I'm stuck, please help

I was 258lbs when I finally said "this is insane" and I started trying to lose weight. That was in 2015-2016, after some horrible life events. I'm currently stuck at 220lbs. The only reason i'm even at 220lbs is because I gave birth again 6 months ago and i'm breastfeeding on demand. If it was not for that,I would probably be at 240lbs or worse which is what i was able to get myself down to on my own,then i lost weight while pregnant from morning sickness and nutrients being sucked away and the birth gave me an extra push.

I'm a SAHM and take online classes. So i'm not running around a lot. Especially with baby being in this super clingy phase,I don't mind it but it makes me sit more than usual. We only have one car and the guy uses it for work all day which means i'm not going out every single day. I've walked around the complex but it's cold and I don't want to take the kid and baby out in that. I'm more focused on starting in the kitchen for now. The longest I have tracked calories before was for about 1 month. I lost maybe one pound. I fall off the wagon when anxiety and stress kicks in or I miss a few days of tracking and I just quit tracking. I eat at weird times of the day and night. Like 4am(when my guy leaves for work) or I snack after the kids are asleep. When I've officially woken up, my stomach is horribly hungry even though I snacked a few hours before so I eat something that isn't too heavy, around 350 calories. I eat lunch around noon,usually under 400 calories. Then for some strange reason from like 1pm to 5pm I go into major binge mode. I snack like crazy. When I look at MFP I was consuming like 700-1000 calories in "snacks" which is junk food pretty much. Over 50% of my intake is carbs. When we do get fast food,I try to keep the calories low or adjust my day based on it. I thought of intermittent fasting since the binge kicks in at a certain time but I still ended up binging or craving even more than usual.

I look at recipes but when I bring home the groceries i'm like "What the hell did I even buy, what can I make with this stuff??" I like getting already ready foods because..well, two kids. I tried meal prepping but I only prepped for breakfast for two days and I did not pay attention to the calories. I'm a bit limited in certain things, like I can't eat bananas and some vegetables/ fruits give me horrible stomach problems. I haven't had real dairy in a few months. I was trying to eat less meat but that didn't work out too well. I apparently don't know how to season things well either which turns me off from making meals sometimes.

I'm so tired of looking in the mirror seeing this same body. I feel like i'm in a suit of flabby flesh. I've had two c-sections so I know this flab at the bottom of my stomach is here to stay but i still want to be under 200lbs. It's demotivating to see yourself one way and then catch a glimpse of how you really look in the mirror or in pictures.

My guy loves fast food and soda, but I don't let that interfere with me most times. There's been way more times where I tell him I already ate or I cooked something, so he can enjoy it on his own since he won't listen to me. So I'm on this journey alone with no support. My kids are a motivation because I want to live a healthy life with them and have the energy to run after them.

I'm 25,5'3, and 220lbs I think..my scale has been on the fritz lately. But the range has been 220-223. But based on how i'm feeling and looking, I do not like my body. I'm tired of being the cute chubby girl. On top of this terrible eating and maintaining/ gaining, I think me constantly holding my 18lb baby is making me bigger? Wider? Top heavy? I've noticed that the top half of my body looks bigger or wider than it did last month like I've gained muscle. I already have some pretty wide shoulders and fat,flabby arms that refuses to go away. My ultimate goal is to be around 150. The lowest I've ever been is 180 and that was after the birth of my first kid...I was depressed and being abused at that time so that was the culprit of weight loss too back then.

What can I do to start up and stick with it? When I tracked I mostly ended up at 2000-2100 cals at the end of the day. Very rarely I ended at 1800. How do I gain control?

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After losing 80lbs and gaining 30 back, I'm back to normal BMI again

A few years ago I started my weight loss journey from a high of 250lbs and lost 80lbs in the span of about 14 months.

I became active and maintained a weight of 170-175lbs for a good 6 months or show, and slowly but surely my weight started going up.

Granted, I was in much better shape and I'm sure a lot of it was muscle. Even at my new high of 195lbs a couple months ago, I looked better than my skinnyfat 170lbs.

But my diet had gone to shit, even though I was pretty aware of calories (I'm guessing my maintenance is around 3200 a day, and I was eating 3500-4000+ for the majority of the year) I stopped restricting myself, but I still logged it all. And then for a few weeks I didn't even consistently track food. As I got close to 200lbs which is something I swore I'd never reach again I started to take things more seriously.

And it was hard. Even though I'm ahead of the game and I've done it all before, it was like starting over. I hadn't been denying myself sweets or letting myself ever feel hungry during the past year.

But anyways, I was a bit stricter on myself for the past couple months and yesterday I clocked in at 184lbs, back to (the upper end of) normal weight for my height.

After losing all that weight and adopting healthy habits and being calorie conscious (even during this year of not restricting, I'd still always go for lower calorie ice creams etc) I didn't believe it'd be possible to gain it back. And luckily I didn't, not too much. But just a reminder to anyone maintaining or nearing their GW, stay aware and live in moderation. And if you do find yourself gaining weight back, try and fight it earlier rather than later.

