Saturday, May 29, 2021

SV - Down 90 lbs in 6 Months

I have attempted to lose weight several times over my life, and have succeeded and failed to varying degrees. Prior to this story, I had lost 80 lbs (455 lbs down to 375 lbs). After that weight loss, I decided to stop trying and, over the next 2 years, gained 140 lbs. I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life.

I started this leg of my weight loss journey back in November of 2020. I was 512 lbs when the company I work with took a trip to Florida. I was excited to go, but very apprehensive because getting on a plane at 512 lbs was not going to be fun. I was concerned that I was going to make anyone who sat next to me very uncomfortable because I was so big and would be, very much, in their space. Despite all my apprehension, I decided to go.

The flight wasn't terrible, but it was very uncomfortable. Luckily, the plane wasn't too full and there was an empty seat between me and the next passenger.

We landed in Miami and the humidity caused me to start sweating immediately, and I didn't stop sweating the entire time we were outdoors.

We stayed in a giant, 6-bedroom house with a swimming pool. Everyone else who went was incredibly fit, or relatively fit. They all went out and enjoyed the beach, walking around town, seeing the sites. I stayed in the house, sitting on the couch, playing the Nintendo Switch and swam in the pool. I felt weightless in the pool and it was a nice break from the incessant pain of my obese body crushing my bones and joints. During that week, I think I left the house 3 times. Everyone invited me out to go with them, but I new that I would be miserable at the beach and walking everywhere would just cause me to be a huge sweaty mess once we got where we were going, so I thanked them for inviting me and just stayed inside.

When we would go places to eat, I was too big to sit in a booth, the chairs for high-top tables are incredibly uncomfortable, and, for some crazy reason, all the normal chairs all had legs that stuck up higher than the seat, and it would stab into the backs of my legs. We moved a couple times so I could be comfortable, but after the third place we went to, and everyone asking me if we needed to move to another table, I couldn't be that guy anymore.

We went to a very nice restaurant and they seated us in a booth. I literally had to squeeze my stomach into the booth so hard that I could barely breathe. It felt like my stomach was in my chest. Everyone I was with could see that I was miserable and asked if we needed to move (they were very sweet about it). I said no. I'm not going to make us move again. Not only does it suck for the staff working to have to move us to another table, it is so embarrassing. This dude's too fat to sit anywhere in the restaurant so they have to keep moving to accommodate him. I couldn't do it anymore, so I just sucked it up.

The return flight was pretty much the same as the first, except I got an entire row to myself.

After we got back from the trip, I was ready to make a change. And, luckily, a friend of mine told me that the owners of a local meal prep and supplement company wanted to meet with me. I said, sure, and we set up the meeting.

The meeting went great and they said they wanted to help me. They provided me with about $1,000 worth of premade meals every month, as well as access to any supplements, protein, and anything else they had in their store. They said, whatever you need, just come in and get it. They gave me a unique coupon code, and I used that to get what I needed. All they wanted in return was for me to exercise (walking and going to the gym) and eat their meals.

So I did. I started going to the gym 4 days a week, walked 2-3 times a day and ate only their premade meals, their protein and took their supplements. I did that for 5 months and lost about 80 lbs.

The friend who told me about the meeting has a sister who is s personal trainer. I was talking with her one day and mentioned that someone told me that I should hire her as my personal trainer. She said, "I think you should too." So I did.

I hired her as my personal trainer to work out with me 4 days a week. She also gives me weekend workouts to do on my own, so I've been working out 6 days a week for a month and a half. She has also completely revised my nutrition to be mostly plant-based. The pre-made meals that I had been eating were mainly protein and carbs - basically beef, turkey or chicken and rice. My new trainer has me eating mainly whole foods: kale, chickpeas, black beans, tofu, all kinds of fruit, quinoa, broccoli - things from the earth.

This change in diet and exercise has quickly changed my physique, stamina, range of motion, and just my overall physical and mental health. I feel so freaking good now. They say to eat living things to feel alive, and I completely understand what that means now. Before, I was eating mainly dead animals and I felt sluggish and tired all the time, now I'm eating plants and I feel great!

Here's a TMI example of the improvement of my range of motion from the weight loss (I'll cover it up in case someone doesn't want the TMI.): I was so big that I couldn't reach around my body to wipe my own butt. I had to buy, and install, a bidet so I could take care of that. It's ridiculous to have that problem, but it helped me realize that I had been so lazy for so long that I ended up not being able to take care of my own basic needs.

So, here are the progress pics:
90 lbs down in 6 months
1 month with personal trainer

I'm incredibly excited about this progress over the last 6 months and can't wait until I hit my goal of 250 lbs.

