Progress photos! (though they might be confusing without the context below...)
Sometime around the end of August or beginning of September 2013, I sat in bed one night feeling my heart thump loudly and rapidly inside my chest. It was physically exhausting just to even lie down, and I panicked over what I thought might have been an oncoming heart attack. The next day I went to my doctor and told him what I was experiencing. He very kindly told me it was probably because I was morbidly obese, and checked my weight on some scales - 434lbs was what they showed. While he did send me off for a blood test and ECG, he made it clear that my weight was almost certainly the problem, and offered to set me up with a nutritionist and a bariatric surgeon. I declined both.
I was used to feeling dehumanized - I had been morbidly obese since I was about 6 or 7 years old, and was very used to be treated like a second-class person - but knowing I had gotten over 400lbs was extremely upsetting. I knew things had to change, but I didn't know how. By now I had failed so many times at losing weight, I assumed anything I did would be doomed before I'd started. Maybe others who have been or are at around 400lbs can relate to this, but I remember worrying every time I went out because I was never sure if I could fit in chairs. Movie theatres had become a gamble - if the chairs had retractable arms, I could retract one side and sit across two chairs. If not though, I was completely screwed. Most restaurants too were out of the question, because I couldn't fit in a booth, and I was never sure if the regular chairs could support my weight (I'd feel constantly anxious as they creaked beneath me).
In a weird way, wanting to not have to deal with nonsense like this any more was one of the ways I was able to find motivation for losing weight. I never set out to become 'healthy', just to become 'less fat'. I made an account on MyFitnessPal to track my calories. Because I was so large, I could still eat around 3000 calories a day and lose weight. Great! And that was how I lost the first chunk of weight - still eating mainly junk food, but just slightly less. I also started to walk a few times a week. I would be exhausted after only a few blocks, but was determined to keep trying until I could walk without getting so tired. Gradually I did find it got easier, and soon I was walking almost twice as far as when I had started to regularly exercise.
One of the biggest killers in my diet was soft drink. Pepsi in particular was what I constantly craved. At my highest weight, I was drinking about 5 or 6 cans a day: I generally woke up at midday and skipped breakfast, so would have one for lunch, two between dinner, one or two with dinner, and one with dessert. I slowly was able to reduce this to only a couple a day. I had also started to get into cooking. Most of my diet had been fast food, usually eating out around 4 or 5 days a week, with my other meals being things like frozen pizza or microwave food. I basically had to teach myself how to cook from scratch, because neither my mum or nan who I lived with knew how to either. One of the earliest dishes I remember cooking was a simple but delicious meat pie served with peas and carrots. I would make this every week, and gradually as I became more comfortable in the kitchen I started to add more things to my cooking repertoire.
I spent quite a few years just adjusting to these changes as I slowly lost weight. I literally had to unlearn all the bad eating habits I had obtained from my mum over my childhood, and relearn what normal portion sizes and ‘healthy meals’ were (she once remarked that she thought a full English breakfast was healthy, which really shows how skewed her understanding of nutrition is). At the start of 2015 I joined a gym and would visit a few times a week. I will happily admit I had no idea what I was doing for the first year or so, and mainly just followed the workout plan I’d been given by the owner. Getting into a routine at gym though was very important, and the few times I did ‘fall off the wagon’ I would always end up back at the gym because it had become a regular part of my life.
For 2016 and 2017, I hovered around 320lbs. While I never went back to my old ways, there were certainly things I still needed to change. I was still drinking Pepsi, although by now down to only one a day. So I started to replace it with things like Kombucha and Ice Tea, and after a while was able to totally eliminate Pepsi from my diet. Similarly, I had started to snack on chocolates and biscuits between meals, and became quite strict about only eating those for dessert.
Around the end of 2017 I had once again started to become quite serious about losing weight. This was partially brought on by the fact I came to terms with myself as transgender, which helped put into perspective my history of self-hatred and disregard for my body. I started to use that as one of my main sources of motivation, and at the beginning of 2018 to the end of 2018 began to visit the gym almost daily. I started to take progress photos every 4 weeks, and even bought a pair of bathroom scales once I had lost enough to not actually exceed the weight limit. Family and friends I hadn’t seen for a long time would tell me they barely recognized me, and strangers at the gym also began to complement my weight loss. Soon my BMI classified me as ‘healthy’, and I could hardly even believe I wasn’t fat for the first time in memory.
Unfortunately, December was extremely difficult for me. Because of my aforementioned gender transition, I was disowned by my mum and her side of the family. I was briefly homeless for a few days, as I’d been staying with her while finishing my university studies. Thankfully my dad and step mum were more than happy to accept me, and I’ve been living there since the start of 2019. This does however mean I’m no longer able to visit my gym, since it’s quite a distance away. I’m looking at joining another local gym, though in the meanwhile have been keeping up regular exercise through walking and using my dad’s elliptical trainer.
A few days ago, I reached 74kg. I also saw myself in a recent photo at a party, and was genuinely shocked at how skinny I looked. While I had initially planned on getting to 70kg, I feel comfortable with my current weight, and don’t feel I need to lose anymore. So I guess for the first time ever I am now a weight maintainer! For those interested, the progress photos are at the top of the post. I hope you enjoyed reading this, and thank you to everyone who posts on r/loseit. I check here every day for motivation, and have received some very kind words in the previous posts I’ve made. Thank you so much to everyone in this community for helping me to achieve my goal!
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2S25eya
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