guys who have struggled with being overweight and have gotten healthier, what changed?

22 comments

1. My girlfriend gave me a t-shirt in which i couldn’t fit in.

2. It’s a process and I’m not there yet, but addressing some underlying issues has been a huge step. For example: hormone levels, blood work, sleep test.

   If something seems “off,” but the effort into finding an answer. Losing weight is hard enough, so make sure you set yourself up for success.

3. My car broke down, it was one of those “it’ll cost more to repair than the car is worth” situations.

   I just started walking everywhere instead, that started me down the road to getting fit and healthy.

4. Healthy Diet and exercise. Go figure!

5. I had to lose weight for a surgery and found ketogenics

6. Looked in the mirror, didn’t like the way I looked. I felt like I was disrespecting my body by letting it get out of shape and it showed poor discipline. Not to mention, I imagined as someone in the medical field, I’d come off as pretty hypocritical to talk about “Eat healthy” with a beer gut myself. So I got in shape.

   A little note, don’t just think “I’ll run on the treadmill daily and be done with it” there’s a lot more to it and I’d suggest looking up on Youtube ways to lose body fat through diet and weight training, not just “15 min daily cardio”

7. Meal prep homie. Don’t eat anything that you haven’t pre-planned and accounted for. Your food needs to be a deliberate decision.

8. I always said “I never wanna hit a weight where I can’t do anything I wanna do”.

   Now to some degree that weight was 300 because I had to start buying heavier chairs, but when I hit 375 because I realized I no longer fit in a commercial kayak

9. I changed my diet 5 years ago and lost 100lbs. I started keto with intermittent fasting. That success showed me the discipline to fix other parts of my life.

10. I learned to cook and started hitting the gym. I tried this over and over and every time I’d get bored, tired, burned out, and just give up. And that’s because I was going from 0-100 over night.

    When it finally stuck is when I took baby steps. I told myself I was going to learn to cook 1 healthy meal. Just 1, and eat that for dinner one night a week. And three days of the week of my choosing I’d go to the gym for 30 minutes. No plan just do what I want and be active for 30 minutes. Baby steps. Both cooking and the gym are skills that you learn. And like any skill you start small and slow and master that before going into the next thing. You don’t go from king division to trigonometry. You take pre-algebra first.

    Eventually over the course of a year (yes it takes time. It’s something you learn and earn, not something you can go get overnight) I mastered cooking every one of my meals and developed a solid workout plan and I go 5 days a week. I went from 265lbs to 175lbs and then put on muscle and I’m up to 188lbs. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been and feel better than I thought possible. But it starts with 1) taking it seriously, and 2) baby steps. Really small, tiny, manageable baby steps. Don’t rush. Your competing with yourself, not anyone else.

    Edit: I should also add that this was not done out of self hate. It was done out of self love. Thanks to a great friend I was reminded that I have worth and I do deserve to be happy and healthy. And I was reminded of the importance of self love. Self love is largely doing things today that you don’t want to do because future you also deserves to be happy and healthy. I started this journey because I wanted to be happy and healthy one day. Me showing myself love is giving future me a healthy mind and body even if I didn’t necessarily want to today. Because I have worth, and I deserve to be happy and healthy too. And so do you.

11. I realized if I ate less, I lost weight.

    And if I lost weight, I could come off, the meds I was taking.

12. Worked out regularly, but the big thing was diet. Cut out the vast majority of my junk food. A few chips or a piece of cake every once in a while won’t hurt. But just start choosing healthier meals and alternatives. Avoid restaurants, but if you’re invited, carefully look at the calories and ingredients for the meals. Seriously, it can be shocking the amount of calories and fat that are in most meals at restaurants. Stick to drinking mainly water, avoid surgary drinks. Im not suggesting you go on a strict diet, but just monitor what you eat. Thankfully, I changed my habits when I was still young (12-13) so it was easier for my body to shred off the pounds. You won’t see progress right away, but just doing these simple things can prove invaluable.

13. Basic health benefits is about the only big difference I found after losing 100 pounds and it being easier to find clothing that fit. As far as what caused it I got a job that paid enough that I could eat healthier and started working less hours as well which meant I could exercise easier.

14. I used my friends as motivation, I knew these guys since middle school and all of em used to be fat and are now ripped, I couldn’t be the only one to stay the same so I got in shape

    also I saw a picture of myself in a wedding and GODDAMN! it look like my outfit was gonna pop out.

    I just mainly lift and do chest workouts and did torso workout (had a big fat love handle)

    and for cardio I box, I hate running but boxing is a better form of cardio

15. My dad died as a result of obesity related heart failure, and that put things in perspective that I needed to tighten up on my health or I’d end up the same way. So far I’ve lost 75 pounds.

16. Got a job doing landscaping, and farm work, and fighting fires.

    Basically went from on my ass to in the field and had to shape up quick. Also got a much better diet than want I was eating.

17. Diabetes. The diagnosis scared the shit out of me so I changed everything. No more refined sugars, less carbs, ride a bike, etc.

18. Depression. Losing weight is easy when you can’t summon the willpower to eat.

19. Honestly, it’s been a combination of hijacking bad mental health and getting a fitbit.

    The fitbit got me to actually look at how active I am vs how much I eat; I was logging all my food on the fitbit app for over a year, and realised that I overate a massive amount. Once I fixed that, my weight dropped quite quickly by about 12kg.

    Hijacking bad mental health is the bit that’s both more difficult and showing more reward imo. I promised myself that I would take (essentially an anthropomorphisised version of) everything about myself that I hate, and drown it in my sweat and blood. Every day, I work on something and sweat, or work on whatever until I bleed. Sweat is the easier option, but I’ll take either; it’s easier because going to the gym also means that I can improve how I feel about myself, and a runners high is nice

20. Diet and a very smol exercise a day like running 2-10 km

21. Got my blood sugar tested and learned I was on the path to diabetes. That will wake anyone up.

22. I somehow channeled loneliness and depression into motivation and made a conscious decision that I needed to change my lifestyle or it wasn’t going to end well. Last summer, I started walking aimlessly for hours listening to music and podcasts. I just wanted to think and be around nature and not in my house all the time. I barely ate anything and had to force my calories back up to a normal daily intake and then started calorie counting on an app. I then did as many pushups that I could do in the morning and before bed, even if it was half of one. I then bought a gym membership and went on my days off. I lost 3 stone and actually have muscle now and clothes that fit properly. Got an actual haircut too. I now have to force myself through mantra-like daily thoughts to be myself and talk to people about my interests and passions, without my usual extreme verbal filter of worrying how I’ll appear. I feel like I’m still only halfway there although I’ve made so much personal progress. I’m a lot happier now and feel confident enough. I realised that I am the only one who can fix it and I was sick of self pity while doing absolutely nothing about it.