Hello r/loseit (buckle up its going to be long one)
I have been lurking here every day for over a year now and I cannot thank you all enough for being a constant source of inspiration and motivation to me through out my weight loss journey! I wanted to write a love letter to CICO and all of you wonderful inspirational people and describe my personal journey and relationship with the world and weight.
To hopefully understand my weight loss journey first come along with me on my much less fun and exciting weight gain adventure. I have never been a small person and no one in my immediate family is in the healthy weight range for their BMI. As a kid/teen I leaned into my size and played football (and was small for my position ironically enough) and ended up loving power lifting and how strong I was. I then graduated from my small town high school and went to a massive state university four times the size of my entire town (Bear Down) and this is really where my health went down hill. I ended up sacrificing my physical health and arguably more importantly my mental health to obtain my goal of graduating in 4 years with a biochemistry degree. Looking back by sophomore year I should have definitely slowed down or changed paths because at this point I was absolutely miserable. I already gained at least 40 pounds maxing out at about 260 and my mental health was in the dumpster where it will stay for the next 3 years. I had a slight wake up at this point and attempted to at least get my physical health under control if not my mental health. That August and September I took on a heavier class load but was finally finding success in school which coincided with 20 pounds of weight loss and some confidence. I then had a tragedy with a friend of the family and at the funeral I remember making the decision to wallow in grief and threw out my weight loss goals and MFP streak. I scraped through my classes with C's and sometimes a D or two and my motivation was always to only get it done so I can get it over with and move on with my life. I immediately regained at least the 20 pounds I lost and was miserable. The next year was marked with me just working on classes and scraping by with depression. I made some amazing friends which got me through but I had 0 self respect and a lot of self hatred. My motto during this time was Previous u/marauder_62 didn't do anything for current me why should I do anything for future me? It took me working a part time job in emergency roadside assistance (think AAA) on the weekends and taking 20 credit hours for me to realize this was not the business. I realized life isn't about being miserable for a goal but so much more and I wanted to find that more and decided to go to therapy. This I think was the silver bullet to weight loss and it helped set myself up for success and self care. We are finally making it to the actual weight loss (yay)!
I started trying to lose weight that July and got an LA fitness membership where the trainer told me I had 33% body fat which I now know is a little bit of bro science but man it scared me but apparently not enough. I again took a break from weight loss to finish up my senior capstone and finally graduate with two degrees and 0 passion. I was in Denver for Oktoberfest and I got a call from the LA Fitness trainer asking me where I have been and hoping that I was still on my health journey which at the time with an IPA in my hand I was not. This is where the fun practical details finally come in of how I have lost the weight.
I have since lost 60 pounds in a bit more than a year (MFP streak of 370 days) and have not sacrificed anything in my diet. I naturally eat less fast food since I realized I'm not a literal food dumpster and honestly it is not worth the calories but I still eat In N Out and definitely chow down on some pizza but everything is tracked. My calories in during this time have fluctuated and I am currently eating about 2k calories a day but have been mostly maintaining at 200 pounds still losing but just slowly. I have gone from losing consistently losing 2 pounds a week with calories about 1500-1800 a day but my relationship to food has turned more towards fueling my athletic goals very recently. My exercise has been varied from just normal weight lifting to rock climbing and then with COVID varied body weight workouts in the living room and what I am currently have been doing is just running from garmin's C25k to now running a 10Km personal "race" next Monday. I have gone from not being able to walk up stairs to climbing the tallest mountain in Arizona and I am planning on thru hiking 800 miles this spring from Mexico to Utah on the Arizona Trail combining my deep love of nature with with my rediscovered love of fitness.
My priorities have changed so much in the past few years and I have realized that my "professional" goals do not matter to me at the moment and I am still deciding on how to use my degrees but the pressure is completely off. I am dedicated to my goal of losing another 25 pounds to finally drop down to BMI of 25 but for now my athletic goals are taking precedent. The weight will come off eventually there is no time pressure and the most important thing to me now is enjoying the ride because this is my life now and I deserve to enjoy it. I hope that maybe some of you have seen yourself in my story as I have seen myself in an innumerable amount of stories you have shared and inspired me when I really wanted to just blow the lid off of my calories at Taco Bell. Keep on losing you losers and don't forget to love yourself no matter who or where you are.
Sincerely yours,
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