Hello everybody.
Just wanted to say that I’ve spent the last few hours reading through the FAQ and guidelines of this subreddit and I was going to just introduce myself in the ‘Day 1 mega thread’ but I thought because of the extremes of my aim and my story and I’ll be hanging around this sub for a few years to keep me on track along with everybody else, I’d start a new thread. Also because I typed this out in Office docs then copy/past into Reddit the formatting is not amazing... SORRY....... :(
Where to start…… Not sure how personal I want to get on the internet, don’t really even use facebook and have no twitter or Instagram and almost never post on Reddit but this sub and the goal is something that is nothing but person so I guess facts and history will come out sooner or later if this is going to work in the long run. which from a shy and closed off person is extremely hard on its own.
I’ll start with a rundown on myself to kick things off. Names Michael D. online tag and nickname are both the same and that being mdem (said as emdem). Age is 29, birthday in September so almost 30. I am a male. My current weight is a staggering 195kg last I checked a week ago. My goal weight would ideally be around 90-100kg depending on muscle I guess. I don’t have a traditional job as most would be it, I’m a caregiver for my father at home, it’s just the two of us. I do all the cleaning, cooking, shopping chores ect ect.
So for a brief history on myself now that basic information is taken care of. I’ve always, ALWAYS been the big kid in class, in every way. I’ve always been taller than anybody in the room from the age of around 12 or so, in grade 5-6 I was both taller and fatter than my teacher and it was rather strange. I even have a picture of us standing as a group with some new play equipment the school build and you can’t miss me unless you are blind, lol. Even during primary school, I was fat, not crazy about to die if I don’t act now fat but fat nonetheless. Throughout all of my primary school days I was honest to god super active, probably more so than kids are these days because the lack of internet back then if I wasn’t in school I was on my bike with friends riding somewhere every day till it got dark, looking back I’m super surprised I was even overweight to begin with because of how much I loved to be outside moving and playing sports.. It was always so strange being the fat kid who loved sports… lol =\
In high school again with the same problem most of the time, taller and fatter than 90% of the school but not crazy fat.. But at this point in my life, it was starting to get out of control with more take out from the local fish n chip store at lunch and less movement overall as I started to become a teen/young adult. In grade 10 or so we had a weight in during schools P.E class and I remember I was already at 100kg then, it was shocking, shameful and embarrassing to me at the time. I remember kids starting calling me ‘100’ and all sorts of things, feeling like a complete failure as a person. If it wasn’t for my friends at the time it would have been very hard few years for me.
After high school was dealt with (very badly mind you, grades wise..) I went into a technical school here in Australia called Tafe, to start my path to being a chef because I loved the idea of cooking for the rest of my life. After finishing the 6-month course and finding a job and doing two years of my apprenticeship I knew I hated the career with all of my being, it was the worst and I needed to get out of it. Cooking was a hobby and not a career for me and this is where I found that out.
At this point around the age of 22 is where I reconnected with my father who I hadn't spoken to for about a year or so because of family issues and I moved in with him and became his full-time caregiver going forward. From the age of 22 till today being his caregiver has given me a lot of free time, like most of the day I have to myself so this is where I start to balloon as a person with no self-control, no self-respect and no goals for the future.
Each and every year from the age of 22 till today age 29 I must have gained about 65-70kg total or about 10kg a year. Around the age of 22 I also found out that I have PKD which I had gotten from my father's side of the family, it’s a kidney disease that’ll have me end up having to cleanse my blood via a dialysis machine a few times a week till I can get a replacement kidney to keep me alive. Which brings up a whole host of problems, because of my weight they will never let me on the waiting list nor ever get the kidney or have the operation because of the high risk involved. Because of my weight and my PKD I have high blood pressure which I take a number of medications for along with cholesterol medication too - 6 different pills all up for that. I’m very lucky in that I live in Australia with great health care and I also have the benefit of having a pension card that allows me to purchase all my medication at a discount of $5.60 per script, no matter what it is but it still adds up very quick, every month that’s $34.
Along with my PKD I’ve also had multiple kidney stones that were a major chore to remove in multiple different ways because my weight and fat made it hard. And I did have gall stones that were giving me some of the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life to the point I went to the ED three times with such pain that I needed intravenous morphine just to be able to cope. In the end, they were able to remove my gall bladder itself and that issue was dealt with thankfully but the Dr. said he was surprised I was able to handle it as well as I did because with what he took out most people would have stormed the hospital long ago demanding help. And last but not least is that I have an umbilical hernia, around my belly button that seems to have ripped open from the scar tissue at the keyhole site where they poked a hole at the bull bladder removal operation, which I can’t get fixed because of my weight issues, if I were to insist on getting it repaired there is no guarantee it’ll hold even if everything goes well so it’s been put off as it’s not life threatening right now but it does give me problems with minor pain and discomfort. Oh, I should mention I also get major heartburn indigestion on a daily basis and I go through a large bottle of Gaviscon every week or two.
