Hit rock bottom before it was time for a change

Pics first

Background

I was always the lanky kid in high school. I was on the wrestling team, a black belt in Taekwondo, and I loved competition. I was even able to run 5 minute miles.

Then college happened, and like a lot of people, I gained the freshman 15 45. In grad school, I got into pretty serious relationship with cheap breakfast food, and ended up gaining another 20 lbs. I hate to say it, but I really just accepted that this was who I was now. I spent a couple years really obese and just figured I'd never be able to run a mile again. When I moved across the country to start a new job, I told myself I'd get my act together, but I never did. I actually ended up gaining even more weight. I stayed in a really bad relationship with someone I thought was my best friend because I honestly thought that I wouldn't be able to find anyone else.

Over the course of 3 months, I went through a really bad, really protracted break-up, a weight gain all the way up to 275 lbs, and finding out I couldn't even walk a mile anymore without my legs killing me.

On October 10th, 2018, I hit rock bottom. I took two pictures of myself that day so I would know how awful I looked and felt. On that day, I decided to start counting calories religiously, and I decided to lose all the weight I gained at work, in the relationship, in grad school, and in undergrad. I was going to lose 95 lbs and get back to my old wrestling weight class in high school.

Tactics

I started researching the best ways to lose a lot of weight quickly, and the best ways to track it. I ended up getting a smart scale that I started using on 11/15/18. I went to the gym to do cardio, but I still couldn't do it without my legs feeling like they are breaking under my weight. So I decided to lose some weight before I went to the gym. On December 20th, I was able to walk a mile again. Since then, I've done the same workout most days.

• Do 1 mile as quickly as I possibly can
• 1 minute rest
• HIIT every quarter mile until I hit 30 minutes of cardio
• [OPTIONAL] If I had a cheat day (my coworkers love happy hours), I do another 20 minutes of cardio

I don't do a ton of weight lifting yet. I'll do it twice a month, but I know my body and I know my mind: I'd push it too hard and I'd hurt myself. Seeing the amount of weight that I'm able to lift go down would be demoralizing on a regular basis. I know it isn't ideal, but cardio is much more important to me for now.

For my diet, I stick between 1300-2000 calories a day. Basically, I eat when I'm hungry. I don't eat when I'm bored anymore. I never go to bed hungry. Unfortunately, my diet is not great. I'm eating a lot of fried food still, and a lot of carbs. As I enter the waning stages of weight loss, I'm going to try to eat better foods.

I weigh myself every morning after I wake up. I know a lot of people don't like doing that because plateaus can be difficult to deal with, but I had no problem with them. I'm a statistician IRL, so the data was really important for me to track my progress and make micro-adjustments accordingly.

Results

Progress pics here

Before: 10/10/18 - 275 lbs, ~37% body fat After: 2/24/19 - 215 lbs, 24% body fat

(Using smart scale body fat estimate checked with navy method of measuring body fat, so it's not perfect)

I've lost 60 lbs, but I still have a ways to go. I'd like to lose 35 more lbs before I start a clean bulk to gain back the muscle I lost, but I'm not obese anymore! I'm able to run a 7 minute mile, and I think I can get back to my 5 minute miles once I get to 180 again. I don't get winded going up the stairs at work or in my apartment building anymore, I can walk to/from work without being drenched in sweat, I'm more mobile, and I'm so much happier. I'm going to try and start boxing soon since there's a pretty great gym for it right by my apartment, and my cardio is so much better now than it was when I started this journey.

I had to hit my rock bottom before I was kicked into high gear, but I am so glad that it happened. I was in denial with how unhappy I really was back then. Life is so much easier now that I don't have to lug around all that dead weight (my big fat ass, and the rest of the baggage too!).

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Huh. I guess we can buy ANY chair.

Hey all!

We've been looking into getting a dining table set, and waffle between getting it all together or picking the chairs separately.

Some of the chairs online have had mixed reviews. Maybe they were hard to put together? Wrong color? Damaged during shipping?

"They could not withstand 300lbs."

It blew me away how common of a problem this seems to be across several different websites.

The household is going to be my fiance (183lbs and dropping) and I (145), and we rarely have friends over.

His side of the family would legitimately need to look at the weight restrictions. Literally every adult is heavily obese, with the kids even packing on serious weight at a young age. However, we have no contact with them, so they don't need to be considered in the chair plans.

My fiance used to be over 250 before we got together, but he has been kicking butt with weight loss in the last couple of years. When he hit 189, he was blown away by the fact that he hadn't seen that number since middle school. He didn't even think it was possible to be that small again.

We've been making jokes on how we feel so powerful with our magical ability to BUY ANY CHAIR WE WANT!!

