Hi y'all. I'm really stoked to finally be having some success at this "health" thing and I want to write it down just in case my story can shed some light on yours.
Like many folks here, I've been dealing with poor eating habits for years. Even when I was a kid my eating was disordered, and when I quit competitive swimming in high school, I started gaining weight. Ever since then I've struggled with body image and related self-esteem issues. I've tried a dozen times to shed the extra pounds, and sometimes found significant success, but it never stuck, either because the changes I made weren't sustainable in the long term, or I didn't keep up the changes long enough for them to become habits. Eventually, each time, I fell back into my old eating patterns and gained it all back, and usually more on top of it.
This year, all that has changed. Here's what happened.
WHERE I STARTED
I was lucky to start with a couple of advantages. I had a regular sleep schedule. I consistently meal prepped homemade food for my 12-hour work days. I woke up early to eat breakfast. I drank lots of water. And I had all the knowledge necessary to lose weight and eat healthy—everything about calories, CICO, macros, TDEE, even stuff about strength training—I knew all the theory from my many past attempts at getting healthy.
Despite those few good habits, 2018 was a really hard year for me. I was unhappy with my living situation, I got no exercise, ate like a grizzly in the fall, had few hobbies and never made time for the ones I did have. I spent my weekends (3-4 days long) on the couch, smoking weed and eating to pass the time. The self-hatred was so real. I was a shit person doing nothing with my life and I didn't deserve to be happy.
I guess I never really believed that last part, because I still had hope that I could change and someday be the person I wanted to be. Well, in January '19 I said screw it, when is someday if not today? I started to make a couple of changes that I knew needed to be the first steps on a long journey.
THE FIRST CHANGES
First, I started to listen to my body's hunger and fullness signals. Even when I was eating something terrible like McD's, if I felt a fullness signal, I stopped eating. Even if there was food left. I also tried to wait until I was sure I was hungry before I started eating. Both of these things were very hard for me to do because of my deeply ingrained habits. You know the ones.
Second, I made my roommate stop offering me food. He would go out for food at least once a day, either ordering in or going to pick something up from a fast food place, and every time ask me if I wanted something too. My answer was pretty much always yes, even if I wasn't hungry, even if I'd just eaten, even if I already had plans for dinner. I recognized that, while I could have worked on just saying "No" to the question, it would be a lot easier if he just never asked it in the first place. So I told him to stop asking, and just go get food for himself without telling me about it. The change was harder for him than it was for me—he felt rude not offering, but I told him I felt it was more rude to ask knowing that it was fucking with my goals. Losing that temptation was a game changer. I also avoided buying snack food at the store because I can kill a whole box of Oreos in one episode of The Office. I started relying more on the groceries I bought on the weekend to make actual food for myself. I found I ate less often if I had to cook, so even if I was making not-so-healthy meals, at least I was eating less of them.
THE CATALYST
Those first changes helped me start losing weight right away, but I was still wasting my weekends on the couch, bored out of my mind, and my self-esteem was still in the tank. I knew I needed to get out of the house and do something I enjoyed.
Choosing an activity was easy because last fall I, kind of impulsively, dropped $300 on a season lift ticket to the ski resort near me. I skied a lot when I was a kid, but until this winter it had probably been 10 years since I last went. It took a while to push myself past the barriers of entry—expensive snow gear, learning to chain my tires, and the self-consciousness I felt about being new at something—but on January 14 I finally made it up to the mountain for the first time.
I can’t adequately describe the transcendent feeling of that day. Even the drive up to the mountain was surreal. The clouds, the sun, the snowy vistas—natural beauty has always been my raison d’être, and having such gorgeous weather on my first day back on the mountain felt like the world was spurring me on. I almost cried when I got off the first lift, turned around and saw mountains rising like islands out of a sea of clouds.
After that I went skiing every weekend, often two days a week, because it was so FUN, I loved being out in nature, gliding through soft powder, and I loved the thrill and challenge of guiding myself down a 45 mph ice coaster with the risk of wiping out HARD at any second. It also turned out to be exactly what I needed to kick-start my weight loss journey. I never ate or drank much when I was up there, because that would mean bathroom breaks and wasted time, so I dropped about 20 pounds in 2 months. On top of that, I quickly gained strength and endurance in my core and legs, and I even noticed by butt changing shape in response to the exercise.
FORGIVENESS
Ironically, skiing season ended for me when I wrecked my car in the snow on the way to work. Around that time I fell off the wagon and started making bad choices again. Boredom/feeling bad > urge to eat > let myself eat > instant regret. It felt so familiar. The disappointment. The hopelessness. The resignation that I'll always be like this because it's too hard to change.
Again, I must not have truly believed that, because then I never would have stepped on the scale again. But I did. And....I was the same weight as before! I was astonished. I had crashed and burned so hard, and for so long—why I hadn't I gained any weight back? When I told my fiancé, he said the reason was obvious: I don't binge anymore. Lightbulb. I don't binge anymore! I hadn't even noticed because I hadn't really tried to stop; I'm doing more hobbies and self-care activities on the weekends, and now the TV doesn't even come on when I'm home alone. I just don't feel the need to binge like I used to. I feel better. I'm not a shit person after all. There's nothing wrong with me, I'm normal—a normal human who needs mental stimulation, physical activity and emotional fulfillment.
WHERE I AM NOW
After that realization I dove into tracking and weight loss head first. I browse this sub all the time, totally inspired and motivated by every single post. It feels so good to be eating the right amount and ACTUALLY SEEING RESULTS. Yes it's slow, no it's not easy, yes sometimes my weight goes up instead of down, but now I get peace of mind from knowing that being persistent will get me to my goals, regardless of how long it takes. Small victories satisfy me, and I've learned that I don't have to be perfect to get somewhere.
My diet is basically 100% in check now. I eat out only occasionally, pretty much always planned ahead with my fiancé (who is also on a weight loss journey). I have been sticking to 1200-1600 calories a day and tracking everything I can while also starting to incorporate exercise. Cardio has been easy; I like running, especially outside in the park. For years I've wanted to start lifting but I had so much anxiety surrounding being new at it and looking stupid that I could never get up the courage to go to the gym. Until recently. Last week, in fact, I think was the first time I went to the gym to follow a lifting program that I found on /r/fitness. It wasn't intense enough so this week I've started a new program and I'm really looking forward to the inevitable strength and physique gains.
WHAT'S NEXT
My next goal weight is 149.9 lb, and I hope to hit that by June 15, when I fly down to Texas to visit my extended family. I think I weighed around 160 when I went last year and I gained several pounds on that trip thanks to the phenomenal Tex Mex and the barbecue.
Aside from that, my goals are to stick with my strength training program and do cardio 2-3x a week as well, and try to up my protein intake to consistently 100+ grams per day. I'm not sure if that will be "enough" to optimize muscle gain, but it'll be better than what I'm doing now. I also want to be more precise in my calorie tracking and figure out what my TDEE really is. Calculators give me anywhere from 1500 to 2100, but average around 1800 which I think is a little low.
I don't really have an ultimate goal weight because my goal is just to look hot. I guess the best measurement of that would be body fat percentage, but since I don't have a way to measure that accurately right now, I'm just going to track my weight and try to gain strength for the time being. I'm hoping by this time next year I'll be maintaining my weight and happy enough with my physique to wear whatever I want!
If you're still reading, I'm impressed! Thanks so much for your time. I hope you found my journey so far enlightening and can draw some wisdom from it. I'm always down to chat about weight loss or anything really, if you need someone to talk to. Have a lovely day and good luck on your road to great health!
