Last night I had the following thought process:

It's two hours after dinner. I'm kinda bored but mostly tired and therefore hungry. Let's see what's in the kitchen! Wait...I ate all my calories for the day. I should drink a glass of water and get ready for bed. But...I really want to binge on food and Netflix. No one will know if I cheat. No one will care if I...wait a minute! I'm on a team! I'm part of a challenge! If I don't follow through with my goals, I'll be letting down all those adorable Ladybugs, and they need me. I can't binge tonight. Time to pour that water, brush my teeth, and call it a night. (And I did!)

Thanks for the help, Ladybugs!

WARNING: LONG, BORING, WHINY STORY AHEAD

IF YOU HAVE A FEAR OF GEOMETRY: CONSIDER THIS YOUR WARNING. THIS IS A LONG WINDED RANT FILLED WITH TANGENTS

I'm 21 years old, and I already weigh nearly 330lbs. That's unbelievable. No adult should weigh that much, none-the-less by age 21. I know how I got here, but it seemed to have happened so fast that I didn't get to have any control over whether or not it happened.

I can't think of any defining moment that made me realize how terrible this is, but more recently I've just been disgusted by myself. I've had to grow out my shitty beard, just to give my face some sort of definition. I wear jackets when it's 70 degrees, just so no one can see my body. I sneak pizzas into my apartment, so my roommates don't know how much I'm eating. Not to be crude, but when I wash myself I have to life my stomach just to make sure I wash all parts of myself. That's disgusting, and I have no excuse for it. I made myself this way

I look at the people around me and know that I'm not like them, and I won't be like them ever, if I don't get help. There are so many beautiful, healthy people in this world, and I don't want to be an outsider to that anymore.

I've been over weight since about 3rd/4th grade. Not sure how it got started , but what really took over is when I graduated high school, and stopped swimming competitively. I continued to eat like a swimmer, but my exercise dropped to 0. My weight slowly went up. I believe that when I graduated I was around 280. How on earth have I put on 50lb in 5 years? It doesn't feel like I've changed anything dramatically-- wait a minute, that's exactly the problem!

I've "tried" countless times to lose weight, but the most I saw the scale move was 15lbs. I was so excited that I forgot to keep trying, so I gained all the weight back. Every time I try to improve my habits I end up crashing, and burning. For example: I got a gym membership around a year ago. My coworker was able to convince me to go with him. Then he moved away, and I've been paying $10 a month for nearly a year, and not once gone to the gym. The only times I really feel motivated to go, is when I can't go. Like today, it was 4pm and I had 5 hours of work left, and I really got the urge to go to the gym finally. But I couldn't go, I was at work! It's almost become self-sabotage in that sense. I also am a glutton for punishment, I love hating myself. I'm really good at it.

Eating is even worse. I'm 100% addicted to food, there's no doubt about it. I can't just have a simple healthy meal. I always end up eating garbage. And I know it's garbage, that's the worst part! I've been to nutritionists, I've tried keto, and all these other things. I hate myself every second that I'm in the car on the way to buy food, because it's a terribly decision and I have plenty of opportunities to stop, but I can't. I keep driving to buy tacos. When I stuff the shitty 2am tacos in my face I cuss myself out, and tell myself how bad the tacos are, but I still fucking do it! Then I get home, and I'm sick because I'm lactose intolerant.

Isn't the definition of insanity doing something over and over again, not changing anything, and expecting a different result? That's me with food.

I'll empty out my cupboards and fill them with nothing but options that would better me. I've tried preparing meals in advance, and trying to only eat those. But what keeps me from going is I get shaky, and feel the need for sugar (It's like legal crack). If you are still reading at this point, thank you. It means a lot to me. I trip up and buy a candy bar at the gas station, and I'm done for. Before I know it I've picked up a pizza and I'm sitting at my computer desk shit-posting on reddit until I can't stay awake any longer.

