Is anyone else discouraged when they see other people's progress pics?

I don't mean to be negative in a sub that's so heavily geared towards body positivity, I kind of just want to know how I can change my mindset on this.

I've started dieting and working out over the last couple of weeks, hoping to ideally get rid of anywhere from 30 to 70lbs by May since I'm marching DCI this summer and really need to be in shape before spring training. Well since I'm subscribed here, Reddit clearly knows that I'm trying to lose weight so it's been recommending subs for weight loss, which is totally fine. But today I stumbled on one called r/progresspics, which is exactly what it sounds like: a place for people to post their before and after pics of them dieting.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love that such a sub exists and that everyone there is so much happier with themselves now that they've lost however much weight they want to lose. I couldn't be happier for them. But as I scrolled through the sub it just got me really down and discouraged, like these people all have something I never will, be that self confidence, a body they can be proud of, or the very ability to see visible progress. It's just really hard to imagine ever having a) enough noticeable progress to be able to post a progress pic, or b) having enough self confidence for it to matter, because before I got to the weight I'm at I already had issues with how I look.

Again, I think it's wonderful that those people have achieved their goals and want to share that with the internet. I just can't help feeling anything but discouraged when I see such drastic changes in people, knowing how much time and effort and (probably) discomfort went into achieving those results. How can I change my mindset on this and turn it into something motivating, instead of something disheartening?

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

I have created a new lifestyle change to start my weight loss, can /loseit help me?

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/u0S1VNj.png)

Look at pic above please. I did some research on the foods and used calculators, here are my calculations
Current weight (36% Body Fat): 290lb
Lowest weight I got to before (28% Body Fat) 258lb
Goal weight: 210lb
I believe 210lb will be between 15% - 20% body fat due to 290 - 258 = 32 which in my case is 8% (36% to 28%) so losing another 8% should make my weight 226lb at 20% body fat when I reach that weight.
I will be eating between 1300 - 1500 calories per day however if you have seen pic related you can see the issue.
Another issue is the macros, can anyone check my workings please?

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

I'm a trash panda with a swole bf. How do I get him to ease up his help? Or am I just lazy?

Hi guys! Quick two-part disclaimer! I wasn't sure what the right place was for this; r/relationships, r/offmychest; or r/loseit, and in the end kind of settled on this place because it has so many layers to it and I feel like the main heart of it is my weight loss journey. Please forgive me if this was the wrong place to post because I really truly wrestled with it! I also have a problem with being wordy, so I'm hoping i can make up for that with nice formatting? Maybe?

CONTEXT

I started my weight loss journey on 3/20/18 at 255 lbs (~115.66 kg) as a 5'8" (~173 cm) woman. I'm 26. I've struggled with anxiety, depression, OCD, my weight, and basic coordination my whole life. I started an antidepressant which has helped me in every way imaginable and put me in a place where I could start making my weight a priority. Thanks in part to subreddits like this one, I had lost about 65 lbs/~ 29.5 kg and was down to 190 lbs when I met my current boyfriend just after Thanksgiving in November, who I'll just call "BF."

• BF: He's a swole, full-course meal. He has muscle on muscle on muscle. He knows a lot about fitness, lifting, nutrition, etc. He eats low carb, doesn't really touch white flour or sugar, is at the gym for an hour plus three days a week with more determined consistency than the US Postal service, etc. He works in software development, and he's a pretty analytical, no-nonsense, self-motivated, stoic dude. While I'm not saying lifting weights or fitness is easy for him, he's been an active person all his life and has never experienced being more than a few pounds overweight without a hefty amount of muscle to go with it. He's at the stage of his life where he's been doing it for a long time, and most of his healthy choices are reflex. He feels dissatisfied and restless if he misses a day of gym due to illness. It's critical to note that he moved to the US from a former Soviet republic in his teenage years and while he now speaks English fluently, we sometimes have language barrier problems or cultural miscommunications we have to patiently negotiate.
• ME: In contrast, I'm emotional and lazy and sugar-addicted. I have been using MyFitnessPal and guesstimation to calorie count my way out of obesity. Calorie counting has gradually turned into eating more veggies, eating less carbs and sugar, increasing my water intake, being conscious of fiber and protein, etc., all in tiny delicate baby steps that feel wonderfully and shockingly sustainable long-term. But really, as long as I can stay in my daily calorie allowance and drag my body slug-style forwards towards my goals, I'm fine with Scrooge McDuck-style diving into piles of sugar because I know I will keep improving my habits over time. Really, my weight loss journey really has been a combination of me slowly building up healthy habits and also just slowly replacing my *shittiest* habits with *slightly less shitty* habits. As anecdotal reference, up until recently I was eating frozen PB&J sandwiches straight from the freezer (why wait for them to thaw?) every night like a fucking monster until I realized they were a binge trigger and stopped buying them, and that was like, a huge, parade-worthy realization that made me feel totally fitness woke. I love hiking in the spring, summer, and fall and going for walks, but besides that, the gym and working out is the farthest thing from my mind.

