NSV: Today my doctor told me that he was proud of me. It's the first time I can remember anyone ever saying that to me.
Hello everyone. This is my first post here. I've been commenting a little but never posted before.
I started seeing my doctor in February when I was 530 pounds I had already lost 75 pounds at this point but I'm not sure if he really believed me when I told him. He asked me what my health goals were and I told him "I want to lose 100 pounds before I turn 29 in October. He told me "well, that's a lot of weight" and never said much else about it.
Today I went in and got weighed at 398 pounds. I beat my goal by 32 pounds and 2 months. When he looked at my chart he said "wow, you did it! I'm really proud of you, keep it up!"
I honestly teared up as soon as he walked out of the room, because this was the first time I can remember of anyone ever telling me they were proud of me.
It's been a struggle and I'm still fighting the 600 pound person inside of me, but it's worth it and I feel for the first time in my life that I have some control. Every day, he gets weaker, and the new me gets stronger.
How I've lost the 200+ pounds in less than a year, about 0.66 pounds a day:
I started at just counting calories and limiting myself to under 3800 calories per day. I lost a pound a day for a month. I weighed myself every day and if the scale stopped moving, I lowered my calories a bit until they did, and the scale would start moving again. I was down to 3000 calories per day after a month and I was still losing a pound a day. Then I went to about 2500, and eventually now I'm at about 1800-2200 per day.
I started intermittent fasting about a month and a half ago. I eat during an 6 to 8 hour window and fast the rest of the day. This has gotten me out of my last plateau and I really like how it makes me feel during the day.
I eat a huge salad every single day, and I mean huge. I use an 8 quart mixing bowl for my salad bowl. I usually eat 2 or 3 heads of lettuce a day, or spinach. Greens are my friend. I am definitely a volume eater. I also eat a ton of beans. Legumes are my main protein source. The more beans I eat, the more weight I seem to lose.
I eat lots of fruits. Pretty much any and all kinds of fruits. I don't limit myself on any fruits or vegetables, except avocados. I keep those to 1 per day, max.
I have a smoothie every evening, usually with about a quarter pound of kale, some ice, a banana, and some almond milk and a table spoon of flax seeds and two packets of stevia. Its under 300 calories and it makes about 2 quarts. I think it's delicious too. It keeps me full all night and I'm not really hungry until about 4 to 5 hours after waking up the next morning.
But all of that is just minutea.
The real way I lost this weight was by being honest with myself and finding a reason, a "why" to live. Neitzche said "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how" and this has rung true for me. I've known how to lose weight for years. You consume less calories than you expend. It's basic physics. But it wasn't until I had a good enough why to live that I actually changed my life.
It was almost a year ago. I was sitting in an abandoned shed, homeless, nothing to live for, no one that loved me, no friends, nothing. I decided that I was going to kill myself. I was a burden on society and I was worthless. When I decided to kill myself, something changed. I though "well, if I'm already dead, maybe I should just try as hard as I can to change this if I'm just going to die anyways". When I think back to that day now, my thought process doesn't make that much sense to me now, but I was in a bad place.
But in a way, I did die that night. The victim in me died. The person that made excuses died. The person that never gave a shit about anything, and just blamed his troubles on everything around him died. I had to completely transform who I was, what my self talk was, the way I carried myself, everything. All of this took time and I didn't change overnight, but what I did do was make that decision to change.
The absolute biggest thing was that mindset change. I journal a lot about my weight loss and my life. Writing helps me think, and it lets me see in writing some times the faulty logic that I'm running through my head, but I'd never second guess it if I didn't see it written out in front of me. This is absolutely critical for me. When I started my weight loss journey, I wrote about how I got to this weight, and why I weigh 600 pounds, and then I wrote about where I want to be in 5 years.
If you want to transform your life, you need a good enough "why". A reason that keeps you going in the hardest times when you're tapped out of motivation and will power. You need to have something to run towards, and something to run away from.
For me, I want a family. I want to be a dad. What is what I'm running towards. I want to have someone that loves me as much as I love them. I have daydreams of playing with my kids, and teaching them things my father never taught me.
And what I'm running from is being a bed ridden 30 something, dying alone in an apartment with no one to even check on me until they smell the death in the hallways. And then no one left to mourn me. No funeral, nothing. Just a dead fat guy that probably took a crane and a few dozen firefighters to remove the body.
Every time I feel weak, or depressed, or unmotivated or feel like quitting, I revisit my journal and it reminds me why I'm fighting this war on my own obesity. And it doesn't matter if i lose a few battles as long as i get back up and keep fighting. This has been the most powerful tool for me and really is the only reason I'm still going today. I highly recommend you start journaling I'd you're not already.
Anyways.. I just wanted to share with you guys.
Thanks for listening to me ramble!
Edit: Here is a progress photo. Not sure if this might be considered NSFW, but it shows my gut when I was really fat. https://imgur.com/Mr34eyV
I still have a long way to go, but I know I'll get there.
Edit2: Wow you guys are incredible! I didn't expect this thread to blow up so much! I'm already up way too late reading all of your comments! I have to get up at 5 AM! I promise to read every one of your comments tomorrow! Thank you guys so much.
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