Onederland.

A place that most people 200+ pounds wish to get to.

I never thought I would be able to get to that point in my adult life, where I was at least slightly more confident in myself. I had pretty much resigned myself to just being an overweight and quiet person for the rest of my life.

Add that to a bowl of body dysmorphia and pour an innate reserved personality at the time; you get someone that doesn’t have a shred of self-esteem.

The high school me is someone that I wished had taken some kind of action.

Eating less, moving more, generally getting more educated about my own health.

All of these would have helped lessen the damage.

So I’m here to at least show what worked for me. The habits I developed over time to start my lifestyle change and head to a healthier future.

Onederland was a huge motivator that helped me understand that I can lose weight and that I can most definitely become healthier by constantly reassessing my diet and life choices.



In other words, I asked myself constantly, “Is this [food/not exercising] going to help me get to a better place in my life?”



I almost got to 230 pounds by not caring and just eating to fill a need (at the time it was boredom). Now I’m going to get to my goal weight by consciously making an effort to change my life. And this post is going to detail how I did just that.



So I’m not a doctor, dietitian, or certified in any way to give advice. But I want to share what worked for me. It is at your risk to follow this advice and I cannot take any fault in any subsequent injuries/problems that arise from following what I did. I really hate disclaimers, but I gotta protect myself. You understand, right?

Now that we got the legal stuff out of the way, let’s start!



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Onederland was a huge motivator that helped me understand that I can lose weight and that I can most definitely become healthier by constantly reassessing my diet and life choices.



In other words, I asked myself constantly, “Is this [food/not exercising] going to help me get to a better place in my life?”



I almost got to 230 pounds by not caring and just eating to fill a need (at the time it was boredom). Now I’m going to get to my goal weight by consciously making an effort to change my life. And this post is going to detail how I did just that.



So I’m not a doctor, dietician, or certified in any way to give advice. But I want to share what worked for me. It is at your risk to follow this advice and I cannot take any fault in any subsequent injuries/problems that arise from following what I did. I really hate disclaimers, but I gotta protect myself. You understand, right?

Now that we got the legal stuff out of the way, let’s start!

Measuring my Progress

What really helped me keep my sanity when it came to not giving up was making small goals.

When I say small goals, examples that I did would be:

Focus on 10 lb loss goals like from 200 to 190.

I saw 10 pounds as the smallest biggest (totally makes sense) chunk of loss that gave me a bit of motivation to continue but wasn’t too discouraging that I thought it would be impossible. Even then, I still split that goal into 5 lb mini goals to have some kind of mental tracker when I weighed myself.

Also note, I never really gave myself time limits/deadlines/expected dates.

I wanted to lose the 10 pounds in the theoretical 5 weeks with a 2 lb loss per week.

But life happens.

My last 10 pounds took me all of my Fall semester (about 3 1/2 months) to lose.

“Exercising”

Now, I am proud of my hermit lifestyle. I’m all for hanging out. But then I need to recharge in my room for like a day to get back to speed unless it’s an emergency.

That changed when I transferred to my university. I went from averaging maybe 5k steps to 8 to 10k, depending on the week.

Yeah. My calves are monsters now. And I’m loving it.

Anyway. *clears throat*

My main mode of exercise was walking. Now I did go to the gym sometimes to weightlift (my roommate, friend, and I gave that up real fast; working out at 6 am isn’t a joke) or run on the track (my shyness got to me and I kinda hurt my knee, long story).

But that was so infrequent (or just stopped happening), that I focused more on walking.

Walking was so much easier for me to scale without thinking too hard about it. Plus I could put my tunes on and stay in my own world as I walked around. Perfect for introverts like us!

Focus on your Diet

CICO is King.



CICO means calories in calories out. This is what weight loss boils down to.

The calories you take in (food) needs to be less than the calories your body needs to function.



No.

Starvation mode is not a thing.

Check out this section of the r/loseit wiki about the common misconception about what this means. This is just common hearsay that gets people started with the wrong information.

If starvation mode was actually like how people commonly say it is, then everyone would gain major amounts of weight every time they felt even a little bit hungry.



Now obviously, this does not make any sense. *Puts on a lab coat and cool glasses*

That would mean all athletes, models, celebrities, and other people who sometimes have to lose weight for their jobs would be exorbitantly obese.

I mean when do we not hear about a famous star’s new diet for so and so movie.

So please do not just believe anyone giving you unsolicited advice about these kinds of things.

They may be looking out for you, but you have the right to make an informed decision about your health. *Takes off lab coat and cool glasses*

Ultimately, my main message is that your diet matters so much more.

Exercise is just a wonderful mood booster and makes you feel awesome.

Taking it easy

This habit was pretty hard to stay consistent with. It was a matter of staying mentally strong (I personally use positive affirmations as my main mental reminder) and physically observant.

I had to remind myself that I could do it and I would do it well.

The past me, the me who thought they were never going to be truly accepted by others, would hate it if I came this far to only go back.

I combated the eventual bargaining situations my mind would probably try on me by reframing my thought process. I decided that if I couldn’t work towards losing weight, then it would just be mentally easier to maintain it. This is typically called a refeed.

In my head, eating enough to maintain my weight was loads easier than eating to lose it.

That kind of thinking helped me push through the hard moments.

The physical part of this, however, was a lot easier to deal with.

Surround yourself with an environment that promotes a goal of yours. An example would be someone going to the library to hang out if they wanted to start reading more.

In my case, I put all of my extra snacks in my suite’s common room for anyone, guests included, to take. (This was how I mainly got rid of food, skincare samples like masks, etc.)

Usually, after a week of this, I would be able to keep up the progress without feeling burnt out.

Rinse and repeat for desired results.

That’s it!

It’s a lot more simple than you thought, huh?

By measuring your progress in small achievable chunks, focusing on your diet versus your activity, and taking it easy when things get hard, you can easily get over that hurdle towards the wondrous Onederland.

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