The before and after pictures are under the first bold text below this one. I know this is a long post, so just scroll down if you want to see that.
Boy, I honestly didn't think I would be doing this a year ago.
I'm 16 years old and in high school. My childhood has been rocky, to say the least. A lot of the details I don't want to go into. I mostly worry about how it might affect my family. In summary, my parents divorced when I was 4.My dad became a full-blown in the year or so after. This led to me switching back and forth between houses a couple of times. Because my father's alcoholism was so severe, I lived with my mom for the majority of my life and immediately after the divorce. He cleaned up a bit when I was 8, but he's had several relapses ever since. He just went through one recently.
I began living with my father and stepmother in middle school. To put it simply, they were just functionally inadequate at parenting. While with my mom I was active in school and athletics, ate healthily, and was never overweight, my father's house was dirty, I wasn't as active academically or in extracurricular activities, I wasn't as active physically, and my weight increased pretty significantly. It wasn't something I was aware of, of course. I was 11 when it started. I don't know when I crossed the threshold from "overweight" to "obese". Looking at pictures of myself, I'd wager it happened while I was in 7th grade. For reasons I'd rather not disclose, this was the time I was not allowed to visit my mom at all. My health went completely out of check as a result. My asthma became worse when I exercised and I elected to essentially not do any exercise at all. My weight only increased, and not in accordance with my height. At the end of 7th grade, before the start of my summer break, my doctor talked about my weight in front of me and my stepmother. My stepmother (who I'm fairly certain is only slightly overweight, in no way comparable to my morbid obesity) didn't help me at all. She didn't change my diet, even though she was the one who bought and made all of the food, and I didn't lose any weight. I'm fairly sure I'd gained at this point. I think I was around 230 lbs, although I'm not sure.
Later that same year (2016) I moved to a northern state with my grandmother because my father couldn't stay sober. I stayed with her for roughly 4 months before returning home. When I moved was the first time I started being bullied for my weight. There was this incredibly small girl at the middle school who made fun of me all the time for my lack of social skills and my size. I tried losing weight using calorie counting, but I didn't really exercise and didn't really know what I was doing. Over the course of around 4 months, I lost maybe 15 pounds. Needless to say, that isn't enough. Around this time I started binge eating. I was never diagnosed, as I never sought a diagnosis, but I would say I had BED at this time. I had a lot of pain around this time that missed me to miss school. Even though I wouldn't start losing weight until about a year later, I would say this was the peak of my weight negatively affecting my life. I think some of the medication I was taking (namely Seroquel) led to a significant increase in appetite. I still feel like a pig whenever I am reminded of my binges.
I moved back to my home state with my father and stepmother in February of 2017. When I saw my doctor again we talked about my (small) weight loss, and he weakly encouraged me to keep going. He didn't really give me any advice and I don't think he talked to my father or stepmother about it. I tried to keep going, and I think got myself down to about 270, but my slow weight loss and lack of support led me to give up and gain back the minute amount of weight I lost. Around this time, there was an incident with my stepmother that I don't think I'll ever forget. She needed my help lifting something, and considering I was nothing but out of shape, I was struggling. She made fun of me and called me weak, saying I needed to start exercising if I was struggling to lift whatever the hell it was we were carrying, especially since she had no issues doing so. I'll never forget this for two reasons: it made me feel like I lost any sense of strength and masculinity, and it made me pissed off at my stepmother.
I started visiting my mother again towards the end of 8th grade. These visits were short in preparation for the upcoming court date in regards to custody of me. It was really only 36 hours twice a month, far less than the standard "every-other weekend" visit I was accustomed to and seemed to be the standard for divorced kids. Every visit, she forced me to exercise. This was in 2017, and close to the time I reached my peak weight. This means that I ran outside in the summer heat weighing around 280 pounds. I hated it. I loved visiting my mom, but she made me do this every time and it made me confused. I didn't understand how significant my weight was at the time. Looking back, this was what I needed. My mom, of course, didn't understand the quite literal physical pain running meant for me at this point in my life. I was always incredibly hot due to my excess fat, and whenever I ran my asthma flared up and my joints killed me. If there's one thing these months, where I wasn't losing weight because of my still poor diet, taught me, it's that exercise is supposed to be hard, not painful. This was painful. But, she was trying to help me. She was helping me. No one tried to during the previous two years like she did. I hate healthily at her house and, while I wasn't losing weight because these healthy visits made up only a small fraction of my time, it established some healthy habits that helped me out later.