Context Section TL;DR: BF is a ripped fitness monk, I'm an anxious overweight trash-panda.

RECENTLY

BF and I got serious pretty quickly. He's so different from me, but we complement each other well. I told him about my weight loss on our first date, which I initially meant to keep private. He was really complimentary and supportive. After talking about how dedicated I was as well as describing much more gently everything I just told you about me above, he started getting involved in my fitness journey a few weeks later.

He writes up workouts for me on post-it notes. He works out three days a week consistently on the same days and around the same time, and he started contacting me after his work outs to make sure I did them too. I have skipped a day twice, and he always reacts with some light-hearted shaming. He calls me "sneaky" and uses the goofy pet name he uses for me.

I complained once about not losing weight for a week (probably because I suddenly started rigorously working out, or was on my period, or I forgot my weekly goat sacrifice). He reassured me, and has since started checking in on my weight loss every Saturday to get an update.

He'll make little remarks about if I eat bread at dinner, or take too much rice, etc. I don't want to be in a controlling relationship, and sometimes when it feels like he's being too overbearing, I'll push back and say that if I want x, if I have the calories for it, I'll eat x. Of course it still makes me feel guilty and self-conscious and like an out-of-control brat, and part of me appreciates his insistence because it helps remind me not to binge and be aware of my carb or sugar intake.

He has bought me fitness-related gifts, like fitness bands, a supplement, and just yesterday for Valentine's Day, a heart-rate monitor for when I run. He had told me about his intentions to get me a heart-monitor before, and I told him I didn't think I'd use one or necessarily want one, but I wouldn't not use it if he got it for me.

I'm now down a few more pounds since I met him, 179 lbs/~81.2 kg, which he thinks is great. He'll tell me he can notice a difference since he met me, and he'll add that I'll look even better if I keep at it.

Problem Section TL;DR: BF is helping me with my diet and fitness in ways I didn't necessarily ask for or want.

THOUGHTS / HELP?

He just texted me again joking asking if I'm excited for my work out tonight (he knows I don't enjoy it) and I'm just dreading it. To be honest I'm kind of at a loss.

I am so grateful for his support and help. I've never dated someone with this level of fitness, expertise, or concern about my health. I do really want to get better. Ideally I'll get down to my first goal weight of 160 lbs, hopefully my final goal weight of 145 lbs... I'd like to work out consistently every week, eat better, be more healthy. I do want to work out more. I just don't know if I want to work out three days a week for an hour plus each time. My knees are fucked up after my high weight and an injury, and they've been really bothering me the last week when I work out. I just feel so avoidant and frustrated. Part of me just wants to go back to happily calorie counting and my small improvements over time.

His constant weight check-ins motivate me, but they also make me consistently worry that he's not into me physically. He's "not into super skinny girls," which is a direct quote. He occasionally compliments my appearance. He's just super stoic, and I know I have issues with anxiety and self-confidence. He could stop helping me with fitness and text me hourly love notes and I'm worried I'm crazy enough it still wouldn't be enough.

Weight loss and fitness is such a big part of our relationship now, and sometimes it makes me feel distant from him.

I feel overwhelmingly guilty when I don't meet his expectations. I just don't know what's healthy or real. Am I just avoiding working out because I'm lazy? Why would I ask him to let up when I'm basically getting free personal training? I said I would love his help, and in his super fit, kind, analytical brain, he put A and B together and is giving me C, where he helps me with fitness in the way he knows will get me the results I want. I really do think he's doing this to be kind to me. He researches all kinds of things for me and sends me videos when we're apart demonstrating exercises he wants me to try.

