I realized back in November that I had a chance at breaking into the 100s if I had a good December. On my last scheduled weigh-in of the year, I made it. I don't remember when is the last time my weight started with a one. It must have been middle school, before I was even 13 years old.
Started this process back in late October 2021 to improve my health. M31, 6'2", 344 lb -> 199.6 lb. Thought it would be interesting to look back through my Apple Health and see by what other metrics I've improved.
Blood Pressure
On November 5th, 2021, my blood pressure was 129/91. This was after a week on 5mg of Amlodipine, so it was even higher a couple weeks earlier but I don't have those numbers. Nov 5th was my first day on 10mg of Amlodipine. I was 30 years old and needed blood pressure pills.
Today I'm at 95/63 and have been off the Amlo for about two months now. This doesn't show all 14 months, but I like to look at the descending chart. Looks like success.
Resting Heart Rate
On November 5th, 2021, my resting heart rate (averaged over several readings throughout the day) read 84 BPM.
I was having sporadic left-side chest pains back in 2020 and 2021. Knowing how fat I was carried with it a constant cardiac health paranoia which couldn't have made the situation any better. I never found out if it was acid reflux or heart palpitations, but any chest pain is scary. I event went to an ER once to get an EKG--the cardiologist said the results looked like I was "nervous during the test" and left it at that which to this day kind of freaks me out.
Anyway, 144 pounds later my resting heart rate reads 67 BPM. I haven't had that familiar pang of chest pain in months.
Diet
I don't have calorie stats for "the before-times," but I have something much more embarrassing. How about a whole month's credit card statement for Postmates and other fast food? Yikes. I was too fat to even bother driving to the fast food myself.
Back in September 2021, a day's worth of food might look like this:
- Coffee with 1 cream and two sugars
- One of these Toast Chee peanut butter cracker things
- 1 Quarter Pounder, 1 Fish Fillet, and a 10 Piece Nugget
- 1 can of Diet Coke
- 1 bag of Smartfood White Cheddar popcorn
- A whole box of dirty rice with some Polish sausage thrown in
- Half a sleeve of Chips Ahoy with a glass of milk
Total calories: who the fuck knows
Since starting my weight loss I've held to 1300-1500 cals per day. I average around 1400. I started meal-prepping every week, combined with a meal delivery service so I wouldn't have to cook for both meals every day.
Yesterday, I ate:
- Coffee with zero-sugar oat milk and Splenda
- A slice of sprouted grain bread with a tablespoon of Nuttzo mixed nut butter
- A plate of The Good Kitchen's Venison Meatloaf with Broccoli and Squash (shout out to this meal service, they're expensive but worth it)
- 1 soft-boiled egg
- 2 tablespoons of Hummus
- 1 mug of Vanilla Chai tea with a splash of zero-sugar oat milk
- 1 1-pound bowl of Lentils and smoked pork stew
- 1 banana
- 1 mug of unsweetened hot chocolate + splenda
Total calories: 1355
If I've learned anything through this process it's really how to balance a diet correctly. There was a lot to learn, and a lot of places to learn from. My palate expanded drastically--I used to not eat basically any vegetables, now I'll eat almost any cooked vegetable you can put in front of me. I still have trouble with raw leafy greens, but baby steps.
Special shout-out to J Kenj Lopez Alt's youtube channel. I learned a lot about being comfortable with cooking from his videos, and I adapted a few of his recipes for my mealpreps. More important than recipes is learning how to make home cooking a simple and stress-free process and his videos are fantastic for that.
Don't want this to sound like an ad, but I took a chance on The Good Kitchen's delivered meal service and I've been a very happy customer for over a year. Cooking for 14 meals a week is daunting, but cooking 7 meals a week and supplementing with a meal service is a lot more manageable. Their food is very tasty, very convenient, and very healthy. Also very expensive, but I decided that I would pay anything to reach a healthy weight and that my health should be a priority in all things, even financially.
Cholesterol and More
For these, the screenshots tell the tale. In every way I could get better, I got better.
My doctors told me for years that I had borderline high cholesterol. My non-HDL is down almost 20 points.
I was never officially pre-diabetic but still, my glucose is down 60%. I think I didn't fast for the first reading which is why it's so high, but whatever, reductions like that are still nice to see.
Triglycerides are way down from High Range to Normal
So anyway
Yeah. This journey's not over. Despite all I've lost already I never quite nailed down an exact goal weight--I was always operating with a general "lose weight" mentality, not a "get to X pounds" mentality. I suppose around 180lb might be the start of maintenance.
Outside of weight-loss, I have a dire need to start exercising. I lost all this weight through diet but I should really start doing some cardio for circulatory health and eventually weight training for definition. That will be the next great challenge--to maintain weight through the extra hunger that exercise can cause. But I'll get there. I've learned and done too much already to go back now.
Here's to 2023.
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