The custody battle continued until the start of the school year in 2017. I can only guess the evidence against my dad must have been significant because 1. I changed schools after just moving to a new one and 2. I went to live with my mother immediately. I started my freshman year at a new school, again. This is the 9th time I've changed schools. I'm not too surprised my dad lost though, as he relapsed multiple times with both his alcoholism and prescription drug addictions while I was living with him throughout middle school.
I gained weight again for the first couple of months. I visited my father and stepmother one time, and was confused as to why my old clothes (which were already huge) didn't fit. My stepmother asked, disapprovingly, if I had gained weight. I stormed off to my room. I was pissed. She not only made fun of me, but she didn't help me in the slightest when I tried to lose and, realistically, only hurt me by continuing to feed my poorly. I remembered the time she made fun of me for being weak and realized that she not only caused my problem, but insulted me for it. My father was more or less out of the picture at this point in regards to my parenting, and was like that even when I lived with him. He didn't have a job (my stepmother did), didn't do the cleaning (my stepmother did) and didn't cook (you can guess what goes here). This interaction was what lead me to eventually believe that childhood obesity is, at best, negligence, and at worst, abuse.
A couple of weeks later my father relapsed, again. This was in October of 2017. I know alcohol was involved, but I also think he was abusing some prescription drugs as well. I didn't visit him for a couple of weeks after that. When I started seeing him again, I freaked out when I went to his house. I had asked to only stay for a night, but when I asked to leave both him and my stepmother became angry with me. Most of the anger came from my stepmom. They eventually accepted my request, and my mother picked me up. I spent the long drive home on the interstate in tears. That night I told myself I would improve myself in some way. My stepmother seemed to have the impression that I was lazy and unable to focus. I was on a lot of medication my psychiatrist put me on due to our constant fights, so she very well may have been correct. I stopped visiting them regularly ever since. I talk with my father now (although I didn't for roughly a year), but things won't really ever go back to "normal" because my stepmother got fed up with his drug addiction and divorced him.
School sucked. I hated going to school. I didn't have any friends and everyone else already knew each other because it's such a small school. Any girls I tried to talk to immediately brushed me off, and any guys I tried to be friends with were apprehensive. I still had my online friends, though. They were always kind, perhaps partially because they never saw my fatass when we met. I spent a lot of time on my computer, as I had for the past year or so, because these people were my main source of human interaction. Getting messages on Discord on from them on my phone made me feel normal. Friends text each other, right? And I had friends that texted me. We talked every day and played Siege together. I'd known them for the past year and they were good to me. I honestly kind of thought they would be my only friends throughout high school. I couldn't move away from the internet, after all, so if I changed schools again, no matter.
It's the end of October, and my mother schedules a physical with a new doctor. I get weighed in, and I'm a whopping 289 lbs. I wasn't quite aware of how dire the situation was, even at the time. My mother talked with my doctor in a sort of "code" when in front of me. She wanted me to lose weight, and my new doctor was nothing short of supportive. I wanted to lose weight, of course, but I never realized how significant my problem was until much later. Nevertheless, things began to change.
In January of 2018, my mother took me off some of my medication after talking with my doctor, starting with the Seroquel. After all, it was an anti-psychotic. I wasn't insane. I had only been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. My old psychiatrist told me she thought I was borderline, but looking back any emotional outbursts were due to the unstable living situation in my dad's house. Prior to this I started exercising (thanks to my mother's "encouragement") but I didn't lose any weight. Considering Christmas and Thanksgiving came immediately after that doctor's appointment, I think I gained weight. It's entirely possible I was over 300 pounds at one point. I lost 20 lbs in the following month without any effort. I think the lack of medication lead to me eating less unknowingly, because I made no conscious choice to lose weight. I was ecstatic. I started talking to some guys more at my school. The girls wanted nothing to do with the creepy fat kid and would brush me off in person if I ever tried to talk with them. I soon got the message that no girl at school wanted to have the slightest conversation with me. There was one I was maybe an acquaintance with, but that's only because she hung out with both of the only guys that I would talk with. That, and I think we had a mutual understanding that she was way out of my league and there was no chance in hell I would try asking her out.
