First: Progress Pictures
November 2018; April 2019; May 2019; July 2019; September 2019; October 2019; Early December 2019; Late December 2019; Jan 2020; February 2020
Weight loss
Where I was
I was fat. For the better part of 30 years, I was not a light person. Whether it be just overweight or morbidly obese, I haven’t been a normal weight since high school. I went through a few life issues that caused depression. Couple that with a general disdain for exercise, a love of food that is not slow (fast food), and you kind of see where this is going. My last healthy year was around my senior year of high school, and that’s where the shitshow really ramped up.
What changed
I was a very regular weight lifter and racquetball player. I also played on the HS football team. These things might be the only reason I am still alive today. There came a point that I was less the athlete, and more the Magic: The Gathering/video gamer/Mt Dew drinker. It’s not that I lost sight of my goals, I had no goals. I was an athlete by accident, and once that accident wore off, I converted to my “natural state.” I graduated, and went to college, and this is where is started to get bad. I went from 200 lbs, to a more staggering 240 by the middle of my sophomore year. As my studies became more difficult, my need to move decreased, drastically. In order to stay awake while studying, I had to eat. I had to munch. At college end, I was around 280.
I didn’t change much when I went professionally into the world. I got a job. I got a girlfriend. I got a little bigger. I got married. I got a little bigger. I hate the word got. We had a kid. I got a little bigger. There were a couple times when I actually lost weight. I found some things I enjoyed doing that caused me to move around, and we started eating better. For the most part though, I was just working on taking up as much space as I could.
Then I got a divorce. That destroyed me. I was pushing 330 at the end of the marriage. Again, like the accidental exercise from before, this might have saved my life as well. I lost quite a bit of severe, life-crippling, depression weight. I was basically drinking water, and eating bread. If I didn’t have bread, I was eating crackers. I was full on suicidal, and way beyond caring, but I lost weight. For 5 years I became a hermit, eating little, and socializing to the most minimal extent. Then one day, I snapped out of it. (HA…there was so much there I just yada yada yada’d over)
I started gaining weight again.
I was eating like a teenager again. I was eating like a bachelor. Combine those two things, and realize I was on a first name basis with the ladies at the China Buffet, McDonalds, and the Hardee’s in town. I was a miserable happy. But I was ballooning again, and it wasn’t good.
I fast forward a few years, and meet someone truly wonderful. I had worked on my mental state, and found that I was in an okay place in my head, and she thought my personality was TOP NOTCH. I was heavy; at least 350. With her in mind, I started trying to get healthy again. I was walking, eating better, and wanting to be healthier. I dropped 50 pounds, or there about as I was not tracking a damn thing I was doing. I was walking..but who really knew how far. I was eating better, but I didn’t know how much crap I was taking in, only that it was better than before. Then one night something happened.
You can’t eat shit for years and not suffer. I laid down one evening, and my heart….my poor heart, was beating around 120 bpm. I couldn’t sleep. I did some quick doctor googling, and that caused some pretty severe anxiety. I was either suffering a heart attack, renal failure, or menopause. Don’t google doctor yourself. I took three Benadryl, and about 30 minutes later, I just couldn’t stay awake anymore, and passed out. I did this for three days hoping whatever was wrong would just stop being wrong. It didn’t. Finally, I drove myself to the hospital.
Since depression doesn’t lend itself to being able to take bad news, I hadn’t been to the doctors in quite a while….years. Years and years and years. I knew a couple of things going in; I had untreated high blood pressure. Every fun-loving cuff at CVS, WalMart, and Walgreens told me so. I also knew I had a slightly elevated pulse. Same said cuffs were always so happy to mention it. I did nothing for these. I walked into a pulse of almost 130 bpm, and a blood pressure of 193/136. It was so bad, they almost kept me. They also said I had to go on a step-down program. If I started taking the highest dose of every thing they wanted to put me on, I would crash from system shock (that was a good game in the 90s). I took a beta blocker, and two HBP medications, and for the first time in a long time, I felt normal.
But I stopped moving.
I was scared to move. I was so damn scared. I was scared to die. I was scared of everything. I started being distant to those around me again. I isolated myself. My girlfriend was super-supportive, but I didn’t let her know how bad off I was. I was a faraday cage of information. So……I started gaining weight again. Through disinformation, medication, and a general depression, I started down a destructive path of eating whatever the hell I wanted…..AGAIN. I stopped moving…..AGAIN. I had someone caring for me, and I was medicated, but I was a disaster. Thank Hannah I don’t do drugs or drink because I would have been over. I ballooned up to almost 400 pounds. I’m going to list a few of the things that you should be able to do as a human, but I found very hard.
