My weight loss journey *technically* began in late 2017, when I was idly looking at a nutrition facts at a Dunkin Donuts and realized that the coffee I ordered 2x every day was loaded with sugar and 400 calories a pop. Just like that, no satiation. Being a guy who sometimes spontaneously does math problems when I see something in real life, I quickly multiplied that by 7 and realized that I was consuming an extra 5600 calories every week just in coffee sugar. That's almost 3 extra *days* worth of caloric intake, every single week, for something that did absolutely *nothing* to fill me up. At that point, it became a no-brainer... I would force myself to like unsweetened coffee, and I would start right then and there.
Now, that was just a first step, but it ended up being the start to a tremendous journey. Actually doing the math in my head for once made me examine just how many calories I was intaking. If you had asked me before, I would have guessed something along the lines of 2500~2700. Yeah, a bit excessive, but not extraordinarily so. Turns out when I just wrote down a list of everything I ate in a day, I was at that point by lunchtime, and that my actual caloric intake was closer to 4500. No wonder I was in danger of breaching 400 lbs in the very near future. In fact, I'd probably weigh over 400 by now if I had continued on the course I was on.
Yet writing down a 2000 calorie plan seemed frustrating and impossible to me. I would feel hungry just *thinking* about trying to live on that. I had been doing some reading on various diets like Keto, but felt that would be impossible for me to maintain. What kept on sticking with me, however, was that switch off of sweetened coffee. It was hard for the first two weeks, but eventually I grew to like unsweetened, and the few times where I was handed a sweetened coffee by mistake, I actually had to return and complain after a single sip because the coffee I would have previously downed tasted foul and almost undrinkable to me.
That gave me an inspiration... if I could eliminate sugar from drinks, maybe I could eliminate it altogether from my life. I ended up quitting processed sugar entirely on July 16 of 2018, weighing in at 375 lbs at the time. No sugary drinks or juices (literally the only things I drink now are water, unsweetened coffee, and unsweetened tea), no cookies, no cake, no pastries of any kind, no snack foods unless they had 0g sugar on their nutrition label. The only sugary items I allowed myself were whole fruits and vegetables that happened to contain natural sugar, and marinara sauce because I love Italian food a little too much. I didn't cut all carb entirely (starches were still very much in play, and still are for that matter), but for the moment I was making the one change I felt relatively confident I *could* make.
Needless to say, I definitely felt like crap. I was highly irritable for two weeks, and largely just hid away in my office all day, and got maybe 12 hours of sleep the first week. Sugar is, quite literally, a white, powdery, addictive substance that causes immense long-term health problems. I've never smoked cigarettes or done any hard drugs, not to mention I've only had about 3 alcoholic drinks in my entire life, but it's the closest I can imagine what withdrawal feels like. I was doing cold turkey, and I would have to suffer the consequences, but knowing there was light at the end of the tunnel let me forge on ahead.
And boy was there some light at the end of that tunnel. When I came through it in early August, aside from actually losing 10 lbs just from the cuts I had made, I noticed that I was feeling full on a lot less food. That let me put into effect phase 2 of my plan: Calorie counting. See, by cutting sugar entirely, it allows me to min-max my calorie-to-satiety ratio and make each calorie I consume count for more. A couple scoops of ice cream was 400cal. That 400cal could have been a whole bunch of different things ranging from the healthy (a decent-size salad) to the not-so-healthy-but-still-fills-me-up-more-than-ice-cream items (a slice of pizza). I also found that, because whole fruits were my only source of sugar now, I was forgoing snacking on chips in favor of fruits automatically. I also didn't have to do what I was dreading most: counting carbs. Again, I love my pasta a little too much. But counting calories basically took care of the carb rationing for me.
So that 10 lbs quickly followed up with another 10. After the first month it slowed down to about 10 lbs a month, and then a year later it slowed down to 5 lbs a month. But I'm still plugging along. I've lost 125 lbs since then, edging closer to 130 now. My blood pressure has fallen from 192/105 to 134/87. My waist size has shrunk from a 54 to a 36. I can run for half a mile or so without getting winded now (and my natural walking speed has nearly doubled as well). My own fianceé walked past me 4 times while we were at Target a few months back, looking for me, and had to text me because she couldn't find me when I was facing away looking at a clothes rack. I still have a ways to go yet, but the progress has been slow and steady, and I have full confidence I will reach my goal: the day I can go to the doctor and *not* get "You need to lose weight".
Most importantly, I've done it as the "lifestyle change" approach. In the words of Captain America, I could do this all day. I don't feel like I'm even dieting anymore. I still have to avoid all sugary items, which causes some awkward moments in social situations, but I just have to bust out the picture of fat me on my phone and that usually ends the conversation. The changes I made in the past 2 years may have added nearly 30 years to my life. I wish I could go back and impart this wisdom on my teenage self, but I'll settle for changing what I *can* change: my own future. Because now I *have* a future.
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/37GpABU
No comments:
Post a Comment