I am afraid of what my weight is doing to my health

I was an athlete throughout college in a sport that required that we keep our weight and BF% down (swimming), and since then I have completely fallen off the wagon. I weight over 1.5 times my competition weight and I have been unable to stop that progression for the last few months and I worry that my overall health is taking a hit. While heart disease does not run in my family, I can only imagine that a 24 year old man that weighs 260 lbs isn't exactly the picture of health. I have been avoiding a regular checkup for fear of what I might hear.

My goal is to get back down to competition weight, which given my build and my height would put me right around 170 lbs (a 90 lbs weight loss). Is this reasonable to achieve in a single year or should I expect my weight loss journey to extend into my mid/late 20's? Other former athletes, what are your recommendations for getting back to the shape that you were in during your peak performance? My job and living situation doesn't allow me to workout anywhere near as much as I did, but I would love to fit into my old clothes again.

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Saturday, 03 November 2018? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

• Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
• Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
• FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

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"You are already at your optimal weight range. Losing weight would add no benefit to your health"

I can't believe that I did it. I can't. I've dreamt of writing this post, I've dreamt of what I would say and how happy I would be. It's the first time since I was 19 that I'm not obese or overweight.

The reason why I am writing this, is first and foremost to congratulate myself. I haven't fully grasped this yet, but I am very proud of myself, not just for the weight loss. Most importantly, because I managed to break this overly restricting/bingeing patter that has been haunting me since I was 16.

The second reason why I am writing this is to tell you that, if I can do it, you can definitely do it too. I am addicted to food, emotionally attached to it, have had bingeing episodes since I was a little kid, battled with depression, but I did it.

The reason why this time was successful is that I did it out of a place of love and not hate for myself. So, I took my time and didn't rush things, which is definitely something I would recommend. I also just let go of the all of nothing mentality, and of my ridiculous standards of beauty. I didn't care to be perfectly proportioned, toned and super fit. I just wanted not to be fat.

Reading the post here can help. Reading the sidebar can be very important for people like me, who didn't know even the basics about nutrition. Also, taking it slow, having some maintenance periods, taking progress pictures, holding yourself accountable, but most importantly, figuring out what works for YOU is important.

For those of you wondering what I did, I just did the laziest CICO there is:

I never went to the gym (although I started walking 20 minutes to work instead of driving).

I didn't eliminate diet soda from my diet (I still drink them about twice a week) and I don't drink more water.

I didn't cut out sugar or alcohol and I don't eat less processed foods

I don't really count my macros (even though I sometimes try to go for the protein option when available) and I don't do intermittent fasting

I do have a goal of roughly 1,300- 1,500 calories each day, but never log the food on MFP, it just doesn't work for me. So I just calculate them in my head and combining that with paying attention to my cravings and hunger, I can decide what and how much I eat. Sometimes my estimations are a bit inaccurate so that makes my progress stall for a bit, but that's okay, that's not a race, but a lifelong journey.

Cheers!

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I started my weight loss journey recently.

I really just needed somewhere to talk about it. I have sacroiliitis in both my SI joints, I have degenerative disc disease in my L1 and L2. I also have osteitis pubis that has mostly gone away with physical therapy but occasionally comes back if I push myself too hard. I am 25 years old and I got all of these injuries from pushing myself too hard while in the military. There were a couple of weeks straight where I was running 32 miles a week. My body just wasn't putting up with it and even though I knew I was injured I still kept going. I was stupid and I'm going to be paying for it probably for the rest of my life. I've been to physical therapy three times and I've gone to pool therapy. I get steroid injections in my SI joints. I had my second daughter on September 7th and I am past my 6 week post partum period and I'm able to exercise and do normal things again. I am 5'1-1/2" and I currently weigh 150 lbs. I weighed 127 at my best weight in the army. I am trying to get down to 125 through diet and exercise and I'm also breastfeeding. It has been difficult. I have anxiety and depression as well so even though I am taking medication, it is a lowered dose and a different type than I would normally take because I am breastfeeding. The biggest exercise that I can do with the least amount of pain is biking. I have an indoor exercise bike and I've been doing that every single day. Some days I get up to 18 miles and some days I only get in about 5.
I also recently did a workout video(with modifications) and I told myself I was going to start doing squats so long as it didn't cause me pain, and I was going to do 100 every day.

