Four months ago, I began a journey in an area where I had consistently failed, losing weight. At the time, I weighed 108 kg at a height of 6.15 feet, with a blood pressure reading of 140/100. Over the course of four months, I reduced my weight to 92 kg and brought my average blood pressure down to 125/85. I did this by doing what most people who lose weight do, cutting back on junk food. But how I did it, and why I did it that way, is what actually matters.
Around that same time, I finally managed to see a highly recommended psychiatrist, Dr. Johnson. During the first appointment, he suspected ADHD and conducted a clinical interview along with the WHO Adult ADHD Test. Based on both the interview and the screening, he concluded that I had ADHD and prescribed medication. ADHD, neurologically, is largely a result of dysregulated dopamine transmission, particularly in the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in motivation, reward, habit formation, and executive function, all crucial for self-regulation.
The reason I’m talking about ADHD in the context of weight loss is because the root cause of my weight gain, and my repeated failure to lose it, was addiction to junk food. Addiction, after all, is just deeply reinforced habits, and breaking bad habits requires building better ones to replace them. That sounds simple, but identifying the trigger and pushing through the initial days of forcefully replacing the old habit is brutally hard—and specifically, it requires a lot of dopamine. With an ADHD brain where dopamine is already in short supply, this becomes a losing game—one that I kept losing every time I tried to change. What shifted things was my psychiatrist’s decision to prescribe a non-stimulant medication, Atomoxetine, a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Over time, it helped stabilize my dopamine levels, giving me just enough of a foothold to start forming new habits that could stick.
ADHD brains also crave instant rewards, so I got a new weighing scale and spent the first few weeks on extreme fasting. I did this to give my brain the immediate gratification of seeing the number drop consistently and trained myself to associate checking my weight with the urge to eat junk food. I knew the downsides of extreme fasting, but I made a calculated decision—the short-term risk was smaller than the long-term consequences of continuing with junk food, given my weight, blood pressure, and age. Over time, I developed the habit of checking my weight whenever I felt the urge to eat. That, combined with the very real fear of dying young from a heart attack, helped override the ADHD-driven procrastination loop of “I’ll start dieting tomorrow.” This urgency became my leverage. It was the first time I used ADHD tendencies to my advantage.
As I got desensitized to the weight tracking, I added regular blood pressure monitoring. While it wasn’t as instantly gratifying, it kept the fear of early death real. Then, as that became routine too, I began tracking my cholesterol levels through regular blood tests. My LDL (bad cholesterol), which was initially high, dropped to borderline-high over the course of these months. Eventually, even weight tracking, BP monitoring, and blood tests began to lose their effect. But by then, I had already formed the habit of avoiding junk food—not just out of self-control, but out of rebellion against a system that pushes it on us. For example, chocolate biscuits that are supposed to have a hint of bitterness now taste unbearably sweet. I still have to keep myself in check, but it’s easier now. I look in the mirror and see a version of myself that hasn’t existed in six years. Yes, I have been over 100 kg for six years straight.
Now, clothes that were buried in the back of my closet are up front again—because they fit, and I look good in them. I no longer wake up with headaches or body aches, no fatigue dragging me down. Even when I confront the weight of nihilistic philosophy, I don’t feel depressed. I’m not done yet. But for the first time in years, I feel like I’m actually living in a body I recognize. So no, I didn’t suddenly become disciplined. I didn’t turn my life around with pure willpower. I hacked my brain. I used fear, reward, repetition, and medication. And that’s how I made it work. Not through inspiration—but through science. And for once, something clicked. It worked. And it’s still working. What started as survival became a habit. What began as fear became clarity. And now, when I look in the mirror, I don’t just see weight loss—I see proof that I can change, when the strategy finally fits the brain it’s designed for. But more than that, I see how neglecting mental health for years put me in that body in the first place. As a society, we keep pretending conditions like ADHD aren’t real, or reduce them to caricatures and pseudointellectual dismissals. But the science is clear, and the consequences of ignoring it are brutal. If we don’t take our minds seriously—if we keep dismissing the neurobiology behind behavior—we will keep pushing people like me toward early cardiac arrest, metabolic syndrome, and a whole range of preventable chronic conditions. If we don’t understand the mind and take care of it, the body will fail—plain and simple.