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After 150 weeks I've finally hit my target weight | 253bl -> 183lb | 70lb lost | My story and how I did it

Progress pics: https://i.imgur.com/jbpjfvD.jpg

This is probably going to be a long ranty post, but I promise I will go into what I did to lose weight. If you don't wanna read my sop story I'll mark what I did with a big "THIS IS HOW I LOST WEIGHT" or something.

I had always been a pretty skinny person up until I was 18. However, that changed once I entered an abusive relationship, and I started eating poorly and drinks lots of cola and energy drinks on a daily basis. At my worst I'd start the day with a can of Monster, throughout the day drink perhaps 6-7 cans of Pepsi, and finish the day off with some kind of take out food, or perhaps a frozen pizza or something. Every drink I had was full of sugar, and every meal I had was junk.

My biggest challenge was my techniques for self soothing. Throughout my entire time at university, I had no real friends. I had chances to have friends, I started friendships with a few girls who lived in the same halls of residence as me, but my (thankfully now ex) girlfriend wouldn't let me see them. So I was lonely a lot, I never really went out, and I was hugely depressed. So I would just eat junk all the time to try make myself feel better. It wasn't uncommon for me to have pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

For me, it was easier to just say "I'm comfortable with my weight", rather than to take action, change my eating/drinking habits, and workout a bit. I'd say I was comfortable but cringe when I saw photos of myself with other people who seemed half my size. Of course the weight you're comfortable with is a very personal thing, and people deserve to be comfortable with themselves at any size, but I was lying to myself.

I didn't really try to lose weight until I hit rock bottom. I didn't know my relationship was abusive until I dissected it in retrospect, so at the time when I was 24, fresh out of university, and my then 6 year long relationship suddenly ended when I got cheated on, I was absolutely devastated. Couple my myriad of health issues, debt, no job with the loss of someone who had forced themselves to be the centre of my life for 6 years, I felt at breaking point. For a period I kept myself intoxicated 100% of the time. I had researched and planned an "exit" method. When you're that low, reach out to the people around you. I had the luxury of having a fantastic family, and fantastic friends who helped pull me out of the endless spiral. If you unfortunately do not have that luxury, reach out to the services provided in your country for help with things like this.

Once I had started to claw myself out of the hole I was in, and with a new found sense of freedom, I started to reclaim my life. It felt so liberating to be able to talk to whoever I wanted to talk to, see whoever I wanted to see, without fearing any kind of repercussions. For the first time in a really long time, I started to feel a little bit positive. Maybe I'm not this terrible person I've been made into believing that I am for the past 6 years, and maybe it's okay to treat myself a bit kinder.

My first attempt to lose weight was in 2020. The idea was this: I'd buy an exercise bike, 1 hour HIIT workout every other day. I can't change my diet, that'd be too difficult, so I'll just exercise to burn off all the calories that my diet is putting on me. I did this for 3 months and unsurprisingly I lost no weight at all. And that was the end of my weight loss journey. 3 months of cycling whilst still taking in all the rubbish I was having before. Starting weight 253.8lb, ending weight 250.0lb.

My second attempt came towards the end of 2020. I'm not sure how but I was 10lb lighter than I was a year ago. I had a brief stint of trying to reduce my portions a little bit, back on the exercise bike, but it didn't last long. Starting weight 243.4lb, ending weight 240.0lb.

My third and finally successful attempt came during the summer of 2021. I weighed about the same as I did at the end of November 2020, but something was different this time. Seeing my weight be 10lb lower than my start weight triggered something in me, a drive to push it further. My last two attempt were poorly planned, and kind of relied on me doing what I wanted and hoping for the best. This time I phoned up my doctors, told them I wanted to lose weight, and they assigned a life coach to me. We had an initial appointment where we discussed my goals, weight I want to lose, that sort of thing. And after that he'd phone me weekly, like an accountability buddy in a way. I'm a very fussy eater, but he really helped me find foods that I wanted to try that were healthier than what I was currently eating. And that was it. Starting weight 242.0lb, current weight 182.6lb.

So, what did it for me? What changes made me lose all this weight within a year and a half?

