Why be vegan ?

Hello all :) this is a real question I have - I am absolutely not trolling or trying to incite hate , but I’m genuinely curious - why would anyone choose to be vegan? Is it easier to lose weight being vegan / vegetarian ? Is it an easy , fast track route to health? I’m just curious ! I love meat , dairy, eggs etc but I am not in great health ( hormonal issues , endometriosis, and I suffer from depression/anxiety but this is more due to circumstances and unfortunate life experiences , so I know its source).

In the past when losing I’ve tracked my macros and i suppose I haven’t been all that successful because i yo yo all the time and here I am yet again on another weight loss journey.

I guess I’m kind of exploring my options and wondering if veganism is this amazing silver bullet that so many claim it to be ? It seems to hard and unsustainable to me but maybe I’m wrong !

Interested to hear your opinions!

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2GOjkiD

"I can have just one" is a lie, plus my Southern Christmas Season Plight

Quick primer - I am about 3 weeks into my weight loss journey, with the intent to lose about 60 pounds. In the first 2 weeks, I stopped drinking full sugar soda (which I drank a lot of), increase daily activity from pretty darn sedentary to at least 60 minutes/6000 steps daily. Also eating on roughly a 500 deficit on a daily basis (cutting out soda made this pretty easy, actually). I generally don't eat a whole lot anyway, I realized I was drinking way too many calories. I don't weigh every day. I usually weigh every couple weeks and measure my belly (where most of my bulk is) as well. In the first 2 weeks, I lost 5 pounds and 3 inches off my belly. That was as of a week ago.

I have been doing well with eating and not feeling deprived. However, as we all know...Christmas is a tough time for most of us. So much good stuff that is so much bad :(

I am trying not to be too hard on myself, but the closer we get to the Christmas Eve/Day celebrations and family gatherings, the harder it is getting to not just want to indulge. If I am being honest, it really is the only time of the year I am in this mindset.

I have already give myself permission to be sensible with portions, but not beat myself up, and expecting to bust my budget over the next few days. Mentally, I feel this is the best way to go.

I have run into a conundrum though that I hadn't thought about. Christmas is my wife and 11 year old daughter's absolute favorite time of year. They love making ALL kinds of sweets - candy (which I don't eat a lot of), fudge, cookies, peanut butter bars (my favorite), cheesecake, etc. This is the only time of the year they do this. Furthermore, not only do they enjoy making all this stuff, they enjoy sharing it and seeing the enjoyment of the rest of the family as well. So, this baking has already started. They totally support what I am doing in trying to lose weight, but I just realized today that they seem disappointed that I am not eating any of it and honestly I feel it is taking part of their joy out of it and I feel more terrible about that fact than I do about eating it. So, now it has suddenly gotten harder and I am not sure what to do.

And what I mean about I can have just one being a lie - each year, they try a new recipe or 2 and, of course I have to try it. I actually really like taking all the ingredients and building the nutrition facts and splitting it into servings so that I at least know what I am eating; however, this ultimately makes me feel even more conflicted than if I just blindly eat it (ignorance is bliss, after all). One of the cookies they made smelled so good and when my wife offered me one, I initially declined, and I could see her body language drop and I felt horrible, so I figured out the calories and decided I can have just one. It was SO good that now I totally want another one and I am struggling!

I haven't yet decided if I am going to actually obsess and count nutrition on Monday and Tuesday or just realize that I am going to bust my budget and that I don't plan on weighing myself again for another 2 weeks (simply because I am worried about my motivation if I see it going back up slightly).

Not sure the point of the post - it isn't really a vent, just sharing I suppose. I was totally prepared to be vigilant, but wasn't expecting how it was going to affect my family's Holiday experience, so to speak. Again, they are totally supportive and understand, but I don't want them to be sad over something ultimately trivial so long as I stick with it after Tuesday.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2ShnaSm

What Am I Doing Wrong?

Hi everyone, this is my first ever post on this sub, but I've been on a loseit "journey" since January 2018.

I started at my highest known weight of 261lbs and have been tracking through WeightWatchers ever since. I was having really great success, losing consistently 2lbs avg. per week up until the first week of August. I went to Europe to visit my sister and took the week off from tracking my food, but came back and got right back on it.

