How I lost 40% of myself: the story of a man who lost 56 kg

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

This is the story of Dylan Wilbanks, a man who, in his 40s, weighed 137 kg and was on the verge of irreversible health problems. Dylan realized that he was not ready to accept the life of a fat diabetic. He chose a different path.

I was unhappy. Pants size 44 (equivalent to size 58 for Russia, analogue XXXXXL, waist 112-118 cm) barely converged on my stomach. But size 44 soon became too small - I regularly changed the buttons-fasteners that could not withstand the tension. It became difficult with the shirts. XXL T-shirts pulled up, button-down shirts pulled me over as I sat down. I slept badly. When I lay on the couch or in bed, I felt like a whale washed ashore.

I got to this point for several reasons. I was not an active child. I couldn't run even one mile. Literally. Never in my life have I run a full mile, from start to finish, without stopping and walking at a slow pace.

In elementary school, I discovered the pool. I went there five times a week and was awarded two diplomas. This was especially exciting for my ex-athlete father, who found smoking was better for him.

But then I went to college and stopped going to the pool. When I graduated from high school, my weight was 81 kg. After graduating from college, I already weighed 102 kg. Then the weight fluctuated a little, but continued to grow as I entered the world of work.

Job. I'm a natural perfectionist, but I've worked in a design field where pragmatism always prevails. For this reason, I was often stressed, and eating was the easiest way to alleviate this condition.

Then, like so many, fears began to plague me about my weight problem. In 2000, I lost 18 kg in a violent series of panic attacks that ended up being driven away in an ambulance. Over time, losing weight and pursuing a healthy lifestyle began to seem like the best way to block anxiety attacks, and it helped until I lost my job following the dotcom crash.

In 2003, on the eve of the birth of my daughter, I again tried to take up my weight and lost 16 kg. The lost pounds returned with the awareness of the difficulties of fatherhood. In 2007 and 2010, I lost 13 and 11 kg, respectively. In fact, I was just returning to the starting point.

By 2012, I had regained the 11 kg I dropped in 2010 and then gained another 7 kg on top.

Bottom line: 137 kg and prediabetes.

Lose weight

All diets work on the same principle: if you consume fewer calories than you expend, then your weight will decrease

The Weight Watchers system is based on two principles: calories are converted into points, their limit is determined, and then meetings of participants in the weight loss program are added to create a system of reporting to each other. Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig are similar to the first system, but they require you to buy exactly their food. The Atkins diet is a protein-rich diet without carbohydrates, which helps to trigger the mechanism of ketosis. Paleo diet - the diet of ancient people.

The principle still remains: consume less than you spend, and you will lose weight

Understanding this principle, I settled on the Weight Watchers system, since it had three points that were attractive to me:

1. Ease of converting calories into points, making it easier to track food intake.
2. Accountability is a great motivator for me.
3. No restrictions on what I can eat.

That's how I started. After losing the first 5 kg, I just kept moving in the same direction.

Pain

After a few months of dieting, I realized that calorie reduction alone was not enough.

I need to start practicing. It was the beginning of the year and every gym in town was ready to welcome me. I took the money and went. Went to the treadmill. It was very difficult at first. To force the muscles that once could hardly cope with the active movement of a child, to move a person weighing 127 kg is too much. But one day I ran a mile in 12 minutes and didn't die. Damn it! I ran a mile!

All summer I continued to study. Mile in 11 minutes. Mile in 10 minutes. At the same time, I added iron exercises, signed up for the pool again, and started practicing lunchtime walks.

And then I signed up for the five kilometer race and started training. I was hoping to just get to the finish line, run the entire distance and not die. According to the most optimistic forecasts, I could keep within 35 minutes.

I did it in 30 minutes. It should be noted that on the last mile my muscles were simply exhausted, but I ran 3.1 miles in the same time that I covered 1 mile in 6 years. My speed was above average for my age group.

Anti-Fat Moods

And at that moment I was a little upset. Was I scary before? Unattractive? Need to lose 34 kg to be considered attractive?

