For those who have fell off the wagon during quarantine... It’s just temporary.

It’s ok. This is a really stressful time for most, and a lot of us have been focusing on things that may be more important than our weight loss journey. For myself, I spent the first three weeks of quarantine stress-eating, to the point where I put on a total of 15 pounds in three weeks. It was a cycle of where I would tell myself that I would start eating healthy again tomorrow in which I would for most of the day, but come nighttime, I was so consumed by boredom I would just begin eating. Fortunately I was able to control myself this past week and get back to eating healthy again. Didn’t cut carbs to compensate or put myself in a ridiculous deficit, just took it one day at a time. As of this morning weigh in, I lost 13 out of the 15 pounds I put on in the past three weeks, and expect to be back to my previous weight by sometime next week. Water weight is truly a crazy thing. So for those that have reverted back to old habits and may have gained some pounds, just stay calm and take it one day at a time and you’ll be back to where you were before you know it.

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70 pound weight loss

https://imgur.com/a/w4vSzpc

This community (sub) is something special. I joined on my main account about a year ago when I started to lose weight. Having a support system is a valuable resource in weight loss. Everyone in my life is obsessed with fad diets that don’t last. Nobody believed me when I said I just eat less than I used to and I take more walks. Fad diets aren’t super healthy and I didn’t want to be like the people around me so this sub was awesome for me.

I love the walks I take and I feel very happy I learned how to eat the foods I love in moderation! I’m a slushee lover!

Now in quarantine it’s very difficult to not eat out of boredom and I’m sure many of you can relate but looking at older pictures, even if it’s only a 3 pound weight loss, can help encourage us to not undo our progress!

We got this! We are a community! A family! A support system! Something amazing.

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Saturday, 04 April 2020? 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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My one year journey down 18 kg (40 lbs)

39M 174cm (5 foot 8 inches-ish) started in April 2019 at 84kg (185 lbs), my current weight is 66kg (145.5 lbs) in April 2020. My (and my SO's) motivation for losing weight was rock climbing. I've done some kind of sport most of my life, but later in life mostly enjoyed running. About 3 years ago, my patellar tendon snapped a couple of fibers from it. This, combined with knee joint issues meant I couldn't run anymore. That's when I found rock climbing and found it does not put any significant strain on my knee. Was so happy that I found a new sport I enjoy, but my weight prevented me from improving my rock climbing skills, so i started losing weight.

I used calorie counting with the Lose It! app, with a small calorie deficit of 250 calories a day, but tried doing more than that, whenever I could. Besides rock climbing I also did some cardio at home. In August last year I switched to a fitbit charge 3 and I use that for both calorie counting and estimating how many calories I burned.

I've done calorie counting before, like 12 years ago, but only did cardio (running) so I plateaued at 72kg (158 lbs), then stopped and put the weight back on very quickly. Rock climbing goes way better with calorie counting because it has a strength gain component which puts some muscle mass back on your body that you inevitably lose during weight loss. For every 5 lbs of fat you lose you also lose 1 lbs of muscle mass, which brings your BMR down which makes weight loss harder.

My SO and I really enjoy going rock climbing both in our local (small) rock climbing gym and on real rock and she has also lost the same amount of weight. Women have less muscle mass to begin with, which means less calorie needs and estrogen means they put on fat easier. Do not compare your weight loss with men's, there are physiological differences that makes the comparison not very useful. I've told my SO the same thing, but the main thing is do not compare your results with anyone's. Your results are your own be proud of them and try to improve every day, each journey is unique and different.

This is my result so far. A couple of days ago I've also made a youtube video comparing footage (and scores) from my favorite cardio exercise from the last year and different weights. I'm not going to link it here since reddit has not reacted well to that in the past and are quick to point to some "No self promotion" rule that most communities, but you can easily find it by searching on youtube for "How does weight loss affect agility", if you're interested. Just to be clear for those that do not know, tiny youtube channels cannot be monetized, I do that because I enjoy it and also because it's free storage of my videos.

