Pictures first, as is tradition (shirtless fat dude warning): https://imgur.com/a/tTN9fEx
I'm not really sure what my point is with this post, so I may ramble.
I've always been a "big" kid. Not obese, just taller (until high school) and wider than most everyone else my age. I was an active kid, but never really picked up on healthy eating habits, though my parents did try. I don't think they really knew much about nutrition, either. So I ate whatever I wanted; I was a little on the heavy side, but nothing worrisome.
In high school I played football, my coach wanted me to be big and strong, so I ate whatever I wanted. My junior year, I weighed 212 lbs.
My junior year of HS, I joined the National Guard and went to basic training that summer. We ran and did all kinds of other exercises all day long. I ate whatever I wanted. I graduated basic training at 185 lbs.
I came back, stayed active, played sports, finished HS, then went off to my advanced training at about the same weight.
In 2009, I deployed to Iraq. When we weren't out on a mission in the 130°F heat, I was in the gym, eating whatever I wanted, or sleeping. I came home from Iraq in 2010 at ~220 lbs, fit as fuck, and scored better on my for-record Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) than in basic training.
I think that's when things started to go downhill for me. Before that APFT, I was told by my company First Sergeant that, if I passed, I would be promoted from Specialist (E-4) to Sergeant (E-5, and the first non-commissioned officer rank). Well, as stated before, I blew the test out of the water. It was the best score I'd ever had on an APFT. I was then told that there weren't any slots in the company for a new E-5. What the fuck. So I tried to get attached to another company to get deployed to Afghanistan. I was told "no one is going over there right now." I knew that was an outright lie. So I talked to an active-duty Army recruiter about transferring from the National Guard to the regular Army, and got all the paperwork to do so. I did it all, sent it up my chain-of-command, and waited for a response. I knew things worked slow in the NG, but after about 2 months, I was tired of waiting. I called up my First Sergeant and asked him what was taking so long. He said he'd look into it. 2 weeks later, I hadn't heard from him, so I called him up again, asked what was going on. Apparently they "lost" my paperwork. At that point, I realized that these people didn't give two shits about me. All the work I'd put in for over 4 years had absolutely nothing to show for it (in my mind; obviously now I know that being healthy is it's own reward), and I still had about a year and half left on my contract.
So I gave up. I stopped working out. At our monthly drills, I stopped volunteering for anything. I stopped caring about the army and myself for a long time, even after I'd finished my contract.
After that, overeating and inactivity became a habit I kept for many years.
In July of 2016, I reached my highest weight of 308 lbs. I realized then that I couldn't continue what I was doing and hope to live a healthy life. So I started reading as much as I could about weight loss, and somehow ran across r/loseit. I downloaded MFP, and started tracking my food when it was convenient. I wasn't consistent, but it taught me to be mindful of what I'm eating, and how calorie-dense so many of my favorite foods are. I continued reading posts on here, seeing so many success stories. By July 20th of this year (2 years later), I was only down 16 lbs. I think that was my "ah-ha!" moment. I decided that I couldn't do this half-assed and expect to get to where I need to be. So I committed right then to logging everything that went in my mouth, and doing my damnedest to not go over my calorie limit. I even decided to download the LoseIt! app, and use it instead of MFP to start with a completely new slate.
December 1st, I weighed in at 258 lbs. Exactly 50 lbs less than my starting weight, and twice as much weight lost in roughly 4 months than the previous 2 YEARS.
So here's what I've learned:
Those two things are the best advice I can give. If there's something you want to change, you are the only one who can do something about it. You can't wait for someone else to do it for you. And once you decide to make that change, sticking with it is the only way to make sure it continues.
Anyway... sorry if all of that is TMI, or disjointed, or unrelateable. I guess I just needed to get it out.
