Stats: M, 25Y, 5'8
So I normally have always struggled with self esteem issues and just generally putting myself out there, and after I decided to try and get in shape, I made a challenge to myself that I'd make a post on here after one year of progress because this subreddit is a very welcoming and positive place so I figured I should try and share in the hopes that maybe it might help someone else out as others posts have helped me out.
This is a before picture taken on the day I decided to start losing weight. My heaviest at 114 kg or 251 lbs on 2nd June after the first time I ever consciously and willingly chose to engage in exercise. And this is today's picture, at 82 kg or 180.7 lbs. [Apologies on the picture quality on the second pic, my old phone broke and I went a little cheap on the replacement]
Motivation and Regimen: So I'm not gonna go too deep into it but I was obese for most of my life and I was probably at my heaviest around the time in the before picture. I was going through a lot of personal issues and once I started to move past it was when I started to plan for the future and I did not want to stay this weight for said future. Literally just decided "you know what, I'm gonna lose weight from tomorrow". I was lucky in that I had a support structure at home to make sure that I was eating healthy and I even had an elliptical machine at home in my sibling's old room. I used to have can of soda or two literally every day and on 2nd June, I just quit cold turkey. Went like 2 months before I had another soda lol, and it didn't even taste as satisfying as I expected. I still have sodas from time to time but we're talking once or MAYBE twice in one week at most. It's no longer an active craving. I also eat less servings and decided to skip out on lunch entirely. It's a bit tough to keep track of calories where I live since everything is natural and organic meaning it's difficult to know how much calories are in what but I generally just control my portions and it's been working so far.
Relied solely on cardio as my main source of exercise by using an exercise bike at first then switching to an elliptical then using the elliptical using only my feet (built core strength like nobody's business). In around January 2021, I decided to try and implement strength training into my regiment. Eventually stopped doing cardio exercises and focused exclusively on that. The usual stuff: Push-ups, sit-ups, squats and lunges. Eventually started to move on to some more "hardcore" stuff and now I'm in a pretty good position. I feel proudest of the fact that I did all of this using exclusively bodyweight exercises as I didn't have access to a gym (cause of lockdowns, Gyms were being closed and then opened and closed and so on so I didn't wanna commit to it right now). Even now, I can do around 30 pushups in one day but if I take into account the fact that I'm still quite overweight, I see that as an absolute win lol. And my strength and endurance is improving day-by-day.
Observations:
Weight loss is super weird and very unpredictable. When I first started out, I was losing it at a rate of 2kg (around 4.4lbs) per week. Now? I've been at 82kg for almost a month lol. The thing is though, I'm still objectively losing fat because I decided to take measurements every week and my waist is smaller now than it was 3 weeks ago. So I am still making progress, it's just that damn scale isn't getting the memo!
It's crazy how much more self confidence I have now than I did before. I literally stand up straighter and feel more at ease whenever I'm out compared to before. I was never really a big fan of being the center of attention (I'm still not lol) but I don't mind it too much now.
Also speaking of standing up straighter, my posture's gotten so much better ever since I decided to start incorporating strength training. Never realized that would be a thing but it legitimately makes you feel more confident when you know your posture is good.
Weight loss gets harder to maintain the longer you do it. After a year of skipping out on lunch or just eating some veggies, you always have those days where you just wanna say "Screw it!" and indulge in something that tastes good. I found it's important to indulge that rather than pushing it down which can lead to binging or leading to a negative outlook on the entire process.
People can still be really insensitive when it comes to weight loss. Fortunately, the people I know have all been nice and supportive but I had one particular encounter with two friends (one of my friends is quite overweight) and the other one said "wow lucebuce that's great. So, friend no.2, when are you gonna lose that weight huh" and I just changed the topic to something else cause I knew full well how comments like that can really hurt people even if it was said with positive intentions.
Also I just wanna give a shoutout to the great people in this subreddit, y'all are always welcoming and supportive. It's so critical to have a space like this where you can share both your ups and your downs so I just wanna tell you all to pat yourselves on the back :)
I plan on doing another post next year (maybe I can make this an annual thing haha) where hopefully I'll have reached my goal weight. I thought for quite a while that it would be 69 kg but I have no idea anymore lol so we'll see.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/34GmpKy
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