So….what finally woke me up to the fact that I needed to start taking better care of myself was getting tingling in my fingers and toes, and having a really bad OCD/Anxiety spiral that I already had Type 2 Diabetes and I was on the verge of death. I know very well that there’s no way to know if I have diabetes or not until I actually get tested but either way I hadn’t cared about the possibility in years and this was a wake-up call.

These last few years, both my mental and physical health have been in shambles. For context, I am a 20 year old guy, 5’11, and I weigh 214 pounds. In 2019, I exercised all the way down from 197 to 162 pounds. But I used quite a difficult method of exercise (stair-running) and after awhile I just got so tired of it that I stopped. In 2020 of course was the pandemic and due to many other factors in my life I became depressed, and turned to food as my comfort. I went all the way back to 190 pounds, but then I went on a severe calorie deficit (no exercise) in 2021 and I went all the way back down to 153 pounds. But this was way too extreme in hindsight, I was only eating one small plate of food a day most days, and naturally I eventually got so tired of it that I stopped caring for the next 2.5 years and ate whenever I wanted and whatever I wanted. Which leads me to now.

My relationship with food is rather unhealthy. Eating is my only hobby. I have depression, anxiety, OCD, and I think biggest of all ADD which makes it hard for me to have dopamine hits. Over the last years I’ve been chasing this dopamine with food. It’s like eating mindlessly makes my mind race and stimulates my imagination in a way nothing else ever does. I’ve paid no care to when and how much I eat. And exercise? I hated that it was too hard and I just wanted to be happy all the time.

And so naturally everything comes crashing down in what was already a very stressful time in my life even without diabetes/weight concerns, which makes this feel almost impossible for me. I’m moving down to college in 4 days. Naturally one of the things I was looking forward to the most down there was all the good food I was going to have and now I feel like that’s been shot. This has really impacted my excitement to go to college, honestly. I had just got over the worst OCD/Anxiety episode I had ever had just before this started, all while dealing with an emotionally abusive mother who just made my depression even worse. On top of that, I have a very close online friend and I was unable to be there for her in a tough anniversary for her yesterday because I was too busy having a panic attack over all of this.

This just feels impossible. In so many ways.

At least I’m getting somewhere though. I’ve found a 40-minute brisk walk a day is easy enough for me to sustain it but also hard enough to do something. My legs and ass are sore 💀. I’m glad that at least I’ve done something, but still I’m not too happy because I’m worrying about all that is ahead. Changing my diet maybe the hardest thing I’ll ever do. Right now I’m simply practicing portion control instead of cutting anything out. I’m still allowing myself to have a good amount of sugar a day but not nearly as much as I was having (I’m limiting myself to 1 glass of sweet tea and a small plate of dessert daily for now).

Still I know this probably isn’t going to be enough and eventually I’ll have to cut back more, and I’m so dependent on food for my happiness that on top of the stress I’m going to have from college, working, and everything with my online friend, as well as my depression and anxiety/OCD, this makes things feel so impossible. I’m honestly very stressed and I’m not at a good point in my journey right now.