Mike Digital
New member
I'm 29 and I've been overweight my whole life. My family is also overweight so like most people I never had the opportunity to build good eating habits, exercise habits, and just really caring for myself. I smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day starting at 19. I ate horrible food, crazy portions, and never really gave too much effort to my health.
In 2010, I started to "try". In reality, it was a nice thought but the effort was really misguided. I cut out pop and junk drinks, I stopped eating red meat, and I quit cigarettes cold turkey. I'm happy to say I'm still free of all of those, but it didn't do much for me. I wasn't dropping weight. I could breath better because of the cigarettes being gone from my life, but not much changed. I'd still eat junk food, but would think and pretend I was "doing good" because of the stuff I cut out.
About a year ago I was still not seeing any return on my health investment so I took it one step further. I cut out all bread, all potatoes, all pastas, and all junk and fried food. For months all I ate was grilled chicken or ground chicken/turkey with white rice and veggies. I stuck to this every single day except for a cheat day every month to six weeks. Again... no loss.
Earlier this summer I went through a messy break up. My girlfriend was also overweight and we were supportive of eating better, but like our relationship, she wasn't as serious as I was. We were best friends for over half our lives on top of the couple years of serious relationship so this was REALLY hard. It led to a major bout with depression. Some folks will binge eat during depression. For me, I just stopped eating. I started to notice I was going three or four days in between eating at all. That is some scary stuff. I wasn't feeling any hunger pains and my thought process was "I'm THIS fat, I can live fine without eating for awhile".
It was like the concept of "eating" and "hunger" wasn't getting to my brain. When forced with the thought or threat of eating the idea of food grossed me out beyond belief. I kept explaining to people that it's like that scene in the old vampire movie "Lost Boys" when "Michael" is eating Chinese food and all he sees is a container full of maggots. Food repulsed me. The gaps in between meals started getting up to 7 or 8 days at a time. I KNOW that is horrible, scary, and VERY MUCH wrong. I knew it then too, but the depression made me not care. I researched fasting and would try to justify it. I'd take vitamins and drink nothing but water, black coffee, and iced tea. Nothing else except for those some-what weekly meals. I toyed with the idea of forcing myself to try juicing (even bought a juicer), but never gave in to it.
The darkness of the depression finally started to settle and I knew I had to change. I've always avoided scales, but I went from a pant size 54 to a 48 and 3 and 4 XL shirts to XXL in about sixty days. While I am smaller and physically look better, I know I'm very lucky that I didn't do any serious damage to myself.
As I get my feet back on the ground and start to move forward with my life I'm looking to make a change. I still don't want to eat, but I do every day. Without going too deep, I just stick with natural food. I really like the "if it's advertised on TV, it's not for me" rule of thumb. I'm not doing the exercise I should, but I'm now a few weeks into a daily 20-25 minute basic yoga routine. Big difference.
I'm feeling better now. Food is not the enemy. Bad habits are. Since eating regularly and the addition of the yoga I've managed to not only keep the weight I dangerously loss off, but lose MORE. In the upcoming months, I plan to get into a better routine and get myself out of this fat guy hell and get over this horrible depression.
This is a great website. I've read so many great and encouraging stories from people. You guys prove change AND happiness IS possible! I know my story and situation is a bit different and extremely rough, but like everyone here I'm trying to turn the negative in my life into positive.
Thanks
Mike
In 2010, I started to "try". In reality, it was a nice thought but the effort was really misguided. I cut out pop and junk drinks, I stopped eating red meat, and I quit cigarettes cold turkey. I'm happy to say I'm still free of all of those, but it didn't do much for me. I wasn't dropping weight. I could breath better because of the cigarettes being gone from my life, but not much changed. I'd still eat junk food, but would think and pretend I was "doing good" because of the stuff I cut out.
About a year ago I was still not seeing any return on my health investment so I took it one step further. I cut out all bread, all potatoes, all pastas, and all junk and fried food. For months all I ate was grilled chicken or ground chicken/turkey with white rice and veggies. I stuck to this every single day except for a cheat day every month to six weeks. Again... no loss.
Earlier this summer I went through a messy break up. My girlfriend was also overweight and we were supportive of eating better, but like our relationship, she wasn't as serious as I was. We were best friends for over half our lives on top of the couple years of serious relationship so this was REALLY hard. It led to a major bout with depression. Some folks will binge eat during depression. For me, I just stopped eating. I started to notice I was going three or four days in between eating at all. That is some scary stuff. I wasn't feeling any hunger pains and my thought process was "I'm THIS fat, I can live fine without eating for awhile".
It was like the concept of "eating" and "hunger" wasn't getting to my brain. When forced with the thought or threat of eating the idea of food grossed me out beyond belief. I kept explaining to people that it's like that scene in the old vampire movie "Lost Boys" when "Michael" is eating Chinese food and all he sees is a container full of maggots. Food repulsed me. The gaps in between meals started getting up to 7 or 8 days at a time. I KNOW that is horrible, scary, and VERY MUCH wrong. I knew it then too, but the depression made me not care. I researched fasting and would try to justify it. I'd take vitamins and drink nothing but water, black coffee, and iced tea. Nothing else except for those some-what weekly meals. I toyed with the idea of forcing myself to try juicing (even bought a juicer), but never gave in to it.
The darkness of the depression finally started to settle and I knew I had to change. I've always avoided scales, but I went from a pant size 54 to a 48 and 3 and 4 XL shirts to XXL in about sixty days. While I am smaller and physically look better, I know I'm very lucky that I didn't do any serious damage to myself.
As I get my feet back on the ground and start to move forward with my life I'm looking to make a change. I still don't want to eat, but I do every day. Without going too deep, I just stick with natural food. I really like the "if it's advertised on TV, it's not for me" rule of thumb. I'm not doing the exercise I should, but I'm now a few weeks into a daily 20-25 minute basic yoga routine. Big difference.
I'm feeling better now. Food is not the enemy. Bad habits are. Since eating regularly and the addition of the yoga I've managed to not only keep the weight I dangerously loss off, but lose MORE. In the upcoming months, I plan to get into a better routine and get myself out of this fat guy hell and get over this horrible depression.
This is a great website. I've read so many great and encouraging stories from people. You guys prove change AND happiness IS possible! I know my story and situation is a bit different and extremely rough, but like everyone here I'm trying to turn the negative in my life into positive.
Thanks
Mike
