Its ok to admit there are barriers to maintaining a healthy weight

I'm listening to this lecture series on stress. One of the lectures is dealing with how stress affects appetite. Apparently the reason we crave carbs when we are stressed is that carbs lower some of our stress related hormones. Science has started to shift into understanding how our environment affects the choices we make and how those choices affect us. Another fun fact is that if your grandmother was a second or third trimester fetus during a time where food was scarce that increases the likely hood that you will be overweight.

Time and time again I hear people lament that this just causes people to make excuses. Its the weirdest thing to me. No psychologically sound person wants to be fat. I'm sure their are some disturbed people out there who receive gratification from being fat. Heck there are actually people who seek to be infected with HIV so anything is possible.

Most of the time when someone blames their genetics or something like that what they are really saying is that they are afraid. They've tried and failed. They've been given too much conflicting information. They've experienced negative consequences while losing weight.

Weight loss and maintenance are hard. Another fun fact is that losing a large amount of weight, I forget the numbers, can lead to hormonal shifts that make it harder to keep the weight off. Specifically in a hormone called leptin, which tells your body you are full. Of you are morbidly obese and lose weight leptin levels can take years to recover. You could litterally spend years having a an endocrine system that doesn't tell you that you are full.

I can go on and on about the emotional, physical, financial, societal and psychological impediments to weight loss and maintenance. Science is really working hard to not only understanding them but understanding how they affect different people differently. My point is that these are important conversations to have. That obese and overweight people are not lazy or immoral. That people are not making excuses when they blame outside influences and that an insignificantly small group of people actually want to be overweight or obese. That we do ourselves, and society wrong by not addressing the many different barriers to weightloss and weight maintenance.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2LR8oD6

Someone finally noticed I lost weight. Feeling good about myself. NS/V

I was starting to doubt that my weight loss was noticeable because my brain has become so used to visual shape of my body looking the same for over a decade, but a friend who I hadn't seen in months came into town and the first thing he said was "Have you lost weight?"

I could barely contain my happiness at such simple words. I realized that the people I see on a daily basis might not notice as well as someone who saw what is equivalently a before and after picture. it just goes to show with dedication it can happen

I've kept to a strict CICO and kept to a small rotating meal plan of a variety of different meals that are no more than 800 cals each to keep the deficit. Cheat days happen, but I never let them go over the 2500cal mark, so there's hopefully no reverse progress. I've had a few plateaus, and a couple of whooshes, but all progress, bit by bit.

For me, I find that its easier not to eat snacks if you just don't buy them. If I don't have snacks available, I don't get as hungry between meals. Id I have them, then I feel hungry all the time. If you can, just leave them on the shelf.

I'm down 30 lbs, and have 30 lbs to go. I look forward to more visual differences with each pound from now on.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2Ea7kDZ

Water Weight is an EVIL EVIL little voice in my head trying to slow me down.

Okay so on my weight loss journey, I weigh myself every 1-2 days and log it into an app. The app 'smooths out' the ups and downs and charts the trends. I don't take going up or down a pound to heart, but I find the 'downward' trend on the chart to be quite motivating. Been at it for several weeks.

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Yesterday was a great day for me. I hit my one month mark on keto, as well as hitting a milestone in my weight loss goal. I was quite proud to tell my work friends that I had finally hit this mini goal.

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I wanted to celebrate with a (keto-friendly version of) my favorite meal - ramen (I'm talking the good kind, not instant). So I ordered from my favorite joint (without noodles) and added my own zucchini noodles. I knew it was gonna be SALTY but hey, I was/am still in a calorie deficit and in ketosis.

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It happened to be a rest day as well. So I had my ramen lunch, finished with work, and 20 minutes in the massage chair, and then took it easy the rest of the night.

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Woke up this morning bloated as all hell. I knew instantly it was water weight from the salty lunch and spike in sodium, but I was curious and stepped on the scale anyway. Big mistake. I am FIVE pounds heavier than the day before! I can handle a pound or two, but FIVE?! Feels totally demoralizing, like I am being punished for rewarding myself/ boasting of achieving the milestone, or like I lied to myself somehow. (Earlier today, a coworker heard I had been talking about my success and asked me how it was going - I felt like a LIAR by telling him about the milestone I hit the day before.)

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I know this thinking is rubbish. But for the first time in weeks (months?) instead of looking forward to the gym after work, I dread it.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2Qaa74X

[Study] Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake

A recent study was done comparing the calorie intake of individuals when given unrestricted amounts of highly processed and unprocessed foods. The food that the participants consumed was 100% provided by the study organizers and participants lived in the lab during all of the 28 days of the study. This means the study was NOT based on self reporting, a common flaw with diet studies. The study found that on average, people ate 500 calories less when eating the unprocessed foods despite the fact that participants rated the tastiness of the foods the same.

This can be an effective weight loss strategy for anyone during times when a person is not counting calories or is unable to during certain meals or timeframes. This may seem like common sense for most people but it is nice to see a study supporting it.

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

Slower Start Than Expected

I’m a 26 yo woman, I started gaining significant weight after puberty because I grew up in a home with bad eating habits, used food as a crutch, and hormones are kind of assholes. So I’ve been seriously working on changing my lifestyle for about 2-3 months. I started with writing down and tracking calories, then I reduced what I was eating aiming for ~1,700 daily, and then started incorporating intermittent fasting, and began working out 2-4 times a week.

