End of 2019 and most of 2020 was a pretty shit year and a bit for me. Got dumped, suffered with a bit of depression because of that and then just as I was coming out of that phase, covid hit and we went into lockdown essentially single and living alone.... oh and I decided to to a management degree alongside my full time job that i was now doing at home, just to add to the pressure. During that time I ballooned up to just under 340lbs, the heaviest I'd ever been. I felt gross, but cooking and eating was about the only thing keeping me vaguely sane and happy during that rough year.
I've been fat all my life, so i'd tried losing weight before and managed 10-15lbs here or there so i knew it was possible, but i always just hit a wall and stopped after a month or two. But i decided that before i hit 30 i want to at least feel what it's like to be "normal". To be able to find clothes that fit, and look ok.
So I set a target.... to get myself down to 20% body fat by my 30th birthday. based on my calculations that means i'd need to loses about 95lbs over the 2 years that followed. Having started at the end of february 2021 at 45%bf and 334lbs, exactly 6 months on (the longest i've ever maintained a "diet") i'm down to 35%bf and 306lbs, basically 30% of the way there.
And do you know what the funniest thing is? I've broken every dieting/weight loss rule I'd been taught over the last 20+years.
- "Cook from scratch so you know what's in it" - nope, been basically living off ready meals for 80% of my week. it's way easier to track the calories and macros by just scanning a barcode in mfp, and i can't be undone by my shocking portion control (or lack thereof). I can have 2 main meals for 800-1200 calories and have another 800 to "play" with and still lose weight.
- "Cut out the sweet's and chocolate and bread" - no thanks, i've always had a sweet tooth and chocolate has always been one of those things that can derail me. I've had a chocolate bar every day since i started losing weight and i've found some nice 100kcal chocolate yoghurts that also give me that fix during the day. Some days I'll even have room in my calorie budget for an egg mayo sandwich with white bread. Learning how to manage my intake, whilst not starving myself of those foods i crave has been huge to me and probably why i have lasted so long so far.
- "Do lots of exercise" - nope, i'm a lazy shit and whilst i love playing sports from a competitive and skills based point of view, i'm not built to run or do anything that requires a lot of endurance or high impact stresses on my joints... i take a 15-20 min walk around the block every other day and play a bit of golf every now and then and that's enough to get me some fresh air and get the blood circulating. A sit/stand desk also helps here so I'm not just sat on my arse all day. Once i get to a point where i'm a more normal weight, then i think i will up my exercise game, but for now this works.
Now all I do is track everything in MFP, stand on my scales once a week and watch the trendline (not the individual data points) fall. For the first time in my life, losing weight feels "easy" and i'm now wondering why it took me so long to figure it out.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3D1SI6P
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