However, since then the scale has not really moved. I've fluctuated from the 215-212lbs range and now I'm really getting discouraged. This week I downloaded the FatSecret app and decided I would track calories for the week instead. I picked a daily intake of 1500 calories and have been measuring/weighing all my food and being really strict staying just under 1500 every day.

Today, I got on the scale and while I was 214.4 last Saturday, I'm now 215 even. I'm just so confused on where I'm going wrong and it's discouraging but I'm more motivated than ever to kick my weight loss back into high gear.

For exercise, I go to the gym about 5-6 days a week doing about 50-75 minutes of strength training and 20 minutes of steady-state cardio. I really enjoy going to the gym it's like my escape when I need a break from school/work/etc., it's not just something I do because I know that I have to.

Over the past 11 months, I've become really interested in fitness and health and I like learning more about it and putting the information to practical use. I'm desperate and eager for any tips/insight/critiques you might have! I'm going out of my mind and the rest of my family isn't really into this kind of stuff like I am.

I'm happy to provide any other kind of information you might think is important to help me out.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2QMGb2v

i started on this weight loss journey 6 months ago

I started this weight loss journey on July 2nd 2018 at the time i was Pre diabetic 350 pounds and scared as hell that i wont live to my 50s I saw family members who were older sicker and hospitalized it made me realize that if i don't change now i will end up like them in 10-20 years and i didn't want that so i slowly changed i first stopped drinking soda after weeks of that i got myfitnesspal and started calorie counting every day i am on a 174 day streak atm then i started walking every day in the summer i walk my full boardwalk near my house it's about 4 miles every day once a day i started slowly noticing that i no longer was breathing heavy by just walking after a few weeks i was able to walk 4 miles and a fast paced and now i do it with no issue my food choice changed dramatically i eat salad every single say now and i only eat lean protein like chicken and fish i stopped eating red meat and drinking fully i consume way less carbs as well the food was way easier than i thought it would be and i have kept it up for 174 days i now see why its good to stay fit i feel amazing every day all my friends are so supportive and see that i work so hard for this they all are telling me dont let anything get in the way of your goals here is my progress picture from day 1 till now 60 pounds later and i have never been this happy for a long time

https://imgur.com/a/QfyCfXn progress picture the first picture i am in a 4x tee shirt in the bottom picture 1x over watch league jersey

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Thanks r/loseit

Last summer, I decided I was going to try to lose some weight and get healthier. I’ve been a healthy weight most of my life, but in the last year the combination of the stress of my job and family and starting to brush up against 50, my weight started to creep up into the overweight category.

I made my resolution when I went clothes shopping and realized if I bought medium sizes (I’m 5’2’’) I’d fit my overweight frame, but have ridiculously long sleeves and legs on everything. If I went down to a small or extra small, my clothes would fit and would feel better about my appearance.

5 months later I finally hit my goal weight of 120. I haven’t been this weight since before I had kids. I went out and bought a bunch of clothes that fit and look great.

I know in comparison to a lot of folks who post on here my challenges have been small, but I will say I’ve tried off and on to get to a lower weight for 15 years without sucess, and I’ve finally done it and it looks like it is sustainable and healthy.

I wanted to share the stuff that works for me:

• Get a calorie tracking app and a food scale. I use lose it, and I splurged for the pro edition. This was the most important thing to use to learn what I was eating that was causing me the most trouble.

• Take some time off if you can. When I was starting out, I changed jobs and I put three weeks between the end of my old job and the start of my new. This let me spend that time adjusting to my new diet in an otherwise nonstressful environment, and to focus time on learning to cook new low cal healthy meals and read up on reddit and other sources about weight loss.

• Do some food prep. I wouldn’t want to prep all my meals every week, but I have found that cooking a couple of things on the weekend that are healthy, low calorie and easy to reheat is essential for me.

I’m just too exhausted at the end of many days to cook a decent meal with a lot of prep. A lot of weekends I just cook some tasty veggies, or a dish of sweet potatoes or refried black beans that make it easy to up my veg content during the week. And I like to cook some easy one pot meals like chili or split pea soup. That small effort makes a big difference for me.

