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Being even mildly overweight has such a significant impact on your overall health, and even more so as you age.
You don't have to be clinically obese to experience a wide variety of de-buffs to your mobility, energy levels, libido, and mental clarity.
In my late 20's I thought that I was most fit weighing in at 215-220 (which was 20-23% body fat for me). Overweight, but not obese. I thought that because I could lift a lot of weight, and perform calisthenic and cardio, that I was at my full potential. I recently found out I was dead wrong.
After the end of a relationship of February this year, I was in the worst state of health despite being physically active. I was lacking energy, motivation, and felt all my joints were stiff and achy. There was always some sort of pain or stiffness around various joints and muscles which made workouts miserable at the start; pushed through them anyways.
When doing olympic-style lifts, I was rarely able to maintain a front rack position for a sustained lifting session due to wrist/finger pain and stiffness and I just blamed it on genetics.
I committed to lose weight at the start of May. After losing 22 lbs since then (now 15-16% bf), I discovered I can easily rack the barbell in a traditional power clean, perform ATG squats + pistol squats without knee pain, and sprint without ankle pain.
My energy level and mental clarity has drastically improved despite being in my late 30's.
Excess fat leads to general inflammation of the joints, not to mention the additional stress and pressure on your internal organs.
Just goes to show that 'being non-obese' is too low of a bar for the majority of people. It is not enough to just not be obese. The threshold for each individual varies, but the standards are currently too low.
People have gotten too accustomed to being and seeing excessively large people. Travel anywhere else in the world outside of the USA, and people are content with not being so large.
The apathy and acceptance of large size and excess consumption needs to come to an end.
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198.4 lb
Lost so far: 21.6 lb.
Still to go: 13.4 lb.
Diet followed reasonably well.
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gaining 1.4 lb a week
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