Anyone else all about the slow and steady approach?

I probably have 35 pounds to lose in terms of being fit, been 100 pounds overweight 2 times. I have a few food allergies, dairy and wheat, which helps me a lot in avoiding bad food recently. Because most of the bad food has either of those in it. Honestly, these days I don't think I have food cravings. Past few years I haven't been much of a gluten. I see food as medicine, rather than as a treat. If you do it right, that medicine fixes most issues. Weird, but it's opened up my world, and let me get away from something instinctual.

I've had times in my life, too many, where weight loss was the center of my universe. And I probably hurt myself, my metabolism, trying to reach a goal. Like, once I reach this goal, everything will be better. And you get obsessed with calorie counting, exercising, being very strict. Yet it seems like that never follows through, and those periods are just that...periods of time that won't continue on.

The more I let it all happen slowly, and don't obsess (even though I do have a bit of an obsession with learning about human health), and don't use it as an ultimate goal...weight loss becomes very easy. There's no pressure, there's no observing too often. Instead it becomes your lifestyle and you don't even realize it. Slowly you see the problems you had go away, as you let the health become a slow and steady progression of learning.

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Weight loss made difficult by health issues and being workout adverse

A little info on me: I’m 23, female, 5’8”, and as of 10 minutes ago, I weigh 240lbs. My goal is to be back to 160lbs. I’ve steadily gotten heavier over the years. I’ve never been very skinny but my weight started being on an increasing pattern since around 2016. In 2014, I was about 160lbs, for reference. I haven’t been eating healthily per se but I don’t eat junk food either. My biggest issues are sweets (a huuuuge sweet tooth) and fried stuff.

My husband works in law enforcement, so he is constantly working out and staying in shape. I haven’t thought much of it but this past week, especially with Christmas and all, I’ve pondered on his dedication. Even with 12-hour shifts, this man wakes up early, gets his ass to the gym, and then swims for one hour after work.

I, on the other hand, am the laziest couch potato ever. I recognize this is an issue that I’ve been postponing for ages now. Running seems like hauling bricks to me. Lifting weights is OK but I need more than that to lose weight. I was just never able to keep myself motivated enough to work out consistently for a long period of time.

I also have some health issues that are likely contributing to this. I have PCOS and hypothyroidism, both of which have weight gain as a symptom. I’m not making excuses, though. I don’t eat a lot quantity wise and except for the sweets and occasional fast food 2-3 times/mo, my weight gain is likely a result of these health issues, as well.

Today I’ve decided to take action. I have no excuses really. My job isn’t requiring me to be in an office if I don’t want to so I can make time to exercise and cook healthy food. My husband already has strong workout habits so I have his support there. I also made an appointment with my doctor to see if there’s anything to do about my conditions to ensure better results.

My plan is: - start walking 30-45 minutes/day, then gradually get into running - go to the gym 4 times/week for swimming, cycling, lifting weights - maybe join a yoga class or something - consume 1300 calories/day (as recommended by MyFitnessPal) - decrease sweets consumption

Thank you for reading my manifesto. 😂 Any suggestions you guys may have? Any tips? Goals to set? Also, congrats to everyone on this sub, you guys are awesomely accomplished!

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Unexpected Success!

I (23F) have a family full of women perpetually trying to lose weight. My mom, my aunts, my female cousins, all are constantly trying out new diets to try to lose weight. And every time I come home, no matter if I weight the same or have even gained 50 pounds, they always tell me "omg you've lost so much weight, you look so good!". It's just what they do (not to my normal weight sister though, hmmmm)

Well this year, I've actually lost 25 pounds in the past few months, even though I personally can't see a difference in the mirror. But over Christmas, I still heard the usual from them, "you've lost so much!". And even though I actually DID this time, it meant nothing because they say that no matter what.

Today though, my uncle, my very critical, not kind uncle, asked me how I lost so much weight! He said it was very noticeable and that I looked great, and he was trying to get healthier and wanted to know what I did.

