Are these smoothies I’m making bad for me?

I’m 21, F, 170 lbs, 5’5.

Gained weight from antidepressants and now trying to lose it through diet + exercise. I don’t really count calories though, just exercise as much as I can and eat healthy foods

Unfortunately I really like fruit and fruit smoothies. I hear a lot about smoothies being full of sugar and unhealthy.

I make smoothies with only frozen fruit + bananas or frozen veggies (usually kale), unflavoured yogurt with as less sugar as possible, and 2% milk.

No added sugar, juice, peanut butter, or anything else besides what I’ve listed.

They taste awesome but I’m a bit hesitant to continue drinking them if they aren’t good for you or bad for you in terms of weight loss. I just like drinking them because they taste good but I don’t want to gain more.

Any advice appreciated

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[Update 1] The DEXA Bodyscan guy with Hyper Intensive Stage 2 Blood Pressure

As promised. I am back with an update.

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Who are you?

I am the guy who posted this previous thread which generated some comments.

What is the TL;DR?

Uh, super unhealthy. Blood pressure jacked through the roof. 118 kilos at my heaviest, diet change at 115kg and a DEXA Bodyscan and full blood tests at 113.6kg.

What are your figure from the BodyScan?

Not good. 36 kilos of body fat at 183cm in height. Over 180cm2 of visceral body adipose fat around my organs. My triglycerides/HDL ratio is also 3.35.

You can read the Full DEXA Scan of a human body and my results HERE!

What was your vitals prior to the diet change?

OK. My BP has been high for two years. Really high. Especially the diastolic. Prior to the diet change my BP was

• 160/110 for 9 days straight. It has been as high as 170 over 121 taken in hospital, at rest, for an unrelated matter.
• My resting heart rate was 65-67
• My blood sugar level was 6.8mmol for 5 days straight (fasted)

What have you been doing?

Well, its a multi-targeted approach. I am not a stupid guy and I can use academic publications as well as the next man. I have been doing the following based on personal research and the work of Dr Micheal Greger. We should get this out of the way early. I am NOT taking BP medication and I won't be. The evidence is shaky and the drugs numerous and require constant experimentation and can take 6 months to work. Not here to debate it. My choice. Doing this with lifestyle and..it's working. See results below.

This is my daily routine.

• Intermittent Fasting daily from 8pm till 1pm the next day
• The fast is broken with rye bread, peanut butter and honey (the fibre stops the insulin spike) which is just delicious.
• Meal 1 is whole oats with whole milk and I always add the following
  • Chia Seeds
  • Ground flaxseed and walnut
  • 1 tbsp of organic cacao poder
  • 6 blueberries, 6 black berries
  • All of these ingredients
• Meal 2 is always based around dark green veg and cruciferous veg
  • Dark, leafy greens including spinach
  • Salmon (x2 days), Mushrooms (x2 days) or Lamb (x1 days) or Eggs (x2 days)
  • My own dressing of EV olive oil, turmeric, balsamic vinegar and tabasco
  • More chia seeds, more flaxseed

Are you snacking/supplementing?

• 1 banana per day
• 125g of pomegranate per day
• 2 x pickled beetroot per day
• Handful of nuts mixed

What are you drinking?

I drink homemade hibiscus tea with powdered beet extract and the occassional coffee and 2 litres of water flavoured with lemons and limes.

How do you make the tea?

Boil 100g of hibiscus flowers for 30 mins in 3 litres of water. Drain. Add 150g of beet extract. Boil until foamy. Sieve. Let cool. You have 2 litres of strong extract. Simply add hot water to 200ml you have a "tea". I drink this daily and sometimes as a mint tea bag.

​

Results

Blood Sugar

My blood sugar dropped from 6.8mmol from 5.8 mmol (fasted)

Weight

My weight has dropped from 115.2kg to 110 exactly in 16 days. Since the bodyscan report it has dropped 3.6kg with strong dietary discipline and no real cardio. I have not fasted jogged since the DEXA scan.

Blood Pressure

My blood pressure has dropped from 160/110 to a low of 147/99! That is a full 13 and 11 point drop respectively. That is so massive, my best friend, who is a qualified nurse and studying for a Master's degree in Nutrition and Health demanded to check it himself. He did and he was blown away and wants me to keep a daily log as it is, in his words, statistically significant. He was a massive advocate of me getting on BP medication immediately. He is still recommending medication but he also admits tentatively...the diet might be working faster than the drugs could.

Resting Heart Rate

According to my FitBit Ionic, my RHR has dropped from a high of 67 a fortnight ago to a new low, today, of 57. It has actually been a cliff dive in the last 3 days.

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OK. I get it. But why has your blood pressure dropped so significantly?

