Ask buriedbeds about losing 200 lbs (very, very long)

[buriedbeds]

Every year of my life, until 2006, I gained weight. On January 20th, 2006, I had no idea what I weighed - I hadn't set foot on a scale since I was 12 or 13 years old. I had tried literally every diet there is - nutrisystem, weight watchers, even personal consultations with a dietician when I was as young as 9. Nothing ever worked, ever. And, as anyone who knows me will attest, I do not lack willpower. When I take something on, I am incredibly tenacious. I quit smoking 1 1/2 packs a day cold turkey and stayed quit, no problem. Despite my weight, I was always good at sports, a very good musician, did fine in school, did well on my SATs, etc. etc. etc. Being fat, I had a chip on my shoulder, because when you're fat you have to be way better than other people at something to be considered equal. You get treated like [censored] by pretty much everyone pretty much all the time.

So, like I was saying, I had no idea what I weighed. My life was in a bad way - I was supposed to go to NYU for a master's, but the program folded and I was left living at home without an out plan - I'd come back to save up a few bucks before entering the program and found out about its folding after the deadlines to apply for other programs. I was in terrible health - I felt awful all the time, and I'd just turned 28. I was mentally and physically spiralling downwards.

One of my uncles had done a low carb diet and gone from being an on-medication diabetic to being completely med-free and in very good health. So I decided to try it.

My first positive steps towards retaking my health came January 16th, 2006. My parents were out of the country on vacation, and I'd consciously decided to start while they were gone in case I failed before they got back, to save myself the mortification of publicly failing once again. Monday of that week I decided to exercise before I went to work, so - being January cold on the East Coast - I decided to stay inside and get on my father's treadmill, a piece of equipment that he'd used religiously for years and loved. I went for about 8 or ten minutes at 3 mph and was horribly out of breath, literally mentally envisioning my parents coming home and finding me dead in the living room when...

the thing died.

I got off, caught my breath, tinkered with it and tried to figure out what was wrong, hoping desperately that I could fix it. I couldn't. It was dead. I was so heavy that I destroyed the motor in my father's treadmill - again, a machine that he loved. I took a shower and went to work, completely dejected, embarrassed, sad, emotionally broken even further than I had been before.

The next day I woke up and was determined to try and exercise again. Not having a treadmill, I went outside and started walking. I was in AWFUL shape - in about a half an hour I did what would now take me 10 minutes, and I was seriously just dying. I remember vividly stopping at this point that's at the top of a very minor hill along what became my regular walking route and saying to myself, "oh my god, I can't believe this." I started walking again and within probably 10-15 feet I slipped on some ice and fell down, skinning my palms and cracking my head on the ground. I lay there bleeding, looking at the sky and the steam coming off my body, and just wanting to fall off the edge of the earth. But somehow I managed to get up - which at the time was not an easy thing to do, especially with patches of ice covering the ground - and kept going, back around the corner to my parents' house.

Then the next day, I did the same walk. And the day after that, and the day after that. That Friday I started Atkins and continued walking every single day - 1/2 an hour at first, then more when I could. At whatever speed it was that ensured that I was tired when I got home - a speed that gradually increased as the days passed. Longer and further, longer and further, until an hour of walking at what for me was a pretty good clip was no longer doing it for me.

A week into the diet, I was feeling much better. My energy level was higher and more constant, I wasn't ever hungry - which was amazing, like being freed from a prison, as I'd ALWAYS been hungry before that - and people at the office were already noticing weight loss. But I couldn't see it in the mirror (which is not uncommon for people who lose weight), and I still hadn't weighed myself.

So I tried to get on my parents' scale. When I did, I got an -E-. This is something that a skinny person never sees - it's the error message that roughly equates to the scale saying to you "holy [censored], you're too fat for me to measure." So I went on Amazon and ordered a high-capacity scale, one that measures up to 400 lbs. I figured there was no way I weighed more than that...

