Beginning my weight loss journey with r/loseit

I am a 30-year-old divorcee and have struggled greatly with my weight during the past decade due to struggles with addiction, mental illness, and obviously very poor self-care. About 4 months ago I started working out with a personal trainer 3 times a week but have had difficulties maintaining a diet conducive to successful weight loss. Last spring I started a weight management course through one of the local hospitals in my area, and have learned a great deal about obesity as a result. I have found a lot of support along the way, and have enjoyed hearing other people's stories. This has led me to have an enormous amount of empathy for others who struggle with obesity and food addiction. This is my first post ever on Reddit and I see my posting on this particular sub as a step in the right direction and in some ways a cry for help. I am grateful to all of you for sharing your stories and progress, as it has motivated me and given me a lot of hope. I feel ready for a change, but the truth is I'm not 100% sure how to do it.

Recently I started focusing more on managing my sleep, as I saw that as a significant barrier to my weight loss goals. I have also been consulting with my personal trainer and dietician to maximize my results. Obviously, this has not been enough, even though to most it might seem like it. When I got sober and quit smoking my issues with weight management became even more difficult. I am used to self-medicating and would really like to change that aspect of my life.

I do not like the way I look and I am very uncomfortable most of the time. I weigh about 275 pounds and am 6'5, making my BMI 33. I feel like joining this online community might really help me. Every day I think about what it would be like to be not just at a healthy weight, but truly physically and mentally healthy for the first time in my entire life. I feel that I owe it to myself.

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At 55 years old, something amazing and weird happened to my appetite.

I am a 55-year-old, 5'10" woman, and I currently weigh 138 pounds. I have struggled with my weight since I was 13 years and my family life imploded. I had nowhere to go, so I turned to food. I became obsessed. I would steal food and hide it under my bed. I would get out of bed after the family had gone to sleep and make myself a second dinner. Later on, I became a chef.

My weight over the years has fluctuated greatly. When I would diet, I would lose 25-40 pounds, then slowly gain it all back plus 5-10 pounds. I used to drink a lot, which already provided me with more daily calories than I needed. Then, I would indulge in restaurant food. And, as many chef's, I am a junk food-sugar addict.

I've tried so many diets, it's crazy. I weighed 180 pounds when I was 15 years old. My alcoholic father worked as a janitor for a grocery store and was allowed to buy shopping carts full of loose bottles of beer. He didn't drink beer, so it was all for me. During the summer, I actually went on a beer diet for a month. I ate next to nothing. Which was usually instant mashed potatoes. I did lose about 15 pounds, but my belly got big. That's the kind of family I lived in. I went on to crash dieting, starving myself, and trying many of the book diets that were popular at the time. Then, after losing weight, my sugar monster would come back, and the next thing I know is, I'm eating my gateway drug, doughnuts.

Here's the weird part, I stopped drinking some years back, which helped with weight loss. I continued to completely obsess over food and, since I am a chef, I can literally cook anything. I hid cookies, chips, and candy from my husband, and regularly ate fast food during the day. Then make a gourmet meal for my husband and I, which was always healthy. My husband couldn't figure out why I was so heavy.

After a split from my husband, I weighed around 165 pounds. I was under a lot of stress and lost a little weight, but continued to obsess and plan my bad eating. Then, I entered an extremely stressful situation, that scared off 15 pounds. After that, my appetite literally disappeared. Appetite is different than hunger. Hunger is what we feel physically when our bodies are in need of nourishment. Appetite is what we think of when we are going to eat something. It's what causes us to obsess over food, and lose control of our eating.

One day, I just didn't think about food. I had no appetite. It's continued. For the last 10 months, zero obsession, no fast food, but still a little sugar. If I didn't eat some sugar, I would continue to lose weight. I don't plan or obsess. I have to make myself eat. My portion sizes are too small, and my food is bland and uninteresting. I am shocked! What happened to my crazy eating routine? It was like a little miracle. My immediate people say I'm too thin, but I am loving my current weight, and that I've lost my appetite. And, as a chef, I haven't lost my passion for food and cooking though. I think it's all very strange. What do you think?

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Advice on starting?

first time posting here on reddit (and english isn't me first language so bear with me), but -- i just found this subreddit and it's really motivating me to try and lose weight again, because I've been really unhappy with it lately but i feel lost on where to start and how to continue and think i could do withsome advice

For a bit of background, I'm 18F (still living at home, so i don't do my own shopping and my mother would react... negatively if i tried to again) and around 200lbs/91kg rn, i gained around 40lbs/19kg since December 2018 due to medication i'm still on that increases my appetite and it's just frustrating to deal with.