I haven't done squats since the army and I've been out since 2016. I did 100 squats the other day and yeah. I went directly back to biking as my only exercise. My knees and calves are killing me right now. I keep trying to tell myself so long as I do something every day even if it's a little bit, it's more than I was doing before. My diet has been the most difficult thing for me believe it or not. When I breastfeed I crave and am hungry more often than when I was pregnant. It happened with my first daughter and it's happening again. While I try to choose things that are low carb and low calorie, sometimes I just give up and indulge in chocolate chip pancakes. Sometimes my anxiety and depression gets the best of me and I don't get up to cook anything and I don't eat for over half the day so that when I do eat I feel like I'm starving. Other times my anxiety and depression ends up helping because I have eaten throughout the day, but all of a sudden I'll get a craving for chocolate chip pancakes, but I just don't want to get up to make them.

I'm not really looking for advice, I'm pretty educated on dieting and exercise by now as I've talked to several doctors and I've been to physical therapists galore. I guess I just wanted somewhere to talk about the journey I'm on and the progress I'm making since I can't "talk" about it in the progress pics sub. I'm waiting to post my picture once I lose at least 10 pounds.

Thanks for reading. :)

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[Daily Directory] Find your quests for the day here! - Saturday, 03 November 2018

Welcome adventurer! Whether you're new on this quest or are towards the end of your journey there should be something below for you.

Daily journal.

• [Q&A] "I have a question."
• [Day 1] "I am starting my weight loss journey."
• [SV/NSV] "I have an accomplishment to share."
• [24hr Pledge] "Today I am going to..."

Interested in some side quests?

• [Motivation Monday] Share some motivation, get some motivation.
• [Tantrum Tuesday] Need to vent? People getting on your nerves?
• [Weigh-In Wednesday]
• [Track with Me Thursday] Did we just become best friends?!
• [Free Talk Friday] What's on your mind?

Community bulletin board!

• [Running with Loseit] Run with losers. Avoid arrows.
• [Wecipe Wednesday] Swap and discuss recipies!

If you are new to the sub, click here for our posting guidelines

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Losing weight with eating disorder history

I used to be bulimic. I went to treatment centers that were very anorexia oriented. Their main message was about body acceptance, i.e. loving what your body would look like if you didn’t starve it. Since most of the patients had anorexia and were severely underweight, the treatment centers always talked about how curves are good, it’s ok to be bigger, wanting to lose weight is disordered, etc. They also really pushed foods that most of the anorexic patients avoided, like desserts and fried foods, because there is no such thing as bad food.

I think I’ve improved a lot with regards to certain things that were exacerbating my eating disorder, like unrealistic body goals and extreme food plans. However, bulimia, particularly the binge eating part, is very different from anorexia. When I stopped purging, a lot of things that I learned in treatment started to backfire on me.

For example, I have struggled a lot with ‘accepting’ the weight gain. Bulimia kept me within a normal BMI, never underweight. When I finally stopped throwing up several years ago, I quickly gained a lot of weight because I was still binge eating. The treatment centers told me this is what my body naturally is supposed to look like and that it would all even out eventually. I am now 40 pounds heavier than my normal BMI. I don’t think this is natural and it obviously isn’t going to even out anytime soon since it’s been this way for about two years now. I am doing my best to love my body, but it’s just hard when it’s obviously so much bigger than the textbook definition of a healthy weight.

Does anyone have suggestions for how I can lose weight as a person with a history of an eating disorder? I feel so guilty when I even think about it since I’ve been taught that dieting and exercising for weight loss is guaranteed to bring back my eating disorder.

Tl;dr OP used to have an eating disorder and wants to know how to lose weight in a healthy way

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Starting my journey back up after a rocky 18 months of maintenance

I began browsing this sub December 2016 and lost a total of 40 pounds over the course of 6 months. Since then it’s been a very difficult near year and a half of maintenance, but for the most part I’ve been able to do it without my weight fluctuating too much. However, these past 3 months or so have been unbelievably difficult for me. I have gained about 6 pounds and struggled with some intense binge episodes. I want to catch and slow down my weight gain before it spirals out of control and I want to lose the weight I gained. I know I can do it, but I’m very nervous about overcoming binging. I recently went 16 days without binging, but that record has since been broken. If anybody has any tips for getting back on the weight loss train, or stopping binging, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

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