It's been a weird journey from the beginning, so let's start there.
The beginning: Early May-ish.
For the first few months of the year, I'd been half-assing a diet. It was more like "I'll kind of eat healthy, unless I don't feel like it." But one morning, I woke up, and I just thought, "Maybe I'll just eat less today. And tomorrow. And do that until I'm a good weight." I was 225 pounds then.
To me, the weirdness of it is that there was no ceremony. Nothing inspired me other than, "Meh, why not?" And for the next few weeks, I realized I wasn't suffering. I was hungry, sure, but it wasn't too bad.
So I'd eat not much more than chicken and vegetables, and call it a day. DanPar and Crash often ate more calories than I did.
Bad advice: Late May-ish.
This is about when I started telling people, "Hey, I've lost 15 pounds in the last three weeks!" And it was true! I was 210, and I could feel it. Walking around just felt a tiny bit easier. I started to see myself like I was: super handsome, and a magnificent thing to behold. (I'm kidding, but I really did think of myself as extraordinarily good-looking at the time.) And then, like Wile E. Coyote noticing the nothing beneath him, it started to hurt when I started to see results. This is when I remembered some bad advice I'd learned long ago: Try and enjoy hunger pangs. It's a bit sadistic, but it worked. I wouldn't ignore my hunger, I'd feel it, and feel proud.
This is probably an unhealthy relationship with pain and uneasy feelings, but it works. Can't recommend it, though.
Good advice: Early June-ish.
So, how can we satisfy hunger for less calories? That's the million dollar question that I've got a bunch of responses for. And here's what I've got:
- Diet root beer. It doesn't destroy that sweet tooth, but it helps quiet it down. I've stashed some in the corner of the basement, so the kids don't want to drink soda.
- High protein, low carb, not too much fat. These are the macronutrients. Protein is what your body wants. You don't have protein, you lose muscle. You want low carbs so that you burn the fat you've got.
- Count calories. I know what I'm looking at in food. I could be better, more vigilant, in counting calories, but I'm relatively aware of how many calories I'm tossing into my system.
- Bubble gum. Sometimes I just want something good in my mouth. And let me tell you, that sugar-free stuff doesn't always make the cut. But the sugar-ful gum? It's delicious, and it's still much healthier than stuffing my face with anything else.
Battleground: Now.
It's tough. This is a point that I honestly never saw myself getting to. I figured I'd just always be over 200 pounds. BMI says I should be 190, and I thought that was a load of horse dung. Maybe it still is, but it's within reach. I'm slimming down. I've still got a belly, but I've got less of one. But I'm still tempted by everything I see. There's a tube of mini-M&Ms in the basement right now that, honestly, I'm considering dumping down my gullet.
Writing about it helps, although it certainly doesn't set anything to order. It's a messy, helter-skelter, topsy-turvy, harum-scarum gathering of capricious attitudes and questionable advice, but it's resulted in my losing 25 pounds! Earlier this year, I was categorized as Obese, which is over 230 pounds for my height. Now I'm approaching the lower end of Overweight.
And hey, here goes nothing!
(Hundo-City is what I'm calling the club of people who have achieved weight loss to the point of one-hundred-something, as opposed to two-hundred-something.)
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| I'm sure it's just me, but I think my boys look SO COOL with backwards caps |
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| Snacks and smiles! |
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