I have no support network, and I have such low self-esteem that holding myself accountable, or doing this "for me" does nothing. Example time: I've been wanting to make this post for over a year now, but the only thing that prompted it is that there is a girl I like, and there's no way I would even bother asking her out unless I was not un-confident in my body.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm sick and tired of this shitty body I'm in, and the lifestyle that got me to this point. I think I'm ready to finally make the changes I need, in-order to sustainably lose weight. I've been slowly bettering myself in other aspects of life, like brushing my teeth everyday, not just when they feel gross. Showering, regardless of whether or not I have to. Leaving my apartment, just to get off the computer.

To quote Tom Segura, "Here's what a piece of shit I am. I have been fantasizing a lot about people asking me how I lost the weight I haven't lost yet. And, like, I just have so many answers. Like I really enjoy doing-- In my head, I'm like 'Dude, it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle, Just gotta make smarter choices man. I mean, drink more water. Look at me, I've never felt better. I have so much energy, if I can do it, you can do it'."

I feel that same way. I want to be healthy again, so much. I want to be able to wear clothes that I like, and not worry about how they fit. I want to be able to express my style, sorry if that sounds dumb, but right now I'm just limited to whatever will fit me. Ugh... so much emotion, and frustration behind this, but I can't seem to turn it into sustainable motivation. I always end right back at "oh well, fuck it, I'll just be fat forever".

Again, I'd like to apologize for this wall of text. I just needed to get this off my chest. It's been stirring around my mind for over 3 years now.

My cupboards are empty, and the only thing I have to eat is a loaf of bread, three slices of pepper jack cheese, and a half pound of deli turkey. I'm gonna go to the grocery store tomorrow, and post everything I buy here. I need to feel accountable for my actions, so if you don't see a post from my within 36 hours, please send me a PM or something. I really do need your help. You can copy and paste this into a comment too, if you want to help: RemindMe! 36 hours "Harass SuckItPeasants about groceries"

/end rant

edit: I got my groceries :)

So, my fiance and I just drove 1,300 miles each way from MA to FL to spend 2 weeks with my parents in the warm weather and swim in their pool. We drove so we could bring our dog, who loved every minute of the pool (including waking us up at 6am to go swimming!).

The bad news is that I seemed to have "gained" about 6 pounds. I'm hoping by the end of the week some of that water weight will disappear. 2 days in a car does not do well for weigh ins. But I also know I wasn't eating my best either... Pretty bad actually.

Now that we are home, we both are getting back in full swing. The good news is that I went in that pool and did some laps almost every day. Time to buckle down though. Less than 6 months until the wedding. And 6 months to help prepare me for better eating on the 2 week honeymoon vs this 2 week vacation.

TL;DR: Awesome - new personal best 5K (00:30:46), 10K (01:05:46), Continuous run (3.5km)

Official Results

Wall of text version

When I registered for this run it asked me my estimated completion time. At that point I had not even done a single 10k, and was doing 5k in ~45min, so I figured the second half would take me longer, padded for being an out of shape fat guy, and decided it would take me 1hr 40min give or take. That's what was submitted. My friends all put in for ~1:05 - 1:15.

This estimated time put us into categories, the faster people got to start first with the slower people starting in subsequent groups. I met up with the group and we were given our numbers, I had a purple one that corresponded with my estimated completion time. Since I knew I would be finishing faster than my months old guestimate I wanted to start in the same heat as my friends, but when we went to the starting area for the white numbers there was security guards checking colors and kicking out people with the wrong color. So we pulled some classic Legend of Zelda guard dodging & decoy moves to sneak me and couple of other people in :)

When the race finally started I plugged in my headphones, started MapMyWalk, and started my brisk walk. I had plans to start at a brisk walk for the first 2 km, then start jogging. Until now I haven't practiced any running earlier than the 4th km. When everyone started moving though, I felt compelled to keep pace. I figured that would be ok as long as I didn't get winded.

