Wednesday, April 15, 2020

(NSV) Resting heart rate down 20bpm in 2 months.

Hey all, I've been losing weight since Feb 27th and I'm down 9 lbs. I'm doing CICO and going for a walk every day. I've only lost 9lbs so far but I'm happy with that. My weight loss plateaued in the last couple of weeks - not worried about it, I'm weighing everything, keeping active and eating at a big deficit, but I thought I'd go looking for another way to track progress and checked on my resting heart rate.

I imagined it would be down by 5-10bpm or so, imagine my surprise at it dropping by 20!

(Obese) Starting heart rate: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVkE2lfXQAA-DWg?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

(Borderline Obese) Late March: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVkF1njXkAAepSY?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

(Overweight) Now: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVkF2edXsAI5ktW?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

This is super encouraging for me because when I crept into the obese range I started getting some unpleasant physical symptoms. They stopped about 2 weeks into my lifestyle change and while I won't know whether obesity or bingeing caused them, I'm just really happy to see this proof of progress in my health!

I was always overweight but I became obese after my beloved Gran passed away in November. She was my lifelong rock and losing her was so difficult, but she had been sick for many years and I binged more and more the closer she got to dying. My childhood was quite rough, and I was given McDonalds several times a week which was the only thing I looked forward to. The kick of dopamine from eating that junk was the only guaranteed stress relief I had as a child and I was afraid to lose that crutch moving into adulthood. Binged McDonalds for days on end any time I got bad news related to Gran.

After she died I did some deep reflection and finally, after years of looking for shortcuts, understood that no one was going to lose the weight for me and I had to be responsible for myself. I kept waiting to be mentally better, or for a therapy session or a moment of enlightenment that would lift the fog and make me not need food any more to cope. I realised it has to be the other way around. My dependence on food was preventing me from learning to cope with life, and was numbing the pain of my poor mental health, not fixing it. I need to learn to cope with life first if I want to not need food any more. I'm working towards that now.

This sub has helped me a lot, I've been a long time lurker for many years and I thought I'd post here with what helped me get into the mindset of taking responsibility for myself. I hope it can help someone! The realisation that using food to cope is NOT truly coping was a big game changer for me, especially because healthy people in my life encouraged it any time I thought I should stop.

Oh, and after having McDonald's either daily or weekly for 24 years, and trying to get it out of my diet since deciding to go plant-based in 2016, I'm super happy to say I haven't so much as looked at one in four months. :D

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