Hey everyone. Not exactly sure what I'm looking to accomplish with this topic, but I guess mostly just putting my own story out there to see what discussions can come of it.
So I've tried doing a weight loss thing multiple times throughout my life. I've been obese my entire conscious existence, and I'm 28. I literally can't remember a time I was on a scale that read less than 250Ibs. The best I've looked was probably High School when I was at about 260Ibs at a hair under 6', while I was playing football. After High School and through college, it got far worse. At the end of September this year, I clocked at the doctor's office 373Ibs. Last January, I was weighed at the dentist's office, and that read 405Ibs. I can't say if that scale was accurate, but if they weigh me again this month I'll know for sure. September was when I kicked in my current weight loss attempt that has been by far the most successful. This morning I was at 338Ibs.
The main motivators from that were two-fold. The first was I got a nasty skin infection that resulted in an egg-sized abscess on my waist right in my stomach fold. The location of it hurt so fucking bad. Plus I dealt with it for a longer period because it was resistant to the initial anti-biotics. I really don't want that fold there anymore for that to happen again. The second motivator was I went to a concert, and bought about $100 worth of merch. A long-sleeve shirt and a zip-up hoodie. Only thing is the band didn't have my size, so I had to go fairly smaller than where I currently am. I don't want to waste that money, so I'm looking to fit into it in the future.
This has been very challenging, there are a number of things aspects of me that are really not conducive to losing weight. One is I've got a sweet tooth like you wouldn't believe. My Dad and his Dad before him as well. We've all admitted to at one point taking a can of frosting, and scooping some out with a spoon to eat directly. Yep.
The second is my portion control has always sucked. Mostly because I'm almost incapable of feeling "over-full" or "stuffed". When eating out with friends or family, I could eat twice the amount of food they did, and they'd be over there complaining about eating too much and moaning/groaning about it, meanwhile I'm ready to go walking around a store no problem. Again, my Grandpa was known for being this way too. He used to regularly eat like five whoppers from Burger King in a single meal. Weirdly, he was and still is not obese.
Third for me is I'm what my family calls a "picky eater". Except I'm also full-blown into eating things a lot of people wouldn't touch, especially if it came from the ocean. Whatever. Problem is most vegetables taste vile to me. Onions, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, peas, you get the idea. Peppers are the worst, they smell like sewage to me. I don't know how no one else smells that. Thankfully most cooked vegetables are fine to me. Broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, carrots, etc. It just means that salads of any kind are almost completely off the table, and so are most plant-based condiments.
So, what am I doing to work around all this? Well the one thing I actually am pretty good at is going fairly long periods without eating much. When it's a mealtime, I can't stop myself from eating a massive portion, but I've gone 24 hours pretty easily without eating anything if I'm distracted by something. So after trying lots of different things, what has finally been working for me is this. No breakfast, my lunch is about half a bag of baby carrots (like 45 calories worth), and my supper is whatever I want so long as it's at or below 1400 calories. I've been doing this for the past few months, and it's been very nice actually seeing some results for the first time in a decade. Of course, sweets have been completely cut out. This has definitely been the toughest as my sweet tooth has never gone away, and I feel like a crackhead whenever I'm in line at a convenience store and I see the confectioneries they place near the cash register. But the number going down most mornings have been able to overcome that so far.
I work an office job, so pretty sedentary. I don't want to spend the money on a gym membership, because it takes all my motivation just to drive to a grocery store (I only go to 24 hour places at like 1AM when no one's there). Nothing's in walking distance neither. What I have been able to do though, was I purchased a Meta Quest 3 VR headset at the end of November. I had a VR headset prior, but it was an old first generation HTC Vive, and it had the tether. Being able to play even PCVR games wirelessy was a game changer. I regularly put in around 1.5 to 2 hours a night playing VR first person shooter games. Just finished playing through the Half-Life 2/Episode trilogy in VR. Yeah, it's not supposedly an intense workout, but several moments in those games do get me sweating pretty good, and I'm standing the whole time. Plus I don't use the controllers to turn around or anything, that's all physical movement (hence why I love the wireless so much). I've noticed over time it's getting easier and less painful to play those long sessions which is great!
Supposedly my TDEE would have me losing weight at even 2000 calories per day, but that has not seemed to be the case. I always gain significant weight if I approach that number. The sweet spot from my testing has been 1400, so that's where I'm staying.
Here's hoping I can stick with this. My goal is to be able to fit into the band merch I mentioned by at least Fall of next year. Though if I can fit into the shirt by a certain event happening in April, I'd be especially happy. I don't know what my end goal is. Supposedly a person my height/age should be around like 165Ibs? I can't even imagine that at this point. I probably haven't been at that weight since I was like 7, so that'd be a weird day. I suppose another motivator to mention: I like to play guitar. My size doesn't do me any favors however, as my fingers are pretty round, and my stomach has my guitar sitting a distance out in front of me such that my right arm has to reach out and around it, making it not an ideal playing stance. I know there's a lot of guitarists that make it work, like Dino Cazeras from Fear Factory, but anything to make that easier would be nice lol.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/te23JOp
