Weight Loss "Blog"

Hello. My name is Michael. Some people call me Mike, but that's not relevant at the moment. I guess I should start with what and why I'm writing this. Towards the end of January of this year, 2020, I wanted to lose weight. That is both true and false at the same time.

I have wanted to lose weight since I was in third or fourth grade. While in elementary school and high school, I didn't put much effort into losing weight because I figured gym class would take care of that. I was wrong. At the time of graduation, I was about 285 pounds. That was June 2014. At my heaviest, I was 345. That was at the beginning of this year.

It's not like I haven't tried losing weight before I hit my heaviest. I tried walking around my neighborhood for a while. That was 2016. I didn't stick with it. I tried again last year in the summer, but I didn't stick with it again. Maybe I got bored exercising for half an hour or maybe it was the encounter I had with an … interesting character while I was pushing my 2 year old nephew in a stroller on one of these walks. Perhaps both. Either way, it was time for me to find something that worked for me.

Of course 2020 has been a strange year that people will never forget. A certain virus has had people on edge and for good reason. People with immune system diseases or are over 60 or are obese are at an increased risk for getting it. I am not over 60 and do not have any immune system diseases. I was over 300 pounds, however, and I did not want to be at an increased risk for anything because of my weight.

I didn't want to be 340 pounds and I told myself that if I ever hit that mark that something would have to be done. Being about 5 pounds over my personal maximum weight limit was unacceptable. I knew it was time for a change.

I started exercising at the end of January. I was going to exercise 4 days out of the week and I hoped that would help me lose weight. I wasn't going to weigh myself often because I thought it would discourage me. So in February, I weighed myself and saw no change. No big deal. Only a couple weeks into this new exercise regimen and it was normal for no changes to be seen. I started exercising every day. I did a little bit every day. A couple weeks later, I weighed myself again and saw a little change in the right direction. Good.

From then on I saw my weight go up and down. I tried measuring my waistline and came to find out that I still had a 56 inch waist. Around May I started feeling frustrated. I didn't want to change my diet because many people said that whatever weight they lose on a diet, they gain it back when they stop. I figured that a diet change wouldn't help because the weight would eventually come back.

After my birthday at the end of June, I wanted to change my diet. After the fourth of July weekend, I started counting calories. I'm no doctor and I'm not claiming to be one. I did not talk with my doctor about this change even though I probably should have. I found out how many calories I should be eating on any given day and I felt like I could do this: exercise every day and watch what I eat.

After doing that for a month, I lost close to 10 pounds. I felt amazing. I was proud of myself. This led me to doing some research. 3,500 calories make 1 pound. If you want to lose 1 pound, you need to burn 3,500 calories or use a combination of burning calories and eating less. I'm not saying to starve yourself. Never do that. It is recommended that you eat at least 1,800 calories a day to maintain your weight but again, I'm not a doctor. Also, everybody is different and has different needs and should talk to a doctor before doing anything like changing your diet or starting an exercise regimen.

I started eating around 500 calories less than what I found out I needed to eat to reach my target weight. By the way, my target weight is reaching 285 before this time next year. By eating 1,800 calories a day and exercising every day, I was losing weight relatively quick. By mid-October, I was 316 pounds. I was at the doctor's office for a check-up and, to me, the doctor's scale is the most accurate scale I've ever seen. My doctor said it's good that I was losing weight. Honestly, I should have been following the doctor's orders regarding weight since the get-go, but what can I say?

Before Thanksgiving, I was 305. After that weekend, I was 307.5. As of tomorrow, I will finally be less than 300 pounds. That is, as long as I don't go overboard today and eat more than I should. The last time I was 300 pounds or less was sometime before 2016.

Motivation, effort, and patience were all key elements to my weight loss. I had motivation before but even more so now. Same thing with effort and patience. I also needed the time to exercise. I take care of my two nephews; one is a kid and the other is a toddler. My family is a big reason why I have the time to exercise. They're amazing and a blessing.

Not sure if this will be a weekly thing or bi-weekly or what but I hope this can continue. I hope it will continue. Like with anything I've written, hoping this helps someone by entertaining them, helping them through something, or in some way … helps. I know I go on tangents and my writing isn't exactly coherent, but that will get better … maybe.