Lose Weight Quickly and Keep it off Easily

Just kidding, that isn’t possible, but it hopefully got a few people to read my Substack that otherwise would have moved onto the next cat video. My usual PSA before we go any further, if you are happy with how you feel when you:

· Get out of bed

· Look at yourself in the mirror

· Run around or rough house with your kids

· Have just finished a big meal at a restaurant

…Then this is great. I want everyone to be content and confident inside and out. For me, my inner critic had an unending stream of ammunition to use against me when I thought about my body. Being overweight affected my sleep, my digestion, mood, relationships, self-esteem, ability to enjoy my job, and more. Being an obese tween hurt my prospects of having friends, my social life, educational drive, athletic achievements, etcetera. I believe that a lot of anger and hatred in this country is directly related to our obesity epidemic. How can people be happy or in a good mood if they are miserable and exhausted? How can we show joy if we don’t feel well, or never get a good night’s sleep, or are worried about bad news from the doctor, or injecting ourselves with something weekly that makes us nauseous and lethargic?

The first time I dieted was when I turned 16. I discovered the gym and loved the way I felt as I got stronger and leaner. My eating habits were not healthy. I went on a severe calorie restriction and lost tons of weight and at that age keeping it off was easy. I maintained a healthy weight through college. When I married shortly thereafter, my life became more sedentary with long hours and a young Flavia waiting for me at home. My food intake because very unhealthy with a lot of alcohol and pot smoking, which led to excessive and uncontrollable snacking. I would find it easy to justify overeating. I told myself it was okay because I’d gone to the gym that day, or because I was stressed, or because it had been a long week and now it was the weekend, so it didn’t count. I would (and sometimes still) compulsively eat when I go to my parent’s house. I always would take a second or third helping, and dessert was on the menu even if it meant sneaking a bowl of ice cream.

At 30 years old, when Flavia and I came back from our trip around the world, I weighed 250 pounds (Flavia lost weight on the trip FWIW). I put a lot of effort into losing weight, practiced Muay Thai and began running. I liked running and even completed a marathon, that I used to call my ‘first and last’. But I was not in it for the long term, and I didn’t take care of my body, and I got Plantar Fasciitis and thought I would never run again. When I crossed the finish line of the Oakland Marathon, I weighed 207 pounds. Shortly after the marathon I threw out my back for the first time. I never imagined the agony of a bad back. The pain was constant and severe. It was debilitating and terrifying that just the slightest wrong move could send me into terrible agony.

As I gained weight, I felt lethargic, annoyed, and tired. It was a downward spiral and at one point I weighed nearly 250 pounds again. I would still always exercise but it wasn’t enough. It’s no secret that the formula for losing weight is burning more calories than you take in. I estimate that my intake was upwards of 3500-4500 calories per day and I likely burned 3000 on a good day. I first tried Weight Watchers (WW) in my mid-30s. WW works by assigning point values to foods, and giving a daily point allowance. The healthier a food, the less points it had. This worked great, for a few months… Then it worked great for a few weeks at a time. Then it worked okay for a few days each week. But there were still dinners out, or nights drinking with donuts or a late-night snack afterwards, or a work party on a Friday that went from noon until leaving. Then I took a week off, but then the next week started well, until it ended badly. And just like that my WW experiment ended and within a few months I gained all of my weight back. I spent my 30s hovering between 208-222 pounds. I started getting anxiety attacks, I would sweat profusely, had horrible stomach issues, snored every night, and felt generally awful.

In my late 30s, and into Covid, I tried Noom. Noom is like WW but adds a therapy element as well. This helped me to get a grip on the mental and emotional issues that led to my uncontrollable intake. When Flavia got pregnant with Dylan, the combination of the stress of another child, combined with terrible entrapment in a thankless job, as well as trying to navigate Covid sent me into a deep depression. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep, would devour snack after snack as my family slept and would feel useless. Dylan’s birth brought great joy to our home, but the exhaustion of a new baby in my 40s was too much for me. Frankly, at this point I gave up. My whole social network was going through what I was, we all drank, ate lots of junk, had bad backs, big guts, and could commiserate and find comfort in our struggles. My depression got worse, my weight climbed, I lost my job, I found another one, that I soon hated, and lost that one eventually too. But in that job, I found some inspiration to be better.

In April of 2024, I received a post card from MetPro. It spoke to me, and I set up an appointment to learn more. I loved the idea, a metabolic/macro based weight loss program that offered a coach to work with throughout my journey. Coach Ryan took the time to really learn about me. He didn’t pull any punches, or tell me how easy this would be, or that everything was good. He did send me workouts, reviewed menus of restaurants I was to eat at, talked or texted with me daily and was with us as the scale ticked down to 215, 210, my first marathon weight, 205, 199, 195… Although I was very happy with my weight, I was incredibly stressed and angered by my job, short with Flavia, my parents, and my kids, and mentally unraveling. In July, on a family vacation, I broke down. I felt depleted, worthless, and done. It was at that point that I realized how much more work there was to be done…

To be continued…