Hi friends, new and old!
I lost 30ish pounds during 2018, on top of the 15 that fell off during 2017 when I finished grad school and started drinking less. I also maintained for the second half of this year-- at first accidentally, and then as a conscious choice. I'm ready to lose the last 15-20 pounds, but thought I'd pull together some thoughts for all of the new loseiteers! Welcome! We have open, increasingly skinny arms!!
Here's what I know you're all here for: progress pics!
Here's what I learned:
Know your TDEE: in January 2018, I started hanging out on r/loseit. I saw a lot of people talking about 1200 being plenty and, never having tried CICO before, thought that was what you had to do in order to succeed. I'm 5'11" and fairly active. This was a terrible idea. I was cranky and lightheaded, and was stomach-grumblingly hungry all the time. As we all know, we make poor decisions when hungry, so I soon found myself going over my 1200 calories/day by a lot. Then I'd feel disappointed, then I'd try to be even more strict the next day. That way eating disorders lie, and I was lucky to have a good support network that suggested eating more, but not too much more. It took a few weeks of experimenting to realize that 1800 is the sweet spot for me-- low enough to still lose, but not so low that I'm starving all the time. Your TDEE is going to be different depending on your starting weight and activity levels-- take time to figure out what works for you, and adapt if your rule is actually hurting you!
Use the tools that work for you: On that note, just because someone swears by one weight loss app doesn't mean it'll be the right fit for your brain/emotional state/needs. For example: I started with just My Fitness Pal, then I added in Libra (Happy Scale for you apple folks) to get more of a sense of trends. Then I wanted more accurate TDEE info, so I threw in the 3Suns adaptive TDEE spreadsheet. Then I was getting impatient and wanted to know when I'd reach my goal, so I started using the losertown predictor. I was soon entering my weight in three or more different apps every day. That was fine when the scale was trending down, but when I wasn't happy with the number on the scale, every extra app was just a reminder of my feelings of failure and impatience. My system wasn't healthy for me, so I cut back to just Libra, and enter my weight in MFP whenever I remember.
Know your eating habits: With time, you'll figure out where you need to put your calories to get the most bang for your caloric buck. For me, that's less than 300 calories for breakfast, being at around 1000 calories consumed by midafternoon, and having 800 calories to play with for dinner/dessert/an evening tipple. I've learned overtime that I just feel lightheaded and woozy if I don't eat breakfast and that I need to save up a ton of calories for the end of the day so that I can enjoy being spontaneous with my bf, rather than worrying about finding a 200 calorie dinner when he wants to go out to eat. Find the caloric breakdown that works for you, your exercise habits, and your lifestyle.
It's ok to maintain, even if you're not yet at your ultimate goal, even if maintenance is an accidental decision: By about mid-May, I was consistently in the 180s. Then I was in the low 180s throughout June. Then I moved to a new city in July, and was living at other people's houses while we looked for our own place. Then we found an apartment, but settling in after a big move is no joke. Soon it was September and I was starting a new job, and I was still in the low 180s. Because of all the eating out that happened in June and July, I'd stopped entering my food in MFP. I was also straight up tired of thinking about losing weight every day. So, I decided to consciously commit to maintenance, even though I'd already been maintaining for a several months. I kept the rules simple: weigh in once a day. I've since maintained for another three months, and have rediscovered my discipline and enthusiasm for weight loss. Sure, it'll take me longer to get to my target weight, but I'm pretty sure I'll be happier for it and more likely to stay at that goal weight. This is all to say that your eating habits should fit with the bigger picture of your life, maintenance breaks can be great, and finding ways to keep yourself trending in your desired direction is more important than "perfect" weight loss.
Keep tracking weight, if nothing else: research shows that people who lose significant weight and maintain that loss have several things in common, one of which is regular weigh-ins. So, hop on that scale! Yes, even on mornings when you had multiple beers, fries, and pizza the night before, even when you just got back from a trip to the land of no fiber and all the sugar, even when you know your weight is going to be up. Remind yourself that the number is just a signifier of your gravitational relationship to the earth, step on the scale, and record your data.
That's it for me! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2F0K3GC
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