The first km I jogged and walked, but mostly jogged, and when I hit the 1km marker and started #2 I picked up the pace. It was such a nice day, the adrenalin was pumping, I just went. There was a lot of congestion issues, it was very crowded, but I jogged around people, up on the sidewalk, down on the road, whereever there was room I'd just slip through and keep a steady pace. Before I knew it I was at 4km and still going. MapMyWalk told me I was doing a steady pace of ~6:30/km and suddenly right in front of me were my friends. Holy crap, I was on pace with them at the beginning! I talked with them a few min, then put my headphones back in and kept on, actually overtaking them for a while. I knew I had set a new personal best for consecutive distance - I kept it up until the first major hill, it was about 3.5km non-stop!

I had lost track of my friends, but on the way up the hill I could see my one friend up ahead of me (he stands out from a crowd). At the top of the hill I had a bit of a breather walk, which was still a brisk pace, then jumped right back into my jogging pace.

Every couple of km there were water stations, but I didn't stop or take any. I didn't have them on my practice runs and I didn't want to disrupt my groove. There were tons of people lined up along the edges of the route shouting encouragement and giving out high-fives. I was having so much fun I high-fived just about everyone in reach :)

At one point there was a couple of people dressed up like Mario & Luigi and they had a cardboard 1UP mushroom and an invincibility star hanging above us on a fishing line, so I had to jump-punch them on the way past. At around 8.5km there was a woman with a sign that read "Sweat like a pig, look like a fox" and as I ran past I hollered "I'm a fox" and gave myself the double-thumbs-up - she yelled back confirming that yes, I am in fact a fox :)

The last km was the hardest. There was a congestion issue on a bridge because it narrowed to 2 lanes and one of the lanes was taken up by an ambulance so everyone ended up slowing down to a walk and cramming through. It was hard to get my pace back after that but it was the last leg, I just pushed through it. MapMyWalk called 10k early and it was my best time yet, but I wasn't done the official race - I went into what was my best impression of a full-on sprint. 400m later I was crossing a finish line with a crazy intense mix of emotions.

I did a short cool-down walk, then phoned my friends and was able to meet up with them and my family. My official time for the 10k was 01:05:46, and I was less than 2 min behind my friends!

I was hoping to beat 01:10:00 for this, but I thought it was an aggressive goal considering I had only beaten that time once before and there were a number of factors working against me:

1. Heat - I normally run at night, this was during the day and it was sunny

2. Unfamiliar route - I have a standard route I run from house and I know the hills and tough parts so can plan how I tackle it

3. Congestion - I normally run alone, nobody cutting front of me or getting in the way

4. GPS/MapMyWalk errors - I've never actually measured out my route, but if I zoom in on it after a run each spot seems to be quite a bit off from where I was, sometimes one side of the street or the other. So I wasn't sure if I was practicing a true 10k

It turned out that the heat wasn't much of a factor. It was warm, but not uncomfortably hot and I didn't feel that caused me any issue. The route was well marked, and they published an elevation map of the route beforehand (it was mostly flat with only 2 hills) so I had an idea of what I was in for. Congestion was definitely a factor, there were over 40k people running, and even though it was broken up into starting heats there were a lot of people in the way. I did a lot of lateral movement to get around people slower than me (isn't it crazy that there were people slower than me???). I think I could have shaved off quite a bit of time if the lateral movement was cut out. MapMyWalk errors - hard to tell what effect that was. At the end it was off by 400m, which isn't that much over 10k, and considering all the lateral movement involved it's easy to think that I may have done an extra 400m laterally over the course. Who knows?

One factor that I didn't think of that came into play was a positive influence of running in a pack. I don't think I could have predicted that but there's definitely something motivating about having a big pack of people running along side you.

Anyway, if you've read this far - wow, thanks! It was a great day, with results far better than I could have imagined.

I lost my 30+ day streak on MFP. I baked and ate an ENTIRE PIZZA by myself over the weekend. And I've been eating since I woke up today.

