philolog65
New member
Hi everyone,
My name is Phil and I'm obese (class iii). I never thought I would say that, but here I am.
My introduction is going to be a long one, but consider it to be the start of my diary which I'm going to write on a daily basis.
TL;DR, I'm 29 years old, currently 185 cm tall (6'1) and I weigh about 145 kilos (320 lbs). Throughout 190 days I'm going to demonstrate to you how to find and use the untapped willpower that we all have inside of us to get some good results and commit to staying healthy, making it into a lifelong habit.
For those who are a bit interested in my life story (and may find some similarities to their own cases), here we go:
How it all started
One of peculiarities of my case is the problem that I never used to be "the fat guy" - when I was at school, I was the tallest and the biggest, and since I always quite popular at school, I never got bullied or ridiculed because of my weight.
There always _was_ someone pudgy in a group, some short and wide guy who was made fun of because of the way he looked even though I might have weighed more than him. I knew I was big-boned and my parents did their best to keep me from bad food.
Having a strong case of asthma in my childhood, I was exempt from attending PE lessons, rarely played sports and never was athletic even though many people told me I had the potential to do so with my mesomorph body.
I was an early bloomer and got to the height I have now when I was 14 or 15.
The more independent I was becoming, the more choice of food I had, and, of course, I never went for the healthy food. I can remember that when I was 14 years old I first started going on eat-all-you-can sprees - that meant I would go to a local supermarket, buy several chocolate bars and several packs of chips or some burgers and eat them all throughout the day. I did this maybe once in a month and I was still very young, so I don't think it did a lot of damage to me.
When I was 18 years old, I had a surgery on my back and it stopped me from being physically active for 4 or 5 years, which is a long time. It only added to my feeling of being an unhealthy person.
I didn't usually think about my weight, but I think that I hit my unhealthy 200 lbs mark when I was about 20 years old. It didn't really bother me as you would never guess my weight just by looking at me, and the bitter irony is that it helped me to get further into denial.
The first silver lining
The first time that I realized that I needed to lose weight was before my wedding - not because I wanted to look good on the "big day" like some people do, but because I understood that I would have to get out of my comfort zone and deal with a more hostile environment, and being strong and aggressive was what I needed. I had my Wii Fit (you can laugh as much as you want to, but that is the best thing to motivate a geeky person to start doing sports), a set of dumbbells and huge vacations (about 3 months of free time), so I managed to get in a great shape. I didn't so much lose weight, but became fitter and noticed that people do react to such things.
The apathy
However, it didn't last long. I soon realised that I didn't have to work a lot, being a postgraduate student and such, I had a really easy job and only had to get up early 2 or 3 times a week, which led to staying up till very late, midnight snacking, etc. - the usual. Even worse, just six month after being in my best shape I got so lazy that I would play video games 8 to 10 hours a day lying in bed playing video games, not even bothering to get up and do something else - after all, that was the life I had dreamt of as a teenager (yes, it's so shameful, but I think many of us have been there).
It was only then that I started to feel some discomfort - I couldn't button my suit any more, couldn't sprint even when I wanted to and had more trouble breathing than before. I went to the doctor, asking to diagnose my heart because I could sometimes feel it pumping even after climbing up the stairs. And guess what - the doctor said I was perfectly fit, just recommended one of the diets I would never follow anyway and recommended to start going to the swimming pool. I was about 125 kg back then.
The pinnacle of power
Even though I did start going to the swimming pool, I still had no real motivation to get back into shape until some events that I'm not particularly proud of, but now I know that there was no way to prevent them.
So when I was 23, I lost any drive to do anything with my life and got really unenthusiastic about the institution of marriage. I didn't have any classic addictions of the 20th century such as drugs (never even tried them, thinking that it's for those people who don't have a vivid imagination), TV (never turned it on after my teenage years), cigarettes (practised social smoking for 6 months, but then quit in just two days), alcohol (being a teetotaller is natural because it's just what I am).
I didn't fully realize that I had an addiction to games and junk food, but it didn't really matter because I started to seek cheap thrills, and where one would go for the proverbial sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, I only went for the former. Well, kind of - I wouldn't cheat on my wife and never wanted any serious relationships with anybody else, flirting and dating some girls just to feel my power was enough. Also I got a new job as a teacher and was surrounded by beautiful 20-something girls who listened to every word I said and it also helped to boost my endorphins. For the first time in my life I started going to the gym and work out real hard. I was in a really good shape, almost getting back to my pre-marriage state.
One day my wife did catch me chatting to a girl I wanted to go out with and I promised that it would never happen again blah blah blah. And it didn't happen for about half a year. Not surprisingly, it kind of killed my momentum, so I became too relaxed once again, quickly having a weight rebound, going up to about 130 kilos.
The last straw was when I got back from an unsatisfying premium resort getaway and the girl who I had a great desire to meet, suddenly invited me to an art gallery, so it was a huge disappointment that I couldn't go. I still started secretly dating her and communicating with her, and she gave me so much joy and power that I felt motivated to do a lot for her. I started playing the piano, boxing, roller skating and bought a nice MTB, setting my own record of cycling for 130 km in just one evening. The feeling I had was not love (then again, I didn't cheat with her), but it was such a perfect addition to my wife that I stopped being angry with her and I felt really happy having both of them in my life and it helped me to restore the balance. I weighed about 117 kg, but much of it was muscle, I was fitter than ever and had a great stamina.
