I've been losing weight for about a year and a half now - I'm 5'3, and I've gotten from 175 down to 130, which is the lowest weight I've been since high school! I'm within a healthy BMI now, but now, honestly mostly for aesthetic reasons, I would like to keep going. I carry most of my weight right in the front of my stomach, so even now it's still very visible.
Here's the problem I'm facing right now though: I'm severely disabled (chronic fatigue, was almost completely bed-bound for over a year and lost all my muscle in 2023) and building muscle back is extremely difficult for me. I have to be super careful not to injure myself - even stepping the wrong way when I'm walking has, multiple times, caused my hamstrings to tear.
I also just mentally find it a lot easier to do one thing at a time, so I've been focusing on losing fat through diet alone all this time, thinking that I'll lose as much as I can, then slowly build some muscle for a bit, then maybe do one more fat loss period to get to where I want to be.
Right now, to keep losing I have to eat pretty much just 1200 calories a day. Any more, even for a day or two, and I start gaining weight back. It's getting to be extremely tough to stick to, even with taking maintenance breaks sometimes. I'm spending a LOT of time thinking about food, and over the last few weeks I've just been gaining and losing the same 3 pounds over and over. I know it would be easier, eventually, if I did gain some muscle, but for me the line between "pushing my body hard enough to prompt it to actually build muscle" and "injuring myself" is extremely thin, so I'm nervous to start. I already have chronic pain that limits me a fair bit (which has gotten substantially better with weight loss!). And I'm a bit worried about how to find the right amount to eat to build muscle without just regaining a bunch of fat, since I can't just go sicko mode lifting weights lol
How did you guys know when diet alone wasn't going to be enough to get you where you wanted to be? And if anyone here is disabled like me, I'd love any tips for strength training without wrecking my body further.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/hf8On71
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