• Try to find easy to make, healthy snacks and meals. I invested heavily in trying new foods. I think it’s a lot easier to start a new good habit that displaces an old bad habit, than just simply stop doing something unhealthy.

I found that miso is easy to keep in the fridge and mix with a bit of hot water for a super quick, tasty, low cal soup broth. I found I like snacking on raspberries which are super low cal and high fiber. Both these things are new things that I would chose to do, and the displace other higher calorie foods in my diet.

• Keep away from restaurants, but if you go have a plan. This was a big one for me. My family likes to eat out and I often eat out with colleagues at work. I avoid eating out if I can, but if I want to go with others I try to look at the restaurant menu before I go to find the low cal option. Deciding at the restaurant makes me freak out and just get comfort food. Generally soup is an acceptable choice. Salad is sometimes ok. In general restaurant meals will take all your calories for the day :(

• Have a treat plan. I can’t really go without treats, so I worked to find small indulgences. My go to are chocolate and almonds. Trader Joe’s has delicious almonds covered in dark chocolate and salt. I like choco crispy crepe cookies (20 cal each) and sometimes just some of the mini altoid mints or a stick of gum is what I need.
  If I’m really out of calories, I make some green tea. I found a really tasty sencha.

I found I have to keep some healthy quick snacks at my desk in case time pressure keeps me from getting a meal and turning to the vending machines. I like a dark chocolate and peanut butter KIND bar or some Finn crisp and laughing cow cheese as a quick snack.

I also keep a can of high quality tuna in my desk along with a shelf stable vacuum sealed pack of precooked lentils and barley for a super quick, super healthy high fiber meal when I am unexpectedly pressed for time.

I also added a lot more heat to my meals with hot peppers and cayenne. That makes me a lot happier and the food much more delightful.

• Focus on the healthy and the sustainable. As I approached my target weight I’ve changed my focus from just calories to overall health. I try to stay in the calorie allotment now, but I also try to hit my daily protein and fiber every day. I’m hoping this will help me stay on track. If I track those two things, my diet ends up having very little refined carbs and relatively little sugar. I’d love to push my sugar even lower.

• I didn’t really exercise while making this change. I generally walk bout 5 miles a day just in the normal run if things. I didn’t change that. Now that I’m holding to a good weight I’d love to exercise more and maybe lift some weights for extra strength.

I avoided big changes on this front while doing the diet, even though it could help to lose quicker, I think making to many changes at once risks losing focus and just abandoning everything.

I’m hoping to stick to everything as time marches on. I’m nervous about abandoning the food logging. I might stick with it for a full year just to get those good eating habits really ingrained.

Thanks loseit community. Good luck with your own weight loss goals!

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2PXN6As

Just starting my weight loss journey: How much weight is realistic to lose per week or month?

Additional info: I’m 26, 164cm, female and currently 103kgs. At 18 (when I stopped working out or caring what I ate) I was between 60-65kgs and since then have put on approx 40kgs. Obviously I knew my lifestyle change at 18 would mean weight gain but I didn’t realise just how much...it’s crazy how much you don’t notice it til your body is unrecognisable, you have stretch marks in new places and your formerly baggy t-shirts now look like crop tops 😞

Anyway, tomorrow will my day 1. Just researching as much as I can tonight. One of the things I was wondering: how much weight could I realistically lose per week at first? And how much could someone my size realistically lose once I’ve built up my fitness levels and found a 1200-1500 diet that suits my lifestyle?

Also any general tips for someone at the start of their journey? Thanks in advance for any info/advice shared :)

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I finally figured out what the hardest part of this journey is

I started my weight loss journey in October and have since busted my ass and shed 30 pounds. But I’ve been stuck in a rut lately and could not for the life of me figure out what was causing the mental blockage in my brain to keep me from pushing through. And then it hit me: I’m fucking lonely.

I did my research and I prepared myself for every challenge and hardship I could possibly encounter, but I never prepared for this. No one I know eats how I eat. No one I know understands the mental battle I’m going through every day. No one understands how easily my willpower can break.

Finding this subreddit changed a lot for me, and I know I’m not alone in this struggle. But damn this is the biggest challenge I’ve faced so far. I’m working on pushing through it, and if you’re having the same issue, you can too. We just have to be strong and remind ourselves every day how far we’ve come.

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