It felt amazing!!! For the first time since I started losing, I finally had someone notice that I lost, that I actually trusted! I didn't realize how much that would mean to me until it happened, since I've still had tons of people commenting on my weight loss, I just didn't believe them apparently.

It really meant so much to me, especially coming off of Christmas. I didn't completely gorge myself like in years past, but I still ate well over maintenance for 3 days straight. It was planned of course, I knew I would eat more with all the once a year goodies, alcohol, and big breakfasts and dinners, but I still felt a little guilty, like I was setting myself back. And I know that long term, I didn't even gain a pound, and that for the rest of my life holidays like Christmas will entail eating quite a bit more than normal. But it's hard to accept that someone's when you're in weight loss mode! So it really felt good to hear someone acknowledge my loss and it helped bring me back to the reality that 2000 extra calories over maintenance across 3 days is not going to kill my progress, and that I'm working on a lifestyle change where I eat less on most days but can still indulge during the holidays like everyone else.

Sorry this is so long, just wanted to share my excitement!!!!

Also side note: it was amazing to me that I wasn't really even thinking about restricting over the last few days, but I found myself just not even wanting a lot of the stuff is usually eat. I still indulged and ate desserts and drank alcohol, but I found myself just naturally passing up on lots of desserts I'd normally eat that were only ~okay~ and focusing on eating smaller portions of the delicious desserts that genuinely make me happy instead of just eating anything with sugar for the sake of it

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My excess weight will destroy my body but my relationship with food is a disaster

To make a long health story short. I (22F) am 5'4" and 14 stone. The heaviest I've ever been. I've also got Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hypermobile version) and the excess weight will only damage me further and faster than my body's natural inevitable degeneration.

Unfortunately my relationship with healthy meals has never been great. Due to gastrointestinal issues I can barely eat green vegetables or stuff like peppers, tomatoes, courgettes, etc without a violent reaction. I was the 'go hungry' child when presented with eating what I was given or nothing, and it took me years to discover that many vegetables were my IBS trigger.

Growing up the only thing that stopped me gaining lots of weight was probably my violent gastrointestinal issues in action and over the past six years, with worsening health and bad snacking habits and avoiding my triggers like the plague, the weight has slowly been piling on in the absence of eating my trigger foods and I struggle to not give in to salt/cheese/chocolate cravings. Its particularly during episodes of insomnia/painsomnia, which has been up to multiple times a week this year as my body gets worse faster. And I know night eating and barely sleeping isn't my friend either.

Due to having no money after to losing my benefits I can't just buy my own food to eat as an alternative to the less than ideal stuff in the house (living with family who aren't the healthiest.)

I occasionally go to the gym with my partner when we have the time to try and strengthen certain vital areas of the body that EDS can wreck. We used to go twice a week but embarking on new mature students studies has eaten up a lot of our free time. I have an exercise bike at home as its the best exercise for my joints and I genuinely enjoy going to the gym but mustering the energy/remembering to use the bike can be difficult as I've never been good at maintaining any kind of routine with anything for long unless forced, (taking meds is an adventure).

I don't know how to go about slowly getting back to around the 10 stone I once was - 140lbs, down from something like my current 194) when people always mention diet being the most important part of weight loss. Particularly when most vegetables that make up many balanced meals aren't available to me and I definitely eat too much of the wrong things.

Any suggestions on how to start approaching this (outside of seeing a dietitian, because I'm thinking about asking my health specialist about that) would be very welcome.

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I keep failing, but I never give up

Hello folks.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas.

I would like to share a story with you and maybe you will share some of your ideas or opinions which maybe help me because I am struggling with my weight for a very long time.

