Hello all! When last we spoke, I had been with the Eating You Alive team for about 5 months and I had lost 40 pounds during that time by adopting a whole food plant based lifestyle. I’ve now been with the team almost a year, and as I write this I am down about another 55 pounds for a total of 95 lost since adopting the lifestyle, and a grand total of 130 pounds lost since my heaviest weight. I weigh less now than I have in nearly a decade and I am healthier now than I have been in my entire life.
The last year has been very emotional for me. Obviously the weight loss has brought me a great deal of excitement and joy. But, there is also an unexpected feeling of sadness that comes with that joy. You see, my perspective is very different on the way down than it was on the way up. As I look back at where I was, I can’t help but feel saddened that I allowed my weight and my health to get so far out of control.
For most of my adult life, I suffered from the misconception that I think many people suffer from. I thought that losing weight had to be an uphill battle. I believed obesity was my natural form, and that the only chance I had of losing weight would be to torture myself with painful, exhausting exercise and tiny portions of tasteless health food. And if I was able to work hard enough to lose a little weight, I would have to constantly keep working and fighting to keep it off. Everything in my experience told me that the path to fitness was paved with misery, and in my heart, I did not believe that I was strong enough to bear it. To quote Milan Ross, “My body, I thought, was my tomb.”
Believing that obesity was my natural genetic destiny made me believe that weight loss would always be a fight. It put my mind at war with my body, making me my own enemy. And when you do battle with yourself, you cannot win. Now I’m not saying that weight loss is easy, but for me, the most difficult part by far has been breaking free from that state of mind.
With the knowledge and support that the EYA team has given me, as well as the support of my family and friends, I have been able to see weight loss not as a fight, or a chore, but as a relief. I see now that my body never wanted to be fat. My genetics were not holding me down, I just needed to be introduced to the way of eating that allows my body to function the way it's supposed to. I needed to stop eating the processed foods, and animal products that I had become addicted to and start eating the food that human beings are supposed to eat.
My journey is not over yet. I am still overweight and I can probably lose another hundred pounds or more. But I’m not worried about that. You see, the person that I was when I hit 445 pounds didn’t believe in himself. He didn’t think that there was anything that he could do that would really change his future. But now I know that if I stay on the path that I’m on, there’s nothing that I can’t do.
If you're struggling with obesity, or any other chronic health condition I strongly encourage you to make this change. Choose to give your body what it needs. If you're like I was, and you think that you can't change your life, you're mistaken. You are the only person who can.