But that's not all. I was at an event where I met a woman who was openly flirting with me. It's worth noting that I'm a prickly introvert who doesn't respond to compliments from flatterers. But the point is that this woman knew me when I weighed 137 kg. Why "after 34 kg" I suddenly won her flirtation?

Weight is a kind of marker for society. A fat person can always be rejected, regardless of his inner problems. We tell ourselves that being fat is their choice. We instill in ourselves ideals from the covers of magazines, rejecting anyone who does not correspond to these stereotypes.

My opinion on this matter has changed. If you are happy to be fat, be fat. If being overweight does not affect your health, be overweight. And you don't have to be fat or fat at all. The point is the ability to look at yourself as a whole, to change only what needs to be changed, but leave the rest as it was.

I was not happy with being overweight and I was not healthy. Therefore, I needed to get rid of fat.

Saddle the bull

I started showing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Not to the extent that compulsions are observed, but obsessions have already occurred. And the diet is involved.

Weight charts made me obsessive. I lose 0.8 kg a week. Will I be able to maintain this momentum? Will I be able to continue to lose weight every week after that?

I started spending Friday nights on the treadmill. My body could no longer withstand the increasing loads. My doctor asked me if I understood that I was heading towards anorexia.

However, this same disorder helped me move in the right direction. In the end, I was losing weight. The dynamics of weight loss remained safe at less than 1 kg per week. The gym gave me muscle. I would never have thought that I have them. If not for my obsession, I would have given up months ago.

However, this is a double-edged sword. You start to worry that your obsession is starting to rule you.

Changes

Clothing costs were appalling. I changed the size every month. I started with XXL shirts. Now I wear M. From waist size 44, I went up to size 33.

Alcohol appetites dropped dramatically. It used to be okay to drink two pints. Now after two pints I can call a taxi. The pressure shifted from prehypertensive values to hypotonic ones. Just standing on my feet, I risked fainting. Being overweight in the past has put me in front of the fact of having saggy skin, but in fact this problem is greatly exaggerated. Defects don't look as bad as fat anyway. In addition, they do not prevent me from seeing my legs, the existence of which I almost forgot.

My diet hasn't changed much overall, but my food choices have changed significantly. I'm still omnivorous, but I eat a lot less meat and dairy products, preferring vegetables (and I still hate tofu). I still eat fried foods, but in very moderation.

The end and the beginning

On April 12, 2014, I weighed 80 kg - 56 kg less than 72 weeks earlier. 16 months of work on myself made my weight the same as it was when I graduated from high school.

The day before, I wrote a letter of resignation, and these events are related.

During the diet, work turned into another obsession. Poor organization turned the workflow into a death march. The mismanagement destroyed the remnants of the desire to stay there.

In the midst of all this chaos, I did what any possessed person would do - grab onto what I can control. In this case, my diet turned out to be something that I completely control.

I also ran into completely unintended consequences. Physically I was healthier than I had ever been, but my work situation turned into signs of PTSD.

However, I have my health. Sugar level is normal. No symptoms of pre-diabetes. Cholesterol dropped. Blood pressure and heart rate are similar to those of a 41-year-old athlete, not an obese person.

And this is just the beginning. Research shows that between 1/3 and 2/3 of people who are on the diet gain even more weight than they did before the diet. The chances are slim that I will be able to maintain my current weight in this state. So now it's just a matter of vigilance. It is difficult to remain vigilant when you are outside the work routine. But I keep trying.

Losing 56 kg of weight taught me that I can achieve anything if I give myself completely to this business and push myself from one small goal to the next. I've never felt better or happier, but it didn't solve all my problems. I am still struggling with emotions and the aftermath of negative work experiences. And I don't think I'm handsome. Half the time I feel like a dumbass and, most surprisingly, I still feel fat.

However, until now I have not even tried to solve these problems. My only goal was to improve my physical health. It remains to be decided which problem will be next on the list.