I know the title seems strange, but I wanted to post about how I am finally in the “overweight” category of BMI, after almost six years of obesity.
I (F19, 5’9ft) am officially 198 lbs, a total weight loss of 50 lbs from where I started. I used to be 250 lbs, and I have not been under 200 lbs since the start of high school, which is totally insane to me.
My highest BMI was 36 (Obese Class II) and now it’s at 29.4 which granted is still a bit under obese, but it’s technically not. I spent my entire teenage years, 13-18, being obese and at the start of this year I honestly felt like I had wasted my teenage years, not forming good health habits.
I honestly didn’t care about my body when I was a teenager, and didn’t spend time obsessing over it. Because of that I got bigger and bigger and gained about 70lbs throughout being a teenager.
When I first started university, I went from being in a small school, with limited food options to a huge campus, with lots of restaurants and snack options. I brought like tons of snacks to school, and still bought more, which added a strain on my wallet and made me gain the infamous “Freshman 15.”
I didn’t notice it at all, until I got to some breaking points. Three breaking points happened to put me on this journey.
1) My mom saw me eating one day and told me I was getting big and needed to slow down. She was aggressive with it but she was right.
2) I was getting my hair done at someone’s house, and they had a scale in the bathroom which I looked at. The one at home was broken, so I hadn’t weighed myself in years. I thought that I was like 200lbs at that moment, but I hopped on the scale which revealed I was 250lbs and I was so shocked.
3) I do social media videos for my church, and we filmed a promotional video that was really funny and well executed. However, I began to notice how big I looked, and kept asking for it to be refilmed even though there were no problems. I realized how big I had gotten and didn’t even notice.
After these, I vowed to finally lose the weight and have 2024/2025 be my last year of being obese for good. I had vague stints of weight loss attempts and methods throughout the years, but they never stuck.
At New Years, I made the resolution to lose 50lbs by the end of the year, and started going to the gym. I worked on lots of things, but by March I had only lost five pounds and then I realized I was missing something.
I needed to change my diet as well. I began a calorie deficit, and as someone who used to eat 3000-4000 calories a day and was a chronic snacker, I had a hard time at first. I always filled my plates, brought tons of snacks to eat at school, got seconds, and ate when I wasn’t hungry, so I had to navigate that. But I still stuck with it and when I saw the first weight difference on the scale I was so happy.
Despite it being hard, I still stuck with it and managed to lose 50 pounds in about 5 months. I’ve learned so much about nutrition, wellness, eating, and health overall.
So far, I feel bloated, no longer have joint pain, fit better into clothes, no longer feel this constant hunger, and am more intentional with my meals. I even bought a fitness ring as I continue on this journey.
I’ve still got lots of weight to lose as my goal is about 135lbs, but I genuinely used to believe that weight loss was going to be impossible for me. There’s so much information out there that makes it seem like weight loss is this complex thing, and that’s the point because it feeds into this huge industry. But it was simple all along.
I know that if I didn’t intervene in my own life, I would have likely been 300lbs by my mid-20s and gotten some health issues.
So through a consistent calorie deficit and exercise, no tricks, gimmicks, or diets, I have lost 50 pounds and hope to lose about 70 more!
