A [mostly] great & inspiring story. Though I think some of his conclusions fall into the 'too clever by half' area. Sure, absolutely, there are 'environmental drivers' for obesity but his conclusion that his weight wasn't 'fundamentally [his] fault' is just wrong. It is. Proven by the fact the he changed his weight through his own individual efforts. 'Fault' may be a strong word, but it's absolutely his own responsibility. He doesn't like that conclusion, because it 'perpetuates a noxious, damaging cultural narrative on weight and obesity.' He wishes he could have loved himself more when he was overweight... but now he has confidence in his abilities and feels better physically. He's gone from never having been kissed to having some success with women. He didn't like himself before because he knew in his heart of hearts - whatever cultural narrative he thinks he should believe - that he was a poorer version of himself before his change. Less capable, less able, less fit, and yes, less attractive. [Attraction is, mostly, biology and science and does not care that society tries to tell you that everyone is an equally beautiful and wonderful snowflake.] Other than that, massive kudos to him. Well done. Change your environment. Set yourself up for success. Systems, not Goals.
I lost 100 pounds in a year. My “weight loss secret” is really dumb. - Vox: "A year ago, I weighed 285 pounds. Today I weigh 185, which is more or less optimal for my 6-foot frame. Losing 100 pounds has been maybe the best thing that's ever happened to me. I feel better physically. I have newfound confidence in my ability to accomplish my goals. I'm more fun to be around, as the veiled bitterness that used to inflect interactions with my friends has evaporated. Indeed, all these fundamental feelings of self-loathing I'd been struggling with for as long as I could remember have disappeared. Basically, after convincing myself that I was a failure — a belief in which I saw my weight as both cause and effect — I've removed the limitations that I once placed on myself, and it's because I lost 100 pounds...
Just so we're completely clear about how unqualified I am to tell people how to lose weight, I'll run down how I lost that 100 pounds. Basically, I just went to the gym, and I ... walked. On a treadmill, uphill, at a brisk pace, for about an hour every day — and I do mean every day — from July to April. That's more or less it! I started grad school in August, which meant I moved out of my parents' house and away from their immaculately stocked refrigerator, and also meant the place where I worked all day was located more than a 10-foot walk from where I slept, which also helped, but that's more or less it!
When people learn how much weight I've lost in the past year, they sometimes remark how hard it must have been. That's a logical reaction, and it's probably true of most extreme weight loss experiences, but honestly? It really wasn't that hard. After all, if it had been hard, I probably would have just quit. The trick was finding a routine that I actually enjoyed doing and wanted to stick with. More than that, I never would have lost 100 pounds if that's what I had set out to do. Indeed, the weight loss only happened as soon as I had given up hope of losing weight at all. When I went back to the gym last July, my only real goal was to start feeling a little better about myself. If I had any weight-related goal at all, it was probably on the order of 5 to 10 pounds, and losing 20 would have made me ecstatic. Because I wasn't putting pressure on myself to lose 100 pounds all at once — or in this case, at all — I sidestepped the biggest danger when it comes to weight loss: discouragement."
Losing 100 pounds can't have been some titanic act of individual will, as I've proven fairly conclusively over the first 26 years of my life that my willpower is mediocre at best. Instead, I managed to reshape my environment so that the result was weight loss, rather than continued obesity...."
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