After 12 years of obesity (4-16) I finally took control. My story with a few tips. (Long one so bare with me)

After 12 years of being overweight/obese, at 16 I decided I was old enough to take control of my own life and body.

I was roughly 85-90 kilograms at 16 and 5’3 as a male for some context. I was lucky enough to have a basic home gym just sitting in my garage from my mum so I walked into there one day and started exercising, it really can be that simple to start.

Starting during January of 2017 the first few months I experienced ‘newbie gains’. Which is when someone goes from being sedentary to exercising they both lose fat and gain muscle pretty easily. After the newbie gains wore off I reached a bit of a stalemate due to the fact I was exercising 5 days a week but I also wasn’t eating very well.

So food was a problem for me due to my home situation there is rarely any healthy food in the house. The fix there was to get a part time job working weekends.

This made for a very very very stressful year. 2017 such a stressful year for me with Year 11 for 5 days a week (8-2:30), working the other 2 days a week as a general cook at a Cafe (8-3), prepping and buying my own meals, working out 5 days a week as well as doing assignments and homework I found I had very little time for leisure and even less for a social life.

My typical schedule was 6am start for shower, breakfast, meal prep etc before leaving the house 7am for work or school, return at 4pm to do whatever chores I had for the day. Next was working out 5pm-6pm, after that the rest of my night was usually taken up by dinner at 7pm, homework and assignments before a 10pm bedtime.

This might not sound like a lot to some people and that’s fine but I was 16 at the time and this was a very rough change from just school 5 days a week and being sedentary otherwise. I did have those little breaks of Wednesday’s and Sundays when I didn’t workout but it never felt like much.

So while those last few paragraphs might have been terrifying to some people looking into diet and exercise these next few should be a bit more encouraging.

So while I did have a few days where I just wanted to stay in bed and cry it did get better. After a few months (roughly 2.5) my body got used to the constant activity and strain. I was feeling a lot less tired each day and was enjoying seeing myself losing fat and gaining muscle. Fast forward 6 months later to the end of 2017 and my life changes again as I had decided to spend 2018 in France as an exchange student.

I fell victim to my Host mother’s French cooking and put on 5 kilos in 1 month. With so many roast dinners, barbecues, desserts and pastries I kinda dropped the ball.

Now this time I wasn’t lucky enough to have a home gym readily available nor even a lot of space. I had to start from scratch again. So not to drone on about this but I ended up having to workout in my room with very little space. Pushups in a 3ft by 7 ft space for example. That and exercising a little more control at the dinner table.

So that was pretty much all of 2018 and now 2019 I’m back in my home country of Australia with a much less hectic life than the past two years I now enjoy a comfortable routine on a much better path in life than 16 year old me. After all that I’m still 85kgs however I have lost roughly 25 kilograms of fat, and gaining that back in muscle and height (about 6-7 inches)

This has been a really long post so I’m grateful to all those who put in the effort to make it to the end. I’d love feedback and welcome all questions. To finish it off here are a handful of tips for any aspiring young people looking to make some changes in their life.

1. The first few weeks and months of any new regime is the most critical part as this is the period where many people quit due to fatigue and hunger that comes with it. Self control and willpower are the keys to any successful regime. For those who might need extra help I defiantly recommend starting this with a friend so you can each keep

2. Don’t starve yourself, contrary to popular belief, caloric intake is not the only factor you need to consider when looking at food. If you were to suddenly go from 2k calories to as little at 1k or 500 your body will go into survival mode due to the apparent restriction of food available, this will make it very hard to lose weight and make you more susceptible to weight gain later on as 1000 calories is not sustainable. So my recommendation is to defiantly reduce calories but make sure you are getting the right calories like protein and healthy fats over sugars and carbs.

3. For young people you may not feel like you have much of an option due to your home situation and that’s understandable but as long as you have a 7ft by 7ft open space, and a bit of self control over your eating, you have all you need to start a tough but doable regime for weight loss.

4. My last tip is don’t compare your progress to other people, either by physique or strength. You do you essentially. Your workout buddy might be losing more weight, gaining more muscle or strength faster than you for example and while this can be a wake up call in case you need to shakeup your routine this is typically detrimental or discouraging to see your friend benching more than you when you both started at the same place. Haste makes waste here so just keep doing what works for you.

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