When I was growing up, especially in my young teens, my body was in good shape. I rode my mountain bike or BMX long distances with ease. I would ride for 3 hours through the mountains, to school which was a million miles away and I raced motocross and played basketball. I was as fit as they came. Slowly over time I discovered pot and alcohol and partying with my mates took priority over my fitness.
I’m the heaviest I have ever been. I’m over 100kg. I am 6 foot 3 so the weight isn’t too obvious but I have a beer gut that In simply can’t get rid of. The weight gain comes from all of the medication I take, diet and lack of exercise. I’ve done my research on the antipsychotic medication Seroquel, which I take large doses of (over twelve times the therapeutic dose) and person after person says the main side effect of this medication is weight gain with a lot of people coming off the medication for this reason alone. I also take chlorpromazine, Invega injection, antidepressants and a couple benzodiazepines thrown in the mix. I recently went on a health kick where all I drank was water, my diet was health and I was going for two 45 minute walks a day. I did this for a whole month and thought I’d better get on the scales to find out how many kilos I had lost. I nervously stood on the scales hoping to see a loss off some weight. I watched the numbers on the scale adjust and it fell on 105kilos. I PUT ON WEIGHT. This was really disheartening. What’s the point of living a miserable life by adding and subtracting different nutrients from my diet, pushing my mind and body to exercise and eliminate beer and for what??!!! I could have remained the same weight by staying home and binging Netflix while eating bowls of chips and enjoying a slab of beer. I gave up!
I have recently started to exercising again, watching my diet and I haven’t had a drink in 137 days so alcohol wasn’t going to be a problem as NOTHING gets in the way of me and my sobriety. I’m in a different mindset now. I’m pushing my body to get out and work out. I wont go into all the positives of exercise as we all know the physical benefits of daily exercise. I’m told it helps your mental health too. The thing is people…. I HATE exercise, I hate preparing for it, I hate the process of engaging in the work out, all I can think is ‘I want this to be over’ and I hate how I feel when I get home and recuperate. I loath it from start to finish. Endorphins? Serotonin? I’m starting to think my body doesn’t produce these chemicals in the brain at all. I’m not one of these freaks who needs to push their body to feel good.
I’m not trying to set any records for myself and I’m happy to do the same route everyday. I’ll keep this up but I still hate everything about it. I don’t wanna become heart attack or diabetes material. I have to remind myself that losing weight isn’t the only reason for me to exercise. As I said there are many benefits including the little things like smelling the fresh air and flora around me, Getting some natural vitamin D and I’m told I would sleep better which is a bunch of BS. The same goes for beer. I was always told to stop drinking and the weight would fall all off me…. BS! I quit drinking beer for other reasons which I won’t add to this blog as it’s becoming to lengthy as it is. My sobriety will make it to another blog. All I’ll say is that I’m approaching 5 months sober.
Thanks for reading! Oh, it’s also funny how I started piling on the weight when I quit smoking cigarettes and pot 4 years ago too. Perhaps I should pick these habits up again? Not too likely!