A Wild Me Appears!

[Socksy]

Hello everyone! I'm David, a (currently) 25-year old guy in Houston, TX; originally from the good ol' tropics of Orlando, Florida! I'm going to tell you a bit about my heroic origin story; it's somewhat depressing I think. But hey, I love underdogs.

 

In the beginning, there was a big bang and I try not to think about it because they're my parents. Fast forward a few years and there's little ol' me in Pre-Kindergarten, a wild ball of mischief and mayhem that was the butt of the joke of every other kid. This is a trend that continued on to Kindergarten, past when I got expelled for throwing a chair at a teacher at the ripe and happy age of six, past my first and last suicide attempt at the old age of 10, all the way up to High School, where the decade or so of bullying, trips to psychiatrists, and the whole ADHD craze of the '90s had my high school self dropping out due to severe depression, social anxiety, chronic procrastination, and being unable to even pull myself out of bed in my senior year.

 

Then you had the fun time of the Great Recession happening in 2009, the year I dropped out/my generation graduated High School. No jobs for everyone! Woo! Just the thing my crippling self loathing needed for the next few years. Let's fast forward past the three years of not feeling anything, and you have me at the age of 20, exploding in anger that my life is going nowhere, and making the drastic life change of accepting a friend's offer to move in with him in Houston for a few months, get a job here, and get my life going at long last. And it worked! Job was get, I had money for the first time ever, and the world regained color again!

 

Five years later, and I have gone nowhere and done nothing I wanted. I still work at this terrible job that I barely force myself to wake up to go to, I haven't seen my parents since I left, my only friends left are online, my first girlfriend that I got back in June of this year cheated on me with her abusive ex for two months before I found out on my 25th birthday two months ago, and my depression, anxiety, and self-loathing have reached a critical mass, a downward spiral in to darkness.

 

And you know what? That makes me angry. I'm righteously pissed off. I have no idea what I'm doing, feel completely helpless, have been betrayed by everyone I've known in my life (save for my parents, they're awesome and deserve better), and the worst part is that I know most of it is my own fault. The only thing I can feel proud about is that I've managed to go from 270+ lbs to 215 lbs, but I've stagnated. And man, that anger? All that rage I feel? I'm using that as fuel, just like I did back when I came to Houston. But so far I've been burning that fuel and not going anywhere with it; so here I am. Right here among all of you.

 

Got my first challenge posted in the challenge forum, and I know I wall of texted here. So I'm looking forward to chilling with you all even if you don't read my huge post.

 

tl;dr I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take this any more.

 

EDIT: Right, I forgot battle plans.

 

I'm still working on them, sadly. But I know where I want to be in two years I think. Hell, I know where I want to be for my mother's birthday this February: in Florida visiting my parents and showing off the progress I've made. So I'll start with a four month goal:

 

Reach 180 lbs by February 4th, 2017.

 

Now, I have to break that down. That's 35 lbs in 4 months. 8.75 lbs/month, or about 2 lbs/week. 1000 less calories per day. That's a hefty amount, but it's doable. I've had practice at it. I've always done intermittent fasting, so that will be easy; I'll just continue not bringing lunch to work. I don't drink soda often, so I'll just go ahead and go all the way with that and cut it out completely for now. I have to drink more water anyway, dehydration is really messing me up. I eat way too much fast food, so let's cut that out - that will be easy, too. I just tell my ride not to let me buy anything. I can't go anywhere solo, I don't have a car!

 

Basic breakdown: 

• Smaller portions at dinner.
• Eat a small, healthy breakfast on the daily.
• Continue exercising 3x/week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. All bodyweight, of course.

 

I think that'll be a good start.

[The lone wolfie]

Hi 

Welcome to the rebellion

Rock Solid goal. You know exactly where you want to be. Great

I would suggest dividing this even further, like say you 2 pound first week. So even if you could only lose 1 pound in the second week, you will know how hard to push on the third.

 

One more thing, dont rely solely on weight. Track measurements of your waist,hip,arms and thighs too.Or even better if you can afford, test your body fat percentage. Check out the NF article about body fat percentage

 As you are doing strength training, you will gain some lean muscle mass, which is not not be accounted in weight.

 

Best of luck.

 

[Guzzi]

Hey @Socksy

 

Your intro makes for some sad reading. Please don't judge the community here by the lack of response, most people never read the intro threads, which unfortunately means that many new members feel a bit lost and alone. If you take part in the forums you will find a really supportive community, many of whom have similar experiences. There are certainly people who suffer from depression, self loathing, social awkwardness and anxiety. There are even threads dedicated to it, if you search for "black dog" you will find  some. 

 

I understand what you mean by using your anger as a driving force, but although anger can push you so far, it's not enough on its own and eventually you will burn out, you will be left still hating yourself. You need to try and process some of turmoil and anger, to try and understand and come to terms with it all. Do you have access to a counsellor? From what you have described it sounds like you really need to speak to someone about what you've gone through, and I'm not saying that in any negative way, I understand what it's like. I know how horrendous it is to live wishing you were dead, and I also know how good it feels to finally be free from all that anger and hatred.

 

You can use the forum to help you on your mental as well as your physical journey.  You could create a Battle Log to spill out your thoughts and feelings, even just getting stuff written down and out of your head can help, and writing it out can sometimes help you to make sense of it all too. 

 

As for your weight loss journey, just be careful you don't try to do too much at once. That could leave you feeling like you've failed and make you feel even worse. I would worry that if you rely on fast food a lot then Going cold turkey may lead to you failing, gorging on "bad food" and then feeling like you might as well give up on the whole thing. 

 

If you really want to make a lasting change then you need to take baby steps. Change one thing at a time. Work on that until you have it down pat, only then do you try to introduce the next change. 

 

As for reaching your goals and breaking then down into small achievable goals, have you thought about joining in on the next 4 Week Challenge? The challenges are a great way of breaking down your goals, meeting other members, and making friends. The next challenge starts this weekend if you're interested. 

 

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to talk down to you or tell you what to do, I don't mean to do that at all. I hope you stick around and find the community as helpful and supportive as I have and I really hope that things start to improve for you. It would be a lovely present for your mother (and you!) if you showed up for her birthday not only looking better but feeling better about yourself too. 

 

If there's anything I can do to help you find your way around the site, or with anything else, then please let me know. 

 

Take care 

 

Guzzi