Why I created this post? I wanted to share my results and my experience, maybe it can provide some tips and/or motivation for someone reading and also because I'm proud of my results. Part of keeping your motivation up is comparing and enjoying the improvements you've done to your body so don't be afraid of doing that, it helps.

If I were to give advice to someone trying to calorie count it would be the following:

- go slow. It gives time for your body to adjust to the new lifestyle and does not put unneeded strain on your liver;

- do not do only cardio. Loss of muscle mass is part of losing weight, so combine your exercising with some strength training to put back some of the muscle mass you lose. You cannot make any major muscle mass gains while on a low calorie diet so don't worry about not getting buff, that's not the point.

- protein deficiencies in your diet is also a source of muscle loss. Your body will absorb some muscle mass, in order to use the protein that it's lacking. Consider using some protein supplement to help with that. I use whey based protein, because it has higher absorption rate than other sources. I did 30 grams of whey protein per day for the last 3 or 4 months. I've noticed I've put back some muscle mass, when doing the comparison video.

- this is a lifestyle change, not something you do for some time, until you achieve your goal, then just go back to your old ways. So, after getting to your goal, just switch your calorie budget to "maintain" and keep counting. An alternative goal is to go 500 calories above what you need and to do strength training if you want to put on muscle mass.

- cheat days can be a morale boost, so if you want to have a cheat day once in a while, go for it. One day in a month or so will not set back your weight loss too much. Also, the mental comfort of knowing that you can have a cheat day at some point, does help as well.

tl;dr: Results of 18 kg (40 lbs) weight loss in one year from 84kg (185 lbs) to 66kg (145.5 lbs).

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Day three of IF and week two of CICO. Already seeing results!

Like the title says, I am on day three of IF (16:8) and week two of CICO. My family and I started self isolating on the 24th of May. The first few days I wasn’t really watching my portions or making good food choices. I was stressed and overwhelmed by the situation. Staying inside with two kids under 6 and losing my job. I decided though to start walking every day, aiming for 3km just around the neighbourhood (practicing social distancing of course). After the first few days of walking I was starting to see a difference in my asthma and fatigue. I wasn’t as tired now and I wasn’t having the same cravings anymore. I wanted to walk further and faster. So I decided to log back into MFP and recalculate my TDEE. I’m just onto week two of tracking my calories and decided to start intermittent fasting again. Weighed in a couple days ago and so happy to say I’ve dropped two kilos (4.4lbs) already! Being self isolated has actually really helped motivate me to take my heath seriously. Not to mention I can’t wait for extended family and friends to see me again after some serious weight loss.

Stay safe everyone!

Edit: forgot to additional information. I’m a 26/F/5’3 sw 231lbs gw 143

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I just cannot jive with the exercise communities on reddit... am I alone?

So disclaimer... I am not blaming the mods in anyway. Sometimes I just feel that some of the communities have no wiggle room for people like me. I think the mods follow pre set up rules and anything that doesn’t exactly fit or is too beginner-ish is not about their community. I have now left 3 communities bc I just can not handle the nazi like structure going on with them.

I am not saying this as a person that doesn’t read the wikis or rules. I do. But sometimes I am tired of digging for a half hour (or more) to find outdated information that isn’t relevant to my post and will have it removed for rule Z amendment 43.

I also am a former athlete from elementary school to college that has some basic understanding of things, but I’m sorry if my question related to running bras got buried on a weekly thread several weeks in a row that no one reads and then the post got removed bc it belongs in a weekly thread. I’d like to see a man running in a 40G bra who has back pain and wants to not spend $160 on a bra just to find out it doesn’t work. That’s only 1 bra, bro. You need way more than 1 bra if you work out 7 times a week. So then I go to YouTube and I honestly hate it bc I am never quite sure if someone is selling me something or not.

I also have been running solidly for over a year and strength train so sometimes I just want to share my accomplishments with others in those areas, but again, many fitness communities have limited or very structured acceptance for sharing accomplishments.