So school continued, and by the end of my freshman year, I was down to 245 pounds. Not bad, right? I could recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. My double chin wasn't gone, per-say, but it wasn't bulging into my neck anymore. The fat on my face which used to make my eyes smaller when I smiled, while still present, went away significantly. With newfound motivation, I concluded that I would spend the summer working out more and losing weight.
How fucking naive I was.
I exercised throughout the summer, but I didn't watch what I ate. I didn't gain weight; I plateaued. Towards the end of July, I started looking for an alternative. I needed to get this weight off. So, I asked my mother to get rid of the rest of the medication I was taking- Lexapro and Trazedone. For the first time in roughly 6 years, I stopped taking anything. I lost a little bit of weight. I went from 245 to 237 by the start of school. Once again, this wasn't because of any metabolism bull. I wasn't really aware of CICO at the time, so I thought it was (admittedly my Mom didn't help with that myth). really I ate less food, again. The Lexapro increased my appetite I'm fairly certain.
It's August of last year. I'm not feeling well and am heading home from school. I have a free period and, out of curiosity, decide to look at how I measured up on the CDC's teenage BMI calculator. I knew I wasn't quite at a healthy weight, but I figured I'd get there soon enough. I hadn't really had a goal weight in mind, though. I just wanted to look normal. As I'm sure you can figure out, I was devastated when the website gave me the results back. My BMI was 32. I was still obese. That weekend I did almost nothing but cry. I couldn't exercise because I was sick, so I felt trapped because I felt like I couldn't really do anything to improve myself. And worse of all, people still thought I was fat. They had to. I was obese still. That same day, I started calorie counting. The following Sunday, I started running.
I looked on r/loseit and saw that you're supposed to maintain your current weight for roughly a week before trying to lose so you can find your TDEE. I was too impatient, though. I just ate at the calories that SparkPeople (the app I used to lose weight) told me to. I was surprised at the weight I started losing weight. I was aiming only for 1-2 pounds a week, but I started losing roughly 3.5. I wasn't weight training (I didn't know I needed to) so I lost a not insignificant amount of muscle. My goal was to hit 175 by March, but, here I am.
Before/After pictures: http://imgur.com/a/5w3Nr1M
The "before" picture is really a family picture I had taken around the time that was my peak. I never took a before picture out of disgust and fear. I hated cameras. Sorry for the essay. This was longer than I intended for it to be.
The past week and a half
I'm kinda skinnyfat. My BF% is 21.6%. My personal trainer says this isn't somthing I should be ashamed about. It's kind of hard to avoid given my age, the amount of weight I had to lose, and the general lack of muscle mass I had before. My confidence perked up a little bit, however, after some peers at my school called me "fit" and said I looked like I worked out on Wednesday, the 16th. Coincidentally, this is the day I hit my goal weight. Part of the reason this made me so happy is that these people aren't my friends. They're just some girls (!!) who know of me (small school) and decided to compliment me on it.
Then, this past week, my confidence kind of went away again. One of my friends at school who I've known since my freshman year basically called me fat. I was sitting inside during lunch with one other friend because it's January and cold outside. The first friend came inside and asked why I wasn't outside. I told him it's because it's fairly cold outside and I want to be inside. He remarked (a little too loudly) "Why are you cold? You have the highest amount of body fat of all of us [our friends]. What are you, 210?" I was mortified, partly because he was speaking so goddamn loud, and partially because I think he was just being honest. After all that hard work in the past year, I feel like I'm not skinnyfat, but just fat. I started wondering if the compliment I received the week prior was just sarcastic.
Thanks for reading.
Also, quick question- If I maintain my current weight and do weight training, will my BF% decrease? Thanks.
