First and foremost, here's the progress pictures! Long post ahead!
They say the hardest step is the first one and once I took it, I never looked back. I started this journey three years ago after an almost successful suicide attempt. I was not happy, in a career I hated, lonely, and just hated everything and drank daily. I moved home and got help and really sat down and asked what happened to me. I wanted to take my life back.
And so I started. I could barely walk, barely wipe my ass, and I could barely do anything without being extremely winded. I started off slow. Just walking 30 minutes which was brutal on me. At one point, I got so lazy that I was like, I'm going to just lift instead of doing cardio because it sucked so much! It was so hard, but I knew this was the change I was needing. I asked a friend if he'd help keep me accountable and he did so by having me send him a picture of something at the gym so that he knew I was going. If I didn't send him a picture, he would get on my ass about it. He wouldn't let it go, but you know what, that's exactly what I needed. Eventually, I switched to 3 days of cardio and 3 days of lifting. Each day was a damn battle though. Each day was hard, but over time, my routine became easier to do. I moved from just walking, to doing elliptical work, to increasing my times spent on both of those things. No longer did my ankles hurt from the sheer weight of myself.
I just kept at it. Day in and day out. After about a year of successfully making it a habit to go to the gym, I asked my same accountability partner if he'd critique my food and what I was eating. I had lost the first 70lbs intermittent fasting, but quit because I felt it was better to learn how to have a healthy relationship with food. And so I sent pictures and he'd critique me. Always asking me where veggies or fruits were or suggesting replacements for better things like switching from potatoes to sweet potatoes. My dietary habits changed and I had to relearn everything. Portions, time spent eating, tracking calories, monitoring for CICO, etc. I had to learn to love vegetables and fruits, and now my dietary palette is much broader. I ate at a pizza buffet the other day and had two plates of salad with spinach instead of heaping pizza piles. It wasn't something I had to think about, it was just so natural to opt for the healthier option. So much of my success is to retraining myself to have a healthy relationship with food.
As I kept working out, I set goals along the way. In 2019, I completed a triathlon at around 300lbs. It was rough, but I trained for that thing for months. I always opted for a goal to keep me ahead of myself and to keep me going. This past year I was even training for a half-marathon until I suffered from some tendinitis on the medial side of my knee. Was up to nine miles running before it! I know one day I'll get back to it! But, the key things for my journey have been consistency. I wake up early, about 4:15am, and I'm to the gym and going by 4:45-4:50am. I split my days as such: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are cardio, Tuesdays are legs and back, Thursdays are chest and core, and Saturdays are arms and shoulders. I know it's an odd split, but it's what I've done in the past when I've lost weight two other times. I have varied my lifting routines from drop sets to high weights, low reps, or low weight, high reps. Nothing crazy, nor do I follow any real lifting guide. My cardio has been all over the place and I have done my best to set goals in cardio even! For example, one goal I set was to climb as many floors as I could in 45 minutes and I think the best I got was 200. I had to work damn hard in all things both lifting and cardio, and sometimes I forget the beginning struggles! I am so much happier than I have ever thought possible and this is my third and last time losing this weight. I think it's been so successful because I've ultimately made it a full lifestyle change and kept the weight loss to a good average of 55lbs a year! I know this time I'll be much more successful and I remind myself everyday of how proud I am of myself. I will never forget the moment I stepped on the scale and my weight started with a 1. I cried with sheer joy!
But, I want to end my post with talking about the mental health side of my weight loss. For about six months, I went through purging disorder in my attempt to lose weight. I became a little too obsessed with the goals that I would feel extremely guilty, and purge my food if I thought I ate too much. I struggled hard and knew it was wrong, but felt so ashamed and guilty that I didn't tell anyone. But it was happening regularly 2-4 times a week where I would purge. I finally reached out and got the help I needed. The other thing, and maybe it's just been my battle, but is the end game and switching from losing to the maintenance phase. I set an end goal of 189 and decided to keep a weight range of + or - 5 pounds. I did this so that it would help me keep a goal without me becoming too obsessed with going lower or thinking I needed to keep losing. I want to avoid that pitfall and make sure I don't find myself dropping too much and being underweight. I have felt sad to see that my end is near, but I know that it's not an end, it's just another chapter is ending and a new, lifelong one is opening up! I'm not sure how common it is for people to feel the way I have at the end of my journey, but three years of constant losing really rewires your brain, so I've made sure to identify things that could be unhealthy and have talked to a therapist about it. I have also dealt with loose skin and body dysmorphia, but have slowly been overcoming that too. I am starting to see my loose skin as a badge of honor versus a disgusting, no progress thing. I can see the changes and how I've slimmed down as well now whereas before I couldn't! But now, my physical, mental, and emotional health have all greatly improved!
So, yeah, that's the journey I've been on and I'm proud of it. This community has always inspired me, so I hope that someone reading this is inspired like I have been to make the changes. I appreciate everyone who has helped me along the way, and as I leave my 20s in October, I'm glad I'll be going into my 30s the best possible version of me!
TL;DR- Lost 166.4lbs by staying consistent, eating healthy, CICO, and working out!
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