I was wrong. I got the scale a few days later, got on it and saw that same goddamned -E-. Depressed but buoyed by the way I felt (which was already better than I had in years) and the feedback I was getting from coworkers and friends (which was very positive), I kept with the diet. But I still wanted to weigh myself...I had to have a number to help me gauge my progress. So finally one day at work - 2-3 weeks into the diet - I snuck into the back, where they do production work for the company I work for, and stepped on an industrial scale. My weight was 437 - and this was AFTER the first two weeks, when people (men especially) generally see the greatest weight loss. It is not impossible that I weighed as much as 460, it is virtually impossible that I weighed less than 445 - what I call my starting weight.

Armed with this knowledge, I went out and got ANOTHER scale, this one with an even higher-capacity.

Two months into the diet, and convinced that I was really committed to this because maybe it would work, I finally went and got bloodwork done. My cholesterol or triglycerides weren't that bad - they'd never been particularly bad - but my fasting blood sugar was 140. This was after 2 months of never once cheating and having lost probably 40-50 lbs. For those who don't know, healthy blood sugar is under 100, 100-125 is considered pre-diabetic (or "syndome X"), and 125 and above is considered diabetic.

So I was, imo, an undiagnosed diabetic. Scary. And all the more reason to keep to it.

I kept walking, I kept to the diet - the diet AS ATKINS WROTE IT, with lots of green vegetables and NOT a lot of "frankenfoods," like bars or foods with a lot of preservatives or additives. Whole, natural foods - and, again, a lot of vegetables. I did NOT cheat. I still have not cheated - the only time I went off was for 2 weeks when I had mono a few months ago, when I needed calories but couldn't swallow, so I ate ice cream.

For me, Atkins is a very natural, comfortable, sustainable way to eat. I am not on a diet - this is the way I eat now. There is no endgame where I get to go back to eating Reese's peanut butter cups or potato chips. I do not want to. I now associate those foods with feeling like I'm going to die.

Over time I started mixing in some resistance workouts. At first I used a machine that my friend's parents were throwing out. I did 4 days of cardio a week and 3 days of resistance workouts. Then I flipflopped that and did 4 days of lifting and 3 days of cardio. I virtually never took at day off. I never did less than 45 minutes, but rarely did (or do) more than an hour - I wanted it to be manageable.

Eventually I stopped liking the machine and switched to some free weights that I had. Then, inspired by a lot of hype I'd heard in OOT, I got myself a kettlebell. That was after losing 85 lbs - the first week of last july. I started doing that 4 days and cardio 2-3 days, up to June save for when I got sick or went on vacation, etc.

Since May or June of this year, I've mostly been doing just the kettlebell 3-4 days a week, and that's it. I've been both by choice and by necessity more intense in other aspects of my life - which is healthy, because for a couple/few years before losing I really didn't have much of a life to speak of since I was in such awful shape. So in my new life I feel like 3-4 days a week of kettlebell is just right for me. KB gives me both the cardio and the resistance workout that I want, I can do it in just under an hour and it's not so overwhelming schedule-wise that I'm overly-likely to skip it. It's compact, so i can keep it in the car if I'm not going to be home for a few days. While I don't always love exercising, I love how it makes me feel for the other 23 hours of each day, so I think it's vital. I hold it more dear, I would say, than even the diet. I've gone from hardly being able to walk up a small hill after a 20 minute walk to running up the steps at the Philly art museum two at a time while my skinnier friends have to catch their breath walking it one at a time.

Over the course of the past nearly 2 years I've dropped right around 200 lbs, and done while putting on a good amount of muscle. I've gone from a 6x to an XL (which was my original goal), and feel better than I have in literally my entire life - including when I was a little kid. For the most part my friends - even the skinny ones - can't keep up with me. While they're all complaining about getting older, I'm feeling better than I ever knew was possible.

