“Chairs used to break under me.” Personal story of a journalist who lost 65 kg of weight

In his 40s, Ilya Peresedov is a journalist, radio presenter and entrepreneur. It’s hard to believe, but three years ago Ilya weighed over 150 kg, and a year and a half later he ran two half marathons and the Moscow Marathon. To lose 65 kg he was helped by a special approach to the process – he told “Championship” about it and why, supporting bodypositive, Ilya still decided to get rid of extra kilograms.

“I felt gravity on myself – extra kilograms”: where it all started

My decision had several triggers. First of all, at some point I gained a lot. I’ve always had problems with my weight – somewhere since the eighth grade it fluctuated in the range of 80-100 kilograms. Which, in general, is nowadays considered a tolerable norm for a man. Especially in Russia. That is, at my height of 185 cm and weight of 110 kg I was considered a man in a body, and at 120 kg – well, yes, I gained weight. I was living in this mode: I was losing something, gaining something. And then there was a rapid jump: in about three years my weight rose from 120 to 150 kg. I felt “gravity” on me – extra kilograms.

There were a lot of problems with the extra weight. I couldn’t move around on my own: my knees and feet were constantly dislocating. And to avoid this, I had to take a cab even within a block. I had headaches, snoring, nervous breakdowns.

I couldn’t find clothes of the right size in ordinary stores, my jeans would rub and burst, my belt wouldn’t buckle. And on the airplane, I had to ask for an extra “ponytail” to fasten my seat belt. When I went to a summer cafe, I was most likely to get up with a chair. And if I came to any lecture hall, the folding chairs cracked and broke under me – it was very awkward the whole time.

I have congenital connective tissue dysplasia and because of that I have very mobile flexible joints. And when I show people pictures from my past, they don’t believe me. In old photos I’m big, my legs are hiccuped, but now that I’ve lost weight, they’ve leveled out. A lot of people write that there are two different people in the photos, when in fact there are not. I didn’t have hiccupy legs, but because I was overweight and had mobile ligaments, my knees would “jack up” under the weight. When I lost weight and strengthened my legs, they became flat.

I didn’t have a systematic athletic background or any experience with regular exercise at all. I didn’t go to a gym as a kid.

I didn’t have a developed muscular frame when I started to lose weight, and this is very important. Now magazines are publishing pictures of plus-size models and suggesting that we should look up to them. Every girl like that will have great body geometry, they are physically well developed. Take, for example, Billie Eilish, who today is becoming an icon of body positivity. She has a gymnastics background, and consequently has a well-developed muscular frame. When she needs to, she can lose excess weight quickly. People with a gymnastics background have a completely different way of working their muscles, they have muscle memory. Therefore, they recover faster. If you see videos where the trainer has gained 30 kg, and then shows how to lose them, know – this is a conversation in favor of the poor. A person with no athletic background will have a hard time achieving such a result.

One study surveyed doctors and patients: more patients are willing to hear about their weight problems and do something about it than the number of doctors who are willing to tell them.

I analyzed my problem, took it seriously. Figured out how to act to change but maintain the feeling that I had my life in my hands.

“I ate less, moved more”: why this approach doesn’t always work

To put it quite crudely, you could say that I ate less and moved more. But why is this phrase meaningless almost 90% of the time? First of all, any driver will tell you: if you have a car, the same Lamborghini, to keep it in good condition, you need to drive it regularly. And keep it in good conditions. And the driver who drives this car must be qualified. There should be at least some road leading out of the garage, and it should preferably not be driven in overloaded conditions – not under the scorching sun or in Sicily during a volcanic eruption.

For 99% of people who fail to lose weight on the advice “eat less, move more”, the problem is not that the advice is false. It’s just the availability of a driver to drive the body-machine, the availability of a road to walk on, etc. That is, most people don’t actually have the time and energy to confront the environment.

You can cut calories all you want, but your grandmother is waiting for you at home with currant pie and says she’ll be offended if you don’t eat a slice.

Or, for example, you go to the fitness room, where you work out on a special program without cardio loads from the trainer. Although you will burn a maximum of 250 kcal for an hour of walking, and about 400 kcal for the same time on the treadmill. After training you go down to the cafeteria of the fitness club with a sense of accomplishment – and what do you meet there? A fitness café where you are offered a 250 kcal fresh water with a 300 kcal protein bar. So it turns out: you burned 250 kcal and ate 500 kcal. You come home, have breakfast and dinner with a leaf. Then you say, “Why am I not losing weight?” And the kind coach says: “It’s your endocrine system that’s in trouble, buy some of these supplements from me.”

“I did not turn into a phytonyashka, which collects all sorts of medals”: what has changed after weight loss

On the one hand, if you look globally, nothing much has changed. My identity hasn’t changed. I can’t say, as some people who have gone through a transformation say, “Ugh, I was a fat, miserable outsider, and now I’m like a better version of myself.” Again, I can’t say that my social environment has radically changed: I haven’t turned into a phytonyashka who runs “up and down the mountain” collecting all sorts of medals. What kind of friends came to visit me six years ago, they still come to visit me now.

My cultural background has not changed radically. The only difference is that I learned to wear lenses. Before that, I wore glasses all my life, but now I had to change my habits: when you run, you sweat a lot – it’s very uncomfortable with glasses. At the same time, I was a bookworm, and I still am. The overall picture of my life hasn’t changed.

On the other hand, it felt as if I had moved to another planet or gone through a closet into Narnia, I found myself in a parallel reality. When you lose more than 20 kilograms in weight, you feel gravity in a completely different way. Imagine putting a vest on you weighing at least the same 20 kg and making you walk around in it for a few days: fall asleep in it, wake up in it. And then take it off. You will surely feel the difference. The most interesting thing is that if you wear these weights, you will stop feeling them at some point, but if you take them off, you will feel them clearly.

After I lost those 20 pounds, my sleep, my heartbeat, my metabolism changed. It’s as if I’ve actually moved to another planet. You can take sea lions as an example. On the shore, they’re ridiculous little guys who can barely move. But in the water, they are swift, graceful and dangerous predators. So, in my opinion, the problem of overweight is not about aesthetics and social stereotypes. If I could move to a world with a different gravity and gracefully flutter like a sea lion, maybe I would still weigh 200 kg, you know? But there’s no such possibility.