Before I start my weight loss story, I thought I’d give a bit of background. Growing up, I was always chubby. At the end of high school, I was 6’2 and 220 pounds, but I made some positive lifestyle and diet changes and went through most of college at around 180 lbs. In the five years since I finished college, I slowly reverted back to old habits and gained all of the weight back (and more).
Last September, my wife and I were in the kitchen together. While I was chopping some meat at the counter, my wife opened the dishwasher behind me. I turned around and took a step, and tripped over the open dishwasher door. I went down hard. When I fell, I stuck out my left arm to try to catch me, but that ended up causing my shoulder to dislocate, then I landed on my face, chipping both of my front teeth. Going to multiple doctors in the aftermath was the first time I had to say my weight out loud. I weighed 240 pounds. Yikes. That’s how much Homer Simpson, the epitomical fat guy, weighs. I was bummed about getting injured, but having to face my weight also started eating at me.
Once I was set up with an orthopedist, he told me he recommended surgery to correct a torn labrum in my shoulder if I wanted to do many activities with upper body movement (contact sports wouldn’t be a great idea and anything involving movements or lifting with my arms overhead would be very difficult). I haven’t been very active the past few years, but the idea of losing this motivated me to get back to a healthy weight so I could be active.
I was in a sling for the next couple of weeks before surgery, but I tried making changes to start my weight loss. I’ve lost weight before, so I knew the routine: count calories, eat cleaner, exercise. I couldn’t exercise much due to the sling, but the morning of surgery, I weighed in at 237 pounds at the hospital, already down 3 pounds from 2 weeks ago. I was happy about that for a bit, but shortly after that, I got my blood pressure taken. It was 144/96 (well into hypertension levels). Another yikes. This was a big eye opener. I knew I was overweight, but I thought I was fairly healthy. My surgeon recommended seeing a doctor after surgery to help with my blood pressure. My dad had bypass surgery when he was in his mid-50s, and I knew I didn’t want to be on blood pressure medication at 25.
The weeks after the surgery were tough. My shoulder was extremely stiff and I had to be in a sling for 4 weeks, so the only activity I got in that time was walking around my apartment building, but I started trying to eat better. More vegetables and fruits, less processed foods, and I really watched my portion sizes. My wife isn’t much of a cook and I couldn’t do much with the sling, so this was a challenge. We had a lot of pre-prepared meals and take out, but I tried to keep it as healthy as I could. This was a lot of self-control; it would have been easy to have pizza and burgers for every meal or sit on the couch and snack around all day, but for the most part, I stuck to decent meals my wife and I would plan in advance before she went shopping.
Four weeks following surgery, my doctor cleared me for physical therapy. When I first went into PT, I couldn’t lift my arm above shoulder level, but it still felt good starting some upper body exercises, even if they were very low impact. I also saw a doctor about my blood pressure at this time. My blood pressure was lower than the reading before my surgery (possibly due to the stress and anxiety), but still in the pre-hypertension range. The doctor recommended making positive diet and exercises changes and monitoring my blood pressure at home.
Once I got to about 6 weeks post-surgery, I had much better mobility with my shoulder, so I started riding a stationary bike in my apartment. It was tough at first. 15 minutes on it was challenging, but after a couple weeks, I was in a routine of doing about 30 minutes a day for 4 or 5 days per week. I would also do around 45 minutes of shoulder exercises every morning, which were low impact, but still a good way to get moving and start the day. Around this time, I also started cooking again and skipping breakfast most days (I think I had been eating in the mornings when I was in the sling because I was bored). I cooked pretty much every weeknight, took leftovers or a salad for lunch at work, and limited eating out to once or twice during weekends. It felt good getting into a better diet and exercise routine. At this point, I think I had lost about 10 pounds (down to 230 pounds), and my blood pressure had slowly been going down.
The holidays were about 3 months post-surgery. My wife and I visited our out of town parents for a week. When I dieted and failed over the past few years, I had tried to cut out all sweets and other poor diet choices, but this time, I tried things in moderation. I didn’t gorge myself at all of our holiday meals (I definitely overate at a couple, but my strategy was to only eat more of my favorite foods instead of getting more of everything) and I limited deserts to 1 per day. I also stuck to my exercise routine by running on my parents’ treadmill once a day. At this point, my blood pressure was close to normal range and I was down 20-25 pounds (to 215-220 pounds).
In the two months since Christmas, most of my shoulder mobility and strength has returned. I finished my PT sessions a couple weeks ago, and my therapist even commented that in general, I looked a lot healthier than when I started, which was a nice confidence boost. I’ve also started doing more full body workouts (I started by using a free app called Stryve, which creates a 20 minutes or so workout made up of several 30 second-2 minute exercises, but for the past week, I’ve been using the Daily Burn app, which is similar, but it has a subscription fee and you can choose your workouts).
Right now, I’m at 200 pounds (down 40 pounds) and hoping to get down to my goal weight of 180 by the summer. Overall, I feel much better than before my injury. I don’t feel as groggy throughout the day and I’m not miserable every night because I stuffed myself at dinner. My body also feels much better. I’m really starting to notice differences in the mirror now too: my face is thinner, I can see my ribs and collar bones, and my gut isn’t hanging super far out. It sounds super corny, but my injury was a blessing in disguise. I don’t know if I would have ever found the motivation to lose weight if it wasn’t for everything that happened with my injury. It was rough at first, but it resulted in positive change and I still want to keep going.
