CW: binge eating, suicidal ideation, depression
I finally weighed in with over 100 pounds lost this week! To lose 100 pounds has long topped my resolution lists and seemed truly impossible when I made the decision to start eating healthier and focusing on weight loss. I always find people’s reflection posts interesting and often helpful so I figured I would share mine (warning: it is long).
29F/ 5’10”/ SW: 287.6/ CW: 185.4/ GW: 165.0
I started gaining weight in college. It was the first time I was in charge of my own food and, after a childhood filled with food insecurity, I ate what I wanted and how much I wanted. Portion control and a balanced diet were not present in my life for the decade that followed. The weight gain started off small but quickly progressed to the point where I was consistently gaining around 20 pounds a year. By the time I was 27, I was nearly 300 pounds.
I was deeply unhappy in my obese body just as I had been deeply unhappy in my previously overweight body and my normal weight body prior to that. Self love was not a familiar concept. On top of that, I struggled with general anxiety, social anxiety, and depression. When I reached the obese threshold and kept gaining, it was just another reason to hate myself. My mental health kept deteriorating to the point where I was struggling with suicidal ideation. So, I took the plunge and started seeing a therapist towards the end of 2018.
Along with starting my mental health care, I began thinking of other ways I could improve my outlook on life. Losing weight was an obvious option. It’s almost impossible to go to the doctor as an obese person and not be told that the answer to all your ailments is “to lose weight -- trust me, you’ll feel better.” So, after a prize-worthy week-long binge, I joined my local “fat” gym’s weight loss challenge in mid January 2019. My official starting weight was 287.6 pounds.
I am a 0% or 100% type of gal, you get one or the other with me, and this challenge got me at 100%. I went all in with the gym’s strict 1,200 calorie diet, 5 bootcamp classes a week, daily fasted cardio outside of my workout, and a gallon of water a day. I lost 50 pounds in 3 months. And then I burnt out. I found myself unable to get out of bed to go to the gym in the morning. I began to loath broccoli. Drinking water felt like an absolute chore. My motivation was gone and my progress stalled.
Over the course of the next 9 months, I bounced up and down in small bursts. Up 5 pounds, down 6 pounds, up 3 pounds, down 2 pounds, etc. I tried to watch my portion controls but ate out far too often. I would spend a few weeks eating super clean before having a binge week. By the end of the year, I had held my net 50 pounds down (237 pounds) but had made no further progress.
As I set my 2020 resolutions, I felt that “new year, new me” motivation burning in my belly again and I rededicated myself to my weight loss pursuit (extra motivation: I was set to get married in mid-2020). I resumed eating at a deficit but I allowed myself a caloric range (1,200-1,500 calories a day) instead of a hard 1,200 cut-off. I allowed myself to eat more foods (the gym’s program only allowed for very specific foods to be eaten) even though I was still fairly strict. I started working out 5 times a week again but I varied my workouts more (weight lifting, bootcamp, HIIT, swimming, yoga). I ran a Spartan Sprint. I was training for my first 10k race. I felt great. I quickly lost 30 pounds in 2 months bringing me down to 208 pounds by March 2020 (I could almost taste that century mark). I was ready to lose all the weight and tone up before my September wedding.
Then came COVID. My entire life shut down. I was suddenly working from home, then furloughed entirely, separated from my routine and my support systems. I couldn’t keep up with my meticulous meal prepping and no longer had access to my fitness outlets. I made the conscious choice to take a hiatus from weight loss in order to focus on the absolute chaos happening all around me. I didn’t have a maintenance plan and I didn’t have the foresight to carve out the time to make one in the early pandemic frenzy.
And so I gained 40 pounds in the span of 6 months. I didn’t notice the weight creeping back onto my body at first due to the craziness of my career crumbling into ashes. However, once I was furloughed and sitting at home in the eerie silence, I noticed. I noticed and I did nothing to stop it. My mental health dipped; depression, my old friend, returned in full force and I lost my insurance and, with it, my therapist. I sat on the couch, in a daze, and wondered how my life had collapsed so quickly.
As my (postponed) wedding date approached, I knew something had to change. I had picked myself up once before and I could do it again. This time, though, had to be different. I wanted to lose the weight and keep it off but, more importantly, I wanted to change my relationship with food. I needed to change my diet long-term rather than just embark on a short-term restrictive diet. Instead of just eating off a plan provided by someone else, I needed to learn how to craft my own plan.
