In This ArticleView AllIn This ArticleWalk MoreStop Counting CaloriesCook at HomeWatch Cooking ShowsTry GardeningLimit Late-Night SnacksFocus on How Feelings
In This ArticleView All
View All
In This Article
Walk More
Stop Counting Calories
Cook at Home
Watch Cooking Shows
Try Gardening
Limit Late-Night Snacks
Focus on How Feelings
Close
Photo:Michela Buttignol
Michela Buttignol
In 2015, I sold everything I owned to travel the world. Already at an unhealthy weight for me, I believed traveling would help me “get fit.” Daily, for four years, I awoke in incredible spots in 25 countries around the world, but I struggled to explore them. Being 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 350 pounds made simple routines a challenge, let alone exploring new worlds. My nomad dream ended in 2019 in a Sicilian rooftop terrace apartment, where the 88 steps up to my suite left me in agony daily. I realized I needed to stop traveling and change my life.
I had a new dream: staying alive. I wanted to be healthy. My mother died when she was 57 years old, and here I was at age 46. Was I nearing my final chapter, or could I change my future? I decided I could. My goal was to be healthier at 50 than I was at 40. It was a hell of a mountain to climb, but I started with one good new habit at a time, starting with moving back to Canada.
So far, I’ve lost 110 pounds and I recently bought my first large-sized shirts in 15 years, after previously reaching size 4X. Once unable to walk a half-mile without breaks, now I can walk 7 miles or more without pain or consequences. I’ve got further to go, but I created a healthy lifestyle I enjoy, and I look forward to decades of new adventures. Here’s how I got here:
1. I live a walking lifestyle.
This Easy Walking Plan Can Help You Lose Weight—No Gym Required
2. I don’t drink calories—or count calories, for that matter.
I love eating, but living in Europe for two years and guzzling wine like it was my life force is partly how I reached my heaviest weight. Not “drinking calories” means I don’t fret about counting them either. Smoothies might taste good, but they never satisfy my hunger. I don’t tend to worry about day-to-day totals because I find my consumption tends to work itself out over the course of a week. I may eat lighter vegan meals one day and have a rib-eye steak the next. That’s where the next point comes in.
3. I cook almost everything I eat.
Years of traveling without having access to a proper kitchen and constantly eating out left me longing for a well-stocked kitchen. When my nomad life ended, I dove into cooking. I learned to make pasta in Rome, so when I came home, I made pasta from scratch. I kneaded and shaped loaves of bread while stews simmered all day on my stove. From there, I stumbled into a passion for scratch-made food—everything fromyogurtand salsa to chili crisps and complex curries. And when I recently realized I was gluten-intolerant, I saw it as a challenge to find a few good recipes—not a radical new lifestyle designed on deprivation—and I’ve had great success. The additional time I spend in the kitchen may be comparable to time others spend in the gym, but it’s something I enjoy—and a habit I can keep for life.
Why Cooking & Eating Together Are as Important for Your Health as the Foods You Eat
4. I am always watching cooking shows.
5. I started growing my own herbs.
13 Easy-to-Grow Vegetables and Herbs
6. I’m mindful about what I eat or drink after dinner.
I’m not strict about an end-time for eating because life is beautifully inconsistent, and flexibility is important. But if I eat at 9 p.m. or so, I won’t nosh till 10 or 11 the next morning. (I work from home, so I have that flexibility.) Call it intermittent fasting if you want, but for me it’s less about cutting calories than it is about ending destructive behavior. For example, as a traveler, I drank a bottle of wine a night, which led to “a little taste won’t hurt” attitude when it came to snacking along with my vino. Today, I may have fruit after dinner or bitter hot cocoa, but that’s all, if I want good digestion and peaceful sleep.
What Happens to Your Body When You Eat a Late-Night Snack Every Day
7. I focus on feelings, not numbers.
The scale isn’t my friend. The wrong meal, the wrong calibration, and suddenly self-worth can go out the window because of a number. If I worried about the scale, I’d have given up long ago! My weight can fluctuate as much as 5 pounds in a day, and it took years to understand why—and to stop judging myself for it. Instead, I focus on how I feel: how walking feels, how roomy that chair is, how my clothes fit. That feeling is what success feels like.
Why I’m Breaking Up With My Scale
I’m glad I allowed myself to be present in the worst of how I felt, before my fitness journey began. I’ll never forget hitting my rock bottom that sunny day on a rooftop in Palermo, Sicily, overlooking a centuries-old world with a broken heart because I was in far too much pain to explore it. There, I gave up on what was then the adventure of my lifetime.
Today, I have a new life. I long to return to that city, those cobblestones and the possibilities within those twisting old alleys, because the joy of exploration never needs to elude me again.
Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!Tell us why!OtherSubmit
Was this page helpful?
Thanks for your feedback!
Tell us why!OtherSubmit
Tell us why!
