Gandara wrote:Hey guys. Relatively new to the forums. I figured I'd post this here because... well, I'd rather not make a new topic, and this seemed to be the most fitting place to post it.
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tl;dr - I'm fat, but I'm working on it.
Hey man, I just wanted to tell you that I undertook a very similar lifestyle change about 20 months ago, starting from a similar weight. Today, I'm 215lbs and running 5k 3 times a week, and I feel and look so much better than I did 2 years ago. As long as you can dedicate yourself to your goal and not deviate from it, you
will achieve the results you want. It's simply a matter of making your mind and self-discipline stronger than your cravings and laziness.
The first few weeks are the hardest, by far. Your body will expect the level of food intake its been experiencing for the entirety of your life, and it will punish you severely when it doesn't get it. You'll find yourself standing in the kitchen looking for food with no clear memory of deciding to go there. You'll be hungry... basically all the time. In fact, after eating, you'll probably feel full and hungry at the same time. You may find yourself fantasizing about food rather frequently when you're unable to eat it. Just remember, those cravings are
never stronger than your conscious will. If you really want to not eat something, all you have to do is decide not to put it in your mouth, and there's nothing your bodily desires can do to override that decision. It's all your own responsibility in the end, and if you want to change yourself badly enough, you will do so.
After a few weeks, your body will get used to the lack of food... a little. You'll still be hungry all the time, but the hunger won't be as sharp, and you'll be able to ignore it mostly. Your tastes will change as you discover new foods that are more nutritious and filling, and learn to associate the eating of those foods with positive mental reinforcement. You'll become more confident in your ability to be around food without feeling the need to eat it, and you'll become less awkward at declining food when it's offered to you, especially when people who know you realize that you're serious about the new dietary habits you're exhibiting.
But it's not until a few months in that you'll experience your real motivation. You'll start to notice that your body doesn't quite look like it did before. Your clothes will become too loose to stay on your body and you'll have to buy smaller things. You'll begin to realize that you can do physical tasks that you couldn't do before: open a door at arm's length without it being blocked by your stomach, lean over to tie your shoes without squeezing the air out of your lungs, buckle the seatbelt in your car more easily, etc. Exercise will become easier as you shed pounds, as well. Your muscles will get stronger and at the same time will have less mass to move, so the brisk walking that tires you out now will become negligible. Two years ago, I used to find ways to avoid walking even short distances because I found it annoying; today, when I get home from work, I literally sprint as fast as I can across the apartment complex parking lot to the mailboxes to check my mail, just because I can and it feels good to prove that to myself.
After a long time, say a year or so, you'll come across an old picture of yourself, and you'll be absolutely shocked at how different you look. You may not be at your end goal at that point, but the realization that what people say about diet and exercise with regards to losing weight is
actually true, and it
works when you try to implement it, will evolve in your mind from a factual concept to a fundamental belief. At that point, I don't think there's any way to "relapse" to old habits. I can't even imagine eating like I did two years ago anymore; I would find it physically and mentally sickening to be that gluttonous. I'm now locked in to my new lifestyle and there's no way I'm changing it.
Now, a few minor things to note:
- Get a countertop scale for your kitchen. There's no better way to carefully control your caloric intake than by precisely weighing everything you eat.
- Don't worry too much about what you eat. Eating "healthy" is actually much much less important for weight loss than just eating less. For example, this nutrition professor lost 27lbs eating mostly twinkies with some nutritional supplements. If you really want to eat a big piece of chocolate cake, there's no reason not to... you just can't have anything else for lunch if you do. Likewise, if you want to eat at McDonalds, you can, you'll just probably have to limit yourself to a single small hamburger and no fries. You can even eat full meals at American restaurants with ridiculous portion sizes as long as you skip a meal before or afterwards.
- Keep your weekly weigh-ins in an Excel spreadsheet so you can make a neat graph of your progress.
- Set aside a large budget for clothes. You're going to have to replace your wardrobe several times if you're going from 400lbs to 220lbs.
- Finally, whenever you make a decision about your diet or exercise, think about it in terms of something you will do for the rest of your life. If it's not something you're comfortable with committing to indefinitely, then just choose something easier. It's better to commit to a small goal and succeed at it than to try to change everything about yourself but fail. And anything you can't commit to forever is something you'll eventually fail to maintain.
Good luck with your endeavors... even though you won't need it!
If you feel like you're ready for it, you can join us at Fitocracy where we all post about our exercises and stats (there's a Katawa Shoujo group).
I've lost about 40 pounds so far. it IS possible, as you say.)
