Stats: 40 F, Canadian, 5'7. Start weight 333 lbs. Current weight: 251lbs. Lowest weight 230lbs.
TL;DR: Was super consistent for over a year, then had a couple major life changes and now feel like I'll never get back to the person I was.
*** LONG READ INCOMING ***
In January 2024, I started my journey. I don't even know what prompted it, to be honest. It was a random day in January, near the end of the month, that I ordered a set of headphones and a gym bag from Amazon. I don't remember there being any real "this is it" moment. I do know that I was tired of constantly being in pain. My back was always hurting. It hurt from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I couldn't walk very far because my lower back caused me so much pain. My knees hurt. I was out of breath just walking into the grocery store. I had to walk less than 300 meters from my car to my workplace, and I had to stop halfway to take a breather. I couldn't find clothes that fit nicely. I needed extenders on planes, and the recent trip I had taken to Vegas, while fun, I was physically miserable for the entire time and felt like I complained and whined a lot from the pain and the heat (granted it was July). So I found myself at the gym on a random January evening after work. I took a picture and sent it to my long-term long-distance boyfriend.
I started slow, 3 days a week, and just walking on the treadmill. I would take a break every 5 minutes because my back was killing me. I also started phasing out regular Coca-Cola for diet Root Beer since I couldn't handle the taste of Coke Zero right away. Coca-Cola has been my main addiction for decades. In February, I started decreasing calories to about 1800 while continuing with 30 minutes on the treadmill and some light stretches. Eventually, 3 days a week turned into 4, then 5, and by May of that year, I was at 6 days a week and starting on weights as well. The entire time, my boyfriend was encouraging and since he was an hour ahead of me and in the military, we often chatted on Discord after he was done PT or while he was doing it (if he was just doing weights) and while I was in the gym as I switched to going to the gym before work (as the afterwork crowd was too peopley) and was getting up at 0545 like clockwork every day.
The gym became kind of my identity. I was there, six days a week, rain or shine, bitter cold or sweltering heat. I graduated from the treadmill to the elliptical and kept on with my resistance training. I stretched after and eventually got to the point where I could touch my toes while sitting. I also got strong enough and light enough that I could stand up from the ground without using my hands!
The more weight I lost, the better I felt. I could cross my legs again! I could fit in the chairs in the lunch room with room to spare. I could walk to and from the car without needing breaks. I could grocery shop without my back hurting. My back stopped hurting altogether!
My periods improved and became more regular (I have PCOS), albeit more painful. By January 1, 2025, I was down to 257lbs. I was in a solid routine. I took maintenance breaks when on vacation and bounced right back to my rhythm afterwards.
During this time, I was also diagnosed with chronic anemia and started on iron therapy.
Then, in May 2025, my relationship started to deteriorate. My bf started to pull away, to distance himself. I continued at the gym and with my eating plan, but emotionally, I was in turmoil. I had no answers, no explanations, just a lot of silence. In early July, he finally broke up with me in the middle of the night via text when he thought I was asleep. I spent much of the night awake. I went for a drive, ended up at a lookout over the city, talked with my best friend overseas, screamed myself hoarse in my car, went home and slept for a couple of hours, and then completed the most challenging hike I had wanted to do and felt amazing. A few weeks later, I adopted a dog from the SPCA. The first dog I'd had since my heart dog passed in 2022. Sometime in July, I hit 100 lbs down and thought FINALLY! I reached my first BIG goal. I wanted to be under 200 lbs by that December. Things didn't work out that way.
Since then, my routine - my rhythm - has been destroyed. For the first month or two while my dog was getting used to my work routine, I did not go to the gym. But then, after that, I found it harder and harder to get up at the same time I had previously. I was taking her for morning walks before work, but then as the days got colder, that stopped. I swore I would go back to the gym, and I did, sporadically. I still managed to keep to my caloric deficit for the most part and maintained that 100 lbs lost until December.
December came, and I thought, "Ah, what the hell, I want to enjoy food for the holidays," and for 2-3 weeks, I mostly stopped tracking. I ate whatever I wanted. I lost a 400+ day streak in Loseit over it. By January, I was up about 14 lbs from the beginning of November. It's gotta be water weight; maybe some fat gain, I told myself. I'll nip it in the bud quickly. But then I ended up with a bout of insomnia after having been off work for 3 weeks on vacation and reverting back to my normal night owl disposition, and so I wasn't able, physically able, to get myself up to go to the gym. In January and February, I went a couple of times. I made attempts to go at other times. I'd go for 2 to 3 days and then not be able to go again for a week. March was much the same. I tried sleeping pills, sleep hygiene changes, multiple alarms, and I just couldn't/can't get myself out of bed at 0545 like I used to before July 2025.
Then I started struggling with the caloric deficit. I couldn't drop down to 1500 because I was starving, so I increased to 1650, but even then, some days I just find myself overly hungry all the time. I look back at all my food logs on Loseit from the time I was so consistent, and it all feels like that's a different person, even though that person was also eating in the 1650-1700 range.
Now here I am, mid-April, and I'm up to 251-ish again, and I feel like I've lost the plot. I haven't been to the gym once this month. I have been taking my dog out on hikes on the weekends (last weekend we did about 8km total; 2 km one day and 6 km another day); the weekend before that we did 10km over the two days (7 one day, b/c I got a bit lost, haha, and 3 the next). I also find that during the week, I can stay consistent with food, but the weekends are where I tend to completely blow through the deficit I created during the week. I fall into the trap of "I hiked for 7km today, so I can go above my calorie budget today!" but then I go too far over, and I try to play catch-up the next week, but it just repeats itself.
I've also recently been diagnosed with subclinical hypothyroid, and I am waiting for an appointment to determine the next steps.
I look back on my logs on LoseIt and my progress photos, and it feels like I'm not the same person. Like that person and I are completely separate individuals. I want to get back to being that person; to being at the gym 6 days a week because I felt SO GOOD doing that. But then I think of my dog, and I feel sad leaving her so early in the morning. She's INCREDIBLY bonded to me, and even though she's never home alone (I live with family, and she is free to roam up into their part of the house), I am her person, and she is very depressed all day until I get back, so I feel bad leaving her for longer than necessary. But also, I'm just having difficulty getting up in the morning now, and I don't know how to fix it. How could I consistently do it before, and now I can't?? I had/have plans on how to make it work. Gym in the morning, walk her in the evening, especially now that it's lighter out later and it's getting warmer. But I still can't seem to get myself out of bed in the mornings consistently.
I am also still struggling with the breakup. I yearn for the day I no longer think of him even once because I hate that I still do. There was no closure; no major fight; no angry words; just distance I couldn't cross and then "sorry, it's not you, it's me." He was my rock for four years. We were planning on me moving in with him; I was looking for jobs where he lived; I thought I was going to spend my life with him. We talked nonstop. And then just like that - he's gone, and I'm left without that rock. That constant presence. I have trouble making friends, and I'm not an overly social person in real life (I can handle online friendships, but in person can be really exhausting for me, and he was one of the only people I know where I didn't feel that way when I was with him), so I really only have my dog now. She's become my primary emotional support.
If you've made it this far, thank you for reading this. I don't really know what the point of this was other than to smash the keyboard a million times and get this all out into the void.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/1sok2cj/regaining_after_losing_100_lbs_a_rant/
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