Long time lurker and first time poster here! Sorry if this breaks any rules or anything. Before I post this, I want to apologize for the long wall of text. Progress pictures are here! (pictures show midriff; so link is NSFW)
I started my weight loss journey a year ago as of writing this (December 27th, 2017). I was in my darkest moment, searching for an answer to why I felt like shit all the time. This was the same day as my friends’ Christmas party. I went home from it and cried to myself for hours. I posted on r/relationshipadvice because I thought my friends all hated me. One kind commenter told me that I’m probably lacking self confidence and asked me to look inward instead of blaming my friends for my insecurity. This really resonated with me; I looked inside. I found that I was truly unhappy with myself. I was big. I didn’t fit into normal sized clothes. I had heartburn all the time and I couldn’t breathe very well. I got winded very easily. I decided to change. Still looking to reddit for advice, I found the community r/loseit. There, I read the guide they have available on their sidebar. Everything in it was so helpful and informative and reading it, I remember crying. I downloaded the LoseIt! app and calculated my TDEE. I started at 265 lbs (Female, 5 foot 9 inches tall). The next year, I couldn’t ever have known, would be a very difficult year for me.
The new year came with difficulties. The first half of the year was wonderful; I went out more often with friends and tried to start enjoying myself instead of simply just living. I lost 35 lbs by Spring Break, which I spent part of in another city with two of my best friends. I was able to walk the streets of the city without getting super winded (as I most likely would have before). In July, I went to my local anime convention having lost around 50 lbs. I didn’t cosplay because I didn’t want to make something I wouldn’t fit into in a few months. August came, and so did my birthday (I weighed 208 on my birthday, whoop whoop). At this point, the Fall semester was fast approaching. After a wonderful Summer, I was ready to go back to learning. The thing that I wasn’t ready for, though, was my best friend (three of them, actually) moving two hours away. I felt alone. I had one friend at my school with me, and he provided excellent company, but there’s never a substitute for your closest friend. I didn’t get to see her very often; we were both really busy. That caused a lot of sadness for me.
The semester started and I was doing well (I found out the other day that I passed w/ a 4.0 gpa! :D). I did well with my weight loss, too! September brought my journey into onederland and I was so excited about it. This also meant I was no longer in an obese BMI! October brought midterms, which took a lot of concentration to study for. I was also going to do NaNoWriMo starting in November. This brought significant challenges to my time management. Fortunately, I did not have a job this semester (this is really only fortunate in that I had a lot of extra time to study and write, lol). November came and went like a flash, with me hitting my goal of 50K words written between four different stories, only one of which was actually finished. I learned a lot, though. December has felt so fast. I got a fitbit (alta hr) for Christmas and I’m excited to see how this tool will assist my journey for my own health. I don’t know my exact weight; I’m retaining a lot of water from the big holiday meals and my muscles are sore, too. Last I checked, I was 176.9. That’s almost 90 lbs in a year. I have about 30-35 more to lose depending on how I feel once I’m closer to my pretty arbitrary goal. I haven’t been small at any point in my life, so I’m excited to fit into “medium” or “small” clothes.
I wanted to write a bit about the quality of life changes, just in case anyone is on the fence about losing weight (hi, resolutioners!)
- I can breathe better now (as in, my weight-induced asthma is better controlled)
- I can walk without getting winded
- My skin has cleared a significant amount (from drinking water instead of sweet tea, I imagine)
- I have a face shape now (as well as collar bones, a jawline, thinner fingers, smaller feet, and hip bones!)
- Clothes shopping is much more fun (yesterday I went and actually bought something)
- I have much healthier habits in general (ex. I brush my teeth daily now when I wouldn’t get up to do it before, I wake up at a regular time that is… before noon, and I exercise.)
There are more, but those are the most motivating things in my opinion. I think it’s required for me to tell exactly what I did to lose the weight, so here goes. I started eating 1900 calories per day in January, but I switched to 1200-1300 in the last few months. I try to exercise regularly, but finding motivation was difficult in the harder school months (especially around midterms and finals, lol). I’ll usually spend ~30 minutes on a treadmill and I try to do that 5 days a week-ish.
I didn’t have a really good reason to lose weight. I still don’t, I guess. I knew it would help me be healthier, but I mostly did it to find self-confidence. I haven’t found all of it but there’s much more there than there was last year. My friends are having a Christmas party today, and I intend to go and have fun and if I cry, it’ll just be because I’m gonna miss them until Summer comes again. :) The moral of my story would probably be this: Losing weight will only cause you to lose weight. You won't be happier unless you're working on that, too.
Sorry again for the massive wall of text, but I got a bit emotional and I’ve been waiting to post until my weightlossiversary. I guess I just wanted to release part of my journey to the world just in case anyone out there relates! Feel free to message me, too, if we have similar stats or you need someone to talk to, y'all. <3
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2GKp3pr
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