One year ago I made a post on here that I was going to make a change. I was 195ish lbs, 5’1 tall and miserable. I was depressed and so unhappy with my body.
I grew up with healthy & active parents. Played sports and did all the “right” things. But I loved food, always did & always will. I was always about ~5-10lbs overweight. As a teen/young adult I hung around 135lbs, a tad overweight for my height. I remember always dreaming of losing 10lbs but never could manage to drop even 5. I would basically starve myself then stop after a week and return to old habits. Those 10lbs I wanted to lose so desperately never came off. I was in a constant cycle of starving myself then binging between the ages of 19-22. Eventually down the road, I was diagnosed with PCOS and hypothyroidism, and despite being medicated, I figured the cards weren’t in my favor. I decided that I rather eat whatever I want, whenever I want, than be skinny. To me, the benefits of eating junk outweighed the benefits of being skinny. It felt freeing to be able to eat and to stop worrying. I threw away my scale, ate whatever I wanted, and it wasn’t long until I ballooned up to the obese category. At 25 years old. last year, I stepped onto the scale for the first time and almost cried when I realized I was so close to 200lbs.
But me thinking it wasn’t possible was a cop out. Truth be told, I just didn’t think I had it in me. I was never the kind of person that could stick with a routine. I wasn’t disciplined. I didn’t think I had it in me to lose weight long term and more importantly, to stop binging.
But last year, I hit my rock bottom. I felt hopeless. I sheltered myself away from friends & family in embarrassment. I was more depressed than ever, and I knew I had to do something. So I set a goal of 135lbs - the weight I hated as a teenager/ young adult, but because I maintained this weight so long, I figured it would be possible.
And I hit that goal plus some! Today I stand at 125-127lbs. In the healthy BMI range for the first time ever. My new goal is the 115-120 ish and plan to maintain that hopefully for as long as I can. These last 10 or so pounds are going to take time, and my focus now is more so on fitness goals / nutrition goals paired with a very small deficit.
It was quite the journey. I could go on & on about what I did but I think the most important thing is to do what’s right for you and that in order to be successful you need to want it and be willing to ditch the lifestyle that made you overweight to begin with. Weight loss is all about calories in & calories out, it’s simple in theory but extremely difficult to execute. There are so many different ways to do this - weight watchers, keto, fasting, OMAD, counting calories, exercising more, etc. for me personally, I found the best way was to count calories. So I bought a food scale and religiously counted every calorie that went into me. At the start, I completely disregarded the healthiness of the food. If it was hot Cheetos, ice cream, French fries, a burger - so be it. As long as I ate under my goal, I was happy.
Down the road of my journey, I realized I liked eating volume. Because of this, I started to eat a lot more vegetables and healthier food to the get the “most food” out of the least amount of calories. Now, I really see the importance of fueling your body with all the nutrients it needs, so I now also focus on making sure I get enough vegetables, fruits, protein, healthy fats, etc.
Once I got from obese to overweight, around the 150lb mark, I realized I had a lot more energy and started working out. For the first 40lbs, I didn’t exercise AT ALL besides the days I work in which I’m on my feet. At first, it was just walking for 20 minutes on an incline on a treadmill, it was all I felt like doing. Eventually i started jogging, and now most recently, I added in weight lifting. I now work out 5 days a week, but not to lose weight - more so for enjoyment. It became a real stress reliever and hobby. I LOVE running and just finished a 5k (3 miles) in 25 minutes!! A year ago i couldn’t even jog for 15 seconds. I love to focus on my fitness goals now more so than the scale.
I still count my calories every day, but like everyone preaches on here, counting calories gets so much easier with time. It really is tedious at first, I can’t stress that enough. But once I got in the groove I realize I really only eat the same ~25 ish things and have everything pretty much memorized at this point. Sometimes I don’t even have to log my stuff because I can keep track all in my head. In the past, I stayed away from counting calories because I was worried it would be triggering as someone who had bad eating habits as a teen. But every-time I would diet without counting, I would heavily restrict to very low calories which would lead to me stopping the diet all together less than a week later. With counting calories, I not only make sure I eat “enough” but I also make sure I don’t eat too much. At the start of weight loss, a big part of me just wanted to cut everything out. But this time around I ate until I reached my calorie goal every day. It really did help me and wasn’t as triggering as I thought it would be, and eating at a realistic goal isn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
I have taken a few maintenance breaks as well. It’s hard staying on a deficit for so long. I hung out at around 150lbs for 2 months just because I didn’t have it in me to cut with vacations. I had particular weeks where I gained because of events and life is to short to miss those, imo. but I don’t see that as “falling behind”. I just got right back on the wagon. It all balances out. Consistency is key, but what’s most important is patience. If you do the right thing more than >50% of the time then results will come.
Everyone asks about my “diet” and I always reiterate that I am not on a diet. This is a lifestyle change, a change i plan on doing forever. I will never go back to my old ways of eating, because I would simply go back to being obese.
Anyways, this is getting super long but I’m super proud of proud of myself and wanted to share. I can’t wait to continue my journey and I hope others who read this will be motivated to continue theirs. It’s different for everyone. It’s not a one size fits all. A big thank you to this community for helping me start and giving me the resources to begin such as the TDEE website, buying a food scale, etc.
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