I've struggled with weight for as long as I can remember. Every school field trip to the local 6 flags became a nuisance, my skinnier friends would ride the rides and scream and have fun while I stayed on the ground, holding their bags and watching them.
Being on a rollercoaster when you're my weight is extremely uncomfortable. Taking high-g turns, I felt every roll of fat drag my body down, and constantly feel like the rides aren't made for me and the harness would break open. I haven't been on a rollercoaster since I was in high school.
We always had food at home and my mom could never say no to getting me snacks. As such, my relationship with food has always been toxic, and I could never stick to any diets because I'd never see any immediate progress. Every celebration called for food, every heartbreak, every time I made progress losing weight, I'd have a feast.
Last year, I had a taste of being healthy. I began doing keto, and I enjoyed it. I liked meat and fat, so I stayed on it. I was inexperienced, I could've done so much better to keep track of my macros and maybe done a few days off internment- No.
I'm not going to criticize myself. I lost 30 pounds over 4 months. I was the healthiest I'd been since middle school. My blood sugar blood pressure were finally in a normal range, my skin cleared up and I could work on my feet for 9 hours without being immobilized by the time I got home. My family took a fourth of July trip to Pennsylvania and we hit Hershey Park along the way.
I was like a fat kid in a candy store (figuratively and literally)! Though the rollercoasters still felt uncomfortable, I felt a sense of victory come over me; I was hitting ride after ride after ride with no shame, no breaks in between to get over my anxiety, I was finally taking back those childhood memories I lost to obesity.
But then tragedy struck. I started to live in my own apartment where I was in charge of my own diet, no college meal plans, no going home for the weekend and asking mom not to put any rice on my plate. Keto became unsustainable, I realized meat and snacks cost money, and I started to depend on employee meals from the fast-food place I worked at. I stopped looking at the scale because I thought I was safe.
Within 5 months, I was back to my starting weight.
I tried to go back home for weekends more often to try to restart ketosis, but the second I got back to my apartment it was back to calzones and mozzella sticks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My biggest heartbreak was when my mom, my biggest supporter through keto, asked me if I gained weight.
I lost the fight. But not the war.
Two weeks ago, my little sister asked if I could coach her keto diet. She grew up in the same situation as me, and is unhappy with her weight. I found this to be an opportunity, to coach her by example.
I filled her with the same excitement I had when I started a year ago, explaining how carbohydrates convert into sugar, the basics of insulin and energy storage, different macros and their purposes, and she ate it up. No cheat days, she said. Within a week, neither of us had a need for cheat days. My body no longer craved stromboli like it did a month ago, and she gave away her entire snack collection because she no longer found them appetizing.
I'm proud to say that 2 weeks later, she's lost 8 pounds and I've lost 10. I'm doing small bouts of sustainable intermittent fasting while she's taking it at her own speed. I'm excited for our progress in a month, but I'm more excited for the day I can go on a to a theme park without any pain or anxiety.
One day, we'll enjoy rollercoasters again.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/hudw96/i_want_to_enjoy_rollercoasters_again/
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