Friday, November 1, 2019

I'm new here! Looking for your favourite visual cooking guides + lifting workouts for women

Hello - I'm new here!

I'm handing in my PhD thesis on Monday (!!) and then getting back to healthy habits. I gained 18-20kg in 3 years with moving in with my husband, changing to a vehicle-based commute, becoming a social drinker, massive PhD-related stress-eating (ALL the breads), and eating the foods/portions my husband likes. I've managed to keep my weight steady for 2 years and now want to bring the weight down over the next 1-2 years.

Currently I am 81kg - My goal is to weigh 61kg or so after 2 years (or sooner!)- I'm a mid30s female- 5 feet 7 inches tall. So I'm overweight but not quite obese, and my hip-waist ratio is Not Good. But I get positive results on health checks and (the last 2 months of writing up excepted) was 'lightly'-to 'moderately' active with 3 hours of dancing per week and a few group fitness classes.

My husband is a keen cook and I want to spend some time with him cooking and portioning meals so we both have a better idea of what is (a) a suitable recipe for my calorie/macro goals and (b) a healthy portion size for me. He LOVES cooking but rarely follows recipes, loves making curries/stews (so it's hard to work out macros by proportions on the plate) and we 'debate' about my portion sizes. (He often says "no way that's enough!" and admits he equates food with affection). (He eats a lot more than me, but before we met he went down from 120kg to 78kg and has held that weight for years).

Does anyone have a favourite book or website with mainly strict vegetarian* meals for weight loss? I am looking for a fairly visual guide that we can work through together to cook and portion out meals so we BOTH get a better idea of what I should be eating.

Low salt and low sugar recipes would be helpful too, as he has a family history of heart disease and LOVES his salty foods.

I will be resuming dancing, group fitness and some weight training over the next month. I use the New Rules of Lifting For Women book. Any recommendations on that front would be great :)

Thank you all!

*I guess you'd call us Flexitarian. We do not subscribe to the political/ethical side of veganism eat "vegan" (no animal product) meals 80% of the time for environmental reasons. We will have meat, cheese and eggs on special occasions IF we are happy with the producer, e.g. a local farm, a friend's pet chickens.

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Friday, 01 November 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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Help Getting out of a Downward Spiral

I used to be fat - almost 200lbs at 5'3"... I told myself I 'carried it well' and it was 'because I had big boobs' but really.. I was fat.

6 years ago I decided to not be fat anymore. I started increasing my activity. I stopped putting so much food in my mouth. I got on to keto. I lost close to 60lbs over about 3 years.

5 years ago we moved overseas to Singapore. I was able to keep my weight loss up for a while, and then I plateaued. Then my weight started creeping back up a little. Life was stressful, but I was really amping up my workouts and putting on muscle. I still looked pretty good even though the scale was moving in the opposite direction I wanted to. I plateaued at about 40lbs lost and despite my efforts to get closer to my ideal weight.

We've moved overseas again (to Sydney), and back (to Singapore). I've continued to work out hard and put on muscle but in the past year there's been a lot of stress and I'll have small periods of backsliding but overall my BF% has been trending downwards and muscle gain is trending upwards.

4 months ago I was made redundant from the job that transferred us back to Singapore. 3 weeks ago my husband was let go. We both have until January to find new work or we'll be deported. I've found a short term contract (until Jan) to pay the rent, but the work is not ideal and I dread going in to work every day. I'm continuing to push myself at the gym, but in my efforts to control *one* aspect of my life I find myself going overboard and have hurt myself a few times (nothing serious, tendonitis in my shoulder, currently have strained my hip flexor)... which benches me and makes me feel even worse. Our relationship is starting to feel some tension over the stress we're both feeling. All in all life feels pretty shitty at the moment.

I lost it over halloween - I binged on chocolate and all sorts of bad shit all day. I told myself "it's just one day, I'll get back on it tomorrow" ... but if I'm honest I've been 'cheating' for weeks, and today has been another bad day. I can feel myself heading in to a downward spiral of binging and poor food choices - I've been thinking and acting like the 'fat' girl I used to be, which is just making me even more depressed and it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of shit.

Have any of you been in this place? How do you get out of it?

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26M, 6'1, 310LBS, hopeless.

