My goal, sharing this to help myself

[maxbfrecka]

At my heaviest I was 265 lbs or so. I was big. Fat. I don't know how I ever got that way. When I was younger I was normal. It was like I lost everything in myself and I just let everything go. I lost touch with myself. I hated myself. But I didn't even "see" myself.

Somehow I managed to get myself to lose ~80 lbs. At my lowest I believe I was around 175 lbs. This was about 3 years ago. It was a huge thing for me. It wasn't just my weight it was my mind. It was health on every level. I learned self-respect in many different ways. I came to understand myself. But I also was on a journey... and I never reached the end.

I never reached the end. I never finished. I never became "normal." I never reached my goal. I never followed through. I never finished the job. I never put this to an end. I never became what I wanted to be. I never REALLY developed true self-respect, self-confidence, and actualization of myself as who I really deserve to be, and have always deserved to be. And that is my new goal.

I always have had a different style of thinking than others. Some call it mental illness, but I am not interested in labeling myself with some term like that. I could be called depressed, anxious, ETC. It's all not very helpful, is it? Anyway, I got depressed again. All my confidence/self-respect that I had made myself develop in losing weight came crashing down. I lost it. I gave up. I became semi-addicted to doing nothing at all, and gave up almost entirely on myself. I regained about 10 lbs. This is relevant because I think my mental condition and my body are one. Without self-respect, one will let their body become destroyed, they will lower themselves in their own eyes and the eyes of everyone else. They will not take care of themselves.

I have reached my limit. I've gone my whole life with a body that is always abnormal, overweight, and never at the correct body weight %. I see 90% of my peers and people I respect with body fat that is at the very least perfectly normal. I have never been "normal" with my body fat. I have never had a "normal" body since I was like what, 12? I've always been overweight. Even when I lost those 80 lbs and hit 175 or so. I was STILL overweight. I never REALLY reached my goal.

And that is what I want to do now. I'm done pissing around. I am angry. I am furious. I want to completely finish this job and I want to completely put this all behind me. I'm done playing nice with people in my life who don't care about me, and especially with MYSELF. I am ready to destroy this. I'm DONE apologizing. I'm DONE feeling sorry for myself and anyone else. This life is mine, and I will do what I need to do. This is my mental struggle. I just wanted this to be shared.

My approach? Diet. Keto. Movement every single day. Sprints, jogging, and weight lifting. I will ensure my intake of protein is sufficient every single day by supplementing with protein shakes. I will try to stay on an exact schedule to keep things in place. Because that's how I need to do it. This is a full discipline change for me. And anyone who wants to judge my personality negatively for doing what I need to do for myself, will be needing to stay out of my way. I'm done feeling guilty for things that are completely absurd. For judgements and the negativity in people in my life. I'm done apologizing, as I already said. I can't emphasize this enough to myself or anyone else. I feel so much anger it's really hard to explain to someone who isn't me, or hasn't been in this place before. People try to subvert you and undermine your progress, everyone does. It's crazy. But it's real. THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO LIVE. And that is by completely bypassing all of it, unapologetically, and without even a shred of shame, guilt, or remorse for doing whatever the f*** you want to do for your own well being PERIOD and if anyone tells you otherwise and you don't feel disgust toward them and their presence, then you are simply NOT where you need to be.

[WendyB]

Im sure you will make your goal. You sound very determined!

Good luck and keep us posted!

[emili]

I wish you much success in your journey. I would encourage you to check in with yourself, once you are on the right path, that you have accounted for all parts that you will need to stay healthy and in control. Learning about food and movement is critical to sustaining weight loss. Diets end. And when they do sometimes we don't know what to do next. Its important that through your journey, you learn what to do when the diet ends. Good luck and let us know how things go..

[Annabel398]

I salute you for taking charge of yourself.

This year, as in the past, I sat down and wrote down some goals for my year. Addressed the excuses I used last year, praised myself for what I got done last year, made plans for 2017 to do more of the good and less of the bad. And by "bad" I don't mean "I *cheated* on my chosen way of eating" (becuase who did I cheat? myself?) ... the bad is "I used X, Y, or Z as an excuse to myself not to do the things I committed to myself to doing".

We can't change those around us (except by example, maybe) but we can change ourselves. It's easy to blame the people around us for being negative and discouraging, but it's also true that in real life, past performace is the best predictor of future results--so those folks may just be jaded and expecting the "same old same old" from you. As you commit to your change and it shows in your life, they will have their eyes opened. No blame attaches, resentment is a waste of time--just keep going and keep working on you! 

Great job, and my admiration to you for making a very public declaration. That, too, is a great way to say to yourself and the world that you are committed to improving yourself. Well done! And keep us posted!

[smwcbrie]

Best of luck to you. I have faith that you'll get where you need to be.

[AuroraKat]

Thank you for posting your story, @maxbfrecka!

Anger, when channeled properly, can be extremely motivational. It seems that you are using it to propel yourself forward vs. letting this powerful emotion hold you back - that's great! 

And, while you may be disappointed that you did not follow through all the way until your goal weight, I think you need to give yourself a lot of credit for the loss that you have achieved thus far. Yes, you gained some pounds back, but you kept a lot more off! For most people, the toughest part of weight loss is maintenance. So many lose a lot just to gain it all back and then some. You, on the other hand, managed to keep off majority of your loss since you started 3 years ago. That's a huge accomplishment!

Good luck and keep posting about your journey. There are many supportive and inspirational folks on this forum!

[AndyDandyPandy]

You have the right mindset. Now just keep it forever. Even if you do hit your goal weight you must live like you're still on a journey. Because this journey never really ends unless you die or else you'll end up putting on fat again which you worked so hard to lose. You sound like you're about to do something extreme to get that big change but even the most extreme routines will still take time. You can't really adopt a new lifestyle unless you've been on one consistently for half a year or longer. The lifestyle change is what will truly make you succeed, not how hard you workout or how healthy you eat or how much less you eat during that phase.

I don't know who you're trying to impress or prove this to but if it's yourself, you have all the time in the world to be at a normal weight range. You'll hit a point during your journey where you will slow down on your routines and that is when it truly decides if you've really learned anything about living a healthy life and living that new lifestyle or going back to your old lifestyle. 

1. Be consistent

2. Understand that this takes time, half a year to a year to see a noticeable life changing change

3. Stop worrying about your weight and just do it.

4. Life style change is long term success because you'll eventually yoyo if you don't adapt to what you've been doing to lose weight.

Too many people think they can go back to whatever they've been doing after they lost some weight and stay that weight forever. When they do gain weight again they blame it on their previous diets, slow metabolism, starvation mode or genetics etc. Remember this journey is all about disciplining yourself on how you view food, how you think about life, re-learning how to live your life in a healthy perspective.