Left the 200 club today!

20M 5'11, SW: 215, CW: 199, GW: 190

Hi all! I'm a longtime lurker of this sub, and I just want to say it really inspires me seeing all of your progress and victories. (TLDR at bottom)

I've had a not-so-great relationship with my weight for about four years. I started to gain a lot in my junior and senior year of high school. I lived in England, so I attribute it to a lot of beer, cider, and fish and chips, as well as not working out like I used to. At my highest, I think I weighed 239 (I didn't like stepping on scales, so my only reference is doctor's appointments).

When I moved back to the States for college, I tried to shed the weight, but couldn't stick to a routine. I think I ended my first summer weighing 230, but I don't think that was because of a conscious effort as much as it was just not being able to drink/eat out like I used to.

I moved out of dorms and into an apartment my sophomore year. I had a new job, so food was easier to acquire; however, I tried to use grocery shopping to my advantage. Trying became half assing, I finished sophomore year at 225. Again, I don't feel like I actually worked for that weight loss.

So this summer, I finally got serious about my weight loss, and counted calories and tried different diets. First I did keto, cause my mom got great results, but I had a hard time staying away from bread and potatoes. So then I experimented with intermittent fasting, and that's when I first noted progress. I was trying to follow the 16:8 rule, but I also worked in a kitchen and worked late, so my biggest hurdle was eating throughout the shift and after getting home. I, again, fell back on old habits frequently, but I ended this summer at 215.

I call 215 my starting weight, because that was the first log in my MyFitnessPal account. That's when I actually paid more attention to calories, macros, and excercise. I am currently living with my parents (roommate left his job and told me last minute he couldn't afford another lease). They are a LOT better at grocery shopping than I was, and are good about keeping plenty of healthy snacks, veggies, and lean meats stocked. We all also love to cook, so there are a lot more leftovers and a lot less need to meal prep like I used to. When I move out with my gf, I feel like I have a lot more of a reason to be smart about groceries.

My parents and I also take lots of walks together, and my dad and I like to jog once or twice a week (thanks C25k!).

But anyway, after downloading MFP, I really feel like I finally took control of my weight. I made my routine work with my school, my new job (left the kitchen), and my dates with my SO. And I am really happy about where I am, and where I'm going to be. The goal is 190 by my birthday in January, and then afterwards I want to work on weight training, and putting on 5-7 pounds of muscle. The future looks bright, friends.

My biggest advice: 1. Drink more water! Specifically, drink some whenever you feel hungry, or before and after a meal/snack. 2. Set a time and place for a meal. This helped me because I don't think as hard about "Should I eat out? Should I eat now?" I have a couple chunks of time in between classes that are perfect for me, and I eat lunch that I brought far away from the restaurants, and closer to my next class. Outta site outta mind. 3. I learned this from a book I read called Atomic Habits. Your habits are ultimately like votes for yourself and your identity. Meaning that if you slip up and don't stick to a habit one day, it's okay...as long as there are more "votes" for your ideal goal than there are votes otherwise. So if you mess up, don't throw in a towel, instead make a conscious effort to make it right next time.

TLDR: Couldn't stick to a weight loss routine for 4 years. Moved back in with parents for economic situation, had better food to eat, parents to take me on walks, and a routine that works with my class schedule and my work schedule.

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Could use some advice, new to this.

For a little context I'm 19, 220 lbs, 5'5", and my BMI is 36.1 if the online calculators are anything to go by.

I've tried to lose weight in the past with different results but in unsustainable ways. Either through fasting which always ended with me binging for days at a time, and once I went to a weight loss clinic that just gave me pills that made me feel like shit and a B12 shot. I've been wanting to lose weight for a little over a year now, and I started this fail of a journey at 230 lbs. I've gotten down to 200 but i've gained 20 pounds back. I feel like a failure. I look in the mirror and just hate myself and the way I look.

Being overweight has negatively affected my life in every possible and i've just recently managed to push through my anxiety enough to get my first job that I start next week. Since i'll finally have a source of income I really want to do my best to get in shape. Gym membership, healthier foods, etc.

I've read the FAQs and Wikis of multiple health and fitness related subreddits including this one and just wanted to know if my plan sounds sustainable and some ideas on how to improve etc. Basically, i'd like to do IF and eventually transition into OMAD in a few weeks. I'd eat around 1500 calories, and eventually i'd like to work out around 5 - 6 days a week. I know this all sounds probably aggressive from the start and I guess that's why I'm posting here for help. I really want to lose weight and be fit. Any advice is helpful, sorry if I sound like an idiot or if this post shouldn't be here.

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It’s time to get back to it

Super long story short:

• Had some pretty significant personal issues in 2018 that resulted in about 8 months of very disordered eating. I lost about 65 pounds and was the smallest I had been in, basically, my entire adult life. But mental-health wise I was a train wreck, my hair was falling out, and I was fainting all the time.

• I worked really hard to overcome the disordered eating, started lifting, got healthier (mentally and physically). LOVED lifting and really started to get into it and build a lot of muscle. Gained 20 pounds but was at 22% body fat. Best shape of my life.

• I decided to donate a kidney, stopped lifting to focus on endurance, stamina and cardio. Donated, healed up great, final restriction is being lifted this week (3 months). Weight has remained the same at 165 (F, 45, 5’ 7,) but I am much squishier feeling. Most of my clothes still fit though.