Fitness is something he is confident about and experienced in. It's a HUGE part of his life that he enjoys sharing with me. How do I ask him to step back kindly while not making him feel like I'm rejecting him or ungrateful? Do I even ask him to step back at all? If I eventually want to get more into fitness once I lose weight, why wouldn't I just do it now? How do I suck it up?

Weight loss is hard. I'm having to renegotiate so many things in my life. It has been so worth it. This just is a new problem life has thrown at me that I'm trying to work through and don't necessarily immediately know how to deal with.

Thanks for listening to me. I'm really grateful.

​

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

“Fat” Is Not a Synonym for “Ugly,” and Other Lessons from the Fat/Body Acceptance Movement That Are Helping Me Lose Weight

This started as a comment on another post, but I really wanted to post about it (and expand upon it) separately as well.

One of the most important things I have learned recently (within the last couple years) is to stop conflating “fatness” with “ugliness.” We, women especially, are taught to do this from a young age. When a friend says, “I’m so fat!” our response as her friend is always expected to be, “No, don’t say that, you’re beautiful.” In doing so, we position “fat” as the opposite of “beautiful,” and therefore as a synonym for “ugly.”

But “fat” is the opposite of “skinny” or “fit” or “healthy weight.” Not “beautiful.” Fatness is an objective measurement; you are either a healthy weight or not. Beauty, on the other hand, is subjective. But when we conflate an objective measurement like fatness with a subjective measurement like ugliness, we begin to think that ugliness is just as objective, and if we’re fat, we’re objectively ugly. And ugliness, unlike fatness, is not something we can so easily control. So maybe we start to think we can’t control our fatness.

Because of this, I stayed in denial about how much weight I had gained for too long. Accepting my fatness meant accepting objective ugliness, and I wasn’t emotionally willing to do that. By getting to the point where I could understand that these were different things, I was able to examine my fatness on its own as an objective measurement of my body. I am fat. That does not mean I am ugly. And only by being objective and honest about my fatness, without the conflation of ugliness, have I been able to take accurate stock and admit my need to change.

Now, this will be the most controversial part of my post, but this is why I hate the amount of hate that the Fat Acceptance movement gets. They are the ones that have really pushed the idea that we need to stop conflating “fatness” and “ugliness.” Without Fat Acceptance ideas, I would have continued to conflate these two things and continued to be in Fat Denial. Fat Acceptance and plus sized models also help drive an actually-fashionable plus sized fashion industry, and that allows me to keep my self-esteem and confidence in balance enough to avoid self-loathing depression. If you can’t find clothes that make you look good and professional, it’s easy to want to avoid interactions at work and just shrink away, because how you look is always on your mind, and that makes your performance suffer and leads to doubting your abilities, which can lead to stress and depression, neither of which are helpful for weight loss. But when I have an important meeting, I can put on my plus-sized striped blazer (yes, horizontal stripes, and they look good), slap on some boss red lipstick, and own that meeting like I’m supposed to. That’s only possible because there are plus-sized professional clothing options that look good, and we’re not just relegated to the world of muumuus and stretch pants. The Fat Acceptance movement also gave me the ability to accept my body’s existence in a new way. As someone who’s always been overweight, I just wanted my body to go away. I took up too much space in a crowd, I was in people’s way, I hated how I looked, I hated my body. I think most people who get healthy recognize that body hatred doesn’t lead down the correct path. But in Fat Acceptance, I saw fat bodies posing and doing activities and taking up space and not standing/sitting/existing in all of the unobtrusive and overly polite ways I did. It was only then that I started to have a positive relationship with my body. It was only then that I believed my body had a right to space like anyone else’s, including a right to take up space in a gym, or on a walking/biking trail. I don’t just admire the skinny women just sitting around in beautiful clothes anymore; I admire the women in the gym, hair up, no makeup, with their defined biceps and watermelon-crushing thighs. Now, I no longer hate my body, I respect it. I no longer think about how much happier I’d be if I made it mostly disappear, I think about all the things I want it to do. This is all entirely because of the Fat Acceptance movement and learning that myself and my body deserve to exist and be treated kindly no matter what size I am, haters and body-shamers be damned.

