A short essay in praise of the Almighty Food Scale.

Sustainable weight loss has always been my biggest challenge. As has eyeballing portions thinking, "Oh that can't possibly be anything more than a 100 grams of rice." Well, it is. It is anything but a 100 grams of rice and you've overeaten about 250 calories just for lunch.

Having a food scale has been of the best things I've done to help in my weight loss. I've used in every form of meal planning and it has definitely made CICO more factual than hopeful. Some of the major uses on a weekly basis tend to be:

• Measuring out bigger portions of vegetables that have fewer calories and hit my volume eating goals.
• Measuring the perfect amount of rice and starch to keep everything in balance.
• Measuring the oil collected from the top of restaurant food (when home delivered) to accurately add in more calories and not overdo the benefit of the deficit.
• Measuring leftovers brought from restaurants to better create a calorie chart of my favourite meals from my favourite restaurants.
• Measuring the sauces that go in the food, so that MFP logging gets easier and more accurate.
• Impressing my roommates by helping me memorize the weight of every storage container in the house.

A food scale brought me towards accountability, so I couldn't just "forget" about the extra calories that came with "just another dash of the delicious pineapple-jalapenõ sauce over these incredibly boring pieces of grilled cauliflower". A food scale has helped me make better decisions when I do step out to eat at new places. And most importantly, it gives me measurement in metric and imperial units, so I don't have to fuck up every surface of my phone to do conversions with my nose because my hands are currently mostly in the middle of kneading dough.

And yes, it helped me go from 83.5 kgs (184.5 lbs) to 70.2 kgs (154.7 lbs).

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What are your favorite non food related activities/interests?

Hello!

Now, I love food. Duh, it's kind of how I got here in the first place. I've used this love of food to fuel my weight loss journey by researching healthy recipes, meal prepping, etc. However, I realize I think about food a lot. It's kind of a huge part of who I am and I want to start thinking about it less.

So I was wondering, what do you losers like to do? I know a lot of your hobbies will probably be fitness related, which is fine, but I'm also interested in anything else! Knitting, writing, etc. I want to expand my horizons and I guess I'm looking for inspiration.

I guess I'll start:

• I love musicals! I love attending them, listening to the soundtrack, and participating in them. I think once I get the time and money, I would like to invest in singing lessons (because I definitely need them 😂)

• I love playing volleyball. I used to do club vball in high school, but it got too expensive and I haven't done it since. I would like to find some intramural team in my city. Not just for volleyball either, multiple sports!

• I want to get more into distance running. The most I've ever done is 5 miles, but I think I want to try to run a half.

• Reading! Now that this semester is over, hopefully I'll have more time to read.

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If you aren't exercising already, I HIGHLY recommend starting

When I started my weight loss journey I was really comforted knowing u could do it purely with eating less food (calorie deficit) because I was embarrassed about my fitness level and of course had appearance issues.

Well the last few weeks I decided to really get into going to the gym, even if I wasn't doing much I knew the routine of actually going there and doing ANYTHING was better than sitting at home. I'm happy to say this week I went to the gym all 5 weekdays, doing about an hour of exercise (excluding walking there and back) and I feel GREAT.

Seriously, it has helped me a lot! I feel much better both physically and mentally. I've always wanted to be a fit person, I want to be muscular and strong, I want to be able to run for miles and for the first time in my life I actually think I'll get to that level someday. I'm planning on going every weekday every week from now on and slowly increasing the amount of exercise.

For anyone who's curious, when u started my weight loss journey i aimed for a calorie budget of 1,600 calories which I plan on maintaining even with the exercise and so far I've still felt energetic and full every day!

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

Feel like I'm in a race with myself! (any other runners in here?)

Happy Scale is currently predicting that at my current rate of weight loss I'll reach my (initial) goal weight on June 12th.

https://imgur.com/RtuH9aX

On June 10th I'm running a 10k. And if you'd told me when I signed up for the race that I'd be almost at my goal weight on race day I would have laughed in your face - but here we are.

Of course now I've got a bit of a dilemma.

I've been doing various forms of IF since November, but recently started using the Fast 800 framework to speed things up a bit (low carb, Mediterranean based diet, ~800 calories per day). And it has worked, I've gone from losing .5 lbs per week to losing 1.4lbs per week - which I'm pretty stoked about. I could almost certainly get my weight down to 126 before race day, with a little extra focus and discipline. But obviously restricting carbs and calories that much isn't ideal groundwork for running a strong 10k.

I'm probably going to up my calories a bit, and reintroduce some more complex carbs into my diet over the next couple of weeks - which almost certainly means, at best, slowing down my weight loss, I might even gain weight with the extra water weight that carbs bring with them.

And even though I can easily rationalise that reaching my goal weight a few days, or maybe a few weeks later is no biggie (especially as I'm going to keep working on my weight and don't have a final goal weight in mind at the moment), part of me still wants that emotional fist pump of being able to see 126 on the scale the morning of the race.

Anyone else in here trying to balance weight loss goals with race/fitness goals of any type?

​

Some notes on my running: I'm not a fast runner at all, I've been running regularly since the beginning of 2019. This is my second 10k, I ran my first 6 years ago and my goal then was to not walk any of it, and not come last - which I succeeded at with a fleet-footed time of 1:32:15. This time my goal is to feel like I've run the best race I can. If I come close to 1hr 20 I'll be ecstatic, since I'm still on the wrong side of a 40min 5k PB :)

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First goal met!