So, my situation. As the title says, I'm (just a few days ago) 26, 6'1ish, and hovering around 310. I can't keep living like this, the city I live in has way too many stairs for that. When I was in high school, I was around 250, playing football and doing downhill ski racing. Thats not my goal, I want to use it as an example of where my hopelessness for weight loss comes from. During those years, I was doing intense physical exercise 6 days a week, while still doing moderate exercise on the 7th. I was still severely overweight.

I've come to the conclusion "I can't live like this" many times in the past, but every time I do, I don't see results month to month, and then I think back to how physically active I was in high school without being "in shape," and then I binge.

What would other people who have been in this situation before recommend to get past this mental block? What has worked for you when you've had trouble dropping weight?

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Thursday, October 31, 2019

[Directory] Find your quests here! -

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!

Need some questing buddies?

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

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NEVER SAY NEVER

I’ve been big my whole life, I was chubby as a kid just got larger as I got older, got pretty big in high school and popped over 400 in my brief stint in college, at my biggest I was 425. I always thought “This is just how my life is, I’ll always be fat, I could NEVER change anyway” and though most of the time I just thought it pointless, I did try on occasion. I went to the biggest loser adult fat camp, went on countless extreme diets, exercise regiments but I always ended up falling back into “I’ll NEVER make it all the way” I wish I could tell you that my weight loss began with some life changing epiphany or a some sort of dramatic wake up call but in all honesty, I got depressed, the food that I was eating to keep the bad feelings away wasn’t working anymore, no amount of delicious cheese burgers could cover up what I was feeling anymore and I fell into it pretty hard. I just started eating less and less till I was hardly eating at all, eating only to keep the hunger pains away. I went from feeling bloated, overstuffed and disgusting most days to feeling weak, empty and as if I was barely still being held together. I can’t tell you when the change came, it just kind of happened, I just got tired of feeling hungry and weak all the time so I made the decision to at least properly feed myself, with good old chicken, rice and green beans mostly. I didn’t really care for the taste in food anymore and just started seeing it as a way to fuel my body, that’s about it, I started meal prepping because I hate cooking and would rather get it all done in one go. I hike regularly but besides that no other exercise. I always thought to lose weight I would need to bust my ass in the gym every day but hell to this day I still haven’t set foot in a gym. I didn’t keep track of the days because this wasn’t another weight loss plan or diet that I was putting myself on, losing weight had honestly never entered my mind, then one day I went to the doctor for a check up, I hadn’t been to him in like more than half a year at this point and needed to get my blood taken and looked at, as per the usual once I got into the little room I stepped on the scale for the lady that takes my blood pressure, I stopped looking at the numbers a long time ago but when I heard the numbers that came out of her mouth I almost told her to shut the fuck up. “350”. I couldn’t believe my ears, was she fucking with me? Was the scale broken? When my doctor came in he had a beaming smile on his face, I’ve been seeing this guy since I stopped going to the pediatrician, I asked him so many times for different weight loss advice and recommendations and each time he saw me fall off and get bigger. “Lost quite a bit of weight haven’t we?” It was real, I didn’t just lose 10-20 pounds, the number I usually got to before giving up, I’d lost more than I had ever lost before. Here I am now at 280, officially on a path of weight loss and at a point I always said I would NEVER get to, my goal for the time being 200. Pretty much doing the same thing I’ve been doing, hiking and eating steamed vegetables, rice and some meat protein, I ain’t gonna tell you that losing weight is gonna make you feel amazing in every aspect of life, as I’m still dealing with depression, it definitely ain’t gonna solve all your problems, it’ll definitely solve a couple though. all I’m saying is.

NEVER SAY NEVER WHAT EVER YOU DO NEVER SAY NEVER, MY FRIEND!

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Looking for an accountability partner

Hi everyone,

I’ve been going through a bit of a hard time and have gained about 8 pounds from where I was a few years ago. I know this is relatively a small number but I am quite short and have been dealing with some depression that has made achieving this weight loss difficult.

That being said, I am trying my hardest to do better. I am motivating myself and have been exercising for heart health, and am trying my best to stay positive. I want to lose this weight so that I can be more comfortable in my own skin, more capable of going on long difficult hikes, and generally being healthy, especially when it comes to cardiovascular health.

I also know that I feel so much better when I eat clean so that’s also a goal of mine.

I would love to find an accountability partner to motivate each other with eating healthy, exercising regularly, staying positive, and generally being happy at any weight. My goal is 8 pounds down but would love to partner with anyone regardless of if your goal is 5 or 80 pounds, or more. Please let me know!

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