Less Than Ten Pounds From a Normal Weight

F' 5'10 SW: 220 CW: 173 GW: 150ish

I realized this morning that I was less than ten pounds from a normal weight range and I just wanted to share. It's been over a decade since I was in the normal weight range and I'm just a little bit amazed and feeling very reflective.

A couple of years ago I was obese. I hadn't always been I was raised with healthy eating habits and stayed in a normal weight range for my teens and 20s. Heading into my 30s with a sedentary job and a busy lifestyle I began consuming more processed and fast foods, along with caffeinated energy drinks like monster and rock stars. Eventually I was consuming two rock stars a day and 190 pounds.

Here and there I'd focus on my weight for a bit and loose ten pounds but I always regained and worse my weight kept growing due to my sedentary lifestyle and poor diet.

In 2019 I was 220 pounds, tired all the time, my knees hurt, I could barely climb a flight of stairs and I struggled to stand from like a toilet. It was awful.

I knew what needed to be done and after playing around with slim fast for a bit I got serious. I kicked the caffeine, I stopped ordering Doordash, I stopped using uber for any place less than a mile and either walked or walked to the bus. I stopped picking up sweets, cut back drinking alcohol and increased the fruits and veggies, made sure to keep healthy low cal snacks on hand and the weight came off. In fact the first 30 pounds came off almost effortlessly.

It helped that I combined the health goal with a savings goal so I could focus on dollars going into my savings account rather than numbers on a scale.

I started exercising and hit a bit of a plateau with the weight loss. So I decided not to worry about it and just decided to see if I could maintain at 180 pounds. I did! In January of this year I started exercising again. This time with a goal of maintaining a regular exercise habit for a year. So far it's going well. I've been exercising at least 20 minutes daily for 4-5 per week.

In March I started CICO and I've dropped another 7 pounds and well on my way toward my goal weight of 150.

I think what worked for me is that like a lot of people I've experienced how damaging obesity really is and I'm genuinely afraid of how bad my life could get if I hadn't changed my lifestyle. My knees used to hurt so much and I didn't really understand why at first. I can only imagine what my life and mobility would be like heading into middle aged at 220 pounds.

I've also really finally absorbed what a lifestyle change means. It's means forever until the end and it means you take the time no matter what. You make the time to exercise, you make the time write down what you ate, you make the time to cook 90% of your meals at home. And if you work at it, if you make the time it will happen.

Another thing that I think was key for me was kicking the caffeine habit. Besides the insane amount of calories from two rock stars per day, for me at least, I think caffeine really contributed to my sugar cravings and my cravings for sweets in general. Those craving evaporated once I stopped consuming caffeine.

This is a longer posts. I hope it meets community guidelines and shares information that people find helpful.

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