My not so positive side effects of massive weight loss.

charliet2010 wrote: »

Hello all,

I have not posted to MFP in a very long time. So much so that I had no idea of my old account information. However, since this is where I got my start I figured it would be the most appropriate venue for me to post about issues that I am currently struggling with, and maybe other people are also. To make a long story short, I have lost well over 100 pounds and have aprox. 7% body fat give or take. I follow a religious like diet and exercise regimen and am in the best shape physically of my entire life. While I don't want to play the bad guy in the "success" forum, I did want the opportunity to express that this success can often come with a tradeoff in other parts of your life.

The underlying principle that MFP and the fitness industry in general promotes is that weight loss and reaching one’s goal weight will drastically improve a person’s life. From a health standpoint, there is simply no argument whatsoever that this is indeed the case. There are other noticeable changes most people tend to experience outside of the health category which are similarly positive in nature like increased self esteem, a more positive outlook on life, access to an enhanced wardrobe etc.

What people rarely talk about are the not so positive aspects of losing a bunch of weight, and trust me when I tell you that they do exist (at least for me), and they are typically not health related but instead more emotional and psychological in nature. I will highlight a few of my thoughts on the subject below based upon my own personal experience:

I have become a womanizer-

I suppose it would be easy to make the argument that perhaps I was this way all along, it was just that I had far less willing participants when I was heavy so I tended to hang on to a girl for dear life when I actually got one. With the increased confidence that weight loss grants, I start to remind myself of that annoying guy from high school that slept with all the cheerleaders and that everyone pretended to like but secretly hated.

I hang out far too often on dating sites and apps like Match, POF and Tinder and tend to treat females more as a conquest than a desire for companionship. Maybe in my mind I think that I am making up for lost time, or perhaps that I am somehow extracting revenge on female kind for all the times they had rejected me in the past. Whatever the reasons might be, I have become the Attila the Hun of the dating world.

I have become fitness obsessed-

Anything taken to extremes can become detrimental, even something that is seemingly positive like exercise and proper diet. At first when you start your journey, everything is new and exciting. You start to fit into clothes in your closet that you have not been able to wear in years and your energy skyrockets. I did not want this feeling to ever go away, so my life quickly became consumed by diet and exercise. It became the primary focus of my life and occupied nearly all of my free time outside of work. If I was not working out, I was reading material online that pertained to diet and fitness or interacting on various forums dedicated to these subjects.

My friendships began to suffer irreversible harm as a result of my obsession. Unless they were interested in being my workout buddy, what use were they to me? They would only want to go out to the bars or to some restaurant with horrible food options anyway, so I felt I was better off without them. Besides, I had new friends at the gym and online that were far more understanding of my needs.

Other interests that had previously been important to me like professional sports, video games, tuner car builds, etc. all became either a distant afterthought or else quickly became ignored entirely.

My life became about my fitness goals, and I would not let anyone or anything get in the way of this.


I have become addicted to certain supplements/stimulants-

I like to tell people that the reason for my success is proper nutrition and exercise alone, but the fact of the matter is that this position is disingenuous at best on my part. For nearly any male to maintain a 1500 calorie or less diet for a significant amount of time takes an unbelievable amount of self discipline and willpower. Left to your own devices you will crack sooner or later. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when”.

I won’t name the substances I use because I don’t want others to seek them out, but suffice to say that when you post and read enough forums within the fitness industry you soon discover chemical ways to achieve appetite suppression via online sellers. These sellers operate outside FDA approval and sell substances which are either barely legal or legal only because of some loophole in the law.

When you are hopped up on enough stims, sticking to a low calorie goal becomes a walk in the park. In fact, you sometimes have to force yourself to eat meals at all. These substances also have the added impact of mild euphoria and increased energy. I happen to work in the advertising industry where high energy and enthusiasm is richly rewarded. These are attributes I am overflowing with on stims. I absolutely kill it in conference room for presentations these days, and my book of business is now so large that my relatively small firm can barely handle the influx.

That being said, at the end of the day I am still basically just like any other drug addict, with the only major difference being that the substances I use are legal and are dressed up with fancy names like “thermogenic”, “fat burner”, etc.



I have a vanity complex-

When I was fat, I avoided getting my picture taken and even avoided looking at myself in the mirror at all if I could avoid it. The image reflected back to me was wholly depressing. After I lost a bunch of weight and did not mind so much, it was not long until I flipped to the opposite end of the spectrum and became hyper focused on the slightest imperfection.

It was not long and it was no longer about health at all and my focus instead shifted to aesthetics, or put another way, just plain vanity. Places like MFP were no longer enough for me, so I started spending more and more time at places like bodybuilding.com where such vanity had a much more welcome audience.

This attitude quickly transcended simply body sculpting and toning. I paid to have my teeth laser whitened, I started getting 75 dollar haircuts from high end salons, my grooming routine became over an hour and my wardrobe became awash with items from the best materials and trendy designers. I have even had certain people at the office start to question my sexuality. When a guy that had formerly rocked wrinkled Dockers and ties with cartoon characters on them suddenly switches it up to Armani jackets with color matched Gucci slips on, it would make any rational person pause for thought.

I suppose it’s easy to become self absorbed when your entire life’s mission has become focused on "self improvement".

I hate fat people-

This probably seems rather odd doesn't it? I have lived that vast majority of my life as an overweight individual after all, but instead of empathizing with those who are in a similar position they mostly earn nothing but scorn from me. In sociology and psychology this behavior is sometimes called self-hate.

I tend to view overweight people as weak, unmotivated and lacking discipline to take charge of their lives. I have managed to solve my weight dilemma after all, so what the hell is their problem?



I no longer think of myself of the same person-

The concept of “me” and self has become significantly distorted. In reality I am still the same person that I ever was, but I tend to view the “old me” as dead and buried in the ground. I murdered that guy with extreme prejudice and not even a zombie apocalypse could resurrect him from the dead. My biggest fear is that I could somehow fall off the wagon and be fat again. I even sometimes have nightmares about this scenario when trying to sleep at night. I guess “identity crisis” is the closest academic term that describes this phenomenon, but I do know it’s very real. We males tend to have a difficult time with self discovery and self analysis anyway, so when you throw a tremendous and life altering change into the mix it becomes even more convoluted than before.

They way I have gotten past this is to focus on the superficial and the here and now. What is ironic is that when I began my weight loss journey I was constantly focused on the long term and the bigger picture to achieve my goals. In my current frame of mind I can’t look past what is going to happen 5 hours from now.

charliet2010 wrote: »

I have a vanity complex-

When I was fat, I avoided getting my picture taken and even avoided looking at myself in the mirror at all if I could avoid it. The image reflected back to me was wholly depressing. After I lost a bunch of weight and did not mind so much, it was not long until I flipped to the opposite end of the spectrum and became hyper focused on the slightest imperfection.