My weight graph: https://imgur.com/0xKQH8O
6 months ago I found r/loseit, and read in the Quick Start Guide:
Have a Baseline
When starting weight loss, you will probably feel very motivated to keep going. But as you progress, your initial motivation will wane and it is easy to get discouraged. As you progress, have a baseline for things you do when you are feeling discouraged or unmotivated, things you do no matter what. For example, you might stop going to the gym for a couple weeks, but you maintain a baseline of logging your calories and eating 200 calories below maintenance.
I decided my baseline would be simply weighing myself daily and logging the weight. It only takes about 30 seconds a day. I chose this because weighing myself consistently had been a common theme through all my weight successes.
It's been at least 15 years since I've had a <25 BMI, and it looks pretty clear that I'm about to be there again, right in time for New Years!
Here's a bunch of random thoughts and observations about the last 6 months:
- I started intermittent fasting. I found it was fairly easy for me to skip breakfast. I had been a big cereal eater previously, and could eat 2 or 3 full sized bowls every morning. This alone may account for most of my success.
- I weigh myself every morning, and skipping breakfast means that if I forget, I have several hours to catch myself. Before, I would accidentally eat breakfast and then was discouraged that the weigh-in would be tainted because I had eaten before weighing myself. I decided not to worry about that this time, tainted weigh-in or not, I was going to weigh-in. You can see this in the first weigh-ins where I had eaten and was fully dressed with shoes and all.
- I eventually started doing IF longer, and would sometimes wait until 4 PM before I started eating. I started adjusting my fasting length based on my weight loss rate. I had a little formula I used, but basically if I was losing slower, I would fast longer, and if I was losing faster, I would fast less time. This is why the weight loss rate is so linear at 1 pound per week.
- I always focused on that trend line more than the individual weight measurements. The trend line is an average over the last 3 weeks of weights (I think Libra uses something like an "exponential average" but I'm not sure, nor does it matter). The long averaging window meant that the trend line (or "average line") was lagging behind my actual weight, which is why I nearly always weighed-in below the trend line.
- I would remind myself that as long as I continually weighed in under that trend line, I was losing weight. I also got to see the trend weight drop a little every single day without fail (with only a single exception). This was a big mental success for me.
- There was one time I ate out with family at a Mexican restaurant and ate so much I was honestly worried I couldn't keep it all down. The next day I weighed in below my trend line, I was still losing weight. A single meal does not break a diet, and the data was backing me up on that.
- To change your life, you have to change what you do every day.
- A good trick to change your life with minimal willpower is to do something you've never done before. It might cause a permanent change. You only have to muster the willpower to do it once, and then it will be easier the next time. (See next point for an example.)
- I had previously purchased mostly frozen foods and eaten out a lot. I started buying raw ingredients, and doing basic food prep myself. Previously, I was avoiding healthy foods simply because I didn't know how to prepare them. Learning how to do basic food prep by going outside my comfort zone just a couple of times permanently changed my perceived options. With no further effort or willpower, I will always look at the (relatively few) raw ingredients I've purchased as options; something I at least know what to do with if I do buy them.
- I still skip breakfast, but I've stopped deliberate fasting. I'm surprised to see that my weight continues its linear loss. I think I've internalized my new eating habits.
- I do make mental adjustments based on the weight loss projections, but I no longer make deliberate plans based on the scale.
- I bought a food scale. It was only 10 dollars. I love electronic gadgets. I was amused to see the scale was sensitive enough to weigh a paper towel. Amazing. Food scales are a cheap useful tool.
- I only counted calories for 3 days. I restricted myself to 1800 calories on those day. It was a hassle, but I learned what 1800 calories looked like.
- A lot of what I thought was the effects of aging turned out to be the effects of slow and stead weight gain over the years. I was only 27 BMI at max, but I felt the effects.
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