried weight loss strategies before that, but often quit less than a month later. This time she made her plan and stuck to it.
“I said,’I’ll follow this for more than three weeks and I’ll reach my goal myself in that three-week period,'” Schmidt said, checking himself every hour. He added that he was in. The foundation.
“I ask myself” Am I really hungry? Is this really hungry, or if I’m drinking tea, is it a better option for me now? “Or maybe you just feel a little anxious and need to take a walk,” Schmidt said.
The moment she thought eating would make her feel better, she looked for other options.
“It was really about building those self-care habits and skills,” Schmidt said. “I had a list of options printed. [showing] What else [could] I do other than eat. “
Schmidt’s secret was to make her journey more about healing than weight loss.
She first focused on sleep and eating habits. She also avoided looking at the numbers on the scale.
“That sounds weird, but that’s what happened to me,” she said.
Ultimately, Schmidt made the activity easier by adding a 10-minute walk to his daily life.
“It was very important to start moving because my knees hurt, my lower back hurt, and my body hurt by carrying extra weight, but I knew I couldn’t go from 0 to 100 mph. “It was,” Schmidt said.
“Rewarded with better energy”
Schmidt began to focus on what she was bringing to her life, not what she was limiting or removing.
“I was creating it in my art studio. During this journey, I was essentially finding a way to spend time so that I felt better and more beautiful,” she added. rice field. “It was really important to me. It wasn’t just about exercising and eating, it was about making beautiful things.”
Schmidt disputed the general idea that weight loss is “difficult,” that is, what she had heard throughout her life. Instead, she wrote a list of her positive habits and self-care in her diary.
“I believed it,” Schmidt said of the idea that it’s difficult to lose weight. “I thought,’Then it’s not for me. It’s hard, so I can’t.”
“I said,’How can I make this easier for myself?'”
When she lost weight, Schmidt said she was motivated to continue because of how she felt. “I was rewarded with better energy [and] I feel better, “Schmidt said.
The coronavirus pandemic was challenging for Schmidt, but she said losing weight was actually a way to “control something in my life.”
“That part of health and wellness was something I could grab to get me through some of the things we couldn’t handle at the time,” Schmidt said of the pandemic.
One of the challenges when Schmidt was working on losing weight during a pandemic was isolation from friends and family, but husband’s support was essential.
“My spouse was really important,” Schmidt said. “He was on the boat to help prepare the food. He would eat the food I cooked … we were together.”
Schmidt also said it relied on the social media capabilities of the WW app, where she followed and talked to people who had overcome some of the same challenges they were trying to overcome.
“That was all for me,” Schmidt said. “I ask people questions, people who were on the same weight loss journey … they were the people who did it.”
“It really feels good”
Schmidt said her first goal was to lose £ 100.
When she reached her original target weight of 140, Schmidt decided to lose another £ 5 to see how she felt.
When she did, Schmidt said she asked herself. Do you find maintenance difficult? Do I feel healthy? Do I have energy? “
Then Schmidt lost another £ 5 and asked the same question.
She did it again before she settled on her current weight.
Currently, Schmidt weighs about 123 pounds. Therefore, we have lost 117 pounds from our starting weight in November 2020.
Schmidt said he has been able to maintain his weight between 123 and 125 pounds for the past three months.
“It’s a lot easier than I expected at this point,” Schmidt said.
“It feels really good,” she added. “I’m in a healthy BMI [body mass index]Blood pressure is low [and] My doctor is very happy. “
“Time goes by in either direction.”
Schmidt provides advice to those seeking lifestyle changes.
“Be kind to yourself,” she said. “You can’t hate yourself thinly,” she added later, “let your body set the pace.”
“I remember thinking I was in this big hole. I need to find a way to dig in and want to do it tomorrow. I don’t want to live this way anymore,” Schmidt said.
“The reality was that time would pass in either direction,” she continued. “And I have the option to be healthy at this time, or I may continue to eat poorly, not exercise, and feel unwell.”
Schmidt also suggested thinking of weight loss as a lifestyle, not as a short-term solution or a program to follow.
“I think it’s an opportunity … you can re-imagine what weight loss looks like,” Schmidt said.
“It doesn’t have to look like an exercise video,” she added. “You can decide what it looks like to you.”
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