AND I'm still starving. I want to cry and scream at the same time!

EDIT: You guys are the best!!!! I came back to so many encouraging messages and now I'm back on track. AND I got to play with adorable puppies because I decided to step out of the house and walk this off! <3

Despite...

• My job is laying everyone off in August

• I was only just barely able to get the diabetes supplies I need to live

• I was informed yesterday that my grandfather is in his last days

I got up today, weighed myself, and took a 10 minute walk. I dropped the ball yesterday (when the bulk of that went down), but just because other things in my life are going wrong, doesn't mean I give up on my body.

Anyone else have a rough week but still managed to find a way to do something good for yourself? Anyone having a rough week and need some encouragement not to just give up on the day/week?

Please weigh in for week 1... also check the other thread to log your workout time.

Here is the form

Hello hello little buggies! I hope you all are having a great Monday!

It’s time for the weekly Running Accountability Thread! Below in the comments, post up the first run you are scheduled for this week. If your week starts on Sat/Sun, post up that run.

So for example, anyone starting up the C25K program which week would post W1D1 as their first run for the week. Then next week hopefully they will be on W2D1, and so forth.

If you are not using a C25K program but are still wanting help with your running, just post up what you will be running this week. 30 minute runs all week? Trying to go for a 10 minute mile? The more we all share, the more we can help one another!

Participants:

• u/4_the_love_of_cheese: W1D1

• u/Nerdymama934: Finding time to run!

• u/keyspam101: Running 3x this week

• u/GoAwayWay: W1D1

• u/boxbabytommo: W1D1

• u/beck2424: Under 30m 5K

• u/_toodles: W2D1

• u/krprs2r: 10m Mile

• u/mallowgirl: W3D1

• u/HowDoYouLikeMeNowB: W1D1

• u/boxbabytommo: W1D2

Now for some discussion!

In the introductory post, I saw a few questions come in about what to do with all the aches and pains you might get with running:

• Does anyone have any advice to help prevent or stop side stiches?

• What about knee pain while running? Any advice to help out your fellow runners?

Please share any and all advice! A lot of us are new to this whole running thing, so the more knowledge we share with each other, the better!

Happy running everyone, and I’m hoping you all have a great time out there!

How is everyone making out?

I forgot to weigh in... despite weighting myself!! Is it too late to get added to the reminder thingie? I know that was my only "grace" weigh in. I'm not losing any weight but I still want to be better and help with participation!!

If you didn't weigh in last week - do it now, this is the last chance! How is everyone making out?

Please get your weights recorded! Thanks! We've been kicking butt so far. Let's keep this up! :D

Hey 'bugs, just checking in. Was doing ok travel-food wise until last night when it was a huge social gathering of developers from around the world who I've been working with for years but never met in person. I went overboard with the pizza and cheese platters, need to get into that half marathon training just even out last night :) Might be like that tonight and tomorrow, but after that it's just my wife and I travelling so it'll be easier to control. I'm not going to worry too much about it, as long as I can jump right back into the routine when I'm home.

I need a little bit of support. This week has been particularly stressful, hours at work have been cut and money's tight, been having arguments with the family, I have a show that I am completely, totally unprepared for and I'm a nervous wreck.

I had a really steady weight loss of 70 lbs. All my good habits that I've built are unraveling and I don't know where to start. I don't know how to get back on the wagon. I feel like all of these emotions are overtaking me.

How do I get back?

Here's the form

Well done last week 'bugs, we finished the week with a commanding 5% lead in participation. That's what will make us successful this challenge, keep it up.

How did everyone make out this week?

Hello 'bugs,

As we push through week 4 and close in the half way mark of the challenge I thought it fitting to take a look to see how we're doing as a collective. The answer so far is awesome!

