Monday, December 24, 2018

UPDATE: A little less miserable this Christmas, down 58lbs.

link to last year’s christmas eve post

a year ago, i posted on this sub from a place of desperation and hurting. i was just shy of 280lbs, in a size 24, and completely ashamed of my body and my life. i posted for accountability in the hopes that i could finally make a change.

this year was really, really hard, but i did make some changes and lost 70lbs in total before gaining back about 12lbs in the last few months of the year. i went from a 24 to a 16, and for the first time in my entire life, i was able to cross my legs.

all i did was count calories. i started at 1500 but i wasn’t really losing much so i dropped to 1200 and the weight started falling off. i lost 50lbs between march and july. it was amazing. i felt better, i looked better, and life seemed to be getting better. here are a couple “before and afters”, NSFW

i’m one of two therapists at my agency, and at the beginning of august the other therapist went on medical leave. my caseload doubled and so did my stress level. i stopped counting calories and started eating more. i wrote in my post last christmas eve about my struggles with binge eating; unfortunately, my binge episodes had never gone away completely, but they got significantly worse in august and transitioned from pure binging to binging and purging. all of a sudden, in the midst of my healthy weight loss, i had a full-fledged eating disorder. i was in denial for a long time because my sister has anorexia, and SHE is the one with the ED, not me, right? it was a difficult truth to swallow when i realized that my eating was just as disordered as hers. before i started losing, i met criteria for binge eating disorder, although i didn’t realize it at the time. i now fully meet criteria for bulimia.

and you know what the interesting part is? i haven’t lost a single damn pound since my coworker left in august. in fact, i’ve gained back about 12lbs from the constant binging and purging behavior. i recognize my behavior as disordered, and i do want to get better. i’m the world’s most hypocritical therapist - helping my clients change their disordered behaviors while silently suffering from my own.

as this year draws to a close, i’m proud of myself for losing 58lbs in total. the majority of that weight was healthy loss. i AM a little less miserable this christmas than i was last christmas. i have begun seeing a dietician and taking medication, and i continue to see the amazing therapist i’ve been seeing for many years. i also met a guy at the beginning of december, and we both knew on our first date that we were going to marry each other. we’re thinking may 2020, and i really want to be at my goal weight by then. he has given me reason for recovery, because i want to lose the weight in a healthy and sustainable fashion now. i don’t want to enter marriage with disordered eating habits if i can help it. i’m a little under halfway to my goal weight and i feel confident in my ability to lose the weight.

it is really easy to slip into disordered eating, and honestly, the majority of people have disordered eating habits to some degree. basic CBT principles of identifying the thoughts and feelings i’m having that trigger my behavior has been helpful. i’m not where i want to be, but i’m not where i used to be, and hopefully in a year i’ll be able to share another update with even more progress. thanks for following along.

submitted by /u/DownstairsLease
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2SjgKlE

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