If you want to see more, you can follow me at @_robfit on Instagram.

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Discouraged

Throwaway account. On mobile so formatting might be shitty.

I’ve been obese the majority of my life. In December of 2019, at my previous highest weight of 360, I decided I was going to commit to a real weight loss plan, and for a while it worked. Dieting and going to the gym multiple times a week took about 50 pounds off of me. My lowest weight was about 305. I felt better, I feel like I looked better too. I at least felt better in my skin.

Covid hit and the gym closed. I stopped working out. After a while I stopped dieting completely and just ate whatever I wanted. I’m currently over 400 pounds. My scale is maxed out. I don’t know how much I weigh.

I’ve felt so incredibly out of shape lately, so today I decided to just commit to my health again. I drove out to my old walking trail and started up the hill, but my back hurt and my calves aches after only 10 minutes. I’m back in my car now writing this. Nobody saw me out there, but I’m still humiliated. Not even a year and a half ago I was able to push through hour-long workouts!! Why did i let this happen? Just feeling like a failure.

Any kind words, or even better “I’ve been there”s will be massively appreciated. I feel like I’m too fat to even bother trying again.

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I'm planning a gradual lifestyle change

I'm currently 22F/5'2"/173lbs. I've tried calorie counting several times in the past and it always works, but I struggle to keep up with it and quit it after a few months nearly every time. Instead, I'm trying to do a bit of a wellness journey over this summer to build healthier habits. I'm using a habit tracker for the basics of a morning and evening routine and then planning to add a few small habits once a week or so. I'm trying to figure out what some high-yield daily food/exercise habits would be.

For this week, I'm going with a consistent wakeup time and very basic morning/bedtime routines, as well as a 2 mile walk daily. I do most of the things in my morning/bedtime already but not at consistent times. I hope that having routines will help me have consistent sleep (recently I've had a terrible college student sleep schedule). I already go for at least a one mile walk most days, so this week's change is increasing it a little and making it more consistent.

I want to figure out what a few good things are to add each week. For example, next week I'm thinking I'll come up with a few healthy high protein breakfasts and start tracking that I eat those every day. The next week I'll quit takeout lunches and switch to lower cal frozen ones or meal prepped ones. The week after I might start explicitly limiting alcohol more than I already am. The main idea is to make one small but meaningful permanent change each week.

Anyways that's the broad idea, but I'm not really sure how to choose what order I do these changes in and I'm not sure what additional changes would really help. I know that this kind of thing doesn't gurantee weight loss in the way that good calorie counting does, but I hope I can stick to these habits longer. What habits do y'all recommend?

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I have become completely addicted to food and I feel so hopeless.

I started my weight loss journey around 5 years ago now. I lost almost half my body weight and was only 10-20lbs away from my goal weight. Things were amazing - I could shop anywhere I wanted, I was calorie counting and didn't feel restricted by my eating choices, I was exercising and going out constantly, and even though I was self-conscious about my loose skin, I looked great with the help of a good bra and clothing that covered my stomach.

But life changed for me a little too fast and depression hit me like a freight train. I half-heartedly maintained for a few months, then spent the next two years slowly gaining more and more weight. After about 9 months of depression I sought out a therapist. After 2 months of pretty unhelpful therapy I sought out medication. Eventually I quit therapy, but kept on the medication as it did help tremendously with the depression.

Last year I developed binge eating disorder and found that every time I restricted my calories for more than about 2 weeks, I start binging. After my third attempt to lose weight killed by binges and shame, I sought out an eating disorder therapist. I've been seeing her for around 8 months now but nothing has changed. It's my fault, not hers, but I just feel so hopeless.

I feel like I can only think straight when I'm disgustingly full. After I've eaten a big (trashy) meal, everything seems to clear: my guilt, my shame, my desire to lose weight. I can plan out meals, shopping lists, exercise routines... But 3 hours later I begin to get hungry again and it all disappears. Suddenly I no longer care about any of it and all I want is to eat: the trashier the better. My therapist made several recommendations early on for ways to combat this, but the problem is when it happens I just don't care. The only thing I care about is eating.

I'm trapped in this horrific cycle where I gain weight, feel depressed, don't want to work out... Then just want to eat. And the cycle continues on and on and on. My mother just got gastric sleeve surgery and I feel so ashamed when I think about all the progress I ruined and she tells me that she lost 17lbs this month (she was in a similar situation to me). I spent hours today looking at local weight loss clinics but the truth is I really don't want surgery. I want weight loss to be easy like it was the first time, but it's not. It's so much harder.

