If overeating and imbalance were the downfall of my health as a younger kid, just about every other bad eating habit I picked up in my high school and college years. If I had to give a chronology, I'd say high school was where I started eating poorly and snacking between meals, and when I got to college, that's when I started eating at all the wrong times and overeating bad foods all at the same time.
Eating on my own the majority of the time, alongside other adolescents who similarly knew little about nutrition but perhaps had a cooperating metabolism, pizza and fries were my lunch nearly every day in my high school's cafeteria, sporadically supplementing my pizza with a salad covered in Ranch dressing.
I've never been really drawn to sweets or soda, but that's the only area which didn't give me trouble. In addition to essentially devoting that one meal per day to empty carbohydrates almost exclusively, I developed a pretty terrible habit of between-meal snacking, mostly things like saturated fats and simple carbs---breads, cheeses, salt-filled foods.
By my junior year of high school, I had reached 6'5" tall, but I had also grown to a full 328 lbs. I often felt fatigued and hungry, and though I was not what you might call a "couch potato," and in fact was relatively active (though not exercising consistently), I felt lethargic and weak. In subsequent doctor visits, I was diagnosed with symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes. With the help of my family, I was able to slow down the symptoms, and actually slow down the weight gain by changing my diet.
However, while the changes I made were certainly helpful, maintaining my weight for several years before getting to college, what I still lacked was a concrete understanding of how food affected my body, so in a sense I was still flying blind.
After a year and a half of college, eating what my classmates were eating, late-night pizza often and overeating in the cafeteria, I reached my low point, weighing in at 383 lbs. during my sophomore year. I had gotten to a point where it was clear to me that continuing to live this way would mean my life was getting shorter and shorter every day.
Next post: The Breaking Point
Eating on my own the majority of the time, alongside other adolescents who similarly knew little about nutrition but perhaps had a cooperating metabolism, pizza and fries were my lunch nearly every day in my high school's cafeteria, sporadically supplementing my pizza with a salad covered in Ranch dressing.
I've never been really drawn to sweets or soda, but that's the only area which didn't give me trouble. In addition to essentially devoting that one meal per day to empty carbohydrates almost exclusively, I developed a pretty terrible habit of between-meal snacking, mostly things like saturated fats and simple carbs---breads, cheeses, salt-filled foods.
By my junior year of high school, I had reached 6'5" tall, but I had also grown to a full 328 lbs. I often felt fatigued and hungry, and though I was not what you might call a "couch potato," and in fact was relatively active (though not exercising consistently), I felt lethargic and weak. In subsequent doctor visits, I was diagnosed with symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes. With the help of my family, I was able to slow down the symptoms, and actually slow down the weight gain by changing my diet.
However, while the changes I made were certainly helpful, maintaining my weight for several years before getting to college, what I still lacked was a concrete understanding of how food affected my body, so in a sense I was still flying blind.
After a year and a half of college, eating what my classmates were eating, late-night pizza often and overeating in the cafeteria, I reached my low point, weighing in at 383 lbs. during my sophomore year. I had gotten to a point where it was clear to me that continuing to live this way would mean my life was getting shorter and shorter every day.
Next post: The Breaking Point
