Weight chart from Dec 2017 to Today
2017 Way back in December 2017, I got on the scale to learn that breastfeeding my second child hadn't magically made all the baby weight fall off like had happened with my first. In fact, rather than having lost all the baby weight, I'd added on enough post-partum pounds to be not just Obese, but Class II obese.
"This cannot be! I'm not eating that much, I must have a metabolic problem, " I thought, and promptly went to the doctor.
My wonderful, patient doctor, agreed that my family history did warrant testing, did the tests, and they came back normal.
"I'll prove that there's actually something wrong!" I decided, and carefully started tracking my weight and my food. Within a week, the numbers conclusively proved, to me, that my metabolism and such were completely normal. "Oh. Guess there's no magic weight loss pill for me, then. Might as well carry on with what works."
2018 But tracking calories takes attention and patience and I had a two kids, one a baby, and untreated ADHD that I was handling through "coping strategies". Coping strategies meant "cut things out of my life until I could handle it. Tracking calories for weight loss was one of those things, and by mid-2018, I stopped tracking. When I decided to not let my eldest enroll in a class because it would be too much for me, I finally got an official diagnosis and medication.
2019 In 2019, I started tracking again, and set a goal of a 365 day streak on MFP. Pretty classic CICO weight loss. I found that I did best with IF. I found that trying to lower my goal calories below 1500 made me promptly eat over 1700 and gave up my idea of cutting calories lower as I lost weight. We went on a family vacation and I brought my kitchen scale and kept my streak going. I did a couple months of personal training and kept up with the exercises fairly consistently after that. Even though my job is fairly sedentary, I was able to get quite a bit of walking in because I supported users about a mile from my office.
2020 I hit that 365 day streak on MFP and, confident that I now knew what reasonable portions were, in March, I decided to take a quick break from tracking. In April, I knew that it was only a temporary thing that I was eating all this candy while sitting around on the couch. And I certainly didn't need to take my ADHD medication when there was so little happening at work. I'd get back into tracking calories and such when things were normal.
By June, it was pretty obvious things weren't getting normal anytime soon, but it was too late. I was anxious to the point of depression and could no more track calories than I could place my hand on a hot stove. Plus, "everyone" "always" said that regaining the weight was inevitable. So why bother trying. I gave up so much, I even ordered and sewed together a plus size dress form (which is kind of cool as a "before", TBH).
I unsubscribed from the pressure of r/loseit, but kept lurking in the Facebook motivational weightloss group I'd joined. And was inspired to make a feeble attempt to reverse things by following a 2 week 1500 calorie meal plan. A bit after that, I got enough motivation to force myself to jump into the cold water by challenging my husband to a 30 day tracking streak. Not even limiting calories, just tracking. By day 2, I was back in the swing of things. One day, I went into overeating mode at lunch and had over 1200 calories in one meal. Rather than try to make a ~400 calorie dinner, I decided to wait and see how I felt.
I was absolutely fine. So the next day, I tried it again on purpose, and again, it was easy to stick to about 1200 calories. For me, at this time, OMAD was really great. (Nowadays, I have breakfast more often, because 800 calories is a more reasonable meal for me, but I always knew I'd end up changing things up over time.)
I projected my weight loss timeframe based on having, for example, 2000 calories on Thanksgiving day and New Years. I created a "ideal world" data set that showed what my weight would be given my average daily calories if there was no such thing as water weight and my activity level was exactly what I hoped to maintain.
2021 So, as you can see from the previous charts, weight loss during the periods I was actually tracking calories was pretty steadily downwards. And in the larger perspective, fluctuations from water weight didn't really affect much. But here's my actual weights from May when all I did was add in some exercise that made my muscles sore.
For anyone keeping track, that's only 3 attempts. Check out the chart I posted at the top, see that little dip towards the end of 2018? Yeah, I tried to get back into tracking, but didn't stick with it long.
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