Sorry this is a long one - but I feel like the context for why my goal is so small matters. A little backstory: I’ve gained a lot of weight in the past year and a half. First I smashed my food and ended up in a walking boot for 3 months; after graduation I finally quit smoking (GREAT for my health, hard on my waistline!), my grandmother died in August, my mom had a stroke in early October and ended up missing my brother’s wedding, she passed away on Thanksgiving morning, then I had to have emergency surgery at the end of January. Banner year...

When I started grad school in 2014 I weighed 160-ish. At 5’8.5”, that was towards the upper end of my healthy range...but I was still healthy and active. For the first few years I stayed active and reasonably healthy. I did gain about 20-25 lbs, but I also ran dozens of races - 6 half marathons, a Tough Mudder, a couple of 20Ks and about half a dozen shorter races a year. I averaged a race a month, plus spent my weekends hiking, climbing, and paddling with an outing club through the University. So at least part of that gain was muscle. I knew I was bigger, I went up a size in my jeans (size 8-10 to a 10-12, depending on cut). But I was so active I didn’t worry much.

After my injury, I got up over 200 pounds. After I quit smoking, I hit 210-215. And after grandma’s death, I hit 224 and just kept gaining. Post-surgery, I topped out at 235.

I’m seeing a nutritionist and a physical therapist, to recover from yet another injury (turns out I’m REALLY good at hurting myself). I’ve been working on improving my diet, starting with mindfulness and looking at the quality of my food to rebuild healthy, intuitive eating habits. And instead of saying “I want to lose 85-90 pounds,” which just seemed too big after my emotional roller coaster of a year, I decided to break it up into 5 weight loss goals.

Goal 1: get back below 224. After I lost grandma, I found that I was gaining and losing and regaining the same 10 pounds. But since August, I had not made it below this weight.

Until now!

On April 1, back up to 235 pounds, I started really focusing on myself and getting the help I needed. I started going on weekend adventures again, hiking and paddling. I took a very active vacation two weeks ago, paddling and portaging in the Boundary Waters for 5 days. And as a result, yesterday I weighed in at 223.0 pounds! I couldn’t believe it, so I weighed again this morning to confirm. Again, weighed in at 223.0. I know, this is just the first goal. I have a ways to go before I reach my ultimate goal of 150. But I’ve lost 12 pounds! I’ve strengthened my body and worked to make it healthier, and I’ve reached my lowest weight since August!

I feel so strong, and inspired to live my healthiest and best life!!

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Saturday, 25 May 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.

• Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
• Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
• FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

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Week 2 was a bit difficult (but also motivating)

If you are interested in my whole journey, you can look at my post history. I decided to try and post an update every week to keep myself accountable :)

A quick recap - I started about two weeks ago at 189lbs. I am 22F and 5ft6. To summarize, I have never really been skinny but i gradually gained about 10kg after I moved to another country and have struggled with obsessive eating a lot when I am stressed out. I have started this journey many times but it honestly never lasted more than a week or two so we are now at the breaking point so to speak :)

Today I weight about 183lbs (I weight myself in kg so it´s a bit hard to convert to the exact weight). Every week I set myself simple goals. I am sad to say that I failed one of my week´s goals - excercising three times this week. I only did it once and though I managed to walk a lot every day of this week, I don´t really count that as excercising as it is not really hard for me. What I have managed to do sofar successfully is:

• tracking my calories - I use Lifesum. Even when I forget to log my food, I feel like I still have more of a feel of how big my portions should be, how much chocolate I can sneak into my snacks and simple stuff like this. Tracking calories has honestly made this so much easier than I thought. (on the topic of that, a food scale is life changing)
• IF - i do the 16/8. I am not always 100% strict with it but I am getting there, sometimes I literally forget and eat after 8 lol. Skipping breakfast has made a huge difference as it means my other two meals can be bigger and I can even have a pretty decent snack (as I am staying under 1500kcal)
• drinking enough water - I have no issues with this if I am sitting down and working the whole day. When I am on the go I constantly forget so this also is a bit of a work in progress.
• tracking my measurements & taking progress pictures - I honestly hated taking the progress pictures as it forced me to confront my stomach and my arm fat (I don´t really mind my body other than that). I do hope those help me see a difference because even 6lbs down I don´t really feel much different or look much different.
• cooking at home - I do like cooking with my friends or going out but most of my meals are made at home. I always try to save about a 1000kcal for going out just in case I overdo it accidentaly

Overall, I am very disappointed that I couldn´t hit my goal of excercising more. I have exams coming up next month and have been pretty tired from all the studying but if I have to be completely honest, it´s mostly the fact that I lack the habit and that when I have time in the evening I get super lazy.

Several other things that accidentally helped me:

• I picked up my old photography hobby which means a lot of walking around with three cameras & a tripod and lots of squatting in uncomfortable positions to make my friends look like models. It´s fun, gets me moving a lot more and feels interesting and exciting to me.
• I weight myself several times during the day - it makes me calm knowing that my weight naturally fluctuates and lets me feel less panicked - I know that if I keep at it, even if the scale is temporarily up, the tendency shows that it will go down in the long run. (me, a statistics nerd)
• I look at the serving sizes on packages. Yes, I want that whole chocolate but I only eat 4 pieces of it because that´s what the package says. Weirdly enough, I haven´t been hungry at all this past two weeks.

My goals for next week:

• I want to set a concrete goal weight for myself on the one month mark & a time frame for my active weight loss.
• I want to eat more vegan meals (I am addicted to cheese so RIP me)
• I want to excericise three times this week.
• I want to sleep more since I am truly exhausted.

To sum this up, I am a bit disappointed but also really happy with my progress and I hope to keep it up.

I hope this can potentially help someone (and not bore everyone to death). I think being honest about what you didn´t do and the reasons for it is just as important as sharing your success.

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