Thank you
A bit of backstory. I started this and I'm still horrified to admit it, when I was at 279 lbs. My mental health was at its all time worst and to make myself feel better, I'd eat. Even though I've been vegetarian since 1991, I still ate a lot of garbage. Just as long as it had no meat, it was ok with me. I used to be on my feet for almost the entirety of my shift at work walking all over, to being switched to being behind a desk. While my feet felt better, I went from sitting on my ass at home, to sitting on my ass at work, to coming home and sitting on my ass some more. And I ate a lot the entire time. Just an awful cycle.
My rock bottom came when I ordered two large pizzas and a 2 liter of Dr. Pepper thinking that I'd have
maybe two slices and have the rest left over for the next few days for lunch at work, dinner at home. That type of thing. I got the pizzas at like 1:30 in the afternoon and by 2:30 they and the entire Dr. Pepper were both gone and I felt like I was about to explode. Right then and there I knew I had to change. That I couldn't live like that any longer. So I took some of the stimulus money and bought a new pair of hiking shoes, two 30 lb. dumbbells, two 10 lb. ankle weights, a sauna suit and a scale. I put on layers of clothes (the sauna suit, two pairs of sweats, 4 long sleeve sweatshirts, a beanie, a hoodie, a pair of gloves and then finally a jacket) and I walk and walk and walk some more. I put the ankle weights on and the two 30 lb. dumbbells I carry in a backpack. If I have my dog with me I usually walk about two miles or until I see her wanting to stop. Whichever comes first. If I leave my dog at home, I've gotten up to 5 miles before I need to quit. The backpack really starts hurting my shoulders. I do that at least 5 days a week, I always try to do all 7 though and I
never take two days off in a row. That's about the extent of what I do for exercise. I lift the weights for my arms, but I'm waiting on the gym near me to finally open up fully before I really get into lifting. As it is, I'm more than happy just losing and seeing my long forgotten 6 pack slowly start returning. See I was never a "big" person. If anything, I was always thought of as being too skinny. Now I'm just happy looking normal again and not like King Kong Bundy (look him up if you're not familiar with him)
I didn't start this with a real goal weight in mind. I just wanted to get all of it off of me. Each time I'd hit a milestone, like going from say the 240's into the 230's, I'd always tell myself that I am
NEVER going to be in the 240's again. Just telling myself that has worked every time. Once I got out of a higher number I've not been back. Now the next number is going from 161 (which I was 161.1 after my walk this morning. Down .7 from yesterday) into the 150's, which I don't think I've been in the 150's since maybe the 7th grade
I'm thinking 155 is where I'm going to finally be where I want to be and that is where I'm hopefully going to maintain my weight. I'm feeling good that that is what is going to happen. I'm never going to be that "big guy" again and I've never been more confident about keeping a promise to myself in my entire life than I am about that.
Oh, I also count calories and went vegan too. As far as doing 75hard (look it up if you don't know) CICO, fasting etc. and all the other stuff like them. I never did any of that. All I did was clean up my diet and walk. Everything I eat now I fix myself. I haven't been to a restaurant in over a year and obviously no junk fast food. Nothing with high-fructose corn syrup in it (so absolutely no soda's) and I no longer snack on chips and stuff like that. If I snack it's trail mix, grapes or oranges (seriously, I think I've eaten more grapes in the past year than I have in my entire life) and I drink a ton of water. If I'm not having water I drink diet tea or I fix frozen strawberry smoothies, which is as near to a milkshake as I get these days.
Anyways .. that's my story. Sorry for how long this was and for any typos