And on top of the constant cravings for food, I've gradually eaten more and more so I can eat a lot of food before I'm even full... Probably 3x as much as I could even 3-4 months ago. I order out several times a week and typically when I buy food with good intentions to eat it, it goes bad because when given the option to order out or cook... I order out. Homemade food doesn't excite me anymore because all I want is garbage and sweets. I've even tried meal plans, but it was the same thing: I ate the premade meals for a 4-5 days before they just seemed so boring and I ordered out again.

I'm in a war against myself and I am not winning. It doesn't matter how much I think about the bad parts of being fat or the good parts of being thin, it doesn't matter that my body aches and I hurt walking up the stairs, it doesn't matter that I go to therapy, it doesn't matter what I buy to eat. I've even tried blocking the fast food websites with our home firewall, but I'll just binge the healthy food I've bought with good intentions for a week then give up and use my phone to order out until I fix the firewall.

I just feel so hopeless and I don't know what to do. I want to shop at stores I love again. I want to feel comfortable no matter what chair I sit in. I want my ass to not hang over the sides of the toilet. I want to feel light when I take steps. I hate living this way and I want to feel happy, energetic, and successful again.

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Finally going to take weight loss seriously with the help of this community!

Hi everyone! I joined this community a bit ago when I started to lose weight around October 2020. I originally was doing well, eating a bit healthier and working out several nights a week. Around December of 2020 I had lost about 18 pounds. I was excited to finally be below 250 and maintaining that. I struggled with mental health and was a bit more depressed and the job I started in December 2020 was super stressful and I would work 12+ hour days, often leaving me to buy fast food or only cook quick foods at home like frozen pizza or something due to being super tired and stressed and depressed. Well I finally quit that job and now have landed my dream job! That dream job has a gym at the facility! I want to start actually being serious about losing weight like I was in October 2020. In January 2020 I started half heartedly working towards losing weight again and got on the proper medication for my medical concerns (that make it easy to gain weight and hard to lose weight sadly). I want to now try to get back into losing weight and eating healthier!

Right now I am 5'3" and my starting weight is 235 and my goal weight is 145. Just knowing the difference in those numbers scares me and makes it feel super daunting especially since I have always been overweight ever since I was elementary school..

Any tips on how to maintain eating healthy and maintain an exercise routine for when the newness and excitement wear off and it starts to feel arduous? Thank you all!!!

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Set an “Oh $hit!” Weight for yourself. Even if you start gaining again, it helps you from gaining too much back.

41/F. 5’4” HW: 167, CW 159 GW: 135

A long time ago when I first started my weight loss process, I weighed 166. I decided right then that I was NEVER going to weigh more than that again. I made it my OH $HIT! weight. In the following 15 years, I have dieted, exercised, fallen off the wagon for a variety of reasons, started over, fallen off, rinse and repeat. But since I made that rule for myself, I have been able to catch myself and DO something before spiraling out of control. It has been a good wake up call for me over the years that I’m sliding too deeply back into bad habits.

So many of us work so hard to lose weight and then something happens and it starts creeping back on and then next thing you know, you’ve gained all your weight back and then some. Set a point for yourself, not your current weight or goal weight but a realistic weight that you just can’t go over again. Give yourself some room for when you are overwhelmed and stressed but set a ceiling for yourself.

I know some people see this as planning to fail. I see it as mitigating bad points in my life.

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My Weight loss app is suggesting a calorie budget of 800 a day. Is that a safe amount?

It was originally 1300 which I can easily stay under but I checked the settings and it had me down as highly active. I'm not active in the slightest. I scaled it down to not active - and it suggested around 700 and something calories/day. It gave me a lot of warnings about minimum calories being 1200, which makes sense, but eventually said minimum w/o supervision from a doctor is 800 (still over the recommendation but oh well - I set it to that).

I know for a fact I can consume 800 calories a day because yesterday I was at 760 total and not hungry (but I ate more because I was concerned I was too under budget - currently regretting that, but oh well).

I'm 5'6", weigh 145lbs, want to go down to 120lbs (a healthy weight for my body - I used to weight 115 naturally). I really am not active at all. I'm trying to go on daily walks but while I'm still in classes that's hard - will be starting it frequently in two weeks though. I want to lose 2lbs a week, ideally. However, I want to avoid going into "starvation mode" because I know that hampers weight loss. I'd really like to lose the weight through dieting if it's possible, just until I have more time to exercise. And even then - light exercise ideally. But I want to lose it safely and actually stay that lower weight.

If I'm truly not active at all, is 800 calories too low of a budget? Can I avoid starvation mode and still do 800 calories a day? I just want to accurately and safely lose weight! With the pandemic and classes, dieting has to be my go-to method, at least for the first two weeks.

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