Hello folks!
I came in here, frustrated, around 6 months ago after having started my weight loss journey (damn, I hate that expression). I was doing really well; making sure I got the right amount of calories, working out 4-5 times a week and was powering through my stomach growling for food and my brain craving all kinds of junk.
The frustration was built on the fact that this was the third time in about a year I'd done this. And all times went the same; good progress for about the first 4 weeks (first 1-2kg water weight down, then approx 0.5kg per week after that), but then it'd stop and then I'd start gaining weight. The first time I tried, from June 2019-Sept 2019, I was preparing for a 10km run. I worked out 3 times per week and counted every meal. From a starting weight of 147kg I barely made it down to 145.5kg over the first 6 weeks, and from there I gained another 0.5kg in the last 4 weeks before the run.
After that, my motivation crashed and I gave up. So when the same thing started to happen in July-August last year, I came in here - frustrated. I posted this: https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/i4pxmv/the_mystery_of_not_losing_weight_when_i_should/
I got some comments - all undoubtedly with good intentions -, though I did feel at the time that too many assumptions was made, instead of addressing the points I raised in the OP. I still feel that way, reading it back.
A couple of the comments added fresh perspective, however, and it helped me power through it. Sometimes, when you've made the effort - both theoretically and practically -, and it doesn't work out, it can feel hopeless. That's because all the effort you made, that you built your motivation on, suddenly seems wrong and wasted. That's when a fresh perspective, a new way to look at things or a new context to put your effort into can be really helpful.
So, to those of you who's made it this far:
Since then, I'm down from 151kg to 139.5kg (as of today) - that's 11.5kg in a little under 6 months. Just a hair shy of 0.5kg which is the rate I wanted to lose at. How did I do it? Well... I kind of didn't. You see, the reason I'm writing this thread is to offer some encouragement to those who head into this the way I did. The ones who do all the reading, the planning, the math - who make a plan and stick to it in the hopes that as long as they're doing the right thing, it'll work.
And I did - for a while. But with Covid having my gym shut down and opened, back and forth, it became really hard to stick to a workout schedule. And for me, the workouts is what fueld my motivation ability to track calories and really consider what I ate. So I had to adjust.
I always knew that losing the weight I wanted would take a while, but I don't I really got it until about 3-4 months into this. My goal is 100kg, including added muscle mass compared to now. That means I will have to lose more than 33% of my body weight in fat. Even if I dropped 1kg per week, that would take a full year - and that's a weight loss rate I personally consider both unsustainable and not very beneficial (not to mention insanely hard to pull off at my size, as I'm 1.98m tall).
To make a long story short towards the end: I started taking things one step at a time. One meal at a time - one day at a time. I've not had anything I can really cut out, as I'm not someone who grossly overconsumes one specific thing. Now, I mostly skip breakfast. I don't do intermittent fasting per se, but a lot of days I will inadvertently. I'm not a morning person, and most days I'm simply not awake enough to neither make breakfast nor eat it. I either have left overs from yesterdays dinner or overnight oats for lunch, and then a large dinner. I try to put a good amount of vegetables in most of my food, because it's healty and because it'll fill me up without too much added calories. Then, depending on my hunger levels, I'll have a snack of some sorts come evening time.
Most days, this evens out to between 1900-2300 calories per day. Weekends, I don't really care too much. I drink alcohol when I feel like it. I'll have chips or candy too.
It's not a race - it's a marathon. And you complete a marathon one step at a time. If I eat too much, and feel bad, I don't allow myself to feel ashamed. I turn that into a reminder that I want to lose the weight.
So yeah, you can do this. As many have said before, it's about changing your lifestyle more than anything. I'm not superman. I have big time ADHD and can barely stay focused on a goal for more than 2-3 weeks.
Anywho; stay safe out there. Covid sucks, but gyms being closed and socializing being nigh impossible at least means we all have more time to reflect on who we want to be.
One meal at a time. :)
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