First off, this isn't a throwaway account but it is one I made specifically for this post. Perhaps I'll continue using it if I become an active member of the community. Also, I honestly don't even know where this post belongs because it comes off as a rant but I decided to post it here because ultimately my unhappiness comes down to one major factor. My weight and self image.
Warning, long post ahead.
So some backstory. I'm a 22 year old guy that's been fat as far back as I can remember. From 6 years old onward, I was already considered fat. At 13 I weighed 115KG. At 16 I ballooned up to 130KG. I honestly can't remember a time I wasn't considered fat or at the very least chubby. I had extremely unhealthy eating habits not to mention a VERY sedentary lifestyle. I'd probably drink 2-3 glasses of soda with each meal, a single helping of food was an alien concept to me but worst of all I basically just sat playing videogames,watching movies and tv shows, anime etc, the entire day.
Being overweight seriously (and even though I haven't really browsed this sub thoroughly yet, I know many of you probably feel the same) messed up my self esteem and image. I experienced a lot of self hate, was repulsed to look at myself in the mirror but above all, I almost always felt people were kinda repulsed by me. "This guy must be thinking I'm the fattest person he's ever seen". "She probably thinks I look disgusting". Things like that. I experience this to this day and I honestly don't know how to deal with it.
From 6 years old I already knew I had to lose weight. Throughout the years I tried to. I remember at 8, I naively thought doing 20 pushups a day would help me lose weight and build big muscles. At age 13 I tried going on a 2 minute noodle diet ( yeah...I actually did that) but nothing ever seemed to stick. Until something happened during 2014 when I was 18. See when I was in high school, I was pretty good in physics. So I decided to start a study group and all of them were girls. These were girls I knew since grade 10 but I never knew them really on a personal level until we got to know each other via this study group. Now I know what you guys are thinking and surprise surprise it's got to do with a girl. I started to develop feelings for one of the girls in the group. I always saw her as a friend but once I got to know her really, I fell hard for her. Eventually I mustered up the courage to tell her how I feel and she rejected me. Needless to say, I didn't take it well. I understood that she didn't reciprocate ( we can't force people to like us romantically hey) and I decided that I need some space from her to think about everything. She was okay with it and there was never any bad blood between us or anything. But insideI felt devastated. In hindsight, I realize I shouldn't have taken this so personally but this was the first girl that I confessed my feelings to not to mention my encounter with rejection.
But something happened as a result of this rejection. All of a sudden, I experienced this ridiculous drive to lose weight. I had been trying on and off that year to lose weight but after being rejected, I felt that nothing could stop me. Now that I think back, I probably internalized her rejection as her not being attracted to me because of my weight (which was probably true but I can't blame her for having preferences) so in my mind, I thought if I lose this weight, perhaps she will give me a chance? I know people say don't lose weight for a girl or a guy but in a way, even though the reason was bad, the results were definitely worth it. I proceeded to lose 45KG by 2016. After the first few months, my reasons for losing weight wasn't even because of rejection anymore. I started to develop my own motivation. I enjoyed lifting weights. I enjoyed doing cardio. I enjoyed feeling more physically fit. I was losing weight for ME and me ALONE. I still kind of lost it on and off near the end but eventually it came down. As for the girl, I got over her and I guess we kinda just drifted apart. Haven't spoken to her in years.
I hit 90KG on the 1st of May 2016. Needless to say, I felt amazing. This was my initial goal weight. I was still a big guy but I didn't feel "fat". I just felt like a husky guy. Eventually though, I got tired with being a husky guy. I wanted to be an in shape, fit guy so I made a new goal weight of 75KG. Funny enough, throughout my entire weight loss journey from 135KG to 90KG, I never counted a single calorie. I just used intuition. No liquid cals, no empty cals, no deep fried foods etc coupled with a solid lifting and cardio regime. My self esteem took hits in other ways though regardless of how good I was feeling about the weight loss. I started balding badly and by the time I hit 90KG, I already had a big bald patch in the back of my head. This was at age 20 so yeah it messed me up pretty badly. One of the things people always complimented me even with all that weight, was my hair. So it was pretty devastating to lose that. I've (finally) accepted it though. I also developed a health condition known as rectal prolapse(this is anonymous so I don't mind speaking about it) that basically caused me to stop lifting weights. This depressed me greatly because I loved lifting weights. I love lifting heavy weights and had even considered going into powerlifting. I also couldn't do any high impact cardio anymore. This was around 96KG mark when I had 6 left to go. I basically lost that final 6KG from simply brisk walking. Eventually the prolapse went away though ( it was a minor prolapse) but it's still risky for me to lift anything heavy and I have to eat an extremely fibrous diet and I still feel physically terrible at times but I've learnt to tolerate it.
Anyway, I made a new goal for myself. 75KG. The goal that caused me to almost lose my sanity. See, I just couldn't get under 90KG. Sure, I know now that I should have simply calculated my calories and develop a solid meal plan but at the time I wasn't even counting calories. I was stuck at 90KG for MONTHS. Five months to be exact. I was extremely frustrated. I started to diet hard and did lots of cardio but I couldn't keep this up and would eventually go on short spurts of binge eating. This became a cycle until one day I just thought screw this, I'm going to eat whatever I want, how much I want for a week. And I binged. I binged on anything food. Eventually this week binge became a month. The month became two months. The two months became a year and 2 years later, here I am, back to square one, having gained all this weight back. Yes, I developed an extremely bad binge eating disorder. I just couldn't stop eating. This was worse than the lifestyle I had initially before I started to lose weight. This was out of control. It didn't even matter what food I ate so long as I could binge on anything I could see. It was also during this time that I developed another condition called tinnitus (it's a condition where you hear ringing in your ears). I used to get a LOT of anxiety from the ringing at first and as a result, I binged to cope with this as well.I eventually gained all the weight back.
I'm at that point now where I feel as if I can't come back from this but at the same time, I don't wanna give up on myself just yet. I started reading the book Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen and while the principles seem a bit pseudosciency, it's actually been really helpful. I can relate to the "animal side" of the brain. I seriously feel as if I have no control during binges so I see where she's coming from. I haven't finished it yet but I'm trying to apply the principles already and I have been seeing at least some degree of success. I gained all the way back to 135KG but I'm now 129.5KG so I'm trying to get down to 90 again at least. But damn, it's just so mentally draining having to lose so much weight AGAIN not to mention I still want to get to that sweet spot of 75KG. Honestly, I'm wondering why I even made this post. Perhaps I just wanted to finally get all these things off my chest or perhaps I just wanted receive some assurance. I know I went off topic mentioning things not related to my weight loss and I apologize for that. I just sometimes feel like broken goods. All these health problems, the weight gain, the binge eating, my self image etc. I just need someone to tell me everything's going to be okay and that I can come back from this.
TL;DR lost weight, got stuck trying to lose more, got frustrated and decided to binge;the binge became a habit and i developed a full on binge eating disorder; gained all the weight back;trying to lose it again
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