[SV] Under 200 pounds for the first time in a long time!
I found this sub a few months ago and decided I'd make a post once I'd hit <200 lbs, and as of earlier today, I am at 196!
I've been fat my whole life. It started as being "chubby" or "husky" in elementary school, but by middle school I was full-on obese. I never weighed myself very often because I always new that it was going to be bad news, and, until recently, I've never really had the drive to get in shape.
I do remember that, in my sophomore year of high school, as part of my health class, I had to be weighed. I believe that at that time, I was 240 or at least somewhere in that ballpark. I was very unhappy with that number, but like I said, I just didn't have the drive to do anything about it.
Around this time last year, I had an opportunity to go indoor skydiving, and the very first thing I thought was that I'd probably be too heavy for the machine. I checked the website of the place, and the max weight was 300, but it also said that if you were over 260, you'd have to let the staff know so they can use a certain machine. I didn't think I'd be over 260, but I weighed myself on my home scale just to be safe. It read 273. I knew I was fat, but I had no idea I was that fat. I ended up (stupidly, in hindsight) just sort of lying to the people at the indoor skydiving place, and luckily nothing went wrong. It was actually pretty damn fun.
That was a bit of a wakeup call for me, though. I realized I had become fat enough that it was going to genuinely affect whether I could do certain things, and I didn't want to have those limitations. I didn't really do anything crazy or unique. I didn't even know what CICO was at the time, though I knew that weight loss was just a formula (calories burned has to exceed calories input). I started eating less, eating healthier, and excercising.
It. Was. Fucking. Hard.
Holy shit was it hard. I had been trained my entire life to eat what I want, when I want. I'd regularly eat 3 or 4 hot pockets as a meal, then eat a bowl of cereal an hour later. I had to completely retrain my brain and change my relationship with food. I had to start thinking of food as something that keeps me alive and gives me energy rather than something to gourge myself on, and that took a while. I really wish I'd known about this sub in those beginning stages because it would've saved me from having to figure a bunch of stuff out on my own, but I've got it down now, and that's what counts.
I got a bike and found some good audiobooks to listen to while riding. I realized I'd want to ride for longer if I was listening to a good story because I wouldn't want to have to stop it. One thing that was a massive help was knowing how to cook. Luckily, I was already pretty decent at cooking, but the type of cooking that I had learned (which involved stupid amounts of butter, sugar and salt) wouldn't help me on this journey. Nowadays, a regular meal of mine is a couple of small potatoes mixed with some zucchini, onion, green beans, mushrooms, bell peppers, and just about any other vegetable I can find, and it doesn't feel like I'm settling. That's the important part. If you can cook meals that are delicious and that you genuinely enjoy (and don't just "like it for a healthy food"), you will find that eating healthier is way easier.
Another huge help is to not have snacks in the house. I know myself well enough to know that, no matter how earnest my intentions, if there are chips or pizza rolls in the house, I'm going to eat at least some of them, so goodbye, chips and pizza rolls. Now, when I want to eat food, I have no choice but to carve 30 or so minutes out of my schedule and chop up some damn veggies. Just knowing this fact keeps me from eating out of boredom. Heck, earlier today, I really wanted a snack, so I grabbed a few carrots out of the fridge. A year ago, those carrots would've almost certainly been replaced with chips.
Another massive change that I made was cutting sugar out of both coffee and tea. This was damn near as difficult as the whole rest of my diet. I was born in the southern US where "sweet tea" could be found at every dinner table. For those of you who don't know what this is, think of a pitcher of black tea with literal pounds of sugar mixed into it. I learned that if I bought higher quality tea (i.e. loose leaf), I wouldn't have to rely on sugar to give it flavor, and instead could enjoy the flavor that is naturally in the tea. I also drink a bunch of coffee and always have. Around 2 years ago, I'd drink probably 3-4 cups of coffee every day, and every single cup had probably 3-4 tablespoons of french vanilla creamer in it as well as a tablespoon of regular sugar. I've slowly weened myself off of that for the past year or so, and I'm to the point, now, where the only thing that goes in my coffee is milk. I'd like to switch over to just having black coffee at some point, but I'll have to do that slowly and methodically.
My goal for the past year has been to get under 200. I honestly didn't even think further than that because I didn't think it would happen. I suppose my new goal is somewhere between 170 and 180, and you can be sure I'll be making another long-ass, rambly, nonsensical post when that happens :)
TL;DR: Was 273 lbs. Ate less, Ate better, Excercised. Now I'm 196 and looking to get to 170
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