Hey gang! I've been lurking in this sub for years, reading everyone's ups and downs, celebrating and commiserating virtually with all of you. I've never posted here before, but today felt like the day to join the conversation.
Today was my weigh in day. I knew my first goal of 50lbs was within sight, but I didn't want to hope too much in case I fell short. I kept telling myself if it's not today it'll be soon. But I was thrilled to look down at the scale this morning and see I had made it to 50.3 lbs lost since January.
But I didn't just want to post about this milestone, regardless of how proud I feel of having reached it. I wanted to share a bit of my journey in hopes that maybe someone will draw some of the inspiration that I've received from many of your stories over the years.
Like most, my journey started with a catalyst. In January, I got a call from the bariatric clinic in my city. My doctor had put in a referral with them almost 3 years prior when he saw that my weight was only increasing. After the call, I felt panicked and anxious. I didn't know if I wanted surgery. I'm 35 years old, other than my weight I'm fairly healthy, and I wanted to do this myself without taking up a surgical spot that someone else had also waited years for - maybe someone whose weight has reached a point of having a greater impact on their health. But boy, am I glad that I at least spoke with the team at the bariatric clinic! I had an appointment with a nurse who walked me through what surgery would consist of, the lifestyle changes I would need to make permanently (not just diet, but the permanent changes bariatric surgery makes to your body), and an assessment on my mental health. She also set me up appointments with a dietician, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist.
That was January 10, and I decided I needed to get more active. Now, I work a sedentary, at-home job. I'm at a computer all day. I've had days where I would work, move to the couch after work, and have less than 500 steps at the end of the day. So when I started doing evening walks in my neighbourhood, it was DIFFICULT. After a short distance, my calf muscles would cramp to the point I was limping. I was hoping that a bus bench would be around every bend so I could take a break. I was lucky to get through 3.5k steps in 45 mins. That's 7x as many steps as before though, so I counted that as a victory! But it was also an eye opener for me.
When I met with the dietician, he was understanding and helped me realize that dieting doesn't have to be constant restriction and miserable meals. I knew in my head that less calories would mean weight loss, but I always assumed it meant converting whatever calories were left to more greens, dry chicken breasts, and bran flakes for the rest of my life (and partially it is, I've certainly incorporated those things. Though I've gotten better at cooking chicken without making it dry and rubbery š¤£). He gave me a reasonable deficit to try - eat between 1900-2100 calories a day, prioritize proteins, try really hard to minimize sweets/chocolate, and track it all in an app that he could see.
This is getting lengthy, so I'll cut to the chase, here I am five months later. I still track and will probably continue to do so forever. I've found that I can still enjoy plenty of foods I love, and I've even learned to cook and bake more as a result; it's become something I really enjoy doing. I make homemade pizza every two weeks. I can control everything that goes into it, and I love it! I don't miss takeout pizza (or the financial impact of ordering it so much). I've learned to make pot pies from scratch. I even made my first loaf of homemade bread a week ago. I can still have all of these things because I now weigh my portions and track everything in an app. I don't feel like I'm starving, and for the first time ever I feel like I have control over my food cravings.
All of this is because after five months of trying, of picking myself up from backslides, of now hitting 10k-13k steps per day without calf pain, I finally have energy to do these things. I wake up earlier without feeling exhausted. I plan meals ahead and don't find myself in the "well I might as well order something" conundrum come dinner time. And most importantly, I've found a balance of eating foods I love in portions that aren't slowly killing me. Yeah, there's more broccoli beside my streak than there was before, but it doesn't taste so bad when chased by a strip loin. It took time, learning, accountability, and conversations with health care professionals who want me to reach a healthy lifestyle.
If you're still here, thanks for reading! My journey isn't so unique from others, and yours will have it's own, slightly different trajectory as well. But we're all headed to the same goal, and I've found that others' stories resonated with me, so I hope that someone will find this helpful: If you're stuck in a "tomorrow, I'll start eating better" loop everyday like I was, please consider changing it to "today, I'm going to make an appointment and ask for some help." It's nothing to be ashamed of, and it gave me an accountability to someone else until I had built myself up enough to be accountable to myself.
I will soon have to make a decision about whether I continue down the path of bariatric surgery, and until then I plan to prove to myself that I can do this without taking up that surgery spot. There are people out there who NEED this surgery to deal with weight related health issues right now. I don't want to take that spot unless I know that I've given weight loss everything I can give. If I do that, and my weight starts to increase significantly, I will take the surgery. I haven't reached that point yet, though.
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