My weight loss journey

At my heaviest weigh-in, I clocked in at 311 lbs. I had a BMI of 45.6, which categorized me as morbidly obese. Today I weigh 196 lbs, a 115 lbs weight loss. I can confidently say for the first time in my adult life that I am healthy. People often ask me how I found success. Usually, I tell them something along the lines of “eat less, walk more” or “ hot girl walk,” but in reality, there was a lot more to it.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my journey this semester, and I want to offer more thoughtful insight on what I feel is the key to weight loss that fad programs and YouTube creators fail to address. Love and support is the secret to weight loss that gave me the strength to see this journey through. 

I want to provide some context on my struggle with weight growing up. My parents did their absolute best to keep me active as a child. I attended a kid’s gym that emphasized nutritional education and did Taekwondo through middle school (I do have a black belt now). I stuck with this routine through high school and even threw shot put senior year just so I could tell people they were speaking to a varsity athlete. However, these efforts proved futile. I enjoyed sweets and carbs in excess. Man, I still love chocolate milk. I weighed 100 pounds entering kindergarten and packed on another 200 plus pounds over the next 13 years.

I didn’t let weight hold me back in life. I never experienced exclusion at school or camp based on my size and had great relationships. This shows the remarkable progress in the human condition that society has made. However, life with childhood obesity is challenging. Going to gym class or Little League practice and not being able to keep up with your friends is demoralizing. The hardest days for me were at my annual checkups. It was heartbreaking to see how my health worried my parents as the doctor explained the severity of my situation.

I was so excited to start at Middlebury. A picture of myself and my roommate from move-in day is shown below. Fluctuations at over 300 pounds are large, I estimate I may have weighed as much as 325 pounds in this picture. Behind all my excitement there was dread. Middlebury is an outdoorsy and active school. Would people want to spend time with me? In hindsight, that worry was frivolous. I have met my best friends here who have been vital to my success with weight loss. 

Last fall I embarked on my weight loss journey. I was tired of living with a glass ceiling. I have too much to achieve and too many people who love me to cut my life short. To lose weight, I would need three things to maintain a caloric deficit: a well-defined goal, accountability and a lot of exercise with a sustainable eating plan. At 6’0” on Tinder and 5'9” in the real world, a healthy weight goal would be to lose 131 lbs, or weigh 180 lbs in 12 to 15 months. Well-defined goal, check. I keyed in brothers from the Middlebury College Rugby Club. Accountability, check. Then one day, I stumbled across this exercise on TikTok called the Hot Girl Walk and thought, “Why can’t I do that?” My good friend put me onto the app MyFitnessPal so I could track my caloric consumption and make healthier food choices. Exercise and food plan, check. 

No plan is impervious to the emotional challenges of weight loss. You will feel hungry all the time and struggle with focus. You will feel isolated when passing on activities with friends to go to the gym or stick to your diet. I dealt with a lot of uncertainty and anxiety at the beginning as I went down this new road. Patience is necessary for change. 

Love gave me the strength to overcome these challenges. On a particularly hard day last spring while I was walking on the treadmill someone came up to me and became the first person to say they were proud of me for my progress. Moments like that, memories of good times with friends and family, and envisioning a healthy future acted as a numbing agent for the burn in my calves and the urge for whole chocolate milk (we still get together sometimes). There is no greater source of strength than love. Taking care of your body will also teach you to love yourself.

Fifteen hundred miles on the treadmill later, I have lost the weight I needed to lose. I can walk into any store and there will be clothes that fit me. What I look forward to most is my newfound appreciation for health and being there for my loved ones.