​

The sciency-bit

Right. I am just a guy on the internet so feel free to disbelieve any of this but I am also not selling any thing so maybe that gives it more credibility.

I prioritised every single food item in my diet based on the clinical evidence for lowering blood pressure. The gist is

If it is naturally purple; it will lower your blood pressure or contain nitrate to help your cardiovascular system

I eat beetroot, black berries, raspberries and pomegranate daily combined with hibiscus tea. In addition I have upped my fibre massively to my previous diet which regulates my blood sugar and let's me excrete waste products much better.

Lastly, I have cut out all salt or salt-added foodstuffs like crisps or packaged sauces.

The compound that drives lower blood pressure is called Queritin and you can rank queritin rich foods on the free Polyhypnol Database (a joint Canadian-French university project).

​

I will check in next week but thanks all. The summary is

• 3.6KG weight loss in 7 days (includes some water loss since I was fully hydrated at the scan/weigh-in
• 13 point drop in systolic blood pressure
• 11 point drop in diastolic blood pressure
• 10 point drop in resting heart rate
• A much less worried wife
• A much motivated me!

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I’ve (30/f) lost 70 lbs but gained hormonal cystic acne and I think depression, has anyone else been through this? I feel so alone

I really started my weight loss journey summer of 2017 and made it to my first goal weight in summer 2018 (70 lbs lost). The last 7 months of my life have been so hard ever since. Nothing else in my life has changed besides my weight. I’ve had clear skin my entire life! I’ve always been pretty positive and hopeful as well. But these past 7 months have been hell.

I started getting cystic acne around my cheeks. Cystic acne isn’t just a normal zit. It’s painful and leaves scarring. So I now have red scars along my cheeks along with feeling so low. It’s a different level of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of interest in everything. I’m no doctor but I’ve tried to research and I feel like it’s a hormonal imbalance due to losing that amount of weight.

I’ve read a few things that stated estrogen is stored in fat so it makes sense that a major weight loss could result in hormonal changes. I would’ve already been to the doctor for answers but I applied for health insurance during the enrollment period and had some issues. I’m now waiting for my insurance card in the mail and can’t wait to go to figure this all out soon.

I guess I’m just here to see if anyone has been through this??? I feel blindsided and so lost at times. On top of feeling such low self esteem when I should be proud of my transformation. It just sucks. I feel out of control of my own mood and thoughts. I’ve never ever been so low in my life. I hope a doctor can help me because I just don’t want to feel like this anymore. It’s progressively getting worse and I need a light at the end of this dark tunnel.

If anyone has been through something similar I’d love to hear any advice or what helped you... Thank you

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Thank you r/LoseIt! A total of 70 pounds down in 6 months and a new outlook on life.

I struggled throughout my teenage years with my eating habits, eating out almost everyday with no regard for the nutritional information. I finally had a moment in October while in the shower looking at my body and being disgusted as usual, saying to myself that I needed to make a change, like many of the others times I’ve told myself this, I made no changes and continued. But this time was different, I had to change, I wouldn’t live very long if I continued down this path.

I had self confidence issues and wasn’t very happy, always saying to myself that I had no chance with any girl because of the way I looked. I learned later during this process that I should be doing this for myself, not solely for the appeasement of others.

I hadn’t looked into LoseIt before, despite using Reddit everyday. I searched reddit for a weight loss subreddit and found this sub. I quickly saw all the success stories and decided to read all I could about CICO. I learned more and more about it and slowly but surely started to lower my calorie limit every day until I got used to eating less (took me a long time to not be still hungry after meals). I started to see weight drop off fast (it helps being a 19 year old!). I started doing any form of cardio everyday for about 2 months which was mainly doing the treadmill and other machines at the gym. I switched to playing basketball instead which was one of my favorite sports to play when I was younger and not out of breath every time I played. I made sure to play hard and have fun so I could have similar results to the treadmill while enjoying it.

I got used to restricting myself after the first few months and was more inclined to take progress pics because of the success I have had. I never took one at my beginning weight because I was so ashamed to see myself like this without the guarantee of success.

I reached my goal weight this past Sunday clocking in at 165 pounds! I calorie counted religiously and limited cheat days to just special occasions (Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, etc).

I’m feeling happier about myself and slowly gaining self confidence. I couldn’t have done it without the introduction to the importance of calorie counting from you guys and your amazing stories! Thank you so much!

Here are some progress pics.

[19M] [235—>165]

#1

#2

#3 Before

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[SV/NSV] First Week Complete!

Posting this on a throw away account because may friends know my real reddit account and I don't want them to know how much I actually weighed.