My name is George, I am from Prague, I am a multi-instrumentalist with Guinness world record (I can play 34 music instruments) and I am also a conductor with an orchestra I created when I was 19 years old which I also conduct. Till I went to basic school I was slim and very active. Then school came and from a very sporty and active person I became more sedentary and I always liked chocolate stuff. Thanks to "working" from 6 A.M. to basically midnight I didn't have much time to eat so I also didn't eat such great stuff. I ate a good one too, but also the bad stuff all the time. I was never happy with the weight, but since I was not really in a mood and didn't have the power to fight it, I just kept being worse and worse.

My weight was always a problem for me, but even when I tried to do something about it, it didn't work or I didn't manage to do it right for long. This was also a big problem for me to get a girlfriend thanks to me not being happy with myself, being really happy in general, being very busy with music and schools and it is definitely my biggest regret in my life to not being able to enjoy having the someone and mainly being fat.

Two years ago I did huge change just in time - I left one of my jobs which hit me financially really hard, but it was one of the best decisions I ever did. I think it even saved my life. I was in circle of people who became very negative and it was pushing me down and down. These people were also in my orchestra and in my quartet/sextet so it was getting worse and worse. When I finally one evening decided enough is enough. Right away I had mixed feelings, it was a very hard decision, but for me one of the best I did, but then I kept getting better, happier and I felt more and more it was the right decision.

After that, I started to care more about myself, even more, how I cloth, how I behave and how I look. Don't get me wrong, I always cared about these things. I always loved sports, I loved working on my strength, but most of the time it was just a few days thing or just "a thought". Thanks to doing a lot and also adding conducting which is sport itself, I kept myself in not going really really badly. I am fat, very, but it can be fixed.

That's the reason last year I started working on it much more. I started to eat better, work out more, be more active, drink water, etc. I did some progress, but I didn't feel that was enough. This year I did more progress, but also more fails. During summer I hit record weight like 5 times. I was happy, but it was a struggle and many stops, fails, etc.

Unfortunately in September, I got promoted to leader position - director of the music department and some people wasn't really happy about it. They didn't say anything but I could feel their shock and displeasure. I knew I will and I wanted to do really good job. I believe I did and also was told that by my boss many times, so I was happy. Problem was that it was yet again a lot of stress and that was always my biggest problem - my favorite food was an always escape from reality, from badness, from stress, from all. Evening food of my choice was always the thing, my curse. The second curse I always had was it wasn't enough to buy just one good thing, I always wanted to have the "Oh, look, there is another". The third curse of mine was always to be a perfect day, no mistakes, be Monday, be good system, etc. Many times I tried to start off, like on Friday, Sunday or so, but I always managed to go a few days or two weeks.

This was always my problem. For every good day, I manage to epicly screw up two or three days. One thing never changed, even when I was down, I keep restarting, I keep learning new things about weight loss and things about all the process, food, what is good to eat, what is good etc. With every restart I know more, I do better, but with every restart, I yet again fail. This bothers me a lot. I know weight loss isn't about losing weight, it's about changing your daily habits, your approach to food and mainly your lifestyle. I like the diet I have, I really do. It's easy, it's fun I really enjoy it and mainly it works, IF I follow it every time. And yes, there are cheat meals, yes it's not the end of the world when I eat something I shouldn't but in combination with things I wrote above, it's deadly for the process.

I don't give up, but I just don't know how to get myself to work. I keep failing, my weight was a curse of my life. I hate myself yet I know I can do it, but losing so much what I want and it's also not a fast process, I don't know what to do. I sometimes win and don't eat what I shouldn't but sometimes I just let go. I get frozen, I regret it, I give up, "I start tomorrow, I start Monday". I even tell myself - "you already know the feel, smell, and the taste, you don't need it". Sometimes it worked, sometimes it doesn't.

Anyway, thanks for reading and thank you for your ideas, opinions.

I wish you the best for 2020!

G

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For once, losing weight is NOT on my New Year’s resolutions!

