About a month and a half ago, I purchased a scale with which I intended to weigh myself for the first time in years. Although unhappy with my body shape and lack of fitness, I always privately imagined that if I couldn't put a number to my weight then I could live in some sort of comfortable denial--that I wasn't overweight, wasn't unhealthy, and maybe my body type was more the result of genetics than anything else. Well, I was (and am) overweight and I'm not healthy--but I'm getting there. I'm getting better, and I will continue to do so.
I wasn't really sure what to expect as I laid out the newly purchased scale on my bathroom floor. I've had a miserable history of being chronically overweight that dates back over ten years. There have been periods of time in my life where I've been more or less overweight, but I've never truly been "in shape" and despite the assurances of those around me, I've never been "not fat"--not since grade school, anyway. I have traditionally lived a very sedentary life and although I've denied it on multiple occasions, I ate a lot. I've gone through many phases where I lived primarily on Taco Bell and awful frozen microwaveable foods. I'm more than capable of cooking for myself, but I have so often fallen prey to my crippling laziness when it comes to my food choices.
For probably the past three or four months, I've been doing all I can to eat better. I became a vegetarian--and it feels weird to say that, honestly--and tried to eat as healthily as I could. Of course, I paid very little attention to portion size and frequently made assumptions that what I was eating was healthy. I cheated often even though I continued to strictly maintain the vegetarian lifestyle. As it turns out, enormous platters of eggplant parmesan are not strictly the healthiest choice even if they are jaw droppingly delicious. Similarly, the huge portions of rice I was having on a daily basis from the local Japanese restaurant were not doing me any favors on calorie content either. I felt I was eating healthier, but in reality I was probably getting my total recommended calories for the day in one meal! Rices are absurdly high in calories, as it turns out.
After a couple months of this, I started to realize that it might not be so difficult for me to change my lifestyle. I had been regularly eating vegetarian foods and although I suffered some minor gastrointestinal issues at first, those issues quickly passed--and I found I felt a lot better. However, I was still not choosing my meals carefully enough. I think it's possible I could have lost some weight during this time, but it's impossible for me to say. By the time I purchased that scale, I discovered that I weighed 252 pounds. My reaction to this was mixed. I knew that weight put me pretty firmly in the "overweight" camp--but at the same time it's far from the highest weight I've reached in my life. When I was in high school (over ten years ago), I distinctly remember weighing in at a staggering 280 pounds. By contrast, 252 didn't seem so bad for a 6'3" adult.
Still, I wasn't about to accept that and move on. I decided I was going to weigh myself every week while continuing to eat as healthy as possible. I stopped ordering the vegetable fried rice every day (even though it had not yet dawned on me just how poor a choice it was) and started eating things I imagined were healthy. I wasn't serious enough about it yet, though, because in retrospect I still wasn't making the best choices in the world. Even so, as I weighed myself every week, I came to realize that I was losing weight. My diet was so poor beforehand that even a moderately healthy diet was enough for pounds to start melting off.
After just one week, I lost four pounds. The next week, I lost two, then three, then four again! I'd lost 13 pounds in a single month and I was ecstatic. I was immensely pleased that I'd made that decision to purchase the scale despite my misgivings because it was now giving me an accurate barometer of my progress. So many times in the past I'd abandoned diets and lost motivation because I couldn't see my progress in the mirror--and refused to weigh myself. Of course, the next week, I gained a pound and was positively crestfallen. How could this have happened? I felt very discouraged--but I saw it as an opportunity to redouble my efforts and really get serious about losing weight. I was eating well (so I thought) but I wasn't paying very close attention to nutrition.
There is a stigma attached to calorie counting for a variety of reasons. It encourages setting unrealistic goals, so some say. But, you know--it's something that has worked for me in the past. Any time I've ever lost weight, calorie counting has been immensely impactful on meeting my goals. I lost a lot of weight maybe four or five years ago. Exercising was part of that, but calorie counting really helped me to stay on track. That routine eventually fell by the wayside due to some things that were going on in my life at the time, but I always acknowledged how effective that strategy had been. In the end, I see no problem with sticking with what works--so that's what I started to do. I've only been doing that for a little over a week now, but I feel things have been going very well. I'm not great at determining the correct portion size for foods instinctively. Calorie counting helps me with that and at the same time satisfies my obsessive need to document things.
I decided that simply reducing my calorie intake was not enough. I had to exercise as well. This was something I've been doing sporadically over the past few months, but never consistently and never with much intensity. I called my uncle and asked him to show me around his gym and teach me which machines I should use. He took me down there and showed me around and I worked out pretty hard, all things told. (I've still got the aches and pains to prove it!) As soon as I was finished, I purchased myself a membership. I haven't been back yet, but I feel immensely confident that I'll continue to go. I'd really like to go in the morning, in fact!
As I said, it's Saturday, the day on which I weigh myself every week. Last week, I gained a pound. I was dismayed, but felt motivated. This week I've lost four more pounds! This puts me at 236 pounds. I have to imagine I haven't been at this weight for a long time, but I feel confident I can do better. My realistic goal is 200 and my ambitious goal is 180. My real goal, however, is simply to be fit and to be happier with my body. I'm already very happy that I've managed to convince myself to put forth the effort to make myself healthier, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to improve that image looking back at me in the mirror.
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