Pics first since I know that's always what I look for first, but hopefully you’ll stay to read how I did it!
WARNING: Absolute wall of text below!!
BACKGROUND
I was always one of the bigger kids growing up. Even while playing basketball in school, I still managed to be overweight (which now makes me realize just how much I was eating). I never understood the simple principle that if your calories consumed were less than what your body burned you would lose weight, or vice versa. Even with a few periods of counting calories with the Lose It! app I would still bounce right back and usually tried to use exercise to lose. After high school I managed to go from about 265 to 225.6 through tons of exercise and most likely eating too little for a week at a time then bingeing. Around that time, I met my amazing future wife and stopped worrying so much about my weight. Since I didn’t lose in a sustainable way I just continued to gain and gain.
What finally snapped me out of it and made me realize just how heavy I’d gotten was when my wife and I got our wedding pictures back (in my first Before/After pic)! As extremely happy as I was on that day I wasn’t happy with how I looked and after our honeymoon I began tracking my weight in a spreadsheet though not really making any strong attempts at change until one day I weighed myself and saw 292.0. The thought of being that close to 300 for some reason really pushed me over the edge toward making a change. This was around Christmas 2016. As a New Year’s Resolution for 2017 (cliché I know!) I vowed to lose weight and started it off by going sugar free for January! I lost 12 pounds that month due to water weight mostly I’d say, though cutting cokes (Translation for non-southerners; Coke = any carbonated sugar-laden beverage) helped a lot I’m sure. It was exciting to start strong, but with no clear goal in mind my loss stagnated, and I lost focus of that resolution. Fast forward to late July 2017, I don’t even remember how but I stumbled upon r/loseit and I can honestly say that it changed my life.
THE PROCESS
After reading through r/loseit for a while and learning about the reality of CICO and TDEE I decided to give it a focused effort. I also realized by looking at my weight spreadsheet that I had managed to lose about 15 lbs with only a little effort and figured I might as well keep the ball rolling. I calculated my TDEE (about 2700 at the time) and decided on an aggressive 1500 Cal/day budget (1200 Cal/day deficit = ~2.4lb/week loss). The idea that my body was burning calories by itself and that I didn’t *have* to workout to lose was new to me. I decided that I if I could eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight without killing myself in the gym then I could probably commit to eating less of what I wanted. I redownloaded the Lose It! app and set it to 1500 Cal/day and started tracking everything I ate.
Other than the deficit I didn’t make drastic changes to my diet. I knew if I wanted to stick to it long term and not gain everything back once I did reach my goal I would have to still enjoy the food I ate. It didn’t take long for me to realize that drinking calories wasn’t worth it, so cokes and sweet tea went out the window. I realized I could handle the taste of Diet Coke occasionally and it satisfied the carbonation craving. Along with Caloric drinks, most sauces add up quickly Calorie wise, so I minimized how much of them I used (which was quite a choice to make because I’m a sauce fiend!). The next thing I realized was that being hungry was ok. I wasn’t going to die; I had plenty of fat to keep that from happening hardy-har! Allowing myself to feel hunger and know that I could wait until I had planned to eat was very eye opening. This led me to discover that I didn’t need breakfast every morning. My black coffee was just fine to hold me till lunch, so I started loosely implementing Intermittent Fasting (16:8). Making these changes slowly to stay on track with my daily Calorie goal made them much easier to stick to rather than telling myself, “Ok, starting tomorrow I’m cutting out all drinks but water, and I’m no longer eating breakfast, and I’m only going to eat kale and wheat germ, etc." I believe that is the main key, small sustainable changes that add up to a different, healthier lifestyle rather than an attempt to transform every ingrained habit overnight.
EXERCISE
I hate running. At least that’s what I always told myself. During conditioning in high school basketball, I would dread every minute of our runs. So, I didn’t start running to lose more quickly.
I love strength training. I knew it’d be easy for me to get a gym membership and do strength training. I also knew that I’d done that in the past and I’d start using that as an excuse to eat more and worse food. I forced myself NOT to get a gym membership and decided I would walk in the mornings to add a little bit more activity to my sedentary lifestyle (ProTip: Walking + Podcasts/Music = Great exercise and stress reliever!).
At some point I realized that the route I’d been walking was about 5k if I added just a little bit to it. This somewhat startled me, I didn’t realize I’d been walking that far. I decided to see if I could jog the whole thing without stopping. In conditioning for basketball, it was all about being faster or meeting a certain time, so I set out to take my time and just to see if I could even do it, regardless of how long I took. My mind was blown when I actually finished it and it only took 42:50! I thought for sure it would take over an hour but apparently the walking I’d done had helped my endurance. Somehow, u/j-thom, the person who hated anything that resembled running, was hooked. I made sure I implemented running as a conscious choice and not something I felt I had to do to lose weight. I lost weight by eating less and I ran to feel better and give myself more energy. I didn’t eat back any running calories and I know that sped up my weight loss but I didn't lean on it as the solution for being overweight.
Since that first run I have run over 400 miles and can now run a 5k in under 25 minutes. I honestly don’t know how that happened and I try not to mention it when people ask how I lost weight because the next response is always, “Oh yeah, of course you lost weight running!”Eye Roll! I enjoy running now and will always keep it in my exercise routine. Now that I have reached my goal weight and have a firm grasp on my eating, I plan to add in strength training again since I’ve lost some muscle mass during my weight loss and I don’t like feeling scrawny, which is not something I’ve ever felt before (read: was fat).
INSPIRATION
My main inspiration was my wife and wanting to look and feel better for her. I could sense she was concerned about me and if I'm being honest I know it would have been difficult to be attracted to me at my high weight. Also the thought of our future together with children didn't include me being too fat to have fun with them so I knew I had to change.
Many things helped motivate and inspire me during this process but knowing that motivation is fleeting is very important. Discipline is a much better quality to have when attempting a weight loss journey.
That being said, I did use motivation whenever it came, and r/loseit was a big source of motivation. I would log in daily at work (and still do!) and look at success stories and the daily NSV/SV posts on my breaks to help remind myself that others are doing this and that I can do it too. Another thing that helped a ton was splitting my loss into manageable chunks. Looking to lose over 100 lbs was daunting to say the least, but knowing that I was ~10 lbs away from my next mini goal at any given time kept me focused and determined.
This post by u/funchords was very helpful during a plateau and helped keep things in perspective.
There were also a couple quotes that stood out to me and that I placed on a Post-It I see every day:
- "No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates (469-399 BC)
- "Turns out restraint [is] a muscle worth building in absurd abundance..." - u/GenericBohr
BENEFITS
- 292.0 -> 183.6 (108.4 lbs lost)
- 38.5 -> 24.2 BMI (Class II Obese to Normal Weight)
- 38" -> 31" Waist (It was cool finally reaching & surpassing being a square - 32x32.)
- More energy. I can take part in basically any activity and not worry about being worn out.
- More confidence. I just feel happier and more comfortable with myself.
- I don’t worry about things supporting me anymore.
- I now enjoy so many more foods, including many of the “healthy” ones! Gasp!
- It feels good looking better for my wife and I know she appreciates the work I’ve put in to lose weight.
- Clothes fit better (the new ones I'm having to buy that is) and are easier to purchase when I know going into a store what size I'm going to be.
- So many more that I can't begin to think of right now, I may do another post with just the Benefits!!
HELPFUL RESOURCES
- r/loseit Compendium - Provides links and info for everything you need to know about weight loss.
- TDEE Calculator
- Losertown - Shows a breakdown of what you would weigh at certain dates based on Calorie intake.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2IMKrWR
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