My name is Phil and I'm obese (class iii). I never thought I would say that, but here I am.
My introduction is going to be a long one, but consider it to be the start of my diary which I'm going to write on a daily basis.
TL;DR, I'm 29 years old, currently 185 cm tall (6'1) and I weigh about 145 kilos (320 lbs). Throughout 190 days I'm going to demonstrate to you how to find and use the untapped willpower that we all have inside of us to get some good results and commit to staying healthy, making it into a lifelong habit.
For those who are a bit interested in my life story (and may find some similarities to their own cases), here we go:
How it all started
One of peculiarities of my case is the problem that I never used to be "the fat guy" - when I was at school, I was the tallest and the biggest, and since I always quite popular at school, I never got bullied or ridiculed because of my weight.
There always _was_ someone pudgy in a group, some short and wide guy who was made fun of because of the way he looked even though I might have weighed more than him. I knew I was big-boned and my parents did their best to keep me from bad food.
Having a strong case of asthma in my childhood, I was exempt from attending PE lessons, rarely played sports and never was athletic even though many people told me I had the potential to do so with my mesomorph body.
I was an early bloomer and got to the height I have now when I was 14 or 15.
The more independent I was becoming, the more choice of food I had, and, of course, I never went for the healthy food. I can remember that when I was 14 years old I first started going on eat-all-you-can sprees - that meant I would go to a local supermarket, buy several chocolate bars and several packs of chips or some burgers and eat them all throughout the day. I did this maybe once in a month and I was still very young, so I don't think it did a lot of damage to me.
When I was 18 years old, I had a surgery on my back and it stopped me from being physically active for 4 or 5 years, which is a long time. It only added to my feeling of being an unhealthy person.
I didn't usually think about my weight, but I think that I hit my unhealthy 200 lbs mark when I was about 20 years old. It didn't really bother me as you would never guess my weight just by looking at me, and the bitter irony is that it helped me to get further into denial.
The first silver lining
The first time that I realized that I needed to lose weight was before my wedding - not because I wanted to look good on the "big day" like some people do, but because I understood that I would have to get out of my comfort zone and deal with a more hostile environment, and being strong and aggressive was what I needed. I had my Wii Fit (you can laugh as much as you want to, but that is the best thing to motivate a geeky person to start doing sports), a set of dumbbells and huge vacations (about 3 months of free time), so I managed to get in a great shape. I didn't so much lose weight, but became fitter and noticed that people do react to such things.
The apathy
However, it didn't last long. I soon realised that I didn't have to work a lot, being a postgraduate student and such, I had a really easy job and only had to get up early 2 or 3 times a week, which led to staying up till very late, midnight snacking, etc. - the usual. Even worse, just six month after being in my best shape I got so lazy that I would play video games 8 to 10 hours a day lying in bed playing video games, not even bothering to get up and do something else - after all, that was the life I had dreamt of as a teenager (yes, it's so shameful, but I think many of us have been there).
It was only then that I started to feel some discomfort - I couldn't button my suit any more, couldn't sprint even when I wanted to and had more trouble breathing than before. I went to the doctor, asking to diagnose my heart because I could sometimes feel it pumping even after climbing up the stairs. And guess what - the doctor said I was perfectly fit, just recommended one of the diets I would never follow anyway and recommended to start going to the swimming pool. I was about 125 kg back then.
The pinnacle of power
Even though I did start going to the swimming pool, I still had no real motivation to get back into shape until some events that I'm not particularly proud of, but now I know that there was no way to prevent them.
So when I was 23, I lost any drive to do anything with my life and got really unenthusiastic about the institution of marriage. I didn't have any classic addictions of the 20th century such as drugs (never even tried them, thinking that it's for those people who don't have a vivid imagination), TV (never turned it on after my teenage years), cigarettes (practised social smoking for 6 months, but then quit in just two days), alcohol (being a teetotaller is natural because it's just what I am).
I didn't fully realize that I had an addiction to games and junk food, but it didn't really matter because I started to seek cheap thrills, and where one would go for the proverbial sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, I only went for the former. Well, kind of - I wouldn't cheat on my wife and never wanted any serious relationships with anybody else, flirting and dating some girls just to feel my power was enough. Also I got a new job as a teacher and was surrounded by beautiful 20-something girls who listened to every word I said and it also helped to boost my endorphins. For the first time in my life I started going to the gym and work out real hard. I was in a really good shape, almost getting back to my pre-marriage state.
One day my wife did catch me chatting to a girl I wanted to go out with and I promised that it would never happen again blah blah blah. And it didn't happen for about half a year. Not surprisingly, it kind of killed my momentum, so I became too relaxed once again, quickly having a weight rebound, going up to about 130 kilos.
The last straw was when I got back from an unsatisfying premium resort getaway and the girl who I had a great desire to meet, suddenly invited me to an art gallery, so it was a huge disappointment that I couldn't go. I still started secretly dating her and communicating with her, and she gave me so much joy and power that I felt motivated to do a lot for her. I started playing the piano, boxing, roller skating and bought a nice MTB, setting my own record of cycling for 130 km in just one evening. The feeling I had was not love (then again, I didn't cheat with her), but it was such a perfect addition to my wife that I stopped being angry with her and I felt really happy having both of them in my life and it helped me to restore the balance. I weighed about 117 kg, but much of it was muscle, I was fitter than ever and had a great stamina.
