Post #1999061

2026-05-05 04:03 UTC

I was pushing 400 pounds at my obesiest. Randomly one summer in grad school I just decided to start losing weight - cut out soda, cut out snacking, ate less, tracking calories, & exercising. I went from 355 in May to 270 in December. Lost weight very gradually during the winter and Spring, then got to my lowest weight in my adult life, of 230 the following August. That was in 2015, and the lifestyle I was living that 2nd summer was unsustainable with having a FT job - near constant hunger, sluggishness, and brain fog, eating under 2,000 calories a day, exercising a minimum of 2 hours (1 cardio, 1 weights) per day, and doing nothing else but play video games and laze around, and yet my weight just refused to go lower for weeks. I had to "quit" for school/work and settled for a diet and exercise routine that I was happy with, and generally stayed around 250-260. Recently, I've been losing weight again, from 280 to 245. Hopefully this summer I will be able to break below 230, and in a sustainable manner. That was already insanely challenging; I can't even imagine how incredible it feels to have lost more weight than you are. Congratulations, feel proud of yourself, that's a genuinely life-changing accomplishment.

Replies (1)

@gabriel@mstdn.starnix.network 2026-05-05 13:22

Thank you @AidanTTIerian 355 to ~270 alone is a huge QoL boost I've noticed. I'm already in the best shape of the last decade, but I'm excited to reach the low 200s as I continue. I also think it's important you brought up the lifestyle constraints. When I started out I had a lot less going on and that definitely made getting the ball rolling a lot easier. I've lately been tackling the fact that pushing forward gets much harder when 'real life' imposes limitations. But I have also learned that a lot of the challenge is easier to deal with when you take some of the pressure off, it's the behaviors, preparation and patterns that matter, rather than the day-to-day fluctuations.

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