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Finally hit ONEderland but I've never felt worse

23F 5'8" SW 276 | CW 199 | GW 140

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Today marks the 46th week of my weight loss journey, and I've finally hit ONEderland. I lost it all through CICO with essentially no exercise at all, and I know that if I continue to track my calories, I will reach my goal. It's a huge accomplishment and I'm incredibly proud of myself. I know I should be feeling on top of the world right now, but I don't. I've hit this milestone but I've never felt worse.

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I've been fat my whole life, so whenever something went wrong for me, I could blame it on that. All the anxiety and depression I felt, all social issues I encountered, the idea of not being able to achieve anything - it was all because I was fat. And I thought that once I wasn't fat anymore, everything would magically be better. Well, the fat is going away and soon I won't be obese anymore, but the problems are getting worse. I feel like losing the weight is actually having a negative effect on my mental health. Knowing that I'm going to have success in this one area of my life is just highlighting how badly I've failed (and continue to fail) with everything else. I have no friends, no job, still live at home - I'm nearly 24 and I have no path in life. It's absolutely terrifying.

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Has anyone else experienced this? How did you beat it? I've completely hit rock bottom and I'm having a hard time seeing a way out. I've lurked here for a long time and the sub has really helped with my journey, so any advice/stories regarding this topic would be much appreciated. <3

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I finally broke my plateau!

I've been slowly losing weight over the past year. Not as aggressively as a lot of you on here, for sure - I'm down about 40lbs over the year, and aiming for the same this year. If the rate stays consistent (I know it may not) then I'll be back at my high school weight by the end of the third year, and meet my lowest around half a year after that. I'm setting interim goals - for this year, I want to get back under 200lbs. The loss over the past year included some setbacks and mistakes, so I think it's very reasonable for me.

Speaking of setbacks...until this week I had been stuck between 240-245lb for 3 months. I think it was a number of things, including some body recomposition, because I did lose a couple of inches during that time. But it was also the holidays, eating out too much, etc etc. The usual culprits. But. I finally realized it wasn't going to magically change unless I upped my activity or reduced my calories. So I dialed my calories in from the recommended 1lb/week loss and here I am! Weighed in at 234.6lb this morning and I am so, so proud of myself. I've had extended weight loss plateaus before, and in the past that had been the point where I would give up and yo-yo back up to where I started or worse. But this time I wasn't going to let that happen.

Obviously I probably could have figured this out a little sooner, but I'm so glad that I did, even if it took me a couple months to get there. I've started eating foods with more protein instead of carbs for breakfast and wow, what a difference it makes in my hunger level. I'm eating literally half the calories and feeling full for hours instead of getting hungry an hour later.

As for activity, I still need to figure something out. I've been doing belly dance once a week for 4 months and I love it, but I still have a hard time regularly exercising at other times during the week. I talked to my instructor about private lessons so that's one avenue to more exercise that I love. But the other things I've tried...eh. I get tired of yoga after a few months and stop. I have a stationary bike that I don't get tired of, but without fail I end up hurting either my knees or feet on it and don't get back on for a while.

I did spend last weekend digging up grass in my yard to turn into a flower bed, and that was great exercise, but obviously not something I can do every weekend. But I am finding myself naturally making changes in my life to be more active and eat better, and that is encouraging to me.

Not really looking for advice here - I know that I probably need to be a little more religious about the accuracy of my logging, and that ultimately I'm going to need to either be more active or eat less or both to continue the losing trend over time. But I'm finding that making small changes is working really well for me, so I'm going to take it one step at a time. Today I'm just happy that I took those steps instead of giving up.

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SV: I've officially hit my first goal: Onederland! Also some lessons I've learned about getting healthy.

Long post ahead folks.

First things first – I've lost weight before. At the time I was just under the weight I reached today (196lbs to be exact) and I dropped around 40lbs in an exceptionally unhealthy way. I became very obsessive and eventually my SO convinced me that I needed to stop.

Fast forward 2 years and I stepped on the scale to find myself even heavier than I was the first time I tried to lose weight. I knew I needed to do something about it but I was also worried that I'd fall into bad patterns. So this time I promised myself I'd do it slowly. I wouldn't count every calorie but also do some intuitive eating. I wouldn't just STOP eating altogether. I'd exercise a little but not so much that I would faint in the middle of the street. You know, the basic be good to yourself stuff that doesn't always come easy to the people who've been taught they're nothing just because they take up more physical space than others.

And it has been working. I started around 6 months ago and I've lost 35lbs. Unlike last time I can actually see the change in the mirror. Like, actually see it. What's more, I believe it. I don't think the scale is lying to me or that the clothes were always this loose when they certainly weren't. I'm making progress. Seeing that I'd made it to onederland and my first tangible scale goal today made me so happy, and instead of planning out how I could loose more faster I went for a walk in the sunshine (I live in Australia), bought myself some new bras (very much needed), and had an ice cream just because I felt like it.

