I'd really like to add a picture for a before/after, but r/loseit won't let me and that is OK. :)
It took a medical emergency, but here I am.
I’ve been wanting to lose weight for years. I’ve subscribed and unsubscribed to this subreddit over the past 5 years too many times to count. It’s been a long and hard journey, but I’m ready to share.
My (step) father, who has been in my life since I was 2 years old passed due to a stroke and heart attack back in 2016. He was a renal patient (kidney failure/transplant patient) and his transplanted kidney failed back in 2015 causing an onslaught of other organ failures and catastrophic ailments.
When I was younger (pre-transplant for Stepdad) I would attend his Dialysis sessions and just black out. Watching his blood being pulled out of his body and cycled through the dialysis machine as a 2-6 year old was terrifying. This caused a petrifying fear of anything medical (Covid Vaccine was difficult to get, but for the greater good... just had to muster up the courage.)
Unfortunately one habit that was passed down from my stepfather to me was baaaaad eating habits. I wasn’t eating for sustenance. I was eating for taste. Give me that bag of chips and bowl of candy and I’ll pound both down like a frat bro and their can of beer. It got bad. Other bad habits that I had taken on were smoking tobacco heavily, drinking 2-3 alcoholic drinks per day, eating 100mg of cannabis daily... I was not living my best life.
Early 20’s I was sitting around 190lb, Mid 20’s, I shot up to about 240, hitting an average as I went into my 30’s of around 250. I wanted to lose weight, but just didn’t have the drive, motivation or will power. Covid hit and we all started working from home. This gave me free access to the kitchen during the workday and I was stress eating. I recorded my heaviest weight ever sometime around March of 2021. I hit 270.6 lbs. Knowing I was obese; I had this constant fear of heart attack or stroke or some other bad habit causing irreparable damage to my body.
Then it happened. April 2021. On his Birthday, 5 years after he passed.
I was working in the garden with my spouse, and I felt a clunk in my chest. I had to sit down and take a breath. I got dizzy and lightheaded. I got nauseous, had a pounding headache, and lost my equilibrium. Due to my adverse reaction to hospitals, I tried to tackle it with Tylenol, laying down, and calming myself and I couldn’t. I could not calm down. I did not go to hospital, I held off for 2 whole days.
After 2 days of crawling on the ground, complete disorientation, unable to eat, drink or anything, my spouse forced me to go to Emergency.
I essentially crawled in the front door, went through the Covid screening checkpoint and to the main counter. Within minutes of telling them my symptoms, I was rushed to a bed and given an ECG (Electrocardiogram). My bpm (beats per minute) was stuck around 175bpm. For those unaware, average resting BPM is usually between 60-100.
Then I spoke with the Doctor. He told me my body had gone into Atrial-Defibrillation (A-FIB for short). A-fib is essentially when one of your arteries has a “hiccup” and gets stuck in an arrhythmic heartbeat, and in my case, my heart was stuck around 175bpm. To fix this, I would need to be put under and have an electric shock put through my heart to “skip” it back into rhythm.
Picture this – A person with a phobia of hospitals, medical procedures, body ailments, etc, was told his heart wasn’t ticking right and I needed to be knocked out to be electrocuted to fix it.
I cannot….What. The. F….
After the procedure I felt “better” but I was morally and mentally screwed in the head. I didn’t know what the next steps were, but I had to do something.
So I did some research and my journey started.
SW – 270.6 lbs, Pack a day smoker, heavy drinker, minimal exercise.
What happened next:
The options I looked at seemed simple enough, I just needed to hope this scare kicked me in the right direction. I needed this to stick. I needed to work towards better health, mentally and physically. How can I accomplish this? Well, I can start by re-subscribing to r/loseit for inspiration.
Next was my plan of attack. Speaking with the Cardiologist, I needed to drop my calorie and carb intake. I needed to do this in a way that would drop my bad cholesterol. I needed to move, walk, run, something….. All this sounded good, but it highlighted the best tool in my arsenal.
Accountability.
I needed to hold myself accountable for every single morsel of food and drink that went into my body.
I needed to hold myself accountable for every single bad habit I had formed over the years.
I needed to hold myself accountable for every decision I made about my body.
I needed to document everything. I needed to learn what foods were low in calories and carbs that I still wanted to eat. I needed to keep a record of everything.
I bought a food journal, as I found the apps to be too confusing off the hop. I needed a basic tracking method that included my own calorie and carb research. (FatSecret was my best friend for researching nutritional info.) I went with a Cleverfox Food Journal ($40ish on amazon) and started writing down EVERY single item that went into my body. I also started recording my weight twice daily to see what my variance was. Once in the AM after my morning toilet run and once in the evening just before going to bed. I did not count myself as passing any benchmark weight until BOTH my AM and PM weights were below the mark.
