I've lurked here for the better part of a year now, reading posts and sometimes commenting but never being sure which milestone felt best to post about. I considered it when I hit onederland a few weeks ago but now it feels like time. I can't thank you guys enough for sharing your own stories, struggles, and successes, it's a little part of my day to see how you're doing and keeps me engaged in my own journey. I technically do all my weight in stones but they're a pain to type out, so I've put it into pounds instead.
The backstory might be triggering for mental health issues, so skip til I've put **** if you want to miss that part out. If you read all of this, you are a saint and I am so damn grateful. Either way, this is long so feel free to skip to the TL;DR at the end :)
I've been overweight for most of my life, especially as a kid, but when I got to 16 got down to a healthy weight for the first time since I was 5 years old and I felt great. People were nicer to me, I was nicer to me, and I thought that would be the end of it. Unfortunately at 18, I'd just started university when I developed schizophrenia. The moment I was put onto anti-psychotics I gained an enormous amount of weight, not helped by being unable to work and having to survive on food that is really not great for you, as well as the effects of the mental illness itself. Over the years I went up to 250 pounds and felt pretty crummy for it.
In 2016, I was a little better mentally and on a combination of medication that wasn't so bad for once, and managed to drop down to 200 pounds. I was still overweight but not by half as much and things were going fine until 2018 when, again, I had an episode that was far more severe and required much stronger medication. Same story, new meds, and I gained - no joke - 24 pounds in a month. I didn't think that was possible and my doctors sure didn't and assumed I was exaggerating or using it as an excuse. It's possible I did eat more but to gain that kind of weight I would've had to have eaten over 6000 calories every day and that just isn't possible for me, and I wouldn't even be able to afford all that food in the first place! So I don't entirely blame myself for it. The other 10 or so pounds on top of that, sure, that's my fault because I'd given in at that point. I was done trying and just didn't want to make myself more miserable by restricting my intake and getting nowhere with it. Until, you guessed it, I got onto some other different medication and noticed I wasn't so hungry all the time, I had some motivation, and I had a big event coming up so I thought it was time to go for it once again.
***\*
I started the year out at 235 pounds and was going to be part of my close friend's wedding party in two months. Being a super self conscious guy as it is, I was just scared I'd look a hot mess and ruin her photos. My plan was to try to hover around my goal weight TDEE of 1500 so that once I'm already at that size, I already know how to maintain it because I've been eating like that anyway. I didn't lose anything in the first three weeks which was frustrating but I'm aware my body is a little fucked up from all the medication I'm on (due to mental illness stuff) and being hypothyroid so I didn't sweat it and kept going.
By the big day I had lost 10 pounds and felt better for it already, but I was still pretty uncomfortable and had already decided to stick with dieting and get down to a healthy weight anyway. It's a good thing I had, because when I did see the photos I was pretty mortified, there is only one or two with me in that I can even look at which is sad considering it was a really amazing day and I was so happy to spend it with my best friends.
At the start of April I was feeling more comfortable with myself and the weather was nice so one day when I needed to clear my head I went on a walk and I really enjoyed it, after that it became a regular thing. It's been so cool exploring the countryside around me, and since I don't drive (due to disability) it's nice not having to rely on the bus for trips into town anymore, I just go off on foot without even thinking about it. I mostly love spotting different animals while I'm out, especially the time I came across an alpaca farm which had some baby alpacas running around.
I had a big plateau around my birthday in June, I did loosen up and have take out and some cake so I wasn't surprised I wasn't losing weight then but I actually didn't gain any either which was great. Instead the same number popped up on the scale every week for 5 weeks after that and I was starting to lose my mind a little thinking I was stuck, but I kept up with what I had been doing and remembered those first few weeks of struggling and how it soon fell away. It did, of course, and I'd never been so happy to see a different number before!
Since then it's been pretty good, I've just taken each day as it comes and hope to be at my goal weight by my next birthday :) Took just under 8 months to get where I am now, which is slow by some standards but amazing by mine, so if the other 42 pounds/3 stone goes well I will be there even sooner. I'm hoping that this time, it sticks.
TL;DR: big guy is now a little smaller, had a 5 week plateau but overcame it, got a lot of motivation from all the wonderful people on this sub and hope to keep it up! Achieved by sticking to the TDEE of my goal weight and taking walks.
[link] [comments]
source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/i7ktbi/halfway_to_my_goal_3_stone_down_3_to_go/
No comments:
Post a Comment