I'm not necessarily looking for advice, just wanted to air this out.
8 years ago is 2014. I've been journaling since then, and it dawned on me that I've been "calorie counting" since 2014...
For most of my life I've been overweight. Growing up, I never paid attention to calories, ate what my Mom made me, and just stayed like that. I was never comfortable with my body.
In 2014 I entered college. While people got their freshman 15, I got 30 pounds in one semester.
College in general was a depressive 4 years for me which I won't get into now, but I've long recovered since then. After gaining that much weight in freshman year, I pushed back with a heavy cut and calorie counting. The thing it, I was a complete beginner at this point. Paid no attention to nutrition, my calorie cap was about 1200, and my diet consisted of soup, cinnamon rolls, and a musketeer bar. Of course I had hardly any energy to do anything but I could get away with this because college. I didn't do any weight lifting, only jogging.
Over the course of sophomore year I went from 191 to about 148 lbs, my lowest weight every. But I wasn't happy, my body looked the same (fat to skinny fat) and I looked sickly. My memories if foggy from this time, but of course I regained the weight. Due to depression I developed a nasty habit of cutting during the week, then binging on junk on the weekend. I tried adding weight lifting because I realize at this point I also needed to build muscle if I wanted to change my body, but again, as a novice and frankly anti-social introvert, I ended up hurting my shoulder.
I think it was around junior year (2017) that I hit rock bottom. By then I added alcohol to the food binges. I'd go without eating the entire day, using coffee as an appetite suppressant, then binge at the end of the week. One night I drank a six pack of beer while gorging on food, it was late at night, I was lying on bed then just turned over and threw up on my bed. The smell that lingered was the worst part. I sincerely considered sleeping outside of my dorm instead.
I don't think I necessarily changed much from this incident though other than taking it easier on alcohol. I had resigned to my depression and knew I was stuck in a cycle, using food to make myself feel better, but I at least had a confidence it'd end upon graduation. By graduation my weight crept back up to 165 lbs.
Post graduation I just focused on fixing my mental health. I did lots of jogging, I hadn't introduced weight lifting yet. As I heal from the past, I started weaning myself off my binging eating, though never entirely, just less drastic. Around 2020 I tried keto, and it worked. But again I didn't do weight lifting. I got down to 150s, I went off keto then regained the weight. My Dad was a big fan of keto, and got my on the diet again in 2021. In both of these instances I was unemployed. Again, I didn't do weight lifting, I did started doing speed walking that jogging, but it was such a time consumer, and my thighs would chaff. I got success with keto again (went down to 158 lbs), but then went off of it again. Regained most of the weight
Now it's 2022, my weight is ironically at about 188 lbs. But some of it is muscle this time, other parts of it is water retention due to creative. I've got a big gut because of the beer I drink, and I think my body's just prefers allocating fat there. Odd enough I don't feel that terrible about my body, the little bit of muscle that I've added is all the difference. My shoulders look wide, my biceps have some substance to them.
I'm clearly fat, but with some muscle, and that makes me feel good.
I wanted to write this out because it just dawned on me what a journey I've been on, yet I still struggle. I've at least learned that my goal shouldn't be to "lose weight". My goal is body recomposition, always has been. My body fat percentage is about 31%, I want to get to 15% to see abs. I know that I still need to calorie count, but I need to do that while 1) eating enough protein, 2) and lifting weights at the gym, while ALSO 3) not using food anymore as a reward, and instead turning to other things as a reward
I also wanted to write this out because I fell of the wagon. I tried a 1500 caloric cap, but dieting while working a full time job is very tough. I wish I got is down pat back during college when I had so much time. But this time, instead of reactively lashing out at myself, I'll be kind to myself and say "hey, maybe 1500 calories was too steep, let's try 1700 calories max"
But even if I have success with dieting, I'll need to consider my plan for keeping the weight off. I've made a couple permanent gains to my diet and physical health though. That's 1) consistent gym attendance, 2) eating more protein than in the past, 3) consistently drinking water.
That's all, just wanted to get it off my chest.
