tl/dr. My weight loss has gone much better and faster than I anticipated, and I am near my goal of 45 lbs lost by the end of March instead of May. I’m freaked out because I don’t recognize myself, and more importantly, I’m worried about maintenance.
I’m male, 47, 5’10”. Starting weight: 239.5; Current weight: 201; Goal weight: 195. Note: goal weight may seem a bit high for my height, but I’m a stocky guy with a naturally broad chest, wide shoulders and muscular legs. At 195, I was really happy with how I looked and felt. I once managed as an adult to get to 188, and honestly didn’t like the way I looked.
I has a husky kid, but my real weight issues didn’t start until my late teens/ early 20s, when my binge eating kicked in. Since age 23, I’ve lost and regained the same 50 pounds 3 times (4 including this time.). The first time, I maintained the loss for only a few months. The second time for 2 years, the third time for 4 years. Each time, a stressful life event(s) kicked in and I started stress eating and/or I stopped monitoring my weight. The last regain was in 2006.
Since 2006, my weight has hovered around 225, sometimes spiking to 238, sometimes going as low as 217, but I couldn’t seem to maintain the eating/exercise habits to get it to go lower.
Christmas 2018, after an incident involving a pan of cheese dip, my sister and I agreed that things needed to change. She started using a calorie counting app, joined a beginner running club and later hired a trainer. I did go to the gym more and dabble with a C25k app, but nothing sustained. This Christmas rolled around, and my sister looks and feels great. I had a doctor’s appt right after Christmas and realized I had actually gained 10 lbs since my last visit a few months earlier, putting me at 239.5. I know some was just holiday bloat, but still.
So this January, I got serious. I did Dry January, and didn’t drink a drop of alcohol. I downloaded LoseIt and got serious about logging. I restarted C25k. Based on LoseIt, reasonable weight loss estimates, I expected to hit my goal in May. and I was good with that. I figured that would give me time to adjust, and hopefully make the loss sustainable. I did nothing extreme with diet, except going cold turkey on alcohol in Jan. (I drank a bit in February)
I knew I had lost weight by my clothes, but I didn’t know how much. I have a problematic relationship with the scale, and don’t have one at home. I was curious in Mid February, though, and weighed myself at the gym, and I was 211. I figured it was a fluke, or some mis match between gym scale and doctor’s, but I had to go to my doctor’s later that week, and their scale had same reading. Since then, I’ve lost another 10 pounds.
I’m excited, but I’m freaked out. I’ve become obsessive with weight loss before, though that was 20+ years ago. I’ve also rebounded hard before from rapid weight loss and don’t want to do it this time. I’m worried it hasn’t been long enough to develop the skills needed to avoid my past habit of life stressor = weight gain. Especially since I spent the weekend eating more snacks and junk than I have in months, it felt like being on the knife’s edge between plain overeating and binging.
And I don’t recognize the person in the mirror. I’m pretty happy with who I see but it doesn’t look like me. The last time I weighed this, I was in my early 30s. Now I’m older and grayer. And my body is different. I’m not upset with the changes, but it’s like a new person.
I feel like an asshole for whining about something that should be a positive, but I feel like I’ve been thrown in the deep end of a pool to sink or swim.
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