My bloodwork is impeccable, despite the BS you hear about Atkins spiking your cholesterol and the like. The last time I got it done (this summer), the most important number (to me), my blood sugar, was down to 65. That's pretty awesome, as 65 is the lowest end of normal (normal's 65-99). My cholesterol, which was never high but which is what all uninformed parties worry about with the diet, is 134 total, which is very good, and my triglycerides are and excellent 61 (you want them less than 149). My ldl (bad cholesterol) is 84, which is good. My hdl (good cholesterol), for which I have a genetic predisposition for being low, is 38 - still a little low (you want it 40-59), but that's a strong improvement from my first bloodwork when it was 28. My resting heart rate has gone from an average of 92bpm to always under 60bpm and often under 50 bpm. There is literally no number in my bloodwork that is of any concern. My doctor - who was a little hesitant when I started - said "just keep doing whatever you're doing."

Life-wise, I've gotten a new girlfriend who's very supportive of the diet, am preparing to re-apply to grad and law school, and am just getting it together generally. Things get tense and relax, back and forth with normal ebb and flow of life, but I never cheat on the diet and I do what I can to make sure that my life is moving in a positive direction. Life as a much-thinner person is incredibly different and takes a lot of getting used to, because people treat you ENTIRELY differently. I'd never, ever been anything but the heaviest person I knew, so for me now, just being treated "normally" is like being treated really nicely. Which is weird and messed up in its own right, as I am exactly the same person I was before I lost the weight. It makes you a bit suspicious of people, although I do enjoy the benefits of it. I also feel like the experience has shaped me in some positive ways, as I am far more sympathetic to things like discrimination than most people because I know what it's like to, for instance, walk into a job interview and know immediately that the person will not hire me because of what - not who - I am, or what it's like to be singled out by a pack of people for being different.

So, ask away. My only restriction* is that I'm not going to answer or aknowledge degrading questions. Otherwise, I'll try and get to as many questions as I can.

-bb.

* - I reserve the right to expand my restrictions as I see fit. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[buriedbeds]

tl:dr

-bb.

[cts]

vn job, good read

[bxb]

Very impressive. I think it is more impressive that you did it with solid diet and exercise rather than some quick fix like lipo.

[buriedbeds]

[ QUOTE ]
Very impressive. I think it is more impressive that you did it with solid diet and exercise rather than some quick fix like lipo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having come from where I've come from, I honestly don't look down on anyone doing anything. I'm just happier than I can describe that I didn't have to do that, because the mortality and complications rates are so incredibly high, and I don't think that you really learn how to live and eat properly by doing it.

But for some people it may be the right option - people who are physically incapacited, for instance, and who need to lose weight just so they can start to move on their own again and regain their personal freedom and the physical ability to move on their own.

So I don't have a problem with anything anyone does. I think it's a testament to how horrible it is to be morbidly obese, however, that people are willing to undergo that surgery. They all know the stats, but they still do it. It's that bad.

-bb.

[Yeti]

Nicely written and an enjoyable read.

I'm gonna be a little cruel and pull you up on your first paragraph though. You say you have great willpower yet how were you continually putting on weight until last year? Were you really throwing yourself into your past diets or was it half-hearted? Also, if you were good at sports, why were you so shocked when you found yourself completely out of breath after a short walk?

Anyway, I hope this didn't sound too negative. I'm sure you're rightfully proud at what you've done. Nice work. BTW, what's your longterm goal now?

[Taso]

congradulations. youshould post some before/after pics.

[Tony_P]

great read.

[diddyeinstein]

I read the first comment and was like what a jerk, then realized it was you.

This is a phenomenal achievement OP, you should be proud. No real questions, just wanted to say good job and good luck.

[buriedbeds]

[ QUOTE ]
congradulations. youshould post some before/after pics.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was considering it, but I really don't want to. It's not that I'm not proud of what I've done, it's that I know how mother[censored] cruel the internet is - including some people on this site in particular, and my before pics are VERY, VERY unflattering, as you can imagine. Look how much [censored] Dids had to swallow from everyone on here for years. I'm not interested in that.

Thanks to you and everyone else with the congrats, though. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-bb.