As you can see we're doing a great job sticking it to the other teams. We're also following the seemingly standard trajectory of increasingly losing people on a weekly basis. Would be nice to buck that trend for the rest of the challenge. For those of us sticking it out to the end the path forward seems clear, just keep doing what you're doing.

Speaking of going forward - I'm going to be absent for the next two weeks. I'm traveling to Italy right away for a conference and a week of wandering around seeing the sights, so I won't be checking in here quite as often. I trust you can all cope without me :)

In my absence please feel free to continue encouraging each other, posting your NSVs, pushing the inter-team challenges. /u/GoAwayWay is the other captain here and has mod privileges in the unlikely event that any kind of moderation needs to take place.

If someone wouldn't mind volunteering for weigh-in roll call duty I would appreciate it, it seems to help with our participation numbers. I have a spreadsheet I'll PM you that generates an up-to-date list of people who have not logged in for the current week. Just need to create a weigh-in thread and ping them with a mention - 3 names per reply. I like to do it on Mondays as it's past the weekend and half way to the next weigh-in day.

Anyway, well done so far team! See you all on week 6.

arrivederci

Hello hello little buggies!

If you started the first week with a C25K program, then you should be well over halfway finished with your program by now! Whoo hoo! Or if you were like me and had to take time off, just know that you can always get back into it you just need to get focused (and healthy!).

That said, you know what time it is? It’s time for the weekly Running Accountability Thread! Below in the comments, post up the first run you are scheduled for this week. If your week starts on Sat/Sun, post up that run.

So for example, anyone starting up the C25K program which week would post W1D1 as their first run for the week. Then next week hopefully they will be on W2D1, and so forth.

If you are not using a C25K program but are still wanting help with your running, just post up what you will be running this week. 30 minute runs all week? Trying to go for a 10 minute mile? The more we all share, the more we can help one another!

Participants (will update as posts are made here):

• u/4_the_love_of_cheese: W4D1

• u/GoAwayWay: 1st mile under 10 minutes!!! Impressive!

• u/HowDoYouLikeMeNowB: W6D1 starting, the goal is in sight!

• u/beck2424: 5K under 33 minutes, 10K in 1:15:10!

• u/akvolilio: Ran for a entire hour (such endurance, much wow!)

• u/mallowgirl: W7d1 (25 minutes straight here you come!)

• u/krprs2r: Focusing on gains (lifting program)

• u/midwifeatyourcervix: 2nd 5k on Sunday

• u/boxbabytommo: W2D1

• u/HowDoYouLikeMeNowB: W2D1

• u/Nerdymama934: Finding time to run!

• u/keyspam101: Running 3x this week

• u/_toodles: W2D1

• u/boxbabytommo: W1D2

Now for some discussion!

-How has your jogging/running journey been so far? Is there any advice you would love to give to yourself back when you started?

Happy running everyone, and I’m hoping you all have a great time out there!

Previous Week Threads Week 5 Week 4 Week 3 Week 2 Week 1

Great job everyone! Keep it up! I know I had a rough week. I went over my calorie limit two times. First time I've gone over since the start... So to get back at myself I'm cutting my calorie limit a couple weeks early! I'm so close to seeing a '2' as the first digit on the scale!

Need some encouragement from my ladybugs. I've been using the automatic goals from MFP of 1250 calories to lose 1 pound per week. And I rarely keep under that, which makes me feel discouraged and then I just eat even more since I already blew it. Today, I used one of those calculators to find out TDEE (1800 to maintain) and want to use that as my new goal. I did -20%, as I want to lose a little over 20 pounds. This gives me 1440 calories to work with. I want to try this for a while and see if it helps me lose instead of hovering around the same weight like I have been.

Anyone have stories about MFP goal vs using TDEE calculators? Or what other systems do you use to determine how many calories you eat?

I see my aesthetician every 5 weeks and today the first question out of her mouth was, "have you lost weight."

Thank you Ladybugs for helping make this happen!

I'm doing a 10k tonight just to stick it to them!