I made a benchmark on my carbs and calories and exercise, and I needed to hold myself to these benchmarks. So I set some arbitrary numbers to just see what would happen.
My goal weight was 210lbs by the end of 2021.
My daily benchmarks were:
Calories – No more than 2000 per day.
Carbs – No more than 100g per day.
Exercise – Walk at least 10km per day.
My daily mindset was DO NOT BE HARD ON YOURSELF. Hold yourself accountable to these numbers for sure, but if your calories end up being 2070 in a day, so be it. You went 70 cals over. Try again tomorrow, look at the foods, see what you can change out to keep within these numbers.
IE- My tuna salad went from around 250+ cals to start, 5g+ carbs, but by the end of this run, I got that down to about 160 cals ( 120 cal tuna, 40 cal light mayo, like 3 cals for some green onion) and 1g carb. That cut out 90 cals and 3g carbs and kept it edible and delicious.
It wasn’t long before I felt a change. It took about a week for me to notice that my body didn’t feel sluggish. I started waking up early naturally (5-7am ish) and decided to use this time to walk. It started with me taking our puppy around the block a couple times (maybe 3km) to doing full on morning adventures with her. (10-15km 3-5 times a week) I had the time and since I started eating healthier and I wasn’t TRYING to wake up, I was just awake hours before I needed to be. My body felt like it had more energy, I noticed an increase in determination. I felt motivated, and my puppy couldn’t have been happier with the extra adventures.
The results were astounding.
265…..260…..255……250…….245…….240…….. and this was only from end of April to end of June.
I got worried as I know losing weight this fast isn’t healthy, so I reached out to my GP. She basically said, “Your daily goals are good, so it must just be weight your body was ready to lose, I’ll set you up with a nutritionist to make sure your body is getting what it needs.”
(truth be told, I have not seen the nutritionist yet, as Covid/our local medical system is stressed beyond belief. I’m still waiting on that appointment, and it’s been 3-4 months. I did however keep to my daily benchmarks and adjust them as needed.)
Alright body, let’s see how amazing you truly are……
New daily benchmarks:
Calories – 1800
Carbs – 50g
Exercise – At least 20km a day
AND BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The weight flew off…… quite literally…..
Around this time I found a box in our storage. I think this was the first time I cried during this journey. The box was literally labelled “Jesusdawkins – Too fat, would still wear”
I opened it and every single item of clothing fit, or was too large. I cried tears of joy. I couldn’t believe how far I’d come. Here I was sitting around 230ish lbs and I was fitting into clothes I was wearing 10+ years ago.
Let’s keep this train rolling!!!!
230……225……220…….215……..
Ok… We’re approaching goal weight here well ahead of schedule. Should I be doing something different? Lets ask the Cardiologist and my GP.
The Cardiologist’s jaw hit the floor during my treadmill test. (Heart stress test, walk on treadmill while incline increases and speed increases until you can’t anymore.) She was AMAZED at my change. She told me that she tells patients to do this all the time and I’m the first in years to implement a change to this degree. She didn’t recognize me!!! She told me that I’m still a bit overweight, but that I was on the right path. To keep doing what I’m doing. Same with the GP, although my GP told me to bump my calories up as she was fearing my weight loss was too rapid. Ok, benchmark is now back to 2000 cals.
210……. Uhhh ok, I increased calories here… why am I still losing weight…. 205……200…….195………to where I am at today.
192.4lbs.
I’m going to type that again.
192.4 lbs.
I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. Am I losing weight to try get into my BMI? (2.1 loss till BMI for those wondering, roughly 20lbs) Am I trying to find my maintenance? Am I trying for gains now that I’ve lost a bunch? Do I want muscle weight?
And that’s where I am now. I don’t consider my journey over. Accountability is still a main factor for me. Mid-August when I hit 200lbs even, I decided to stop weighing food, but keep weighing myself. I set my “goal weight” as my limit, so if I gain up to 210lbs again, I will revert to weighing food, but I haven’t gotten close. I would say I’m 195 with my daily variance, so that would require me gaining 15lbs of fat (not muscle) before I jump back on the weighing food wagon again.
All in all, it took a scare, but sometimes scary things can put you back on the right track. I only wish I knew what I know now before I went into A-fib, but count A-fib as a blessing for the journey I’ve had.
TL:DR
I, someone VERY afraid of medical everything, went into Atrial Defibrillation, which is when an artery “hiccups” and makes your heart go wonky. They knocked me out and electrocuted my heart, then told me to sort my life out. My body wanted the weight gone and holding myself accountable made me blow past any goal I set.
SW – 270.4lbs, Smoker, Drinker.
GW – 210lbs, Non-smoker, light drinker.
CW – 192.4lbs, 100% nicotine free, occasional drinker.
78lbs lost current.