I started here at the beginning of 2018 — 83 kg/183 lb (79 kg after two weeks minus the baby in there)

To today — 59~60 kg/130 lb

https://imgur.com/a/RdVSlKY (maybe nsfw, underwear photo)

I struggled with my weight since and eating I was 13. I didn’t grow up with terribly unhealthy habits, and I wasn’t even overweight to begin with. But as a teenager, puberty body changes drove me into one bout of over-restrictive dieting and over-exercise, which triggered 15 years of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating, which at it’s worst was many years of truly devastating binge eating, along with chronic depression, hitting high weights of 77-78 kg throughout my university years. I began to get my act together once I started having kids and made great recovery strides psychologically, but I still had the physical consequences + 3 nearly back-to-back pregnancies’ worth of weight gain to deal with.

I had all but given up on ever trying to lose weight while I had the stress of 3 young children as a work-at-home parent, until I found this subreddit. I learned the basic principles of CICO and began to believe that I could eat normal food, no drastic diets or exercise routines, just watch my calories and continue being generally active, and still lose the weight, hopefully for good this time.

I lost the first majority of the weight by October 2018 by: Tracking my calories for a short period (by which I figured out my problem was not eating out occasionally, high-carb foods, or putting milk and sugar in my coffee, but the 5000 calories in cakes and ice cream I could slam in an hour binge without hardly remembering it). Weighing myself every day and tracking it in a trend calculating app, not getting upset by fluctuations. Taking every opportunity I could to haul the three kids along walking wherever we needed to go. Generally eating satisfying, balanced meals with plenty of vegetables, not snacking much in-between, waiting until I’m pleasantly hungry to eat and stopping before uncomfortably full, etc. And not stressing too much about the rest.

Past that point, I spent about a year kind of on a weight loss break, picking up some exercise at the gym (shifting my work schedule around to work late night/early morning and getting a workout during daycare hours), and more or less maintaining my weight around 62-64 kg but losing a few clothing sizes from recomposition. I was feeling pretty great by that point, though I still had some problematic eating habits. Then in August/September of 2019, I picked up a running hobby (because for the first time in my life, I was eating healthily enough and was light enough that to my surprise running was actually FUN) and started to strategize my boredom/stress eating and slightly excessive consumption of processed snacks. Since then I have lost another 2-3 kg or so and gained a lot more fitness.

In the beginning I set my goal weight in the low 50’s, just because that was the lowest I got to during my first ever diet, and what I always assumed my ideal weight was. But after the years of slowly and healthily losing weight, I realized I’m satisfied at higher and higher weights. The more I focus on my athletic performance and dial in my eating habits to a happy place, the more I feel awesome staying right around 59-60 kg, which is also a easily maintainable weight for me currently. At this point it is second nature to be vaguely mindful of calories, balance out heavy meals with light ones, and simply eat in a way that leaves me feeling my best - and when I do make a bad choice, to not dwell on it or punish myself, but just make a better one next time.

I wanted to say a thank you to everyone who’s given out such practical and helpful information here, and most of all to the host and fellow participants following along the 30 Day Accountability Challenges, since those have greatly inspired and encouraged me. I’m excited to start the first year I can remember NOT feeling anxious about my weight or binge eating.

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Starting over with weight loss

I am currently 318lbs which is close to what my starting weight was way back in 2012. Back then i was 330lbs but i started eating better and riding my bike multiple times a week and i got down to 240lbs. I was 10 lbs away from my goal. But then life happened and i stopped riding my bike i started using food to cope again with some traumatic events and now i'm all the way back to square one. Its been hard to face this. to feel like i was so close to my goal and now i have to start all over.

I've felt like i was doomed to be overweight like the rest of my family. I still feel sometimes like "I can't do it" even though i know better. But i'm dedicated to take care of myself to set a good example. I'm hoping by posting this and actually participating in the community i will keep myself accountable and stick with it. I want to do this and i want to do it for the right reasons. No more telling myself "i don't deserve that cookie" I relieze i have to tell myself its that i DO deserve to eat healthy and to be my best self.

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