462 lbs at 58 vs 280 lbs at 62, 100 lbs(ish) left to go. Keep it pushin!
TDLR: a brief(ish) synopsis of my story in case it helps someone else get on the path.
So, a little nervous to post pics in here because ngl, y'all are ripped and I'm not even close yet, someone in r/progresspics suggested I post this here and I have posted before in here asking for advice and everyone was so helpful and I was so appreciative of that, I dropped my weights to 5 lbs and increased reps and sets and it's a helluva workout. This is my first time showing photos in here. I've been going to the gym 3xweek consistently for around 3 years now. Prior to that I was swimming in the summers which I've done all my life and that is actually what I think allowed me to recover as much as I have. Couldn't go swimming the last summer before I decided to pick health over fast and junk food (I could get to the bathroom and back but had to hold onto the walls in my little hallway when I first started trying to be active again, had chairs at each end so I could sit after I walked down the hall, rest, and then walk back up it and once in awhile when I'm cleaning or something I'll remember that and it feels like some sort of nightmare because it's so far removed from my current reality) and that was a contributor to my finally changing because I kept accepting bad changes but I've been swimming since I was 6 years old, it was just too much to give up. I picked up cycling when I was around 340 lbs. on an old Huffy cruiser from the 80s then upgraded to my daughter's Trek because she wasn't using it. Words can't express how much I love cycling, it's like being a kid flying down hills all over again. Miss my old Schwinn with the banana seat!
ANYway, the gym I was going to kept having maintenance issues and was more expensive that the new one we found. I fit in the equipment though, at the weight I was at when I started, which to the best of my recollection would have been close to the 380s, and I was super nervous to switch to a new gym because what if I don't fit (I fit in everything I tried)? I sat down and made this before/after to show myself the change because mirrors don't help me but photos do. Never diagnosed but I'm sure I have some body dysmorphia or something like that, last night I couldn't stop feeling my clavicles and in my head it's, "boney, I'm so boney, this is wrong" when I'm still 100 lbs. overweight. Often I go to sit down and think "I won't fit" and when I sit there's room on both sides. I'm hoping with time those mental warning bells fade but I spent my entire adult life either morbidly or super morbidly obese. When I was at the weight I was in the before photo I remember thinking "I'm not THAT fat" but I also avoided cameras and mirrors like the plague so that I could support my delusion and keep on eating. That before photo was actually snapped by an extended family member and I am so grateful that she took this (although when she posted it to FB I felt like I was gonna die), it's one of only 3 or 4 I have from when I was in the 400s.
Lots of fad diets, Optifast and Atkins and Dexatrim and Ayds and fen/phen and weight watchers and all that back in the day. Lose and gain, lose and gain, but I always kept trying. What threw me off was the all or nothing mentality instead of finding a way of eating that I could sustain, that 3 months or 6 months of drastic weight loss then hit the wall and say "fuck it, I can't do this" and go back to binge eating and sitting on my ass. I was even approved for wls at one point and chickened out because the doc's office felt like an assembly line and the idea of cutting myself open didn't appeal and this sketch from Mad TV would run through my head (you'd rather have invasive surgery?) because no matter if someone thinks it's insensitive, for me personally that sketch stayed with me because in the humor there was so much of who I was (can't I just take a pill?). I started with keto, my heart didn't like that, got mad, regained 60 lbs, went on vacay with my husband and got winded swimming in the ocean and my husband started crying and said he didn't want me to die, came home, started tracking what I ate, ate 500 cal below my TDEE which I still do, and started working on being active. Hurt like a mf at first, you can imagine, but it got better and now I'm a gym and cycle rat. Still swim in the summers, last summer I went river tubing for the first time since I was 14 and one point, in the river surrounded by college kids who were celebrating graduation ("One girl was joking with my husband: "What school did you graduate from?" because we were the only old people on the river that day), I just started crying because I was so happy to have my life back. You accept these things that happen to you: oh, can't do this anymore? OK, except it's not ok and you can do those things again, you simply have to be willing to work for what you want. My A1C was through the roof, doc wanted to put me on insulin and to me that meant my feet would be next and I remember thinking, "I'm not going out like that" and now I'm not.
Still have 100 lbs. to go so at least another year or maybe two, I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis and we keep having to adjust the dosage down (when it's not perfect either way weight loss can stall out) but time doesn't really mean anything to me in regards to my weight anymore, focusing on how long it takes was a bad path for me. I live my life, practice good eating and daily activity and I know from this process that it works if you work it so stress is unnecessary.
I thought I would go ahead and post here though because there might be someone that comes in here looking to start and feeling like it's impossible to change (I see you and it's not) so maybe if they see someone my age who was the size I was that's actually doing this they will too. I want this for everyone. It's changed my life in nothing but good ways. I hang out in r/SuperMorbidlyObese a lot so if you are someone that is in the position I was in there is a lot of support there from people who understand what you are going through.
Gotta go, been sitting here in my gym gear waiting for hubby to finish what he was doing. I read a lot of military and post-apocalyptic SF although I've never served (thank you to those that have and do, both my grandfathers did and the sacrifice is real) so in the words of some of my favorite characters: Hooah!
