The heaviest I’ve been is 255 pounds. I am a male and 5’8," and this was enough to shorten my lifespan, increase my chances of numerous diseases, and, worst of all, relegate me to a life of shame. Over the past three or so years, I’ve lost about thirty of those pounds, possibly more, if you count the muscle as added weight that skewed the numbers.

Losing weight is difficult. It is a constant fight against your body in multiple ways. Due to the scarcity of food during our long evolutionary history, our bodies have learned that it must fight to save as many calories as possible, even when food has been obviously plentiful for years.

Combine this with a reward system that utilizes dopamine to encourage behaviors we otherwise might neglect to the detriment of our own survival (think defecation, urination, eating, sex) and a natural craving for what was once even more scarce than food itself (namely carbohydrates, oils, and fats), and this creates a breeding ground for obesity.

It isn’t always just physical boundaries that one battles with, but also mental and emotional. Food, due to the aforementioned reward system, is easily abused as a mental or emotional crutch. Though it is not fair to directly compare this to drugs like heroin or cocaine, or alcohol for that matter, its uses and abuses are much similar.

Child abuse, traumatic experiences, harassment, and even just general shame over one’s physical state is enough to fuel the terrible cycle of depression and eating. Often, one will hear from those who have trouble stopping their harmful eating habits that “I am depressed because I eat, and I eat because I am depressed."

This mantra holds true in a modern world that both encourages sedentary behaviors in work, school, and home, and eating foods high in fats, sugars, calories, and oils that compound weight gain. To break out of this cycle can sometimes mean resorting to therapy, if one can’t do it themselves. Some people develop Binge Eating Disorder, where high amounts of calories are eaten combined with periods of fasting, leading to even faster weight gain.

Shame played a part in my weight gain, as did laziness, disinterest, and a general attitude of resign towards my physical state. I have overcome this through bursts of motivation that have led me to this point, but already I can feel myself slipping back into old habits as the stress of school, extracurricular habits, and other life events weigh on me.

Currently, a knee injury has lowered my exercise for the last few months, and though no weight gain is obvious, a constant fear that I will step on the scale to see my progress slowly recede fuels me. I don’t know how I motivated myself to lose weight, nor am I able to profess how you could go about doing what I did.

What I can say, however, is that it is possible, and the boost of confidence I received has helped me to at least bend the bars of cage of shame that has, to my lack of realization, held me nearly my whole conscious life. I hope that I can motivate myself again to burst through this plateau that I’ve hit, but I doubt that it will be something I experience anytime soon.

The most crucial step is finding hope in possibly finding a way to motivate yourself to complete such a difficult task. I hope you find your way, reader, if this so applies to you. You are young, so do it soon, before its true effects become apparent, and you have wasted your best physical years on what you’ll sit and lie on for the rest of your life.