Striving to be a healthy weight is good, certainly, but keeping it up for the long-term requires establishing self-love first and learning to make the decision truly for yourself and not because of societal expectations. Before I could really start losing the weight, I had to find Fat Acceptance. Some people are still in the stage where they are learning to love themselves, and they need Fat Acceptance more than weight loss advice. Some people may never leave that stage. Because we are not them, we should not judge them harshly against the standards we set for ourselves. We don’t know their lives. The important thing is, our society positions us to have unhealthy relationships with our bodies. We are bombarded with unreasonable beauty standards (both male and female, not even considering the way those standards make trans* folks feel), media that conflates thinness with goodness (Disney’s fat characters were pretty much only villains and servants of the beautiful main characters - Shrek has a way better message than Beauty and the Beast in that regard), and constant advertising for the diet industry meant to make us feel bad about our bodies so we’ll buy more products. We have to learn to decide to get healthy on our own terms, for our own reasons, and for our own bodies’ needs.

Fat Acceptance empowered me to make my own decisions about my body’s needs. I am now truly choosing to lose weight for me, not because of the discomfort it causes society. And because I’m doing it for me, I have more motivation to keep going than ever.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2IhFU3P

How important is sleep in relation to weight loss?

For the past 2 months +, I have been consistently losing 1kg/2.2lb per week.

Since 1st of February, I started to get only 2-5 hours of sleep each night as I am too busy with my exams. My calorie intake remains to be at 1000 to 1300 and I still exercise 4 - 6 times a week. Except for the amount of sleep I've been getting and my stress for the exams, everything else has been the same. However, my weight has been at 86.0KG since 1st February.

I feel a little down as I wanted to reach 82KG by end of Feb but that's not going to happen.

Once my exams end, I plan to get sufficient sleep and put 100% of my focus into my weight loss (meaning exercising everyday and getting stricter on my diet). Is it by any chance possible that my weight will decrease rapidly, since I'm finally having enough sleep? I don't really know if you guys understand my question, but it's worth trying to ask!

Any advice or insights not related to the questions or anything please comment too! Just want some motivation and some place to talk/rant to.

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Dr. Prescribed Contrave - been wonderful so far

Just thought I'd share my experience.

I'm a large guy (IE: > 350 lbs). I go to the gym 3-5 x a week, do 5k on the elliptical (current record is 20:34), then lift weights. I'm in decent shape for the shape I'm in. But I always end up eating too much and my diet just ruins it. I've made healthy changes and seen some progress but it hasn't been what I was hoping. I had lost 50 lbs. in the past through diet and exercise and, over 2 years, it crept back in.

So my doctor prescribed me Contrave. I'm skeptical because I read not so good things about weight loss medicine but thought I'd give it a try.

WOW. I should be the spokesperson. I think if there was someone they were targeting with this drug it was me.

Since the first pill I took I have NOT BEEN HUNGRY. At all. For days. I have to tell myself to eat something. It's a very strange feeling and hard to describe. I've always wondered if there was something wrong with me because it seems like I was always either 'full' or 'hungry'. Now, I feel like I'm 'not hungry' which is a totally new feeling for me. I'm aware this may be a placebo effect but hell, bring it on!

This wasn't meant to be an advertisement and if it's not allowed, that's cool just delete. I just wanted to share. Coming from a place where I felt like it was a struggle I thought I'd share my experience.

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I compulsively weigh myself anytime I see a scale

Hello all! Just wondering if you could offer some advice to a person who often finds themselves falling into toxic patterns when it comes to weight loss. As the title suggests I weigh myself every time I see a scale. I’m obsessed with watching numbers go down. But when I get on and it’s higher I instantly feel ashamed. And I know it’s illogical. I know weight fluctuates constantly depending on water intake bathroom habits sodium intake and a slew of other factors. And yet I can’t stop myself from stepping on the scale every time I see it. My efforts are working I have definitively lost 25 pounds but the feelings of guilt anytime the scale is up higher than my lowest is getting out of hand.

Tldr; I weigh myself anytime I see a scale and it’s wrecking me mentally.

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