I was always a skinny kid, but I ballooned really bad when I was going through a rough time at about 17. I got up to about 230 lbs at 6'2 and stayed there for about 7 years until around my 25th birthday last year. During this time I was doing so-so, no diagnised depression (never bothered to see a professional), but I'm sure some of you know that lethargic feeling of just not caring about anything at all... like, crossing the street with a semi speeding up to the red light just fast enough that you're not 100% sure he's going to stop in time, but you step out into the street anyway because you're 80% sure and you really don't care all that much? Anyways, that was basically most of those 7 years for me. Needless to say, I had zero motivation to lose weight or improve my life in any meaningful way. What ended up happening for me was essentially that I got more bored than usual one day and ended up installing one of those fitness apps on my phone. I realized this could be fun to play with and started seeking out foods that would give me the max. amount of bang for the calories whenever I went to get groceries. This pretty much put me on a diet of mostly frozen veggies and chicken (I hate cooking), but compared to my previous junk food diet it was a big step up. Most of all it made me feel great, so I started digging deeper and actually trying to regulate my intake. I set a goal of 1800 calories/day, which, thanks to mostly chicken and veggies, was pretty easy to do for me. Only went to bed feeling hungry maybe 5-6 times during the whole thing. Once the pounds started coming off though, the motivation came around real quick. The best part was punching new holes in my belt because it wouldn't go any tighter. Seriously, I'm going to keep that poor belt like a trophy. It's got like 5 extra holes crudely punched into it with a Swiss army knife and a screwdriver. It's awesome.
Getting down to 180 has completely changed my life. I'm still bad at socializing, but getting my confidence back has allowed me to take myself a lot less seriously, so when I accidentally respond "you too!" to the waitress saying "Enjoy your meal", I can now laugh at myself instead of spending the rest of the day thinking about what an idiot I am. I also get a lot more looks, people smile at me a lot more and just treat me better in general. All that has boosted my confidence to a level I don't think it's ever been at before, and since I got some of my motivation back, I've now started exercising regularly and walking about 3 miles to work and back every day. It's amazing to me how essentially just downloading an app and following a few simple steps led to such a cascade of positive things happening in my life. The next step for me is to start hitting the gym regularly. And to finally quit smoking for good.
To anyone reading this who is currently where I started last summer: I spent years imagining how impossibly hard it must be to lose a significant amount of weight, only to find I could have done it all along. If you're struggling with motivation, all I can say is it was easier than expected for me, and totally 100% worth it.
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