I couldn’t tie my shoes without almost passing out.
I couldn’t get in and out of my car without breathing heavy.
I couldn’t fit in ANY booth in ANY restaurant.
I couldn’tturn to look behind me in my car.
I couldn’t wipe my own ass because my extremely limited range of motion made it almost impossible.
I couldn’t….bend….down.
I was almost unable to shop in the big and tall section of the local retail store. (also, whoever designs large guy clothing…..they like to be stylish as well damnit)
I never felt full.
I was dying.
What I started doing
I went in for another appointment at the end of last year, and was basically given an ultimatum; stop what you are doing, move around on a daily basis…..or die.
DIE.
So, on March 19th, 2019, I started. Well, I kind of started a little before that, but I was basically just eating a better lunch, and that was it. I started researching the easiest diet to do when you’re single. I needed something that was so close to NO-EFFORT, that I couldn’t mess it up. I actually decided to not go with a diet, just better eating. I downloaded MyFitnessPal, and RunKeeper. I decided to start walking, bought a scale, and invested in gym clothes. I had all the things to make a difference, and for some reason, this time it stuck.
Walking was……interesting. I decided if I was going to die, I wanted to die trying rather than just in bed, asleep while my heart gave out. I pushed past all the bad feelings my body told me about. I started with just one mile. I did that one mile in about 18 minutes. There was still snow on the ground, and it was still kind of cold, but was out the next day, and I did that one mile for a couple of weeks. I was pushing myself to go faster, and at the end, I was between 17 and 18 minutes. There was one evening, I really just walked all out, and hit 16 minutes, but my ankles felt like glass that was about to break, and I was in pain. I didn’t start.
I pushed myself to two miles, then adjusted my route so I could get close to 3.2 miles. I jumped this up to 4.5, then 6.1 miles almost daily. I was also dropping my time. I was too big to run, but I was walking as fast as I could, and by the end of the summer, I was averaging 12 minutes per mile on a 6 mile walk. I was eating better as well. Whole grains in the morning (overnight oats), a simple lunch, and some chicken and vegetables for dinner. MyFitnessPal turned eating into a game of sorts. I could move numbers around by adjusting what I was eating to hit my macro goals, stay under my calories, and add in my calories burned through exercise. I shed 30 pounds so damn fast. Soon after that I dropped 50 pounds. I was moving and maintaining about 1500 calories a day (as I was stepping down, I was taking in about 2000 calories) My clothes were baggy, and nothing was fitting right, but I waited to buy more. I found music and podcasts to listen to, some true-wireless headphones that weren’t expensive, but damn effective, and started getting to know the people on the route I was walking.
I found something sustainable.
Where I am now
So, when I started tracking my weight and sizes, here’s what I was:
Wieght: 372
Pant size: 48 inches
Shirt size: 4xl
Jacket size: 5xl
Today…..oh sweet sweet today, here’s what I’m at:
Weight: 217
Pant size: 32-34 inches
Shirt size: Large
Jacket size: Large – XL (Kuhl and Patagonia like to run small)
My panels have been coming back great. There is not a single warning sign on the charts. Also, for the first time in forever (I can’t type that without singing the Disney song line), I’m overweight! There are people I have not seen in a while that don’t recognize me. The lifestyle change has been amazing, and now I can’t imagine going back.
One things scares me; could I have lost this weight if I had not shed it so quickly? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that I’m aiming for 200 pounds, then I’m going to start strength training. I’ve completely changed how I see food and the world. I can wipe my own ass.
One of the things I cannot thank enough is this community. I subscribed to LoseIt just a few days after March 19th. I read, upvote, and relish in this community. You have all been there with me, whether you knew it or not. I’m so proud of all of you! I don’t care if you are successful, or struggling. You’re here! I’m not a young man, and I’m told losing weight like this, at my age, is HARD. I did it, and it was because of so many factors, but this group was a part of that. Thank you!!!!
TL;DR: Was fat, was dying. I'm older, and lost 155 pounds, and you can to. Don't wait to become your best self until you're middle years!
