*rule 7 disclaimer: I am not trying to recruit anybody nor would I gain anything from doing so. I'm just describing my personal choices.
26F, 392 pounds
Last year during quarantine was the first time since high school that I successfully ate a healthy diet and sustained regular exercise, facilitated by weight loss and steps-per-day challenges that I signed up for on the app HealthyWage. My success lasted three months and I did lose about 35 pounds. Not amazing, but I proved to myself that I could do it since I literally thought I had fucked up my dopamine patterns and was no longer capable of changing my lifestyle.
I grew a lot this year. I became a more confident and assertive person, my career is going well, I'm doing better financially and will be buying a house next year, and I'm volunteering in a field I had always dreamed of. I have some real friendships, which I haven't had for a few years.
I also gained 25 of the pounds back. I have a fairly active job (teacher) and good health considering my size, but my food choices have been atrocious and the in-person teaching during a pandemic made my emotional eating worse. Once my vaccine immunity kicked in, my outlook on life got a lot healthier, and I successfully completed another step challenge these past two months. I really do love taking walks and having an active job, and I get like 5K steps just at work. Still, the food habits die hard.
On June 1st, I made a decision. I am going to write down everything I eat and everything I spend for one year regardless how ugly the truth is. (For obvious and also some less obvious, shitty-childhood-experiences-related reasons, finances and food are pretty closely tied together for me.) I don't have a goal for the exact amount of weight I want to lose. My initial commitment was just to be honest with myself.
Then I said fuck it and signed up for another weight loss challenge via the app. The main type of challenge they advertise is to maintain weight loss (whatever % you choose) over a period of at least six months. You put up money each month, and then you win the money back plus more, but you have to do your final weigh-in within the last two weeks of that time period. This is the challenge I ultimately failed last year. But they also have mini-challenges, where you commit to lose 4% of your body weight over a period of about six weeks. Those short-term extrinsic motivators are much more realistic for me, so I chose this challenge.
I need to be under 376 pounds by July 11th. This is obviously not going to be a problem if I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. Hell, in water weight alone I'll probably drop like 5+ pounds the first week. The issue is maintenance, which again, I have proved to myself that I am perfectly capable of.
I really don't even have a goal weight at the moment. I just want to build healthy habits, and for the next year my healthy habits are these:
1) I will write down everything I eat and the calories, even if it's a cheat day.
2) I will wait no more than two weeks after the end of one weight loss challenge before entering another. I will choose realistic goals for these challenges and not do anything that's going to overwhelm me physically or mentally.
3) Same with the step challenges.
4) I will post an update here every time a step or weight loss challenge ends, regardless of the result.
I should point out that I'm not spending any money I can't afford to lose. Do I want to potentially throw $80 per month down the drain if I decide to turn into a potato again? Not especially. But I don't want to be nearly 400 pounds anymore either.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3z6WQA7
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