After a disordered eating episode that went on for about 9 months around 2017 i kind of gave up weightloss for a while bc i was scared of falling back into those bad habits of self-loathing and and barely allowing myself to eat.

But ever since i've been on medication and gone to therapy I've been better on that front, but the weight gain from the medication is really bugging me and i want to try and (healthily) lose it.

I have a horrible relationship with exercise, almost all of it is in one way or another connect to shame, being hummilated, failing, all that stuff bc i have horrible coordination and have always been terrible at sports.

Does anyone have any advice on healthy weight loss with that history, and especially with how to deal the increased appetite due to anti-deppressants?

Thank you in advance! I shall continue scrolling through this subreddit for now bc seeing everyone make progress is hugely motivating.

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Weight loss has stopped even at a 1000 calorie deficit. Did my metabolism slow down?

Every single TDEE calculator I’ve used puts my calorie needs at at least 2400-2600 calories for even being lightly active and I’d consider myself active. However, I seemingly gain weight at 1900-2200 calories. I’m extremely frustrated.

I’m 6’2”, 185lbs, 29, male, and have been following a body recomposition training regimen while eating 1400-1600 kcal a day. I started at 1800 but wasn’t seeing results. In the past 5-6 months I’ve definitely gained muscle and lost fat, just not at the rate I should be according to these bullshit TDEE calculators. I’ve lost approximately 8lbs since August. I lift 3-4 times a week. I used to do HIIT every session but I recently stopped.

Granted, I yo-yo dieted a bit in the beginning but the margin between 1400-1600 and 2400+ is so wide I should have lost weight even on most of the days I “over ate”. So why is my body fat still at 15%, according to my scale which probably isn’t accurate but still. I should be at 175lbs and nearly 10% body fat by now.

My only explanation is that maybe I’m at TOO much of a deficit and my body has been storing fat for this reason. Some days I only ate 1400 kcal with 30-40 grams of fat.

So what’s the deal? According to TDEE calculators I should be losing way more fat than I am, I’m about ready to start eating 1000 calories a day

Also, I track my calories religiously even down to the altoids, there’s no chance I’m overeating. Today I did the TDEE calculations longhand and surely enough it came out to 2726 calories TDEE. So what’s the deal? Did I fuck my metabolism with an overly restrictive diet?

Edit: Weight loss has stopped even at a 1000 calorie deficit. Did my metabolism slow down?

Every single TDEE calculator I’ve used puts my calorie needs at at least 2400-2600 calories for even being lightly active and I’d consider myself active. However, I seemingly gain weight at 1900-2200 calories. I’m extremely frustrated.

I’m 6’2”, 185lbs, 29, male, and have been following a body recomposition training regimen while eating 1400-1600 kcal a day. I started at 1800 but wasn’t seeing results. In the past 5-6 months I’ve definitely gained muscle and lost fat, just not at the rate I should be according to these bullshit TDEE calculators. I’ve lost approximately 8lbs since August. I lift 3-4 times a week. I used to do HIIT every session but I recently stopped.

Granted, I yo-yo dieted a bit in the beginning but the margin between 1400-1600 and 2400+ is so wide I should have lost weight even on most of the days I “over ate”. So why is my body fat still at 15%, according to my scale which probably isn’t accurate but still. I should be at 175lbs and nearly 10% body fat by now.

My only explanation is that maybe I’m at TOO much of a deficit and my body has been storing fat for this reason. Some days I only ate 1400 kcal with 30-40 grams of fat.

So what’s the deal? According to TDEE calculators I should be losing way more fat than I am, I’m about ready to start eating 1000 calories a day

Also, I track my calories religiously even down to the altoids, there’s no chance I’m overeating. Today I did the TDEE calculations longhand and surely enough it came out to 2726 calories TDEE. So what’s the deal? Did I fuck my metabolism with an overly restrictive diet?

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Conflicting information and advice from reputable sources on weight loss plateaus. Help.

I’ve experience several plateaus during my weight loss journey and I expected that. I’m extremely motivated and keep extreme track of every calorie. I often triple check calorie amounts just to verify that my app is correct. I often find errors and correct everything. I usually eat below my recommended calorie count by a few hundred calories per day, yet I’ve been stuck at the same basic weight for the last 3 weeks.

