Thursday, June 25, 2020

CICO may be true but it can be hard to believe

For background, I'm 5'11 46M tipping the scales at 274. Periodically I've tried to lose weight, but after a while I give up.

Why do I give up? Because it feels like I only get results if I starve. CICO should apply, but it seems to take so long to work that I get disheartened and give up. I'm trying right now, so I'll relate where I'm at.

Started a month ago at 282. Climbed up on the wagon and set my limit at 2000 kcal. Not trying to set the world on fire here, just induce a nice gentle weight loss of perhaps as much as 1 lb/week that I can sustain indefinitely (because this time around, I'm committed -- I'm not dieting, I'm just eating differently from this point forward).

That should work out okay. NIH's body weight planner thinks I have to eat ~3000C to maintain. That almost seems on the low side; pre-COVID, I typically grabbed a sausage mcmuffin with egg, hash brown, and medium Dr Pepper from McD's on the way to the office. Cha-ching, 850 calories! Food cart for lunch, unknown calories but I'd be surprised if it was ever under 1000. And dinner. Usually I'd eat too much, feel overfull, chastise myself for constantly eating more than I needed, and then do it all over again the next day. Knowning what I do now about what 2000 kcal looks like, I was eating quite a lot more.

So here I am today. 274. Yay! Progress. After one month. Weight hasn't budged in a full week. And I mostly don't feel hungry during the day. That's worrisome. I've gotten a pretty good, dialed in meal plan for the first couple meals a day, that carries me all the way to dinner on just under 1000 Calories. I like the flexibility having 1000 to spend on dinner by itself.

Before you ask, I am weighing everything. EVERYTHING. I don't so much as lick my fingers, everything that goes down the hatch gets put on my scale first, and recorded down to the gram. Whether the food is prepackaged or not. Whether it's a meal I've made every day for a month or not.

So I feel pretty confident when I say I'm averaging 1825 Calories per day.

At my size, I should be feeling pretty hungry at 1825 Cal, and losing faster than my intended 1 pound a week. And yet, it has stalled. Again. Like every other time. But I'll stick with it this time, because why not, I am making a life change either way, even if I don't lose another pound. But I'll tell ya, I'll be sad if that happens because I'm carrying around 100 extra pounds I'd prefer to stop lugging up the damn stairs.

Rant over, thanks for listening. Sorry I had to use a throwaway, I post a fair amount on Reddit but prefer to keep personal things personal.

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