This is going to be a total gush-fest so don't read if you're allergic to squee, but YOU GUYS.
I've been dieting seriously for only a little over a week. I've only lost seven pounds (249 SW, 242 CW), most of which I'm sure was water weight. But the ways it's already improved my life are staggering. Here they are:
The 2X clothes that always felt just slightly too tight on me are now loose and comfortable. I no longer feel like I have to suck in my stomach all the time, which I've been doing more or less constantly for more than a decade (if there was any fairness in the world, I'd have abdominal muscles like steel cables by this point). I can't wait until they get too big and I need to start dropping sizes completely.
I have a long habit of sleeping too much and missing out on mornings. This has gotten worse in the last two years as I've been out of work with (non-obesity related) chronic illness. Now I'm waking up at eight or nine am naturally. I seem to require less sleep.
Related to the above, I feel like the god damn energizer bunny all the time--and that's with a condition that causes chronic fatigue as a side effect. People without neurological conditions must feel like they've had a rocket strapped to them.
- I no longer crave sweet things
I've had a bad history of binge eating, especially on sweets and sugary food, which is partially how I became obese. I kicked the binge eating for good about a year and a half ago, but I held onto my sweet tooth. Now I've given up that as well, and it's amazing how fast I got over the desire for sugar. If someone brings home a packet of biscuits, I can eat one and walk away. I'm looking at the easter eggs in the shops at the moment, and the idea of eating one doesn't even seem appealing anymore.
I was never one of those people who drink soda exclusively, but I loved me some sugary drinks and often would drink more coke and pepsi than water. I recently ditched coke for coke zero; then the taste of that got too sweet, so I stopped drinking coke zero and started drinking fruit juice; then I found out how much sugar is in fruit juice, so I gave it up as well. And holy shit, water tastes so good and refreshing now that it's the only thing I'm drinking. My kidneys must be thanking me.
Counting calories has a huge cultural stigma around it. It's seen as at best this enormous chore that only stuffy fun-haters burden themselves with, and at worst an instant gateway to anorexia (I cannot imagine being a teenage girl who wants to watch what she eats, people must over-react at the first sign of the weighing scales coming out). But I think it's really enjoyable! I've been going to supermarkets and scanning stuff with MyFitnessPal just so I can plan future meals around it. It's all the fun of shopping, but you don't even need to spend money.
Okay this is just pure vanity, but: I've always been a handsome guy. I get a lot of attention from women (and gay guys--howdy fellas). I know I look good. But I look way better now. The face gains have been unreal.
- My body is becoming the shape it was meant to be
I have a "naturally" slender build. I take after my father, who's been a thin, tall guy all his life. Even at my fattest, my arms were always stick thin and I had narrow, muscular shoulders. This always bothered me, because I could see the way my body was supposed to look before I drowned it in calories and puffed it up with ridiculous amounts of salt and sugar. I don't really like the whole "there's a thin person hiding inside of every fat person" mantra, but in my case it's absolutely true. I want to be tall and lithe like I was in my early teens, instead of looking like an inflated beach-ball with four sticks jammed into it.
- It helps with Gender Feels
This is a pretty specific one, but I struggle moderately with gender dysphoria. I'm not trans--not at the moment anyway--but I have issues around my internal gender identity not always matching my biological sex. Becoming "smaller" is really helping with this.
- It gives me something besides my illness to focus on
In 2016, I was left disabled after an unfortunate car-crash related event. I don't know when, or if, my condition will improve, and as time has gone on I've started having to face the possibility that I might be in this for the long haul. My situation is very powerless, as there's nothing I can do to improve my mobility besides try every treatment available and hope one of them helps. I can't work or go back into education. I can only work on my hobbies and creative goals sporadically. But I can control my weight. I can control what I eat. How much I weigh, and how likely I am to develop diabetes and heart disease, are fully within my power to change. When you're bed-ridden for most of the day, that's hugely liberating.
That was a whole lot of positivity, so to bring things back down to earth: I know I've only just started. I know this is likely the honeymoon period and that it will get more difficult. I'll face setbacks, and my weight will probably go back up as well as down.
And I know I'm lucky in many ways. I'm one of those people who genuinely "carries their weight" well--even at my worst, you'd never have guessed from seeing me fully clothed that I'm firmly in the obese range of BMI--which is a big reason why even this minor weight loss has had such a big impact on the way I look. I got past my binge eating problems well before getting serious about weight loss, which means I don't have to tackle them at the same time. I don't suffer from depression or anxiety or any of the other common conditions that can fuel over-eating. I'm doing this on easy mode.
And that's partially why I made this post. If you're facing more challenges than I am, if you think you can't do it...just read that list of all the ways losing seven pounds (seven pounds!) has made me happier. You can feel like this too. Don't focus on 100 or 200 or however much you have to lose in total. Just focus on seven.
I'm looking forward to seven more, and seven more after that, until I'm in the healthy range. I'm never going back.
