Hi, everybody... I have a LOT of problems, so I'm sorry in advance for how this is going to go.
Background:
I've always struggled with me weight. When I was 8 years old, in SECOND GRADE, I weighed 142 pounds. You can just imagine how great (/s) my life was at school, being that size that young, and it followed me all the way through high school. Once I graduated and moved to college, I initially thought, "Great, a fresh start; nobody here knows me. Nobody here has ostracized me for the last 10 years because of my weight. This will be fine." I soon came to find out that all those years growing up overweight (among other issues) had, in fact, taken their toll on me. I don't remember a time in my life I've ever NOT been self-conscious. I don't remember a time in my life where my belly hasn't been in a constant state of being "sucked in" because if people ever saw how big I truly am, they'd "think less of me than I'm sure they already do." (I have a bad habit of projecting my own negative thoughts about myself onto other people's thoughts of me.) One of my biggest coping mechanisms my entire life has been self-deprecating humor, because if people were going to laugh at my weight, anyway, I should be the one to make them laugh! At least then I wouldn't just be that morbidly obese guy, I'd be the funny fat guy. (As I'm sure you can imagine, this mechanism has had limited success.) Because of my weight issue, along with a really tough family situation growing up (daddy issues), I've always been a people-pleaser. And because I've spent so much of my life trying to surpass other people's expectations of me (which - again - are always my own projections onto others), I've come to a point in my life where I REQUIRE other people for me to succeed. For instance, I currently live by myself and can never bring myself to clean up around my house, and it's an absolute mess. But when I live with someone (e.g. roommates in college), I live spotlessly, because I don't want them to think any less of me as a person "than they already do because I'm so fat." There's plenty more I could go on to say, but we'll leave it at that for now, since I can already tell I've rambled long enough, but this last part will be important soon, I promise.
The last time I weighed myself, I was 364.2 pounds. This was a year and a half ago, and that was the first time I understood that things needed to change. The problem was I had no job. My friend let me stay with him and his fiancee in their spare bedroom for a few weeks while I looked for a job to try to get back on my feet. Great. I lost 20 pounds in just over a month, with my friend and his fiancee encouraging me, and things were going decently well. The problem, though, was that those few weeks were turning into a couple of months, and I still hadn't found a job. I was desperate and feeling pressure to move out of my friend's house, feeling I'd overstayed my welcome. (Let me be clear that my friend and his fiancee were in no way creating this pressure, it was 100% self-inflicted; they were totally gracious and patient with me.) Finally, about 8 weeks in, I got a call for an interview to be a waiter at Steak 'N Shake (I told you, I was desperate), and I immediately took the job when it was offered to me, thinking I'd keep looking for other jobs while I worked here, at least I'll have some money coming in, finally. Plus, being on my feet and walking around all day would surely only benefit me in my weight loss, right? Unfortunately, my 8-10 hour shifts started becoming 11-13 hour shifts because I would always stay to help because other employees would just leave without finishing things they were supposed to do, or they would show up an hour or more late to their shift, so I didn't feel right leaving at the end of my shift and leaving them that shorthanded. The other problem was that I was a morbidly obese 20 something waiter working with thin high school girls with boobs. I barely made enough in tips to cover minimum wage (which, in Indiana, is only $7.25) over the entirety of my shift, while these girls would work for 4 hours and make 2-3x as much as I did the entire day (I know this, because they would always count it out behind the counter in front of God and everyone). So my days turned into: Drive 30 minutes to work. Work 11-13 hours. Drive 30 minutes home. Be too physically/mentally exhausted to maintain any sort of workout/nutrition schedule. Sleep. Repeat.
The self-inflicted pressure to move out of my friend's spare bedroom, along with the diminishing returns from my job, soon became too much to handle. Until one day I just couldn't handle it all anymore, so I quit that job, and while my friend and his fiancee were at work, I packed up everything I had into my car, I wrote them a note and left my key with it on their coffee table, and I just left. I drove 6 hours straight home to surprise my mom for Thanksgiving. "Surprise, I'm home for Thanksgiving, and also moving back in with you, because I have no job and no money thanks for understanding." Thankfully, my mom is an amazing woman who loves me, in spite of me, and didn't even think twice about it. So i lived with her for several months, and got a job in a car shop changing tires/oil. My mom didn't ask for a penny for rent or groceries, so I was able to save up some money to move back to where I went to college, as some opportunities had arisen that I wanted to take advantage of, and to pursue things that were at least somewhat closer related to my degree (music) and to my career path. So I moved on August 1 of last year.
And so here we are. I've definitely gained all of the weight back, and more.
I initially joined this subreddit shortly after I moved, looking for motivation; I knew I needed to change some things, and I've always known that I can't do it by myself (that whole relying on other people thing), so this sounded like a great place to be. Unfortunately, instead of finding and feeding a motivation to lose weight and change my lifestyle, I'm sorry to say that all I found was resentment and anger that all of you wonderful people were succeeding so much in where I had failed my entire life. That you all seem to have so easily been able to "flip the switch" to do what needs to be done. (I understand that it wasn't easy for anyone, but the human mind is a great and terrible thing.) I currently live a very sedentary lifestyle, working a non-labor intensive 3rd shift job most of the week, and sleeping during the day, not doing much during my waking hours or my days off outside of browsing reddit and playing some video games with my online friends.
A few days ago at work, I was scrolling through reddit and saw this thread and it really started to get me thinking about making those changes again, except permanently this time. But it seems so hard and so daunting. And I'm scared to step on a scale, because I KNOW that it's going to say something more than 400, and I don't want to confront that. And then I saw this post and I told myself it's time. I HAVE to do this.
This is the part that I ask for help, though. I have terrible social anxiety (if I go through a drivethru and get ice in my drink - even though I always specifically ask for no ice - I can't even bring myself to ask them to fix it), and that along with my self-image/self-esteem issues makes it hard for me to find motivation to go to the gym. I have depression (not specifically from my weight issues, though they certainly contribute), so finding the energy and effort to cook healthy meals and to wade through the overwhelming amount of information that's out there about weight loss and nutrition and etc. etc. etc. is REALLY hard for me to do.
So, if you've made it this far, first and foremost: Thank you for reading. Here's what I'm asking:
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I'm asking for someone to help me create a simple and not overly expensive 1-week meal plan (we can talk more in depth budget, etc. via PM). This will allow me to establish a baseline change of healthy eating. It will give me a set of expectations to meet every day when it comes to food. That way while I research and explore what a more balanced variety diet might look like, I never have to wonder what I should eat and fall into the trap of just going for fast food for convenience. I can just say, "Oh, it's Tuesday. I'm having xxx for lunch, because that's what it says on my meal plan."
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I'm asking for someone to be an accountability partner, but more than that, a friend. Someone I can develop a personal relationship with that's not a public forum filled with 700 people spouting a generic "You can do this! You've got this!" Someone who will do more for me than just say, "Hey, did you go to the gym today?" I don't honestly know exactly what this would look like, but if you're willing to explore that with me, I'm ready to dive in. If you're in the greater Indianapolis area, and would be willing to meet up a couple of times a month for lunch or something to talk about how things are going, it's even better. I'm an EXTREMELY introverted person, so I'm trying to challenge myself to step out of that insecurity and find someone that can really help me change my life. I'm asking you to be that person that I can project onto and be a people-pleaser for to make myself better. So that maybe one day I won't have to be a people-pleaser. I can just be me. Comfortable in my own skin.
I can't do this alone, and I'm slowly learning that that's okay. I just have to find the right people to help me along the way. And as always, the first step is the absolute hardest.
So, this is it.
My first step.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2PSFalM
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