I took the 21 day 'no junk food' challenge. And here's what happened!

WARNING: A blog post the length and breadth of a mini-island ahead. Please resist the urge to not hiss or throw slippers the next time you spot me. 

Hi guys!

I apologize for being the erratic blogger that I am, and for not writing rambling posts and annoying you guys regularly. I blame this on my boring but content life, since I don't really go out too often or have a large circle of friends. (I like it that way) Before I launch straight into this blog post, I am excited to tell you something else not related to this topic- I voted for the first time today! I almost felt like a responsible citizen today, and I urge y'all to cast your vote too (if its too late, please do vote in 2021). Pushing past that small ramble, I wanna give you guys a brief background of my weight loss before I talk about the 21 day no junk food challenge.

A peek into my 'heavy' past

I love food, and by that I mean eating it for the most part (a rookie cook). Those who know me from since childhood, during school and college, and even since I started working 2 years back are well aware of my weight loss journey. I even wrote about it previously but in brief. I can rehash it here again, if you aren't yawning already- I was overweight from 7th grade in school till the third and last year of my under graduate degree. I used to wear XXL, eat a shitload of unhealthy food and never exercise (okay, maybe I did go for a 30 minute walk once in a month). 

This was me in 2012, during a college fest.

I was aware that I was carrying extra flesh that jiggled when I walked a few steps faster, and found it difficult to procure nice clothes because of my rotundness. You know, the cliched weight loss horror story done to death, and I lived it for about 9 years roughly. I know a lot of people who are comfortable in their body, no matter what their size or weight is. But I was and still am not one of them, and I never will be. 

My moment of 'enlightenment' snuck up on me in September 2013, when I realized an uncomfortable truth- I would never get over my self-consciousness unless I lost all the stubborn, unnecessary fat in my body. I term it uncomfortable because it is not body positive and sounds so superficial. But I will admit it all the same because that is exactly what I felt and won't hide behind some weak excuse. It was my belief that by becoming fitter and thinner, I would radiate confidence. So what exactly did I do to lose weight, you wonder.

• I adopted and then adapted myself to a different lifestyle. I did not stop eating cookies, chips, ice cream and other forbidden edibles just because I wanted to lose weight. I just started making calculations in my mind, living in the obsessive world of calorie counting for roughly a year. I allotted myself 1200 calories per day, eating 70% nutritious, home cooked food and 30% forbidden 'treats'. An example- I would eat a bar of chocolate only if it had less than 250 calories. 
• I used to rope in a wee bit of exercise, roughly about 20-30 minutes x 4-5 days. 2013- I started out with 3 surya namaskars at home, and then increased it to 5 suya namaskars a month later. 2014- I joined a yoga class and lost a chunk of my weight with ashtanga and vinyasa asanas, I must add here that I was also working as a journalist then for a brief period (read about it here) and the hectic schedule also helped me drop dress sizes. 
• My food habits focused on portion control. I still do practise this, but not as rigorously as before. These are the rough quantities of food portions- 3 small to medium chapatis/1 serving of rice (either sambar or rasam or curd rice)/ 2 brown bread slices. I also preferred eating tofu to paneer since 200g of tofu has half the calories (and is super filling at 120 calories!)

My present (2015-now)

Note to y'all- I am not short! It's the angle. 

Took this minutes before uploading this post, just to show you how I look now.
If you're curious to know my height, I am 5'8.

I lost 20+ kilograms and now wear size XS or S (depending on the brand). It was not easy losing weight, physically and mentally. Though the skin bears stretch marks that are a reminder of how far I've come along, I still don't feel satisfied with how I look. This is the first reason that transpired the 21 day no junk food challenge. The second reason that I took up this challenge is because I wanted to break free of any developing sugar addiction. 

Let me tell you why I felt I was in the grip of one- I was roughly eating a packet of cookies every single day. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Additionally, I would empty huge slices of cake, packets of chips, sweets, pakora and mayonnaise sandwiches way too often. Fat was accumulating around my stomach, hips and thighs. Even my face looked chubbier and I felt like I was an example of that saying, 'old habits die hard'. 

My '21 day no junk food' experience
  
I took up this challenge from April 25 to May 15. I did not weigh myself, because the goal was to see the change abstinence could bring upon my physique. 

This was my holy grail during the testing 3 week period-

• NO Cookies
• NO Chips
• NO Fried Food- yes, even homemade snacks
• NO Sweets- from semiya payasam made by mom to the delicacies at restaurants
• NO Bread
• NO Butter
• NO Cheese
• NO Restaurant food

What I ate in balanced, filling amounts for breakfast+lunch+dinner+snacks (a gap of at least 1.5-2 hours between each meal)-

• 2.2-2.5 litres of water
• Boiled eggs
• White Rice
• Chapatis
• Sambar, rasam, kuzhambu
• 1-2 spoons of ghee
• Homemade vegetable curries and subzis, tofu, paneer
• Coffee/Tea, made with milk + 1.5 small spoons of sugar
• Buttermilk
• Homemade curd
• Sugar-free watermelon juice
• Banana, grapes, watermelon, mangoes and apples

The experience of taking up this challenge was.. reassuring. I learnt the amount of discipline I could rein in, avoiding anything remotely tempting. There were numerous occasions to test my willpower- my brother's birthday, two wedding anniversaries in the family and those gnawing moments when I was very hungry and there was only water at home. I avoided even sniffing a single marie biscuit during such times, guzzling water instead. I ate fruit for dessert, and drank coffee/tea/watermelon juice when hungry. 

I had three food related nightmares (yes, that's a thing) during the first week of the challenge. I did have cravings, but surprisingly, not as strongly as I suspected they would be. I managed to stay committed throughout the 21 days, but found solace in cribbing to bae, my friends and family. If they were not there to listen to me rant, I swear you'd find me yanking my hair out and roaming around the streets like a mad woman (heya buddy exaggeration, I missed you for a while now).

Results of the challenge

Since I did not weigh myself, I do not really know whether I lost any kilograms. But I can tell you that I have seen a significant reduction in my body fat. I have also been easing myself back into the yoga bandwagon, in order to stay fit. 

My stomach has caved in, my waist size has shrunk, my muffin top has lost a bit of its fluffiness and my thighs do seem a bit more toned. My face has lost some of the chubbiness too, or so I seem to deduce. 

I do not know if these pictures can exactly capture the changes mentioned above, because I can see all of them when I am in my birthday suit (ahem, no pictures of that tho'). Here's a look at them, anyway-

Left- April 23 | Right- May 13
I seriously wanna apologize for the bad photo on the right.

A hopefully better looking photograph. Taken on May 13 (Day 19).
The jeans were ill fitting at the waist, hips and the knee area.
Not fibbing, mother promise!

Left- April 21 | Right- May 15
PS: Sorry for the scary-looking face.
I think my face looks a little thinner, no?

With that, I put a full stop to this rather long post. BRB, I need to empty the sweets waiting for me inside the refrigerator.

If you wanna ask me anything about this experience, drop me an email at maha141193@gmail.com or comment below! Would love to hear your thoughts. :)