Several sources (including Loseit) claim that eating below the recommended calories will cause a kind of metabolism calorie grab which creates a weight loss plateau. The recommended fix is to actually increase your calorie intake to better match the recommended amount. Other sources (including the Mayo Clinic’s weight loss guide) claim that plateaus are natural and when they happen, reduce your calorie count even more... which is the polar opposite advice.

What have you found?

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I've been fighting BED for almost 5 years now. I've tried many things but results never stick. Starting a new approach, and would love to hear some thoughts from others, or personal success stories as inspiration.

I used to post here a lot, I've become much busier but have also found that my own inability to maintain weight loss discouraged any interest in posting. My binge behaviour is medication induced, but it was so frequent and long enough in duration that it wound up becoming a learned behaviour even after the medication changed and the original side effect leading up to binging went away. I've been able to lose weight here and there, getting to 133lb, but I was also mentally unstable despite medication (I have bipolar disorder and at this time cycled back into a hypomanic episode which made eating low intake easier, while binging maybe once a week. I still averaged about 1.5lb deficit intake). I've since regained and the last few months for some reason have been especially bad and I've even avoided weighing myself. I would conservatively guess I'm minium 165lb but could be in 170s. I look healthy for my weight as I'm also a powerlifter, but I definitely am not the healthiest in regards to body fat and personally would like to achieve a leaner aesthetic to allow me the opportunity to subsequently gain weight to increase muscle mass.

Usually my cycle looks a bit like this: 1. Set calories to 1-1.5lb lost per week, with exercise calories always consumed (used to do tdee method but do neat method now instead). 2. Successfully eat within my goal multiple days, then over eat a bit, back to normal. 3. End up binging once and happens maybe a few more times. 4. After a little while of repeating those steps above, I take a break for a week and then go right back to my deficit, usually a bit higher than it was before. 5. Have success with this and get cocky, lower the goal and cycle starts again.

I've had success with breaks leading to weight loss but I always start those behaviours again.

This time I've decided that I'm going to stop being so impatient, and I'm looking to do a "reverse" reverse diet. For those unfamiliar, reverse diet means slowly increasing caloric intake until you eventually reach your maintenance needs. Since I normally have been jumping right back to my deficit, I thought why not take it slower?

I've set my goal a few hundred below estimated (neat) maintenance, eating back exercise calories of course. I figure that I don't need to go right to maintenance but I will if I decide that would help. After a few weeks, I'll decrease by 100-150 calories, and repeat the process until I'm about 1lb/week deficit goal. This should be maybe two-three months from now roughly.

My hope is that the smaller deficit and slower reduction will help me become accustomed to eating less food and better able to control compulsive behaviours. So far the lady few days have worked out well so fingers crossed. I am not doing this because I struggle with hunger (my deficit intake is still quite high due to my higher tdee by virtue of muscle mass and regular powerlifting) but again, because of the behavioural pattern that developed. Perhaps this is painfully obvious to everyone as a solution, but I know that the more common proposed solutions don't really fit with my causes of the behaviour and I've been so desperately wanting to lose the weight that I've just stopped being patient with myself and ironically by being impatient in making it take longer to improve.

Even if you've never tried this approach to reducing eating behaviors I would love to hear success from others as knowledge that it can be done.

tl;dr psych meds made me develop binge eating which had become an ingrained behaviour. After trying many times unsuccessfully to kick the behavior, I'm applying the breaks and slowing down my weight loss attempt by "reverse" reverse dieting and slowly reducing calories every few weeks until u reach a healthy deficit goal, to hopefully extinguish the learned behaviour. Trying to force average speed weight loss and my overall impatience has just made this process take longer to achieve so I need to take baby steps all the way until proper recovery

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Keeping yourself motivated.

Apologies if this has already been asked and answered!

So, I’m 31 F, CW: 276. I JUST started on my weight loss journey 2 weeks ago. I started out with an orange theory class and have been doing CICO ever since in addition to exercise.

I’m curious as to how you all keep yourself motivated! It’s such a slow process. I’ve only lost 2lbs and I’m that person that expects it all to happen overnight. Obviously I know it won’t but I’m curious as to how other people hang on and meet their goals. Even staying motivated for a month is proving difficult for me. I realize this is some character flaw in me so I’m trying to change that. And get tips and advice on how other people keep themselves going. TIA!!

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