Please excuse the long read for those not interested, I got carried away.
I feel so proud for pushing myself everyday and staying consistent and I want to share my progress so far to try and help others. There is still a lot of work left to do, but right now I feel like I'm on autopilot, I've made my lifestyle change, now it's just my body that needs to catch up. This is actually my second time losing weight, but this time I will learn from my mistakes and keep the weight off.
Back in 2011, I lost around 50lbs over the course of 3 months down to 165. I used the treadmill almost everyday that summer, walking 4-5 mph for 30-60 minutes (if I miss one day, I would double the amount the next day), and eating three consistent meals a day, Fiber One Cereal in the morning, Sandwich with Ham and Cheese no mayo, and a blend of oranges and carrots for diner, with the occasional home cooked meal. I remained that way until I went to college the following year then everything went down the crapper. I lost complete self control with my schools buffet style cafeteria, then when I transferred back home for a college closer to home, I never managed to get back on track. I was failing school and eventually dropped out (with the intention of taking a breather and set my mind right), I was working dreadful retail jobs, and felt hopeless. And to top it off, I suffer from anxiety and I'm very shy, which is further compounded by my speech issues. I can talk fine a lot of the time, but my speech gets blocked randomly. Needless to say, I was stress eating like crazy and not only went back to my original weight, but far exceeded it. I tried so many times to get back on track, but I was failing every time.
My wake up call came last December when I noticed that my XL shirts were becoming very tight. When I sat down, I felt like the buttons on my shirt were going to pop out. I decided to go to a clothing store and buy some shirts. I felt a little ashamed for having to pick some 2XL shirts, but once I went to the fitting room and saw myself in the 3 sided mirrors, I knew that I could not go on like this. I looked huge and my clothes looked terrible. At 293, I was too big for XL shirts but too small for 2XL. I eventually left empty handed and promised myself that I will do something about this weight.
The new year came, and I had a plan laid out. I knew from my past experiences that dialing everything to 11 was a surefire way to fail again. I used January as my mental strengthening kick off month, changing the way I psychologically look at food. One of my favorite things to eat was a whole pack of oreos with milk, I used to that multiple times a month. And when I looked back on those day, I told myself that the first 5 minutes always feels great, but the next couple of days afterwards, I felt regret and awful. Another favorite of mines was 7/11 taquitos. Same thing, I even used to eat them in the morning at work, yuck. January was largely a success, but it was hard. However, I did buy a pack of oreos and ate it with milk just to reaffirm my belief, that the first 5 minutes were great, but the next 24 hours were awful. Suffice to say, it worked because I have spent months not buying a single pack of cookies and I feel great, same with taquitos.
From mid-February until now, I slowly reintroduced exercise back to my routine. All I do is cardio, I have a bicycle that I ride around Central Park, two laps around, 6 miles each, and 5 miles to commute there round trip, and I bought an exercise bike for days that have bad weather so I never have an excuse not to work out. I don't exercise everyday, maybe like 4-5 times a week. And for food, all I eat is a mix between: raisin bran cereal, a sandwich of 2 slices of loaf bread w/ Ham and Cheese and a little mayo, or the occasional home cooked meal (varies from Rice Beans Chicken, to ribs, depends, but portions are moderate). Once or twice a month I may order Mexican food, like Sopes or quesadilla, and for snacks I have grapes and peanuts. I try to keep calories consumed at roughly 1200-2000 not counting exercise. Like for example, today I only ate Raisin Bran, Sandwich, grapes, and peanuts, same thing yesterday.
The most important thing for me is to not see this as a diet because a diet is temporary. I am not devoting time and energy counting calories and keeping a log, doing these special diets like keto, exercising in the gym with weights and everything else because I know that I will not keep this up long term, I at least know myself that well. I am doing something that works FOR ME and I try to keep things simple and sustainable. I know that I can keep this up long term because I am eating foods that I really enjoy that I don't consider necessarily unhealthy, I mean, I LOVE cereal, and raisin bran is pretty healthy and high in fiber, so I feel full with smaller portions. I can eat this 2-3 times a day as meals, and I can still feel good and satisfied. I also LOVE biking. I enjoy riding really fast when I do, and have a blast listening to music. I see this more as an activity that is more of a hobby, but has the health benefits of full blown boring old exercise. I don't know if my current lifestyle is one of a 180 pound person or not, but if I hit a plateau at like 220, then I will readjust and maybe exercise a little more or eat less, since there a lot of room for adjustment. I hope I am making sense here, lol. I'm trying to wrap this up now.
I hope this story can be useful to at least one person out there. I know that people tend to be obsessed with the time frame of weight loss, but the most important thing is to not burn yourself out. In an ideal world, I would have loved to be 180lbs by now, and I could have if I lost 20 pounds a month since January, however, if I would have tried to do so, I would have probably failed due to overexertion. I know that if I continue this route, I should reach my goal weight by the time my birthday hits on December, losing an average of 8 pounds a month. Which is better than 0.
For a while now, I tried to structure my life using a philosophy of 4 pillars:
Health (weight)
Education (graduating from college, learning new skills, etc)
Work (building my resume, improving income)
Happiness (what makes me happy? biking, gaming, etc)
I believe that these four pillars are vital for me to live what I consider a satisfying life. Therefore, it is important for me to make sure that each pillar is making progress. For example, I mention the struggles with my health, which I believe hurt my other pillars. By being depressed about my weight, it bacame on reason why I lost the drive and motivation to succeed in school, which negatively impacts my job outlook, and my overall sense of happiness. Thankfully since last year, i was able to bounce back from school, I re-enrolled, switched my major to accounting which ended up being my calling, rose my GPA from 1.5 to 3.0, I got a great part time office job that I really enjoy which made me feel stable enough start improving my health, and as of right now, I feel really good. Maybe this can be useful to some of you out there.
Ok, this is enough, lol. I wrote a little too much than I expected. If you read this far, thank you, and I hope this long ass post at least helped one person out.
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