-clears throat-

THIS IS HOW I LOST WEIGHT

The first thing I want to share is the graph I created to monitor my weight. I've recorded my weight every Wednesday since June 2021, and intermittently before then.

https://i.imgur.com/88SQc6B.png

The reason I share this is to illustrate a pattern that I found worked for me. Lose weight -> maintain -> repeat. I also wanted to illustrate how much easier it is to lose a huge amount of weight at the beginning, before it becomes very difficult. When my weight plateaued at around 200lb, that wasn't because I stopped the diet I had started. That's because it wasn't a diet, it was a lifestyle change. No, it stopped because that was the limit of the amount of weight I could lose with the diet I had at the time. Anything beyond that would require extra work.

The biggest change I made was cutting out as much sugar from my diet as possible.

Regardless of your thoughts on artificial sweeteners, they helped me get over my addiction to sugar. And yes, sugar is very addictive. All my sugar filled energy drinks, sodas, fruit juices, etc. Were all replaced with sugar free alternatives. This felt like a cheat code, because once I got used to the flavour of sugar free, it didn't feel any different, yet the weight start slipping away from me.

Calory counting taught me how to portion my meals.

You don't realise how many calories you take in everyday unless you start counting them. It was insane how a cheeky 3-4 biscuits with my lunch would contribute so much to my daily calory limit I had set myself. I exchanged my snacks for fruits and nuts, instead of frozen pizzas I'd make my own pizzas from scratch. And most importantly, I started using the recommended portion sizes on packaging as a guide for how much I should have. I'm quite a tall guy, so I usually go a little bit above the recommended portion size.

Don't get me wrong, my diet was still poor, I was still intaking so much rubbish every week. I treated myself to fast food and takeout one or two times a week. But regardless, this got me down to 200lb. Which leads me to my next tip:

Diet > Exercise

For weight loss, exercise supplements diet. Without diet there is no weight loss, at least this was my experience anyway.

So, what did I do to break past the 200lb barrier?

I was diagnosed with GERD (acid reflux), which I suffered with a little bit at my heaviest weight, but seems to have stayed with me. You can take medication to help with it (which I do), but for the most part, it's not a condition you can take a pill for and then forget about it. You have to go on a very strict diet to cure it. No overly fatty foods, no deep fried/greasy food, the only meat you're allowed is chicken and turkey, cut down on carbs, cut down on sugar, no full fat dairy products, no pizza, no chocolate, no carbonated beverages, no alcohol + many more. Restrictive.

My current diet

The diet that got me from 200lb to 190lb, then from 190lb to where I am now, 182.6lb is a pretty simple one. Luckily I'm the kind of person who doesn't get bored with foods. I can happily eat the same thing for breakfast everyday, the same thing for lunch everyday.

For breakfast I do a 3:2 split of granola and plain cornflakes, with 100ml of oat milk. For lunch I'll do a simple wrap with vegan pesto, salad, and chicken/vegan alternative and have an apple and perhaps an oat bar on the side. For dinner I have a bit more variety. Some things I've had recently are spinach/red lentil pasta with mixed vegetables and pesto sauce, mixed vegetable soup, chicken chow mein stir fry, and vegan burgers with homemade chips. Between meals I'll snack on nuts and fruit. The only thing I drink now is water, and sometimes a herbal tea in the evening (which really helps with the cravings for something sweet after my dinner).

I want to stress that my diet might not be the healthiest diet in the world, but it works for me, and has helped me lose weight and to lose weight quickly.

There's some other things I want to note before I wrap up my post:

Body dysmorphia sucks

I can't help but still see the 253lb guy in the mirror whenever I look. It's depressing, and in the past I've hysterically posted on this subreddit about how I don't look any different, before promptly deleting my posts. I don't have a solution for this. All I can say is that if you suffer from it as well, you're not alone.

Stretchmarks are something to be proud of

They're our battle scars. They show we did something that a lot of people either won't do, or can't do.

Weigh yourself at least once a week

When I'm maintaining, I weigh myself once a week, however when I'm losing weight, I weigh in almost everyday. This is a personal thing, that's just what works for me.

Get a smart watch

I bought myself a smart watch a little while back, which has really helped keep me active. I've got it setup so every time I look at it I see my step count, and if the number isn't quite as high as I'd like it to be, it encourages me to walk a bit more to bring it up to where I'd like it to be.

If I think about any other useful tips I'll add them onto this post, but that's it for now.

This community has been so helpful for me, the amount of support I've received has really helped me keep going, especially during tough times. So thank you, to every single one of you for being absolutely fantastic, and making this such a wonderful safe space for us all. I'm always here for anyone who needs someone to talk to, just reach out, I'm always happy to listen.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/119fz9l/after_150_weeks_ive_finally_hit_my_target_weight/

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