How It Started
The date is June 30th, 2017. My name is Amanda and I weigh 331lbs. I just finished up an appointment at the gynecologist to get a mirena put in. My gynecologist, a sweet asian-american in her early 30s with a healthy body and kind face, tells me that the procedure is finished and I am good to go, but...
"Your blood pressure is awfully high, I am worried about you," she adds quickly. "It was high last time, too. You should really see a doctor, there is one here, I can give you a recommendation. He's very business-oriented and scientific, you'll like him."
Hesitantly, I agree. This is not the first time someone has spoken to me about my blood pressure, but it will be the first time I have visited a doctor in almost 8 years.
Thyroid issues, blood pressure issues, and diabetes run in my family. I go home, my stomach balled into a disagreeable knot, to contemplate my upcoming appointment. I am still thinking about it the next day when I wake up hungry. I am thinking about it as I eat my ice cream later that night, googling symptoms for diabetes. On July the 3rd, I am still thinking about it as we stock up on BBQ sauce, potatoes, corn, and meat to celebrate the 4th of July.
I've thought about it so much, dreaded it so much, that it finally dawns on me: no one should have to be this stressed about a doctor's appointment... A simple checkup. Then the thoughts quickly cascade through my mind? "Why are you stressed?" Because I am fat. "Whose fault is it you are fat?" Mine. I did this. "If you made yourself fat, who makes you not fat?" Me.
Then: "Is there a subreddit for weightloss?"
There was. That night, I spent hours browsing /r/loseit. I didn't want to waste the food we'd bought, so with a lot of trepidation, I told my boyfriend I wanted to start losing weight on 7/5/2017.
What Happened Next
In the days that followed, I downloaded MyFitnessPal. I took progress photos. I calculated my TDEE for the first time. I bought a new lunchbox so I was forced to bring my lunch to work. I tracked every calorie. I stopped buying soda. I stopped eating out. I spent an embarrassing amount of time pinning "healthy" recipes.
The first month, I lost 19lbs. When I went to the doctor, I was in perfect health: not even pre-diabetic. I told my new doctor enthusiastically that I had lost weight and couldn't wait to come back next year. From his casual, dismissive nod it was clear he wasn't optimistic about my chances. I vowed to myself I'd prove him wrong.
The second month, I created an Instagram account and began sharing the food I ate. By that point, I found I could replace ice cream with Halo Top and Protein Smoothies (which totally counted as breakfast), so I started coming up with complex and delicious protein shake recipes. I transitioned from MFP's initial calorie estimate of 1850 calories a day down to 1500 calories a day. It was working. I learned that carb-heavy foods left my hungry and read that protein was very important to healthy weightloss, so I began minimizing carbs and maximizing protein.
Months passed. I began eating 1200 calories a day. I continued cooking. I signed up for the gym, but only went sometimes. I kept tracking, I kept losing. It was working. I found the unofficial discord linked in the sidebar and began spending a lot of time there. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, everyone told me I looked amazing. In January, I started a new job with a bright future and twice the pay. In March, I completed C25K and ran my first 5K: my local Color Run. I had the most fun I've had in public all year and my boyfriend and I promised each other we'd do it again next year.
Then, suddenly, a year had passed. I was well over 100lbs down. I took my final selfie in the mirror at Lane Bryant, a tear in my eye as their smallest tanktop sagged and bunched around my hips. I silently promised the woman in the mirror that I'd never be back. I began shopping at regular clothing stores. My new coworkers began to notice my weightloss. I made friends with other healthy people: the company gym trainers, our security guards, the new girl on my team that brings mealprep for lunch every day. I proudly became a moderator for the discord community that offered me so much support throughout my journey.
Right Now
The past few days, I have -- for the first time in my journey -- had multiple people tell me that everything I know and everything I've learned is wrong. I had another redditor tell me I don't understand what it's like to be obese. One told me how healthy you can be despite morbid obesity. Another told me bodies don't respond to calories. Huffington Post told me that I'm biologically destined to fail at weightloss and that I'll never keep the weight off.
I'm standing here today as living proof that you can do this. I am here to tell you that every bit of negativity you hear, every person that tells you you can't succeed, every poorly-conducted study that talks about starvation mode, set weight points, metabolic damage from weightloss, and every former friend that tells you you don't really love yourself if you lose weight...
Every single one of them is wrong.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2MPLreW
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