Hey
SW:246lbs CW:191lbs GW: 143. Female, 5'5
tl;dr: CICO is the secret to weight loss, not counting calories. There are other ways to achieve CICO. food journal might be a great tool on understanding yourself more and might even help with weight loss
Many of use have tried myfitnesspal at some point. It is a great indicator of calories which help with CICO. But there is another usually overlooked great tool you can use: food journaling
it is simple, just write what you ate, doesn't have to be daily, only write it per new kind, and what effects they have on you. Either mentally or physically
At first, I started with only writing a junk food diary. I wrote what I felt prior to eating them, while eating them and after. That journal was eye opening. There are many food that tasted good while I ate them, but they PHYSICALLY affected me negatively, like causing diarrhea or dizziness. Some DID NOT even taste that good! I have been eating them for too long I started feeling like I MUST eat them to feel good when I didn't particularly love them. Thanks to this journal, I cut every food that caused me physical discomfort or the ones I hate without craving them. I dropped a couple of pounds but I felt tremendously better!
After the junk food journal success, I started an official food journal, where I record my feelings, the time and what I ate -didn't include calories-. I discovered that I eat too many small meals per day. When I eat, I am usually half full, which causes me to eat a little bit. Then get hungry half an hour later and the cycle continues.
To solve feeling hunger all the time and the fucked up body signals, I started intermittent fasting + 2~3 big meals a day. I learned a lot about my food signals. What does hungry look like? what about full? half-full? half-hungry? boredom? you got the idea. I found out that I tend to overeat the most when I am half-full. On the other hand, half-hungry is the best state to study and be productive.
When I first started intermittent fasting, I dropped a lot of weight then plateaued. I once again started watching my habits carefully. At that time, I was only eating 3 meals max per day. I watched the food I was consuming. I noticed that my most weight drop was in the period I was eating two meals and no junk food. The second major drop was when I ate three meals as long as one of them is small, and the plateau period was when I ate 3 large meals. But that is not everything. I have NEVER eaten 3 healthy large meals before. The third large meal was one of the junky food that passed the first test: it was junky, but tasted good and didn't make me feel physical discomfort
To solve the problem, I had to either eat two meals a day, or eat 3 meals but no junk food. I alternate between the two depending on my mood. I dropped 55lbs so far!
What I want to say is, CICO is the secret to weight loss. But you don't have to count calories to do so. I know that to some people, simply counting calories is easier than keeping a food journal. But to me, counting never worked. I am a perfectionist who tend to get too nerdy with the number. And the moment a food scale is not available, I tend to miscount. Also, I was never able to maintain it for long enough. So once I stopped counting calories, I was lost. And counting calories for the rest of my life is not something I wanna do
On the other hand, I feel like I wanted to know the reasons behind my weight gain. Yes it doesn't take a genius to know it is overeating. But like, why am I overeating to begin with? what am I overeating exactly? I was always at loss because my default eating style was 6~7 meals a day. So when I stopped counting calories I reverted back to eating that much. I didn't want to be stuck in this cycle of counting then stopping then counting again. Food journals helped me finding the reasons behind some of my habits and feeling. I am busy so I never had time to sit down and eat a full meal so I ended up eating 6 small ones a day. But then I noticed that my performance with two meals is better. It saves money and time too!
my weight loss is very slow, but it is gradual and steady. And I have been able to stick to it even when I was traveling, sick, bored, tired, stressed and on a deadline.
I have 50lbs more to go. But I am optimistic about this. for the first time in my life I have a system to fall back to. I know for a fact that once I decide to stop dieting, I won't be lost about what to eat and whether my calories are in check. For the first time ever, I start minding my food and getting my body signals
To summarize, start a food journal. Discover yourself and the reasons behind what you're doing. Then take the necessary steps against them. Maybe count calories? ditch sugar? go vegan? eat more meals? eat fewer meals? fasting? or even not fasting. You get the idea
Good luck everyone!
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