TL;DR - After a year of being fit and eating like I was invincible I creeped up back into the "overweight" category. Restarting my diet was hard so just a continual reminder to everyone to live in moderation and be aware of your intake :)

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How do I break this cycle?

So I've been on a weight loss journey and lifestyle change for almost 2 solid years now. I started with CICO, focusing on healthier foods, was vegetarian for awhile, and vegan for a short time. Now I'm full omnivore. I'm still having trouble exercising regularly, besides walking everyday. I have always had the mindset that I don't have to deny myself the things that I enjoy eating or drinking, but to do it in moderation. Those cheat days have lessened over time and I've been doing really good for awhile now.

I recently started intermittent fasting (IF). I modified it to work with how my body naturally likes to eat. I have a decent breakfast at 6-8am (depending on the day); 300-500 calories. I have dinner between 6-7:30pm (absolutely stop eating by 8pm regardless of the day); 500-800 calories typically.

As of 11/10/18 I am 91lbs down. I have also noticed that my skin is starting to tighten a little due to IF, and I have been feeling amazing. However, I checked the scale today and I haven't lost anything. I am the exact same weight I was a week ago. It reminded me that every time I lose about 5-10lbs, I plateau at that weight for about a month and then lose another 5-10lbs but I cannot figure out why this happens. When I do eat more/cheat, it still doesn't even put me above 1500 calories a day. It makes me feel crazy and that I'm not making enough progress but this seems to be the cycle my body gets into. I want to be in Onederland before January but at this rate I won't be. I know I should exercise more, and I want to start lifting again but I just cannot afford a gym right now. It's also really cold where I live so outdoor exercise is difficult.

Advice? Recommendations? I'm sick of this cycle and don't understand why or how it keeps happening, especially since I don't gain any weight during these times and don't go overboard on calories.

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Those of you on (psychiatric) medication finding it hard to stick to a deficit/not binge eat, please ask your dr to change or adjust meds [GENERAL ADVICE]

tl;dr psych meds made me binge and over eat, despite following all the weight loss tips and tricks and rules, until I changed meds. Takes trial and error but its worth it and this issue of binging is not always in our control.

I've been on psychiatric meds since 2015 and before that weight loss was a breeze. My first medication, latuda, made me so hungry I would eat 5000 calories a day and gained 15lbs on less than 2 months. I've been on a few other meds since that I don't think had much impact on my eating (lamotrigine, lithium, Wellbutrin, saphris - might have been able to lose on it but it killed my sex drive) But I still over ate and couldn't lose any appreciable weight. The last one I was on, abilify, was great for my mental health but I was compulsively eating at night. I got back up to a heavier weight than I've been in 3 years, 160+, despite tracking.

I made sure to avoid triggers such as intermittent fasting, I tried more or fewer meals, more or less fat, always high protein, but night time always came back to haunt me. The longest I'd gone without over eating in the last year is probably half a week if that.

Now I'm starting a new medication, geodon, and for 7 of the 9 days I've been on it I've had no desire or urge to binge or over eat. The first 2 nights I'm guessing I did because I still had abilify in my system (was on the lowest dose so just immediately switched meds). I've had a few days under my goal as well, a few just slightly over, and even one night I was going to bed and felt a bit hungry and thirsty and decided to just go to bed. Another night I brought food up with me that I had logged and it was within my deficit, and i forgot to eat part of it and didn't notice until the morning. Normally my routine has been to just eat until stuffed and now I'm able to put food away after having grabbed some.

So if you're on medication and finding things to be really hard, don't think that's its all because you "lack willpower" or some shit like that. Don't let others make you feel like it's something wrong you are doing if you're literally trying to do everything right - tracking, weighing food, etc. And don't be afraid to stand up for yourself with your doctors, if your doctors don't help you find a medication solution that enables you to be healthy fully then find a new doctor (this is coming from someone who had to find a new psychiatrist because the old one refused to prescribe anything that I wanted to try and didn't listen to me).

I'm pretty sure that changing my meds now with encouragement from my psychiatrist is what's going to help me get to my mini goal of 150 by my birthday in January, back down to 133 by the summer, and ready to slowly bulk later 2019. No amount of willpower or accurate tracking was going to change the physiological effects medication had on my eating.

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Paying it forward: too big clothing

I hope this is allowed.

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I was recently lamenting to a friend who is slightly ahead of me in her weight loss journey about how my clothes were getting too big but I didn't want to buy new ones because they may only fit me (hopefully) like a year or less before I needed new ones again. A week later, out of the blue, a box arrives with all of her L and XL clothes that are now to big for her. I was ecstatic and it probably saved me a couple hundred dollars. It inspired me to clean out my own closet.

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I don't have any friends that are larger than me now so I wanted to pay her kindness forward and send someone (one of you in the US) my 1X and 2X clothes that no longer fit me. (I will pay the shipping). It is mostly Old Navy, Target and Kohl's brands. All of the stuff is in decent condition and wearable. It is mostly casual items since I work from home. There are 25 tops (lots of fall and winter things including sweatshirts and a few t-shirts), 8 pairs of long pants (2 jeans, 3 or 4 pairs of work out pants), 5 pairs shorts or skorts and 6 casual dresses (all summer dresses - 1 is really a swim suit cover up). The bottoms are 16 and 18s I think.

