Thursday, April 4, 2019

Question about frequent maintenance days when close to goal weight.

Hi everyone!

I've been on my weight loss journey since May 2018 and I've gone from absolutely hating my body to being pretty okay with it! I'm actually quite happy with where I am and the progress I've made, but I'm still hoping to get down to my goal weight (about 8 more lbs) to hopefully get rid of some extra fat on my upper arms and stomach. Since the beginning of the 2019 I've felt in a rush to get to my goal weight by May since I was hoping to lose the full 40 lbs in a year. But, as many people find, the closer you get to your goal weight the slower the pounds come off. While frustrated at first, I've come to terms with this and have instead shifted my focus from only counting calories (1200-1300 a day) to counting calories, cardio, and focusing on my overall nutritional health. I've done this for a couple weeks now and I'm already started to feel even better than I did before.

At the moment things are really great. I'm just a little nervous that maintenance is going to come as a weird shock to me once I get to it. It might not be for a few more months, but the closer it gets the more I worry about not being in a calorie deficit anymore. If that makes any sense. I have lost weight in the past in my early 20s and I completely failed at keeping it off for more than a summer. While my lifestyle and relationship with food is much different this time around, I'm worried about getting to my goal weight and ruining everything like I did the first time.

So my question is - for anyone who is close to their goal weight, do you have 'maintenance days' to ease yourself into eating more once you hit your goal?

I was thinking of eating at maintenance Saturdays and Wednesdays and then staying in my deficit during the rest of the week. As I mentioned above, I'm no longer in a rush. I'm just trying to think of ways to get myself used to eating at maintenance before I get to my goal while focusing on other aspects of my health.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you in advance to anyone that can give me some insight!

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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2Vp4P7y

Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Thursday, 04 April 2019? 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.

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Wednesday, April 3, 2019

[Daily Directory] Find your quests for the day here! - Thursday, 04 April 2019

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.

Interested in some side quests?

Community bulletin board!

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


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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2Uj9ZW7

Getting through the noticable changes phase

I've lost 15-20 lbs so far and I'm at the point where I definitely notice the changes in my body composition. Because of that, I feel like I spend way to much time looking in the mirror and weighing myself don't get me wrong, it's great that I'm noticing the changes, but I still have another 20-30 lbs to go. I really wish I could distract myself so that I'm not looking at the smallest details on my body. Im feeling really good about my calorie counting and it's shocking how accurately it's predicting my weight loss. I just wish I could let me mind focus on what's around me and my daily living as opposed to me wishing that August would get here already so I can go into a maintenance diet. Obsessing over my small changes now is making this journey seem a lot longer than it needs to be.

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Starting Over Again

In late 2012 I was 280 lbs. My wife was nearly the same. We had been married for 7 years and no kids yet. About Thanksgiving, my wedding ring was getting too tight and I decided that was enough.

Picking Thanksgiving weekend was an odd choice for weight loss but I managed. I had lost 15 pounds by Christmas. I found out about calorie tracker apps and that helped me even more. My wife got on board as well.

By the next fall I had lost 100 pounds and my wife about 80. Then in early 2014 she got pregnant. My little girl was born that December and we both fell off the wagon on eating well. Not surprising I’m sure.

I’ve occasionally told myself I would start again and it would work for a week or two but I couldn’t convince myself to stick it out. But two weeks ago I was just over 240 and I had another “this is enough” moments.

I don’t have any aspirations of being 180 again at this age (41) but who knows. I have to try something. This 240 crap is getting hard. Every time I pick up my daughter my back hurts and I know it’s only going to get worse.

So I am back to tracking what I eat. It’s damn tedious but it works when I stick with it. I’m down to 233 in just over two weeks.

Wish me luck. Thanks.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2G0IUyf

I've changed how I eat breakfast/lunch for around a month now and the fact that I feel change happening is astounding.

I've lurked on this subreddit for quite some time mainly to look at weight loss ideas and other success stories of people losing weight loss and a good amount of them always seemed to follow calories in calories out methods and calorie counting. I've tried these methods in the past to little to no success. The came in the form minor changes to my typical diet. primarily portion sizing and how quickly I eat, and I also used an elliptical for half an hour four to five days out of the week. However, a few weeks ago I go hit with the flu and went the doctor by myself that day, mostly to find out my actual weight on my own as given to me by a doctors office.

As it turns out I hit 300 pounds. 300. Even. To put this in prespective, about a year ago I was 287. Sometime before that, I had gone to a cardiologist in regards to an unusually high heart rate and high blood pressure. To further add stress to this, I'm 20 years old as of this post.

