Good day all the Redditors out there! I wanna share my journey so far with all of you out there for a couple reasons; to educate others out there in potentially finding a weight loss strategy for you, because I'm so darn proud of myself!! And also just so I can maybe inspire others, so.. here we go.
For as long as I can remember ,I was always overweight. Now I know a lot of eating addictions spawn from trauma , and I would say to my situation that has some validity to it, but alot of it also goes down to your mindset, environment and other external factors. Growing up, from a bird's eye view, I had a very positive and happy childhood. I thank my parents everyday that they were able to provide me with a roof over my head, undying love , and support to make me into the man I am today. We weren't poor growing up, but by no means rich. With that the foods we ate were definately good, but having parents with both full time jobs leads to excess amounts of frozen foods, junk foods, ready to go foods. Kids eat when they are hungry, kids eat to grow, so I was never taught portion control, nor was I penalized for my food intake. Both of my parents were overweight, but not be extreme amounts, and my brother was as skinny as a twig, despite eating considerably worse than me, so I always blamed my obesity on genetics, farther from the truth. I was always the fat kid at school, either I was or one other kid were always the biggest in the class. Now keeping that in mind it never bothered me, I was thankfully never bullied throughout my childhood once by my peers for being obese. I was a genuinely happy kid at school. My brother was a different story. He was the reason I began to feel bad about myself, and spiraled into a self deprecating whirlpool of self pity and disgust. He would constantly put me down physically , emotionally and mentally, to the point of feeling undesirable and worthless. That lead to a dangerous path of eating my emotions away. I sought comfort in food, it was yummy and it made me happy. My parents were gone a lot, so a lot of this bullying went unheard and behind closed doors. Going into highschool he ended up getting in trouble with the law and I can say thankfully he is out of my life and is not having an effect on who I am anymore. Getting back to the main grunt of my story I would eat and eat and eat. Summer breaks I'd crush a case of pop in two days, eat whenever I was bored, hungry, happy, sad, all the bad foods too.
When. I turned 16 I was diagnosed with gout which has definately been crippling. Almost overnight I cha he'd my dietary habits, staying away from red meats, shellfish, but kept drinking pop, kept ordering 2 medium pizzas from dominos cause it was such a good deal! 😂 And up until recently I had to suffer this without the proper medication cause my family doctor was not great, never educated me on my gout.
21 years old now, Fast forward to the recent months I weighed myself out of the blue. 306 pounds... I knew I was heavy but seeing that 300 mark left me feeling defeated. That if I didn't make a change now then I could die.
The great thing about the internet, and Reddit for that matter is that it is a wonderful asset for information, knowledge , and interpersonal details on what has worked and not worked for others.
I did my research, read post after post of what motivated people and got them off their lazy butts 😂 so I came into water fasting.
Water fasting had several benefits to me. Being a sufferer of gout keeping hydrated is an absolute must, so drinking 4-6 liters of water a day came natural. I can be, when I put my mind to it, a very disciplined person, so the schedule of eating one day and not eating the next came very natural, and after the first week the hunger cramps and feelings faded. I started eating a lot better. I'm the days I do eat it's 1500 calories , high protein, vegetables , low carb, low sugar. Take vitamins and other suppliments to get all the healthy nutrients I might not happen to get from my diet. Only drink water, never drink calories away people!! I began to enjoy cooking for myself, getting into the routine of counting my macros and prepping for the days to come. Exercise wise I didn't change at all. I have a fairly active job so I get anywhere between 10000 to 20000 steps a day.
Some people go on to say cheat days are a bad way to insentive yourself but it works for me. Once every two weeks I don't care about my calorie intake and eat the foods I love , gives me something to look forward to. The biggest hurdle for me was disassociating food with comfort, and seeing it more as fuel for my body to get healthy.
I am currently 7 weeks in ,so fairly early into my weight loss journey, but the results speak for itself.
As of this morning, I went from 306 pounds at my heaviest to 260 pounds. That's 46 fricken pounds!!! In less than two months.alternate day fasting has saved my life. And it will continue to be a vital and integral part of my life. I'm still 80 pounds away from my dream goal but everyday you take one day at a time. There will be moments of weakness, but please don't beat yourself up. Any steps you take to better your body will go noticed, even if it's minor. I plan on making an update here and there to share my experience.
I just want to say to all of you out there with doubts.. you can do this, weight loss is possible. Go out there and prove yourself wrong!
