this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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Wow you really nailed it.
I lost 58kg and the only things I ever heard was concern trolling from my friends that resented me for doing what they could not.
Never heard word one about my body while I was unhealthy and unhappy, and the shitty remarks started as soon as the weight reduction became noticeable.
"Woah slow down, don't want you to disappear!" "You've proven your point! You can eat a donut!" "Why do you want to be miserable and only eat seeds?" "Fuck dude you're vanishing! Eat a hamburger!" "You think you're better than everyone now!" "It's actually really unhealthy to be as lean as you've become." "Don't like hanging out anymore, you make me think about every molecule I put in my damned mouth!" "You look like a skeleton now."
And so forth.
Wow those are shitty people. Good on you for losing that weight, as a hefty fellow it's fucking haaaaard work and you should be proud of the effort you put in!
Thanks for the support!
I made so many changes in my journey. I taught myself to cook and made every meal from scratch ingredients... for 6 months. I'm reminiscing now thinking about how many tortillas I've pressed, sauces I've made, things I've fermented, and hundreds of hours on the cutting board. How many times I ordered a "kid size" pizza or sundae on my "cheat" days lol
I ran (poorly), swam, rode, lifted and burned so many calories. I meditated every day and did monthly therapy to help with the mental stress of the physical and lifestyle changes. That is all time, effort, pain, money, and sacrifice.
Every day without wavering I made a hundred difficult little choices that prioritized my goals vs my desires/old patterns. Food everywhere and people genuinely insulted when I wouldn't partake with them or in their way. Watching my friends literally not enjoy their meal from their own shame, just because my serving was conspicuously smaller. Dealing with my biology compelling me to eat one way while I was consciously reprogramming myself to eat another way. Massive social pressures from all sides.
I never really even told anybody of my goals or changes. I didn't make it my personality or a thing. Never spoke of it once or advocated anything to my friends. Only spoke about being slimmer when specifically asked.
That's why it was so hurtful to undertake such tremendous responsibility for my own personal transformation, and then have people internalize it, make my journey about how them and how they feel shitty when they look at me, then make a snide or sinister comment. Only my best friend of 30 years gave me any positive feedback.
The whole thing was kind of a rough ride. Worth it in the end, but wow it was so much more than just eating less.
Thanks for listening. I really appreciate your comment a lot!
Such and interesting read and I hope you found it worth it in the end..! You've verbalised a lot of my experiences with quitting alcohol. It was the hardest thing I've done and lost a lot of 'friends' along the way. But ended up happier, healthier, and genuinely enjoying life again.
Good for you my friend! Yes it was the same thing when I quit alcohol 8 years ago! Quickly find out that people are happy for you to quit drinking until you actually do it, then it's like ... what you think you're better than me? Come on have a drink!
Wow this is the truth of the post. Not just that it ia demeaning that vegans get harassed but why it's counter to the reality of the effort being made.
Good on you, yeah you can't downplay the fortitude required to make such life altering changes. It's so easy to slip back into the status quo. That being said for anyone else reading, if you've tried, and failed, remember that you got further along than if you never tried at all. Keep at it, don't beat yourself up, you can do it!
Congrats on the weight loss.
I had to stop at 40Kg because my heart meds went out of balance... and have pretty quickly gained 12Kg since.
Ah that's interesting and something I hadn't considered. I wasn't really on any meds except Nexium at the time. Is your heart medication dose dependent on weight? I genuinely don't know anything about the conditions or treatment.
What do you credit for the 12kg regaining? Just wondering, my weight still swings about 8kg this way and that but I seem to have generally stabilized in a range.
It's somewhat interesting, because the main heart meds are metabolic blockers (ramipril and bisoprolol, respectively an angiotensin-converting enzime inhibitor, and a beta1-selective blocker that inhibits cAMP phosphorylation), so they can only block certain metabolic paths and once that's done, they can't have more effect no matter the dose (they're basically non-overdoseable).
But... at the same time, I had a diuretic added on (dapagliflozin) as part of a combined diabetes treatment, that used to work fine at the top weight, but at the bottom weight turned out to both reduce blood volume, impacting blood pressure, and lower blood sugar by too much, so that one had to go.
Reduction in stress (an extreme stress peak is what made me lose most of the weight), along with depression, and general despair due to a double back hernia that left me barely able to walk. I'm slightly better now after some physiotherapy, but still moving way less than before, so it's anyone's guess how it will go. It also made me switch to a worse diet, since I can't stay up long enough to prepare healthier stuff.
Thanks for sharing, I don't know why you are being downvoted or who is in this thread being a dick.