That was the point where I realized whatever I was doing was clearly not enough and something else needed to be fixed. The work I had been putting in up until that point was doing nothing to stop weight gain but was just slowing it down. On that drive home from the doctor I really thought about what I possibly could have been doing wrong after trying for so long to put my weight on a downward trend. By the time I got home I looked at how I eat during the day and noticed that i tend to have very large breakfasts and eat a good amount of sugary things during the day. Waffles being the major problem in that particular case. I also noticed that I had been snacking from fast food places and buying unhealthy food fairly regularly, as well as snacking at work very frequently.

That next morning I began restricting my breakfast from there, at that point my intake in the morning would consist of either exclusively fruit, light toast with cream cheese, or a protein shake (this was a fairly recent addition). Things like cereal and waffles were out of the question, waffles especially due to the fact that I am a man who would rain syrup on his waffles like it's the Great Molasses Flood and the syrup can carry a ton of calories. I downsized my lunch and made numerous fast food places off limits. Places where I could technically build my own meal were still on the table up to a point, and specific breakfast locations were restricted to once a month and only to specific items. My lunches were further downsized, keeping portions small and refusing seconds. On occasion, i would eat my light breakfast and have a protein shake at lunch. I examined a local convenience store chains "build your own" menu and determined that if I felt like eating out I would get a turkey wrap as it had the least calories even if it was stuffed with toppings, these usually never went too far past 600 calories.

I made attempt to gain some self control as well, particularly at work. Where I work, the break room usually has a lot of junk food. Candy, cookies, chocolate, chips, popcorn, you name it and it has probably been in there at some point. I usually grabbed a few chocolates or some chips from there every now and again; as of a month ago, no more. This was a case where I had to learn self control, something I noticed was a huge problem when trying to lose weight. I would always find myself going "oh who cares" and gorging on crappy food. So though the help of willpower (and a rubber band around my wrist to flick if I find myself going for a snack), I have abandoned the break room for pretty much everything except water and to heat food.

This has been going on for about a month as the title of this states. And within the past few days, I've noticed some changes. I did notice change in regards to belly and some side fat. Additionally, I noticed i was actually able to feel by abs underneath the skin again. I by no means have a six pack, but I can actually tell there's something underneath that again. Out of curiosity I headed to the bathroom scale to see where I was. Lo and behold, 293!

I was ecstatic to see that it went down! I noticed I wasn't feeling as tired doing mild physical activity, wasn't sweating for no reason anymore, and I was feeling colder as a whole. I was feeling like a hoodie wasn't enough to go outside for the first time in the longest time, and my shirts and aforementioned hoodies are starting to feel like they're fitting better than they used to.

I'm hoping it can keep going down for the rest of the year, as my goal is to lose 50 pounds by years end, lose some of the weight that's latched onto me for years and hopefully get some of my damn wardrobe back.

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Today is my 1 year "veganniversary", and I've lost 35 lbs in addition to being a lot happier and healthier both mentally and physically

Pics

Left: Before going vegan in April 2018. Prior I was pescetarian/vegetarian and haven't eaten processed foods since 2008. I could not lose weight to save my life even with calorie counting and consistent exercise. I worked out at high intensity 5 days a week (most recent when that picture was taken I was doing Orangetheory). I am diagnosed hypothyroid and figured that was just my life, and it would just be worse if I wasn't living a healthy lifestyle.

Right top: July 2018, 3 months after going plant-based. I lost 20 lbs without working out and without trying. My body immediately loved a plant-based diet. In May I tore my hamstring and could not exercise from May to current so all my weight loss is just from diet. The short amount of time I still was doing Orangetheory while vegan, my workouts were so much better than before going plant-based. Weight 190.

Right bottom: 175-180ish. Photo taken a few days before this past Christmas, about 3 weeks after starting Intermittent Fasting. I lost an additional 15 lb from IF after my weight loss slowed from just eating plant-based. No pictures since then since I hate taking photos of myself.

Current weight:175, so at least I haven't gained since dropping off the IF wagon. The past 8ish weeks I've slacked a bit on the IF and will get back on it soon since I still do want to lose another 10 pounds or so and then I would be fine maintaining. My body is naturally curvier and has a lot of muscle, even though I haven't been working out. I have no desire to be thin, just healthy, sexy, and fit. I'm still in physical therapy and just re-joined The Bar Method last week. It's low impact and doesn't aggravate my injury and is a great workout. Now that I'm happy with my size, bar will be a good way to tone up (lack of fat loss results was why I stopped a few years ago and joined Orangetheory for more cardio). Overall I feel great about myself and a lot more confident!

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