24F, 5'7", SW: 336 lbs, CW: 209 lbs
Progress pictures linked at end.
One year ago today, I was finally ready to change my life.
I hit my highest weight at the beginning of 2019, reaching 336 lbs. The 330s weren’t new territory for me, though. I had been obese ever since childhood when I started using food as a maladaptive coping mechanism. I didn’t think I was worth caring for, so I had spent years neglecting my health and abusing my body. I hit the 300s for the first time once I started college, working my way up to the 330s. Around the age of 19, I began a cycle of yo-yo dieting, usually getting down to the low 290s before giving up and working my way back into the 330s.
However, as I got into my twenties, my body was really struggling to handle all of the excess weight. In late 2016 at the age of 21, I started to experience recurring episodes of severe back pain. It was manageable enough at first, but the pain continued to intensify. By late 2017 at the age of 22, I no longer had episodes, so to speak - it was just nonstop severe pain. It continued to worsen to the point that I spent all of 2018 essentially housebound. My life was miserable.
And suddenly something clicked and I was ready to lose the weight - for good this time. On January 25th, 2019, I decided to turn my life around. This time just felt different from all of my previous attempts to lose weight. My motivations for it were different. For the first time, I was being compassionate towards myself. Instead of viewing weight loss as a way to punish myself, my perspective had shifted and I started to view it as an act of self-care. I was ready to start treating myself and my body with respect.
I’ve been losing the weight primarily through CICO, which in turn has caused me to care a lot more about what types of foods I put in my body, portion sizes, and moderation. I don't follow any specific diet and I haven't entirely cut out any foods. I just try to make better choices while staying at a deficit.
As my back pain gradually decreased with my weight, I began to incorporate more physical activity into my daily routine starting in mid-August 2019. I started off by going on short walks around the neighborhood. I discovered that I love walking, and I worked my way up to walking about five miles a day, weather permitting. On days when I can’t go on a walk outside, I try to do some exercise in the house or use my stationary bike.
I’m happy to report that my chronic back pain doesn’t control my life anymore. I’m not completely pain-free, and some days are worse than others, but the good days far outweigh the bad. Most importantly, my pain no longer holds me back.
I’m not going to say that losing weight has magically resolved all of my problems. I still have complicated relationships with myself and with my body, but I’m working on them. Every day, I strive to be healthier in body and in mind. I feel a bit less stagnant than I used to. I’m finally back in school to work on a second bachelor’s degree. I saw some family members over the holidays for the first time since I began losing weight, and they said that not only do I look lighter, but that my energy is lighter - that it seems like I lost a lot of emotional weight too. Maybe I have.
I’m so close to hitting my first major goal weight of 199 lbs, a weight I haven’t seen since I was a literal child. At around 190 lbs, I’ll officially be out of the obese BMI category and just plain overweight. I don’t have an ultimate goal weight in mind yet, but for now I’d like to get down to 156 lbs so I’ll have lost an even 180 lbs and I’ll be in the normal BMI category. It’s not a solid goal, though, and I’m just going to keep going and see how I feel when I get there.
Anyway, here are my progress pictures! I don’t have any photos at my HW because I was too ashamed, so the “before” pictures here were taken in mid-March at 310 lbs. The more recent photos were taken a couple of weeks ago at 212 lbs, so they show a difference of about 100 lbs.
(SFW) body comparison
(NSFW) body comparison
(NSFW) back comparison
(SFW) hand comparison
(SFW) face comparison
My favorite difference in the photos is how much my posture has improved. I used to struggle to physically hold up my body weight because of how much pain I was in, but now I can stand with no pain, and that’s really reflected in my posture. (My second favorite difference is the emergence of a jawline. Never had one before!)
I still have a ways to go before I reach a healthy weight, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made so far, and I’m really grateful to have had this wonderful community to support me along the way.
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