I made it to onederland and all it took was a pandemic

I'm 35M, 5'6", and finally saw a number starting with a 1 on the scale.

My weight loss journey started on new years day 2018. I realized I was the heaviest I had ever been at 283 and like every year, I resolved to lose weight. I set my 2018 goal to lose 100 lbs. I failed miserably and only lost about 65, but gained a lot of good habits and kept going, losing some weight gradually. I hit my previous lowest at 203 in Sept 2019 and then gained back about 15 lbs over the holidays and the beginning of this year, putting me at 217 at the start of the pandemic.

When the pandemic hit, I adopted a dog, switched to doing almost all of my own cooking (from about 75% before), and tried to keep walking and biking a lot without the excuse of being able to bike to work. I used to do one hike of 25-45 minutes every day and now I'm doing 2 hikes with the dog for about 30 mins each day, so my walking has increased a bit. I used to bike to work 13-20 miles RT 2-3 days a week and I've been trying to keep up equivalent rides while working from home. I've been cooking multiple times a week and getting some CSA farm boxes to encourage me to use more veggies. I've been gradually dropping pounds over the past 3 months and hit a new all-time low of 199.6 today. I haven't been under 200 lbs since about 2005. It's just a number, but it's been my intermediate goal to get below 200 for a while. Next goal is to get down to 183 to hit that -100 mark I aimed for a couple years ago and then beyond that, get to a more healthy weight.

My strategy has primarily been CICO and meal prep, plus a bit of exercise. I aim for prepping 500 calorie meals for lunches and dinners and about 100-200 for breakfast; this allows a bit of leeway for snacks or drinks while still targeting 1500 calories.

One trick is that when I cook, I make whatever I want and fill in all the calories to myfitnesspal, then I divide it into as many portions as necessary for them to be about 500 calories. If I'm making something that I expect to be 4 portions and I end up closer to 2500 calories, I have to divide it into 5 portions and eat less of it. This also helps me think about ingredients I put in and whether I really need 2 Tbsp of oil vs 1. I get bored of the same dish after more than a couple times in a row, so I try to prep 3-5 portions and stagger meals so I don't have to eat the same thing multiple times in a row.

submitted by /u/chrismtb
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2Z5IZsP