257lbs -> 134lbs... some things I learned along the way.

Around the beginning of January 2019, I started my weight loss journey. This means it's been two years since I started taking care of myself (and learning to care about myself!), despite 2020 feeling like it was ten years packed into one.

I've now lost over 120 pounds.

I was thinking about this today. I knew that the journey wouldn't be easy... a lot of people, including many doctors, told me that. But I wanted to share some of the things that no one told me before I started this journey, things that I had to learn all on my own along the way:

• The brain is super weird. I'd been overweight for a huge part of my life. After things being a certain way for so long, it takes time for the brain to realize that the body isn't quite the same anymore. I've been maintaining my weight for a few months now, and I think my brain is probably *still* adjusting to things. There was a time period there where I kept accidentally telling my doctors I weighed more than I did because my brain hadn't quite grasped the concept yet.
• I suddenly get why people post to social media. I never liked how I looked before, so I never posted anything to social media. There are only a handful of pictures that exist of me online from before I committed to losing weight. Now that I'm starting to like what I see in the mirror, I'm kind of starting to understand why people enjoy posting pictures of themselves. It's nice to take pride in your body. I still don't post much because I worry people will think I'm just bragging about my weight loss but that's another insecurity problem for me to tackle eventually.
• Comparisons can make things so much harder. While it really helped me to browse subreddits like r/loseit and r/progresspics for motivations and for learning resources, it also was detrimental to my mental health at times. At a certain point I was just asking myself why I wasn't seeing results as quickly as other people were or why I didn't look like this or that when this other person did. It's a slippery slope to go down, and everyone will react to it differently. And it's okay for things to change along a journey. I had to learn that even though looking at these subreddits was very helpful for me at the beginning, that didn't mean I had to keep browsing them when things changed and I started to feel worse off for it.
• Surprisingly, not every inch gained is bad. I gained an inch... in height! Because I started paying attention to my body and taking care of myself, my posture improved and I actually stopped slouching so much that I'm an inch taller than I was before all this.
• Cooking is fun. Granted, it's not for everyone, but for me, I've learned that I super enjoy cooking and baking healthier/low calorie meals. It has saved me so much money from when I was eating out more. My family loves the food I make and I get to experiment in the kitchen. Food can still be so much fun and just as satisfying even when there's less of it!
• Exercising is also fun. I hated it at first. So much. I kept pushing myself. Now I like it and look forward to it. It helps me feel better both mentally and physically. When my state shut down gyms because of COVID, I never thought I'd be the type of person who would say they'd miss the gym. I was saying it so much that I probably started annoying the people around me... then I just shut up and started running outside.
• Setbacks are okay and it's also okay to stop to maintain for a while. For the sake of my own mental health... this is something I'm still trying to get myself to completely accept. I mean, come on, let's be real. This shit is exhausting.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting at the moment, and I come back and edit this later. But this is what's on the top of my mind right now. Hope this is helpful to at least one person out there. :)

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