It just is frustrating bc I love to run and I love to strength train and I now love fitness in general and I find myself very limited irl in sharing this passion.

Weight loss background: Female. 5’7” SW: 270; CW: 219. I have lost 50 lbs. I started February 5, 2019 with C25K. Figured out that exercise alone was not where it was at so I stopped making exercise the priority and focused 100% on nutrition. I continued doing C25K if it worked with my schedule. After a month of getting my diet down. I added cardio 2-3 times a week. When I lost 30 lbs, I treated myself to a gym membership and started strength training. I now workout 5-7 days a week and love it. I hope to lose another 50-60 lbs depending on what my body and doc tell me.

Idk the purpose of this post. It just makes me so angry and I do not give up easily. I just feel if some communities were a bit more accepting maybe fitness would be something more people enjoyed instead of feeling judgment when they (I mean also me) walk their (also me) morbidly obese ass into a place that they should feel ok being in.

I also don’t know why I allow it to bother me so much. It’s the internet, man.

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I am so proud of myself (NSV) -51lbs!

These last few weeks, like so many others I've been struggling with food. I suffer from mental illness on top of obesity, and have always had issues with food. Spending all this time in isolation has been SO hard. I've been eating garbage, I've been eating too much, and I've been disappointing myself. It's been a MESS. 4 days ago I decided FUCK this - I've worked too hard to give up on myself because things are hard right now. I deserve to feel good about myself, I deserve to feel healthy, I deserve a better life.

​

My issue has always been this - I either eat nothing all day and stay within my calorie limit which has always been really hard to do, or I eat too early and blow through my calorie limit and go way over it. For the last few weeks I've been eating too much too early.

​

So this is what I did: the day before yesterday I fasted for 24 hours. I got through it by drinking a lot of water and ... because it's my crutch... (I know it's terrible and for some people would negate the fast lol) 2L of Diet Coke. When I woke up the next morning, I felt SO good mentally and physically. It was WEIRD how good I felt about myself. I was so proud that I did it.

​

The thing is, I'd never been able to fast before. I have tried a thousand times. I've tried stupid, weird, crazy restrictive diets like 1 apple a day and I was never able to get past like... 5 hours lol. I always gave up on myself and told myself I was incapable of self control. But I DID IT this time! It has changed me so completely. It's been like a full reset on my relationship with food and myself. I know now that I can TRUST myself. I know that I am capable of staying within my calorie limit, that I don't have to give in to my urges. I know that I have the discipline to keep going and to take care of myself. Also I know now that I need to stick to OMAD because it's been the most helpful to my weight loss so far, and I am more confident in my ability to do this now that I know I can fast longer than that.

​

Here's a recap of everything I have done that's helped me lose 51lbs in 8 months:

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• The very first thing I did was completely cut out dairy and oily foods, and then I moved into my own apartment and only stocked rice, canned diced tomatoes in herbs and spices, frozen vegetables, garlic (so much garlic), onions, spices, herbs, Italian dressing, balsamic vinaigrette, chicken breasts, and occasionally deli meat and dark rye bread with low-fat mayonnaise (I have a lot of digestive issues that's forced such a limited diet on me until I figure out what's going on).

​

• I ate 2 times a day in the beginning - usually lunch consisted of snack foods like Larabars, apples, and sometimes tortilla chips and Herdez salsa. Dinner was either dark rye bread with canned diced tomatoes, or about 2 cups of frozen vegetables with rice and chicken. In January I switched to only eating 2 cups of frozen vegetables with rice and chicken a few times a week (but I had a few issues end of January and into February which kind of drove me off the rails into junk food territory. I'm back on this again though).

​

• I only cook in balsamic vinaigrette or Italian dressing because they are considerably lower in calories and taste better than olive oil or any other kind of oil in my opinion (but you have to make sure you shake the bottle or you will have a higher concentration of oil in your measurements).