In September 2020, at 248.0 pounds, I began eating in a 1,200-1,500 deficit range again. I logged everything that I ate to ensure I stayed within my calories and that my macros were appropriately divided. I also funneled my bored spreadsheet-deprived brain (still furloughed at this point) into tracking the heck out of everything else. I made a monthly spreadsheet that daily tracks my: weight, heart rate, calories in, calories out, water intake, strength training, fasted cardio, step count, intermittent fasting hours (16:8), alcohol intake, and a section for adding notes for the day.
I made some changes to my diet this time around. 1) I stopped eating meat 95% of the time -- I no longer buy any meat products for my home and I look for vegetarian options first when occasionally ordering out. This was a combo of a lifestyle change I had long wanted to make and a convenient way to cut down on unhealthy but delicious take out temptations. 2) I started intermittent fasting (IF) in a 16:8 ratio. I did this to target my late night snacking. I only ate from 12-8pm. 3) I allowed myself access to a lot more foods, as long as they fit my daily caloric range. This was to teach myself that there aren’t “good” foods and “bad” foods -- just food -- and so that I didn’t fall off the wagon after 2-3 months when an ice cream craving got to be too much for me. I found that my menu was more varied and delicious and that I didn’t want the higher calorie items as often as I thought I would.
In addition to my diet changes, I started swimming for fitness again. I’ve swam for fitness off and on throughout my life but it had been a while. Due to pandemic guidelines in my area, most gyms are still closed but a few outdoor pools are open by lane reservation. I started off swimming 2-3 times a week and then increased that to 4-5 times a week.
With the combined diet and exercise changes, the weight started coming off again. Weighing in daily has been a huge help for me because it allows me to see the fluctuations and general trends rather than just the number. Despite being bothered by the 40 pound weight gain (“gosh darn it, I already lost this weight”), I felt my mood improve almost immediately once I was putting good fuel into my system and moving my body again.
I returned to work, finally, in October 2020 and could not have been more grateful to have an external routine again. I made sure to sit down and plan out how I could adjust my swimming schedule and meals to fit around my work schedule so that I didn’t get knocked off course once more. I consistently lost around 11 pounds a month throughout the fall. My stretch goal became to drop under that elusive 200 pound mark by the end of the year. On December 29th, it finally happened: 199.8.
My eating and exercise practices feel habitual now in a way that they never did during my previous weight loss attempts. I eat what I want, just in moderation. This is the biggest game-changer I have experienced. During previous weight loss efforts, I would restrict foods for being “not healthy enough.” (I had an epic meltdown once over not being able to eat tomatoes when I was following my gym’s strict diet). Now, I will eat ice cream or chicken shawarma or pumpkin muffins when I want them. I counted and logged calories for the first 2 months to ensure that I wasn’t overeating. Now I just guesstimate (I eat a lot of the same things so I know the rough calorie count for everything and just look up the occasional item. I still eat in a range of 1200-1500 calories. I swim for at least an hour 4-5 times a week. I hike whenever my schedule and the weather allows.
As of this morning, I am 185.4 (102.2 pounds down from my starting point). I dropped from a size 20 to a size 10. I only have 13.2 pounds to go before I enter the normal BMI range for my height. However, I will not be reaching that point for quite some time because I am officially starting my maintenance plan on Monday. My partner and I are about to start trying for a baby (the timing is right and my doctor gave me the green light!) and so I need to work my way back up to maintenance eating before we try in order to be a hospitable host. This feels like an even more daunting challenge than the weight loss has been but I know I have a great resource in this subreddit to help me keep on track with the weight loss to maintenance adjustment.
I appreciate this group a lot. It has been very helpful for me to have a community that is supportive and “gets it.” My parting thoughts on this very long post are these:
1) Know your “why” or your “whys”. Why are you losing weight beyond just losing the weight? Spending time reflecting on and documenting my “whys” has helped me stay inspired and focused.
2) Make a maintenance plan long before you ever enter the maintenance phase (so you have it to fall back on in moments of crisis)
3) If you fall down, get back up. It is worth it. You are worth it. We are worth it.
4) Practice gratitude towards yourself (and towards the supportive people in your life). Losing weight is a lot of mental, physical, and emotional work. Your body and mind are doing that hard work for you! They deserve credit and the occasional break. I felt my negative self talk and self hate shift dramatically once I started taking the time to appreciate all that I was doing to better my health and my life.
If you have any questions about my journey, feel free to message me. Best of luck to us all in this new year in whatever phase of our journeys we are in.