I’m still working on nailing down 4 days a week in the gym, and next dietary goal is to reduce snacking. But I know I’ve made a lot of changes and I’m feeling better, especially in the gym. I’m starting to feel stronger and and noting things like getting my time lower on miles on machines or lifting heavier weights. But I’m still worried;

See, a big reason it’s taken me so long to really try to stick to a weight loss is I’ve always gotten really discouraged by the scale, after a few months I’ll feel like shit because things aren’t going down fast enough so I’d break down and quit. I don’t want to give up on this, I want it to be a permanent lifestyle change and get to a healthy spot in life, especially because I have older family members that have started struggling with their health. But after this amount of time I’ve only lost about 10 pounds, it’ll dip and pop up week to week, sometimes closer to 15 pounds of loss but it seems to hang out in one spot which is super frustrating because I feel like I’m working really hard.

I talked to a trainer when I started and got a workout plan, and his goal for me is to build some more muscle so I can do more vigorous exercise and start building a stronger foundation before prioritizing fat burn. The process makes sense to me but I don’t know if that may be why I see changes in the mirror but not as much as I want on the scale? I’m just trying to understand why my body is doing what it’s doing so I don’t let up, I want things to be a real change this time and the mental fight seems like just as much of an uphill battle as the actual weight loss.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2Jpon9n

Feeling depressed after looking at my MyFitnessPal Progress Chart.

Heres a pic of the chart: http://imgur.com/gallery/8RX8gVq

It depresses me because there were clear points in multiple years where I got the ball rolling but eventually gave up and my weight spiked. I don't ever want to see a spike again on that chart.

I don't want these past few years of trial and failure to be for nothing, I need to have the willpower to get through my weight loss journey and look past missteps. Though I still have a feeling of dread that I'll look back in a few months and record an even bigger spike.

I want to feel and look healthy and finish what I couldn't do in the past.

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from loseit - Lose the Fat http://bit.ly/2LL1VK1

Dealing with feelings of failure and feeling like a fraud

TLDR: If you're trying to lose weight but gain some back or can't seem to reach your goals, you haven't failed as long as you don't give up.

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One year ago today I weighed in at my lowest weight in 20 years. I was 197. It was my first time under 200 since about 14-15. I felt great, looked pretty good and was happy. For about a day. On Monday I weighed in at 248, almost exactly what I weighed 2 years ago. For the past few months I've been steadily gaining weight despite my intentions to "get back on track tomorrow" and "I'll just stick with this restrictive diet until I get back down to xx weight".

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Since I was young, I've struggled with binge eating and have had a tendency towards a very healthy relationship with food. I could eat 2000 calories in 20 minutes and not even feel too full. Over the years, I've worked on getting better and starting in June 2016, I started my final weight loss attempt at almost 315 pounds. I did great. I tracked and exercised and didn't have any binges for 3 months. I got down to 275 fairly easily. Then came the standard struggle, but it was different this time. I never fully gave up. I dealt with my binges and gains and just kept believing that I could do it.

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In May 2017 I weighed in at just under 250 and over the course of the next year dealt with struggles and setbacks, but by May 2018 I was down another 50 pounds and feeling amazing. I only maintained sub 200 for a couple of weeks and then started struggling again. Leading up to that time and up until recently, I tried fairly extreme diets. I could stick with them for a while and see great results. It helped me get under 200, but then it stopped working.

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My relationship with food has been very unhealthy and despite knowing exactly what I need to do to lose weight, I still sabotaged myself more than I found success, leading me to weigh in again at just under 250 this May.

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I have been extremely depressed and upset; I feel like a failure and a fraud. I kept thinking "I can do this" and I kept trying. It would last a day or three and then back off the wagon, no matter what I tried to do. I finally realized that my feelings of failure were causing me to sabotage myself even more. Tracking my food and weighing myself was just a reminder of how much I had failed. It was too much.

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On Monday I weighed in and then removed the batteries from my scale. I confessed my struggles to my partner. I removed my Fitbit and removed the Fitbit and MFP icons from my home page. I decided to keep tracking my food, but do it on paper. I decided to keep up with my activity, but not track it. I am keeping an eye on my protein and carbs, but not limiting anything or tracking anything. On Tuesday I wanted to weigh in to get that thrill of a quick 2 or 3 pound water weight loss, but I didn't. I still want to weigh in, just to see where I'm at. I know it's only been 4 days, but I feel so much better. I still struggle with the feelings of failure, but it's not constant and it's not as bad. I've made good food choices these past few days that I haven't been able to make in months. I was able to have a couple bites of sugar cookie that my daughter offered me without feeling like I'd failed and then going crazy eating junk.

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Through this I've come to realize...I haven't failed. I had a setback. I haven't failed because I haven't given up. The only way to truly fail at weight loss is to just give up completely. That was my life for years. I haven't done that this time. I kept trying and never gave up and just accepted that it was my fate to be fat forever. Calling myself a failure and a fraud held me back and was pushing me back into the mindset to just give up. Thinking about the short term I can feel horrible that I've gained 50 pounds in a year. Or I can look at the big picture - I've lost a significant amount of weight over the past three years and, more importantly, I am still here and still trying and looking to make myself better and healthier every day, both physically and mentally.

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