So today marks 1 week of starting my journey. First of all I should start by saying I'm a 24 year old female and last week I tipped the scale at 300.1LB. Today when I stepped on the scale I weighed 290.9LB. This is such a scale victory, but I acknowledge 9 pounds every week is unrealistic and won't happen every week, it's only melting off now because I'm just starting out, but that's where my NSV comes into play.

I STARTED! At 300lb's I felt doomed by my weight and trapped. Sure I wanted to lose weight but I didn't know how. I didn't know what would work best, but after a health crisis scare, I decided that was exactly the push I needed to tell myself enough was enough, and I finally just started. Day one was full of mainly just eating foods that were healthier options and drinking lots of water but filled with research.

By day 2 I started walking. Not a whole lot because I didn't want to push myself too hard, just 10 mins was more than I normally got. Today on day 7, I've done two days this week that consisted of 1 hour worth of moderately paced walking, and 2-3 days of 20 or 30 mins, and it feels good. I challenge myself to drink at least 2 litres of water every day, and have been sticking as close to a 1500 cal budget as I can but there'a been a few days where I was way under budget but still felt full so I didn't eat or snack. Even on the day's I'm under budget, I still choose not to have that cookie, or piece of chocolate. It fits in my budget, but my body doesn't need it.

This is the most serious I've ever taken my weight loss, and I'm so proud. I know I've got a long way to go, and it's gonna suck some days. Every day will be full of temptation, but I just gotta tell myself no. I'm still so young and have so much I want to do with my life, but I have to actually be around to be able to do it.

So if you are also just starting out, just start. It seems daunting at first but once you get into the swing of things, it begins to feel good. I wish I started sooner.

Just for stats- SW: 300.1LB CW: 290.9LB GW: 150LB

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On talking about weight loss with friends...

I don't talk weight loss with most of my friends — in part because some are on a weight loss journey like I am and I know that comparison is inevitable and sometimes painful when one person is plateauing or otherwise stalling. But I have a friend (who I would consider overweight in a BMI sense but not "visibly fat", I would just say "average") who I felt comfortable talking about weight loss with.

That changed a day or so ago, when I sent her some progress pics (I'm down 34lbs, 195 → 161, 5'2") to keep her updated on how I'm doing, since she lives a few states over and hasn't seen me since the beginning of my weight loss. She congratulated me and everything was going great... until she expressed concern over me wanting to lose more weight. That steamrolled into me telling her my goal weight (120), and she shut down immediately, telling me she felt bad because she's shorter than me and weighs more (130) than my goal weight.

It was jarring to hear her tell me that "120 seems crazy skinny" [it's not, it's literally smack in the middle of a healthy BMI range for a woman my height]. It all seemed very knee-jerk and reactionary and it concerned me, because in what world is 120 too skinny for a 5'2" woman?

I wasn't expecting this... at all. Do any of you all have similar experiences of friends you thought were safe to talk about weight loss when in reality, they weren't?

And, ultimately, if you don't have any friends you can talk with about your weight loss journey, what do you do? How do you seek validation, or just someone to talk with about a big change in your life?

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Starting my journey here!!

Hi fellow losers!!! I've been a longtime lurker of this subreddit, and I'm finally posting!

​

I'm 25F, and started my weight loss journey 6 weeks ago. So far I've lost 10 lbs, then gained 6 back. I have an extremely hard time dieting on the weekend, and I HATE exercise. However, I've found that I do enjoy my time outside jogging, just not the actual *jogging* aspect. Lol. The only thing different about this time dieting compared to the millions of times I've started diets before, is I've actually logged all my food in MFP for 6 weeks thanks to you guys!! I'm pretty sure I've only come under my 1400 calorie goal like three times though...

​

Anyhow, I'm posting here because it's the last thing I haven't tried. I've noticed that when I tell my friends and coworkers I'm trying to lose weight it definitely doesn't help me- it almost hinders me in a way, because I feel like I'm sort of giving them some of the control, and some of the power. My coworkers frequently tell me I look like I've lost lbs (when I know I haven't) and try to convince me I should eat shitty food with them. I work in a fine dining restaurant and it is SO HARD to avoid the delicious food there. My best girlfriend has a really really unhealthy relationship with food and is much thinner than me, so talking about weight loss with her definitely feels like it does more harm to me than good, bless her heart.

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So here we are today, a Monday, and of course I binge ate Hawaiian food and cake last night, telling myself THIS Monday is THEEEE Monday to start over. I weighed in at 156 this morning (I'm 5'8"). I decided to post here on one of my fav subreddits for the first time so I have someone to go on this journey with other than those in my life.

​

I have 5 weeks to fit into this gorgeous size 12 dress for a friend's wedding. Think I can do it, losers????? Hope your Monday is KICKASS

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