​

• In mid December last year when I was about 196lbs, I started calorie counting. Once I started this my weight loss progressed a lot faster (I started losing weight in June) and I lost 22lbs from December 16 to April 2nd (5 lbs in December, 3lbs in January, 2.8lbs in February, 6lbs in March, and 1.5 lbs so far in April (bc of that fast)). You can tell by the smaller losses in January and February that I started slacking. Mostly it was stress from university and honestly not seeing enough of a change on the scale pissed me off so I kind of gave up on myself for a bit.

​

• I started walking every single day (started in September). I have always loved walks, so it wasn't difficult for me to start doing this regularly, and it stopped being hard to do pretty quickly. From January to beginning of March, about once a week I'd also go on an hour long walk through the city just for fun. It was a lot easier during the school year because my walk to classes was 20 minutes and more convenient than the bus, but since the whole world shut down due to the pandemic, I find I'm only going for a short walk about once a week which has really been shitty on my body because I got so used to walking.

​

• I let myself eat chips once or twice a month, and when I make a mistake and binge I get back up and keep going. In February I took a bit of a break because I was so stressed out. Ate a lot of chips. Chips are....... impossible. It's SO weird, because I thought it takes 21 days to break a habit, but I went 4 months without eating chips and then one night I felt the craving SO bad and since then I've just had to fit them in my diet. Chips are bad for the body, but restricting yourself from the things you love will only set you up for failure. When you're stressed out and life is garbage, sometimes you just really fucking need chips. Just don't keep a stockpile of them in your home and only buy 1 big bag once a month. Apply this to whatever food you can't kick lol. In general just have a day or 2 where you let yourself eat what you want. I didn't allow myself to do this for about 4 months because I knew if I did, I would just fall off the wagon completely. Some people can do it without denying themselves the good stuff, though - I have just never had the self control.

​

• I bought a digital scale in February. This has been so important for accountability. If I see that the number hasn't gone down for about a week, it makes me feel sad and frustrated at first, but then I remind myself that I have lost so much weight already and I'm closer to my goal than where I was before. It kind of instills this power within me, that drive I need to push through the disappointment I feel.

​

I hope you guys are taking care of yourselves and not being too hard on yourself about needing a break from calorie counting, exercising, and whatever else. Sometimes the healthy thing to do is to just be easy on yourself and appreciate that you are trying your best and the world is in such a crazy and weird place right now.

​

I'm sure a lot of people are suffering from greater vitamin D deficiency as well, which definitely doesn't help things. If you don't take vitamins, you should look into some good and reliable brands that are well-known, safe, and reliable. I think the best ones for people to take right now are vitamin D and Omega-3. I take 2 Webber Naturals 900mg omega-3 most days because it has helped my mood disorder and anxiety as well as sleep. You need to make sure that your omega-3s are IVO verified and enteric softgels because many Omega-3s on the market are packaged really badly and are contained in capsules that don't allow proper absorption, or contain fish oil that is badly sourced and/or not the amount you actually need. Happens with a lot of vitamins with a lot of brands. I also try to take prenatal vitamins (weird bc I'm not pregnant and never want to be, but my doctor told me to take them because I'm low on iron and a lot of other things). Thinking about getting some vitamin D considering how Very Inside I am now lol.

​

Anyway!! In summation: I'm proud of myself and every day I feel a tiny bit more confident in my body. I notice new changes every day, and it's exciting, and I like what I see in the mirror now! I actually LOOK in the mirror now lol. I spent 10 years avoiding all mirrors, and now I can look at myself and see a human being that deserves health, happiness and love. It's a shame that I didn't see that before, because my past self at 225lbs deserved all of that, too. She deserved a lot better. I wish I could go back and hug her - especially the first day of university last fall, when I stood in front of a full-length mirror for the first time in years and saw a massive ugly fat troll looking back at me. I was so ashamed of who I was, and I want to cry just thinking about it. I love that girl so much now. I wish I could go back and tell her that it would be okay, and that she is capable of doing anything that she puts her mind to.

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