I always write too much, it's my superpower, lol
TDLR: a brief(ish) synopsis of my story in case it helps someone else get on the path.
So, a little nervous to post pics in here because ngl, y'all are ripped and I'm not even close yet, someone in r/progresspics suggested I post this here and I have posted before in here asking for advice and everyone was so helpful and I was so appreciative of that, I dropped my weights to 5 lbs and increased reps and sets and it's a helluva workout. This is my first time showing photos in here. I've been going to the gym 3xweek consistently for around 3 years now. Prior to that I was swimming in the summers which I've done all my life and that is actually what I think allowed me to recover as much as I have. Couldn't go swimming the last summer before I decided to pick health over fast and junk food (I could get to the bathroom and back but had to hold onto the walls in my little hallway when I first started trying to be active again, had chairs at each end so I could sit after I walked down the hall, rest, and then walk back up it and once in awhile when I'm cleaning or something I'll remember that and it feels like some sort of nightmare because it's so far removed from my current reality) and that was a contributor to my finally changing because I kept accepting bad changes but I've been swimming since I was 6 years old, it was just too much to give up. I picked up cycling when I was around 340 lbs. on an old Huffy cruiser from the 80s then upgraded to my daughter's Trek because she wasn't using it. Words can't express how much I love cycling, it's like being a kid flying down hills all over again. Miss my old Schwinn with the banana seat!
ANYway, the gym I was going to kept having maintenance issues and was more expensive that the new one we found. I fit in the equipment though, at the weight I was at when I started, which to the best of my recollection would have been close to the 380s, and I was super nervous to switch to a new gym because what if I don't fit (I fit in everything I tried)? I sat down and made this before/after to show myself the change because mirrors don't help me but photos do. Never diagnosed but I'm sure I have some body dysmorphia or something like that, last night I couldn't stop feeling my clavicles and in my head it's, "boney, I'm so boney, this is wrong" when I'm still 100 lbs. overweight. Often I go to sit down and think "I won't fit" and when I sit there's room on both sides. I'm hoping with time those mental warning bells fade but I spent my entire adult life either morbidly or super morbidly obese. When I was at the weight I was in the before photo I remember thinking "I'm not THAT fat" but I also avoided cameras and mirrors like the plague so that I could support my delusion and keep on eating. That before photo was actually snapped by an extended family member and I am so grateful that she took this (although when she posted it to FB I felt like I was gonna die), it's one of only 3 or 4 I have from when I was in the 400s.
Lots of fad diets, Optifast and Atkins and Dexatrim and Ayds and fen/phen and weight watchers and all that back in the day. Lose and gain, lose and gain, but I always kept trying. What threw me off was the all or nothing mentality instead of finding a way of eating that I could sustain, that 3 months or 6 months of drastic weight loss then hit the wall and say "fuck it, I can't do this" and go back to binge eating and sitting on my ass. I was even approved for wls at one point and chickened out because the doc's office felt like an assembly line and the idea of cutting myself open didn't appeal and this sketch from Mad TV would run through my head (you'd rather have invasive surgery?) because no matter if someone thinks it's insensitive, for me personally that sketch stayed with me because in the humor there was so much of who I was (can't I just take a pill?). I started with keto, my heart didn't like that, got mad, regained 60 lbs, went on vacay with my husband and got winded swimming in the ocean and my husband started crying and said he didn't want me to die, came home, started tracking what I ate, ate 500 cal below my TDEE which I still do, and started working on being active. Hurt like a mf at first, you can imagine, but it got better and now I'm a gym and cycle rat. Still swim in the summers, last summer I went river tubing for the first time since I was 14 and one point, in the river surrounded by college kids who were celebrating graduation ("One girl was joking with my husband: "What school did you graduate from?" because we were the only old people on the river that day), I just started crying because I was so happy to have my life back. You accept these things that happen to you: oh, can't do this anymore? OK, except it's not ok and you can do those things again, you simply have to be willing to work for what you want. My A1C was through the roof, doc wanted to put me on insulin and to me that meant my feet would be next and I remember thinking, "I'm not going out like that" and now I'm not.
Still have 100 lbs. to go so at least another year or maybe two, I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis and we keep having to adjust the dosage down (when it's not perfect either way weight loss can stall out) but time doesn't really mean anything to me in regards to my weight anymore, focusing on how long it takes was a bad path for me. I live my life, practice good eating and daily activity and I know from this process that it works if you work it so stress is unnecessary.I thought I would go ahead and post here though because there might be someone that comes in here looking to start and feeling like it's impossible to change (I see you and it's not) so maybe if they see someone my age who was the size I was that's actually doing this they will too. I want this for everyone. It's changed my life in nothing but good ways. I hang out in r/SuperMorbidlyObese a lot so if you are someone that is in the position I was in there is a lot of support there from people who understand what you are going through.
Gotta go, been sitting here in my gym gear waiting for hubby to finish what he was doing. I read a lot of military and post-apocalyptic SF although I've never served (thank you to those that have and do, both my grandfathers did and the sacrifice is real) so in the words of some of my favorite characters: Hooah!
I always write too much, it's my superpower, lol