Onto the lessons (which are working for me and hopefully might help someone else).

1. Weight loss doesn't need to be fast. It doesn't need to be slow either, it just needs to work for you. I think the problem with fast weight loss for me is that it becomes far too much like a hurdle that I have to jump over before everything can go back to normal. That way of thinking is bad for me in many ways – the least of which is that getting healthy is a lifestyle change that doesn't have an end date. I think it's easy to look at the awesome progress people make on here and get a little caught up in it. Those achievements are amazing and you all rule! But there's nothing wrong with taking it slow. It doesn't take away from what you're doing. We're all just here trying to be better versions of ourselves.
2. Exercise isn't everything, but if you're going to do it find something you enjoy. Exercise totally helps and I've been doing it but it's not a dealbreaker. Also, you don't have to go to the gym 3/4/5 days a week if that's not your jam. I go to yoga because it helps with my anxiety and I found a studio I really like. Sometimes I only go once a week and sometimes I don't go at all because I don't feel like it. I try and treat exercise in the same way I do food, in that it's not a hurdle but something I'm incorporating into my everyday life.
3. Everything in moderation. Sometimes my calorie deficient is 600 calories for the day. Sometimes it's 200 calories for the day. Sometimes I have no idea what it is and I just trust myself. Because I love food. I actually write about it pretty often for my job. I didn't want to go back to the place where I'd made something I love the enemy. Because for me, food is not the enemy. My unhealthy eating can be traced back to plenty of mental/emotional issues and overeating is just a symptom. So, if I want pasta I eat it – but only a small portion. Or, if I want an ice cream I log it and adjust my calories for the day. Or, sometimes (but not too often), I just eat something because I want it and that's the end of it. I won't undo all my work with one burger – it's when I'm eating one secret McDonalds meal a day that I have to be worried.
4. Address the emotional stuff. I don't know about anyone else but, in some ways, I had a pretty messed up childhood. To say I eat my feelings is the simplest way to explain what I do to cope with some of my pain. There's a lot more to it than that though. And talking to someone about it, really going in deep and not shying away from the hard stuff, has helped with so much more than just the number on the scale. I highly recommend doing it even if you think you're totally fine. Sometimes it's good just to talk to someone who is completely seperate from your life.

Okay I think that's probably long enough. I guess I have to think what my next tangible goal will be now (I'm thinking 180lbs). Thanks so much for reading and I hope this helps some of you in some way!

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I've plateaued on my weight. I'm scared and I don't know what to do.

Hey ya'll. To make a long story short, I was at around 450 pounds during June of last year before I went under the knife and got my gastric sleeve surgery done. For those first 6 months, everything was going great. For the first time in my life, I felt like food was on my side, rather than this constant battle.

But slowly, I started returning to those haunting habits. I reincorporated Pepsi back into my diet after promising myself that I was done with soft drinks. I've now developed an obsession with the chili they sell at Wendy's because it's one of the things that doesn't fuck with my stomach too much. Ever since these habits have started to resurface, my weight loss has completely plateaued. I'm around 330 pounds but I'm so defeated that I'm afraid of stepping on the scale.

This is the second night in a row where I'm crying my eyes out in the Wendy's parking lot because I physically can't stop myself from going inside. I don't know what to do, I'm at a complete loss. This is my last hurdle to actually restarting my life. If I fail this, I die. I die in a bed alone.

I'm in desperate need of help, please just tell me what to do and where to go. Just anything that will head me in the right direction. Thank you.

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Need some advice!

Hey guys, first time poster here. On my phone and english is not my first language so sorry for weird or wrong spelling. Im not sure where to get advice about this or if this is allowed but here it goes. Some background, I have lost 30 kgs by myself since July last year. Some stuff in my life happend and I ended up homeless. With no place to cook food you lose weight but it was only good beacuse I was at 130 kg wich is alot for a 23 year old. I feel alot better and have an apartment now so not homeless anymore. I eat better and are out for walks almost all the time so Im still loosing weight. I stay away from sodas, fast food and sweets. My problem is, I have mental illnesses. Anxiety, adhd and other stuff. And I can feel my depression coming back. When I get depressed, I dont eat. At all. Nothing tastes, I dont feel hungry, I dont get outside. I dont even get out of bed some days and Im scared it will affect my weight loss. Im afraid I will stop eating and letting my body go in starvation mode and save everything. I have a psychologist and I will see her next week. I just want some advice or tips from you guys who are struggling or have been struggling, you know how hard this is. I dont want to fall back, I dont want to lose progress. Not sure what to do.

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