Warning. Super long thread. 246 down to 160 in 7 ish months. 32 year old male.
Photos before and after https://imgur.com/a/i5xOkNg
This has not been super fun to do but I had to sit down today and look at my first old mirror photos I took before I started my weight loss journey back in January of this year starting at 246 lbs (2023). It’s now November 13, 2023 and I’ve hit my goal of 160 lbs but still struggling with a few things that simply require more patience, kindness to myself and time.
Just wanted to share as I’ve always been overweight and the chubby or straight fat guy since I was 17 it feels like. My body always stayed between 220-245 and ever since I was 26 years old I think I’ve just sat at 235-245. I’m 5’10 and have always hated my body.
Little background on me, I’m not coordinated or athletic nor did I ever enjoy sports. Poor vision and hand eye coordination made sports not fun. I loved computers and tech. My career since I was 25 has me sitting for 9 hours a day and I’ve always really enjoyed food. Indian, Thai, fast foods, Chinese. I used to work 2-3 jobs so I always justified it by being on the go. My mom is overweight but my dad and sister are not. When I was younger I had a thicker build for my shoulders and chest and legs. Never had issues with strength. But endurance I had zero. Then the older I got the more fat I got. Tale as old as time.
Precious attempts: I’ve tried probably 2-3 times in the last decade to eat better and lose weight with the gym but the results took too long or life happened and I quit my path. Usually life happened. It wasn’t a priority for me so I didn’t focus on it. People have always been nice to me about my weight. Maybe a few jokes but I always joke about myself anyway. No alpha male energy stuff. I liked who I was minus the weight. Never thought I was a 10/10 but I enjoyed myself as a person and was lucky to be surrounded by good friends and have good family who have all been supportive. It didn’t help that I broke my ankle on a motorcycle 13 years ago and it never healed right so my running form was garbage and I would hurt myself by trying too hard. So I tried some weights but didn’t want to get bulkier. I tried the treadmill and hated it. I tried the elliptical and that stuck for a bit but I could only ever get down to 228 after 3 months of working at it from 246. That was discouraging. So I quit.
This year for work my physical that I do (I work in healthcare) said I could be on the path to becoming diabetic one day and my PCP asked if I ever had interest in losing weight. I said yes but little luck. She said she would be happy to prescribe me one of the new weight loss drugs but it likely won’t be covered. So I tried to get them filled and they were denied and I wasn’t going to pay $1000 a month for these drugs despite hating my weight and looks and the fear of going down the diabetes road. I messaged her and she told me if I really wanted to do it that I could easily if I put my mind to it. But it would be hard to start and even harder once I’m there. She was right. Told me to come back in for check ins every few months to make sure I was doing okay and to add a good multi vitamin as I lowered my caloric intake.
I went and decided no more eating out. No more sugary drinks. I was never into soda but I liked juice and would eat out 6-8 times a week like chipotle. I switched to buying pre made meals from Kroger with the calories in mind to keep myself under 1500 calories a day. I added broccoli and cauliflower with dip as snacks with sugar free apple sauce. I went to bed hungry very often but refused to eat after 11 anymore (I got off work at 10:30 PM) and then started at planet fitness using their ARC trainer. 30 minutes a day for 3-4 nights a week. Doing intervals. 2 minutes fast and 3 minutes slower. Rinse and repeat.
Eventually the weight started coming off. Calories in. Calories out. 1500 a day. Cardio 3-4 nights a week.
Did this for 3 months. The weight started shedding. I became a little addicted to checking the scale. I increased my water intake. And I felt good.
I started to go to the gym 4-5 nights a week and increased my cardio from 30 minutes to 45 then to 50 minutes and increased the resistance slowly more and more. When you weigh so much, the efforts required to do cardio normal people can are a lot so of course I burned a lot of calories during this time. Then I would go home and have a veggie snack, more water, and pass out.
On a sidenote, it becomes very apparent how hard it is to go out and socialize with friends and still stay within your calorie intake needs. Particularly one most socializing is based around drinking or eating out. I’ve never been a beer guy so that wasn’t a problem, but I would certainly have no problems finishing a sizable and hefty entrée before. So I would start looking at menus in advance to see what healthier options they had on the menu so that I did not feel my own self-imposed peer pressure to order something more when I arrived and smelled the food and saw other people eating. I had zero peer pressure through friends or family to eat more or to shame me or make me feel insecure.
A little more history. I’ve been dating the same woman since 2014 who was with me from when I was my lightest and looked my (relative) best around 215 pounds to my heaviest at 246 pounds and she had never said a single thing to me about my weight despite being a very petite 5’6 125 lbs girl. God bless her. But I always felt she was never into me physically due to my weight although she never said it. She has always had a low sex drive so I could never tell or differentiate and assumed the worst so that added to my body self hatred.
Luckily sticking with the calories in method and pre made meals and starting to notice how many cals made up things I had been eating and cooking more at home it became easier to drop the weight. My stamina in the gym increased. I only did cardio. The ARC trainer forces your cardio form and was low impact and high in caloric nature. It really is the biggest equipment to my success. Upper and lower body workout. Not many places have them and the elliptical still sucks and is not the same.
(Continued in a comment due to length)
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