sittingstill
New member
120 days that is....
Okay - a little about me:
My name is Michael, I'm 27 years old and live in Oxford, England, UK (a little island off the coast of France!!)
I first became overweight in about 1990 having been mostly a thin child, and then at about the age of 11 I recall starting to develop what was, in hindsight, a slightly unhealthy relationship towards food, in that I would obsess about it quite and bit and certainly eat too much junk food. Like most fat kids I always hated doing physical exercise. So really from 1990 until the last few years I was overweight and pretty much completely sedentary....
About 12 years ago, in tandem with having suffered a pretty severe bout of depression at such an early age, I started really eating too much. I wouldn't say binge eating although sometimes that's completely what it was. But definitely the standard diet for me was constantly eating too much food, too much of the wrong food, and always obsessing about eating some kind of junk food....an obsession which at the end of the day/week I would usually acquiesce to....
As such, I went up to a peak weight of about 265lb, and would basically hover at the 250-265 mark all the time. Now, although I'm 6ft "1, I am very 'thin boned' and slender, so at 260 I look really overweight and classify as essentially morbidly obese.....
Because it's not cool to go through your teenage years / young adulthood this way, I would constantly try different things: first it was diet pills, then just straight dieting, then Atkins (from which I had my first prolonged period of success). But the bottom line was that I NEVER stuck to any of these approaches for a long period of time....the obsession about food always kicked in....
In 2005 I tried the Atkins diet....and stuck to it pretty much constantly for about half a year....yo-yoing back on the odd eating day. I even started exercising for the first time since high school. Really easily and really quickly there was a noticeable change in me, not just physically but in terms of my temperament / depression. Or course, my commitment to the change was not deep enough and I just stopped and put all the weight back on. I stayed like this for the next couple of years....
Until.....about 3 years ago I started having some chronic health problems: pains in my knee joints for seemingly no reason, chronic fatigue, nausea, itching in my legs and feet, having to get up about 6 times a night to urinate. Of course this was my dreaded past catching up with me, and about 2 years ago I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes....something I'd never even thought about before....
So at first, scared into doing the right thing, I lost some weight, started eating healthy and doing regular cardio, and saw good results. But I was never able to stick to it for an extended period of time....
Then about a year ago I saw a documentary called Raw For 30 Days: Reversing Diabetes for Life in which a group of Type II Diabetics have their diabetes 'reversed' in 30 days by following a raw vegan diet (which works primarily because of the phytonutrients & lack of cholesterol inherent in such a diet). This inspired me to look deeper, and I came across another book about an actual peer-reviewed U.S study on the undeniable effectiveness of a low-fat vegan diet on reversing diabetes....
Feeling I was on the verge of a significant lifestyle change, last May I designed and embarked on a 100-day-challenge 'F**k Diabetes' diet. In 100 days I lost 60 lbs, started exercising, and by the end of it I was down to 185 lbs, was vigorously exercising 6 days a week, and was about to enter myself into a half-marathon. I had actual completely changed my physiology from that of a chronically sick couch potato, to that of an athlete....I had also reversed my diabetes and was taken off all my meds.
And then....the unbelievable happened. I went on holiday, and when I came back in September I started eating again....binge eating constantly, almost in this dazed state of depression. I hardly went to work, always calling in sick, became completely withdrawn, and my quality of life was at ZERO....
This went all the way through till December, when I realised I was well on my way to having put all the weight back on. My back started hurting from the extra weight going on in such a short time. I've started to feel ominously drowsy again. I promised myself I would start again but I kept just putting it off and off, tied in to my old ways....
Well today, Thursday January the 21st, is the first day of my new 120 challenge. Enough is absolutely enough, and I feel like this is my major crossroad: I can continue down the path to morbid obesity, depression, an unproductive life, and ultimately an early grave.....or I can make a radical decision to invest every fibre of my being into a permanent, fundamental lifestyle change....and start actually living my life
Now I say 120 days....but really that's arbitrary, as it's a permanent lifestyle change, but my first goal is to get below the 14 stone (196 lb) mark, and my ultimate goal is no matter what happens to never go above that line again. Even if I slip into my old ways for brief periods of time, ALWAYS stop before I ever hit that line....
And that's exactly my problem, for some reason when I 'break my diet' it depresses me that I've acquiesced to my 'demons' and some how instead of rectifying the situation, it always turns into some long vicious circle. I view this in my case as being a proper addiction....no different to drugs or alcohol (or shopping!), and one that can be just as lethal if left unchecked....
So I'm taking this very seriously.....and another factor - all the exercising I did made me feel SOOOOO good....there is nothing as therapeutic as going to the gym each morning and doing a killer cardio workout....tough at first, and never the easiest thing to commit to, but a completely awesome and life changing effect to be had on body and mind.
And in a nutshell THAT is my goal....to go back to being that person, to walk away from this darkness, and live in that light, for better or worse, for the rest of my life....