For the 8 years or so I use to drive out to a drive-through, buy way too much food for one person, like.. 2-4 peoples worth of food, go to the beach parking area where it was empty, play youtube on my phone and just eat it all like a crazy mad man… and this would happen like once every two weeks too while also having taken out normally throughout the week along with a diet that can only be called a child with no rules to follow. Binge eating was a major factor of feeling like total crap about myself for sure, I kept telling myself “I don’t need all this food, stop man wtf” all the way to the beach then eat it anyway. Not only was it killing me quickly and with no mercy it was a major strain of money too, because it ended up being like $80 a week on takeout food when I needed that money for other things, though I never ran out of money for food for the house or any bills, I could never really save a lot of money either.
So all of this past history brings me to now. I have gone to see a Dr. about a possible lap banding in the future but it’s just an idea that I wanted to explore, after seeing the Dr. he said I would need to drop my weight to at least 160kg even if I wanted to go ahead with that idea. Which is fine I understood that, so to help me get started because of the extreme weight I am currently at he prescribed me some medication to suppress my hunger going forward with something called ‘CONTRAVE’, I was lucky to get on his trial program which includes two free boxes of pills, each with 112 pills I think. Normally you start with one pill in the morning in the first week, then increase it to one in the morning and one at night, then two in the morning and one at night and lastly two in the morning and two at night.
But he said if the medication works with just one pill in the morning then it shouldn’t be a problem to make the boxes last as long as possible and stick with one pill in the morning going forward. And holy crap do they work… I’m only about 5 days in but they work so well, even on the very first day I noticed that my need to constantly be eating something was gone, I no longer felt ‘hungry’, my body still wanted to keep going to the fridge/pantry to look for food just out of habit but I never did eat anything. Even during lunch and dinner, I’ve been eating a lot less then I would normally have for meals. Right now I’m having two meals a day - Lunch at around 2-3pm and Dinner at around 7-8pm, I know this probably is not a good idea long term and I’ll need to have at least a small snack or something in the middle so I’m not going to make myself sick but it’s a major improvement over the past. I’ve kind of stopped drinking sugary soda a few years back, I installed an under-sink water filter and I drink around 3L of water or so a day, though I do still enjoy cordials. I also have a SodaStream that I use to make soda on occasion when I need a sugar hit that is fizzy, though by in large I’ve cut back on most soda up to like 80% from the past. A major issue is still juice.. I love juice of all kinds and I always find it hard to stop drinking the stuff even though it’s so much sugar and it flairs up my heartburn too… I’m an idiot, though since I’ve started on CONTRAVE I’ve only had juice like twice.
So because of having so much free time on my hands I sit around on the computer a lot not really moving or being active, probably less active than the average office worker since I don’t need to work anywhere to get to work. In the past, I signed up to the gym and stayed there for around three months before I gave up because I did zero research or reading and just did random stuff for an hour and left so there was clearly no results.
So this again brings me to here, on this road to bettering myself and to this subreddit. My long term goal is 90kg by the end of 2022, so it’s about 2.3kg a month or around 430g per week going forward. With the help of CONTRAVE and the CICO idea and getting more movement in my day to day life and probably joining a gym again to help motivate myself too I’m hoping to get there and show myself that I can do it finally. I looked at tdeecalculator.net and it said 3100cal (12900kj) though I think I should be able to be fine with around 2600 going forward as it is.. Though I have not done it yet, would seem doable, though knowing that my upper limit is around 3000 is nice knowing I have some room to start off with at least.
I guess my future plans are something along the lines of:
-Total cal of 2600-2800 a day
-Eat only during 2pm to 10pm
-Maybe try fasting one day a week?
-Start walking a lot more to get moving
-Buy myself a Fitbit (Looking at the Inspire HR or Charge3)
-Maybe join a gym to be able to do a few different types of cardio workouts with some strength mixed in to help build some muscle, since the lack of any type of hard work in the past 10 years can’t have been good for my body muscles…
So in closing, I would like to ask on your advice on a few things:
-Do you guys think a Fitbit is worth wild? From what I’ve read having data is important.
-Would low impact cardio be what I should look into, for now, just getting my heart rate up while not harming my body?
-Is mixing in some strength workouts be a good idea for now, and if so what types of workouts should I look into?
OK
Well
That should be it for now, without going into crazy detail that’s me in a nutshell as of now on the internet o,...,o/ Hope to be joining in the cheering and joyful moments with you all going forward. I know this is a very large write-up and probably not the cleanest I could have written it but it’s 3 am right now so I just wanted to get this started and not keep pushing it off. So thank you all to whoever ended up reading it all haha, sorry to put you through it! Thanks for all your time and consideration ~
Cheers
mdem
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