So, it’s time. I have rearranged my work schedule so I can run a 2-day lifting program (best I can do right now, because life). I’m going to start being more judicious with my food choices and pay more attention to portion control first. If I don’t have to get back to counting calories, I’d prefer not to because it really messes with my head and I have enough stress in my life that I think it could be a slippery slope.

Anyway, no real weight loss goal, Right now I’m not going to have the time to focus on strength building to the degree I was before so I’m guessing I could stand do lose about 10-15 pounds in addition to rebuilding base strength.

Just putting all my thoughts down in writing as they’ve been swirling around in my head for a bit. If you got this far, thanks for reading!

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Saturday, 02 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.

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

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How do you overcome habitual or emotional over eating?

I have been trying to lose weight for the past couple months. I have lost about 15 pounds so far and have just been hovering around 345 for the past month or so. When I started my weight loss journey I read the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, because I knew a lot of my over eating was habits. It helped, short summary, you can’t completely quit a habit but change it by identifying the cue, change the routine, and keep the reward. I identified that my over eating came from my emotions. So the cue was either happy, or stressed. Celebration? Go out to eat or cook a lot of food. After a stressful or not great day, I tend to eat multiple servings even though I already had my food planned out. Only when I have a good day, or my emotions are straight am I able to control my eating.

So anyone in the same boat or with advice, how do you control emotional eating when the craving is active? Thanks all!

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Dealing with Creepy Comments Etc. After Losing Weight

Hi all,

30F here. I've lost about 35 pounds in the past 2 years, very gradually. It seems that within the past 5 pounds, I've reached a weight that is more flattering to my body. I'm a very curvy gal for context, and since I hit puberty I've dealt with creepy comments from others(mostly men, but women sometimes too) about my body. It's not unusual at all for many women, and yet I've really struggled with it throughout life.

There might be much more here to resolve with a professional, I was sexually abused as a child and gained a ridiculous amount of weight when I hit puberty, I think in some part to hide my body. I could write a book explaining how awful it was while I was living at home, my parents were... not very good with this and my mother blamed me directly multiple times throughout childhood for the attention I received. Years later as an adult, I told her about the sexual abuse and it was a total disaster, after years of keeping it to myself. She brought it up constantly by springing it on me on a regular basis, and after trying to talk it through with her because I couldn't take it mentally, she made her own suggestions as to what to do and when I responded negatively because I was so distraught and didn't want to talk about it anymore, she blamed me directly again and said that it was my "interpretation" that was wrong, not what actually happened. The incidents involved family members on both sides of the family and she essentially took their side without hearing the full side of my own perspective. Needless to say I keep my parents at a distance.

All of this is usually mentally tucked away. I talked my parents into setting up a few therapy sessions for me when I was 16 because I was a depressed teenager. This was also a bit of a fiasco, as for one reason or another my mother got jealous about the therapy sessions and after just 3 with a therapist, she flatly refused to pay for me to go to any more, because she believed I was complaining about her. She told my father that she should be able to quit her job (which was apparently her excuse as to why she treated me so poorly) before they spent money on me to go to therapy. It was a huge fight between them and ultimately I just gave up. I've really resisted any further therapy in adult life because I have bad feelings still associated with it and still get angry thinking about it.

In any case, some minor incidents involving leering and an inappropriate comment from a child (!!! not really the child's fault, they don't know what they're doing, but still it made me feel weird due to the incident earlier in the day) out of nowhere while giving out candy during trick or treating tonight put me in a weird mental spot and I am thinking again now about how to deal with creepy comments and perhaps going to therapy, despite my misgivings. I didn't consider the things that happened today very much until I came home and just wanted to eat a bunch of crap, sending me over my calorie limit and bungling my diet goals for the day. So now I'm sitting here thinking about why I wanted to binge and it's set me down this path of thinking about all I've laid out here, and that I feel the need to do something about this. I don't want to be stuck in a place like this, I want to continue to lose weight and feel good about myself, but I don't want to relive trauma every day when things like this happen.

EDIT: Also... I feel the need to say that I'm a 30 year old married woman, and I wear my wedding ring every day. I'm not sure why I feel the need to put this out there, but it somehow makes me feel more tired than ever about this issue.

Has anyone else felt something similar, dealt with similar issues, and have any good coping strategies to push through to a better place where the weight loss journey doesn't lead to a place of feeling awful every day for reasons like this?

TL;DR: Was sexually abused when young, and it affects my weight loss journey because I mentally want to "protect" myself by continuing to be fat instead. Family sucks and makes the problem worse. Therapy is an option but there are other issues involved that make me reluctant. Can anyone provide advice as to how they got through something like this? I just want to be healthy and happy with myself, but it feels like there's no winning.

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Finally Seeing the results for myself

F22, 5’10, SW:230 CW:??

I’ve been intermittent fasting since May, I started for the weight loss but continued because I’ve always had digestion issues in the past and intermittent fasting has made a huge difference.

Anyways, I could tell I was losing just by my back rolls being less noticeable, however I never really saw a true overall difference. A few weeks ago my parents mentioned that they could tell I’ve lost weight but I still saw no progress and all of a sudden today I magically have started to see my results. My sweatpants don’t stay up unless tightened by the draw string, overall I just look smaller, and my stomach is less puffy looking.

I’ve tried losing weight a few times since high school and this is the first time I’m actually seeing results which is so encouraging. I haven’t weighed myself since May mostly due to the fact my scale stopped working, so I’m really interested how much I’ve actually lost.

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