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I will ship it to the first person who PM's me and lives in the continental US. You can keep what you want and donate the rest (I won't split the items up). I thought about just donating the stuff to my local goodwill but I wanted to do something kind for someone else like my friend did for me. I just want it to go to someone who is in a situation like me and doesn't want to buy new clothes that they will hopefully only wear a short amount of time.

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Thanks!

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Infographic on Weight Cycling. Does it deserve more attention as part of your weight loss approach?

**This is an update on a previous post. First time around, I didn’t know how to link to an infographic image. I also share a summary of comments.**

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I created an infographic on weight cycling, or yo yo dieting, that I think this group might be interested in. It’s about the millions of people who lose weight each year but can’t keep it off and regain all or more of their weight. Part of the reason I created it was to show 1) you’re not alone, and 2) people do become weight loss sustainers (20%). Those people who become sustainers do things differently than those who weight cycle, which means you might become successful if you tweak your approach.

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https://imgur.com/a/GqRX6pT

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Here are the numbers from the infographic:

A Hidden Epidemic: Weight Cycling by the Numbers

All Adults in the U.S. – 250 million

7 in 10 are overweight or obese – 175 million

1 in 2 are trying to lose weight – 88 million

4 in 5 will regain the weight – 70 million (that’s 30% of all U.S. adults)

70 million U.S. adults losing weight now will regain it

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There were some incredibly insightful comments to that post, I thought I’d share them here. I’ve come to many of the same conclusions based on my own weight loss experience. But I would love to get your reactions to see if they ring true:

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1. In the original post, I asked if weight cycling was common on r/loseit despite the frequent positive posts.

More than one comment argued that despite the stories of weight loss, many (even the vast majority of) people do regain their weight on r/loseit, often years after initially losing it. No one really disagreed with this.

At the same time, it seems a couple responders have managed to become sustainers themselves!

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2. One commenter asked for a definition of weight cycling. This was my reply:

“Weight cycling is the regaining of intentionally lost weight. I think there are different definitions, based as you suggest on amount of weight loss and duration before regain. For the sake of argument, let’s say the weight loss has to be significant – at least 5-10% of your total body weight. For me, I don’t think duration can be easily categorized. Someone can gain weight back in 1 month or 10 years, and I think I’d still call it a weight cycle.”

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3. The same commenter asked if there was a threshold were success rates go up. I said:

“Yes and no. It’s a curve. Sustained weight loss is generally defined by researchers as intentionally losing at least 10% of your body weight, and keeping it off for over 1 year. That’s more research convention than anything else, because clearly people still regain weight after keeping it off for a year. Making that bar higher would make that 20% success rate even lower. That said, keeping your weight off for at least 2 years cuts your odds of gaining at least 5lbs back in half (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16002825). The 2-year mark has been occasionally used in other papers.”

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4. I also asked if weight cycling (and its mirror image “sustaining weight loss”) seems to be an afterthought of the weight loss approach most people take. And if that could contribute to weight cycling itself.

One person responded that it’s not necessarily an afterthought, but several others argued that no, people don’t think about sustainability while their trying to lose weight. Here’s are some responses paraphrased:

People think about temporarily adhering to a diet, but not how to keep living it in the real world.

At some point people can’t take the deprivation from diets anymore and regain their weight.

Most people on r/loseit don’t achieve long term success using a severe caloric deficit.

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5. So what do sustainers do? Here are some comments:

A couple people said they don’t diet and instead made lifestyle changes. (I’d love to know what this means to people)

One commenter shared incredible personal insight. Sustained weight loss isn’t achieved with just a diet. It’s achieved by addressing your personal cause of obesity – (e.g. stress/anxiety/depression, dietary preferences, binge-eating, etc.) – with the right eating strategies for that cause. When this person found those matching strategies, she lost weight and kept it off without binging.

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6. Final thought

At the end of the day, based on the population numbers on weight cycling in the infographic, and the experience of people on r/loseit, it seems weight cycling deserves some focus – at least as much as which diet to choose, or how to cut more calories. What do you think? Any reactions to the comment above?

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Where did/do you see your weight loss first?

I’m just curious as to where folks see or think they lose their weight first.

For me, the handful of times I’ve lost weight I’ve first noticed it in my face and collarbone area. I’m about 17lbs down this time around (furthest I’ve gone in many years! Let’s hope it keeps on going!) and it’s par for the course. Cheekbones are sneaking their way back into existence and I’ve spent many a moment admiring the newly defined line across the tops of my shoulders in the mirror, ha.

While it’s great to see something, it’s weird to see the transition from nicely slimming shoulders to... well... the rest of me! While I functionally understand that the weight doesn’t come off all equally from everywhere at the same time, it’s really just weird to me.

What’s your experience been like?

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