Okay - a little about me:
My name is Michael, I'm 27 years old and live in Oxford, England, UK (a little island off the coast of France!!)
I first became overweight in about 1990 having been mostly a thin child, and then at about the age of 11 I recall starting to develop what was, in hindsight, a slightly unhealthy relationship towards food, in that I would obsess about it quite and bit and certainly eat too much junk food. Like most fat kids I always hated doing physical exercise. So really from 1990 until the last few years I was overweight and pretty much completely sedentary....
About 12 years ago, in tandem with having suffered a pretty severe bout of depression at such an early age, I started really eating too much. I wouldn't say binge eating although sometimes that's completely what it was. But definitely the standard diet for me was constantly eating too much food, too much of the wrong food, and always obsessing about eating some kind of junk food....an obsession which at the end of the day/week I would usually acquiesce to....
As such, I went up to a peak weight of about 265lb, and would basically hover at the 250-265 mark all the time. Now, although I'm 6ft "1, I am very 'thin boned' and slender, so at 260 I look really overweight and classify as essentially morbidly obese.....
Because it's not cool to go through your teenage years / young adulthood this way, I would constantly try different things: first it was diet pills, then just straight dieting, then Atkins (from which I had my first prolonged period of success). But the bottom line was that I NEVER stuck to any of these approaches for a long period of time....the obsession about food always kicked in....
In 2005 I tried the Atkins diet....and stuck to it pretty much constantly for about half a year....yo-yoing back on the odd eating day. I even started exercising for the first time since high school. Really easily and really quickly there was a noticeable change in me, not just physically but in terms of my temperament / depression. Or course, my commitment to the change was not deep enough and I just stopped and put all the weight back on. I stayed like this for the next couple of years....
Until.....about 3 years ago I started having some chronic health problems: pains in my knee joints for seemingly no reason, chronic fatigue, nausea, itching in my legs and feet, having to get up about 6 times a night to urinate. Of course this was my dreaded past catching up with me, and about 2 years ago I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes....something I'd never even thought about before....
So at first, scared into doing the right thing, I lost some weight, started eating healthy and doing regular cardio, and saw good results. But I was never able to stick to it for an extended period of time....
Then about a year ago I saw a documentary called Raw For 30 Days: Reversing Diabetes for Life in which a group of Type II Diabetics have their diabetes 'reversed' in 30 days by following a raw vegan diet (which works primarily because of the phytonutrients & lack of cholesterol inherent in such a diet). This inspired me to look deeper, and I came across another book about an actual peer-reviewed U.S study on the undeniable effectiveness of a low-fat vegan diet on reversing diabetes....
Feeling I was on the verge of a significant lifestyle change, last May I designed and embarked on a 100-day-challenge 'F**k Diabetes' diet. In 100 days I lost 60 lbs, started exercising, and by the end of it I was down to 185 lbs, was vigorously exercising 6 days a week, and was about to enter myself into a half-marathon. I had actual completely changed my physiology from that of a chronically sick couch potato, to that of an athlete....I had also reversed my diabetes and was taken off all my meds.
And then....the unbelievable happened. I went on holiday, and when I came back in September I started eating again....binge eating constantly, almost in this dazed state of depression. I hardly went to work, always calling in sick, became completely withdrawn, and my quality of life was at ZERO....
This went all the way through till December, when I realised I was well on my way to having put all the weight back on. My back started hurting from the extra weight going on in such a short time. I've started to feel ominously drowsy again. I promised myself I would start again but I kept just putting it off and off, tied in to my old ways....
Well today, Thursday January the 21st, is the first day of my new 120 challenge. Enough is absolutely enough, and I feel like this is my major crossroad: I can continue down the path to morbid obesity, depression, an unproductive life, and ultimately an early grave.....or I can make a radical decision to invest every fibre of my being into a permanent, fundamental lifestyle change....and start actually living my life
Now I say 120 days....but really that's arbitrary, as it's a permanent lifestyle change, but my first goal is to get below the 14 stone (196 lb) mark, and my ultimate goal is no matter what happens to never go above that line again. Even if I slip into my old ways for brief periods of time, ALWAYS stop before I ever hit that line....
And that's exactly my problem, for some reason when I 'break my diet' it depresses me that I've acquiesced to my 'demons' and some how instead of rectifying the situation, it always turns into some long vicious circle. I view this in my case as being a proper addiction....no different to drugs or alcohol (or shopping!), and one that can be just as lethal if left unchecked....
So I'm taking this very seriously.....and another factor - all the exercising I did made me feel SOOOOO good....there is nothing as therapeutic as going to the gym each morning and doing a killer cardio workout....tough at first, and never the easiest thing to commit to, but a completely awesome and life changing effect to be had on body and mind.
And in a nutshell THAT is my goal....to go back to being that person, to walk away from this darkness, and live in that light, for better or worse, for the rest of my life....
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