The cards were stacked against me, but I was making excuses.

I have 2 medical conditions and 3 medications that are known to cause weight gain and slow metabolism. Every since the onset of my health issues, I've gained 28lbs up and down. I've been stuck in a cycle of physical pain, constant snacking to alleviate it, weight gain causing more pain, and so on.

At 158 lbs (5'5") I put my foot down and decided that I'll endure the pain and drug side effects and start limiting my calorie intake to 1200 a day. While this pales in comparison to what some of you have to endure, it was a big hurdle for me. I'm close to 4lbs down now, but I've got a long way to go before it pays off.

For a long time I've been telling myself that weight loss is futile because of my health issues, but really I just didn't want to add to the plate of symptoms I already had. Every time a doctor recommended weight loss, I felt offended as if they were suggesting that weight gain was a cause of my health issues and not a symptom, and as if they were accusing me of lazy eating habits. I've had issues trusting doctors due to an almost misdiagnosed illness and imposing symptoms on me that I don't have while neglecting the ones that I do.

Now that I've cleared my head of these delusions and have seen mild improvement of my symptoms from weight loss, I realized that other doctors weren't concerned if my weight gain was a cause or symptom. They weren't trying to judge me and accuse me of fattening myself and deteriorating my health. They were simply saying, if you do 'X' you get 'Y'. "If you lost weight, you will see improvement in my symptoms". Not "If you weren't so busy being a fat fuck, maybe you wouldn't have given yourself all these problems".

Before, I was offended by recommendations of weight loss as if doctors were implying that I wasn't trying enough and that I brought this upon myself, and not the multitude of preexisting conditions I had. Now, I've learned to push that aside and accept that there is no 'fault' for being overweight. No one chooses to gain weight, and it doesn't matter if it's a symptom or a cause. How other's perceive you for your weight gain has nothing to do with how healthy it is for you to lose it.

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Cut The Low Hanging Fruit

So, let me start by saying I’m a long time lurker that has found a lot of inspiration/motivation by reading the stories shared on this sub.

I’ve had some moderate success this year dropping some lbs, so thought I’d share my current experience with those here should any of the following advice help out others.

First, some background on me: I’m 44, M, 6’4” and as of Dec 31, was weighing in at 288. While most people would probably say that I carry my weight well, I knew damn well that 288 was not healthy and that at my age, it was time to slim down. Problem is, I’ve tried before with a predictable process and results that would go as follows:

1. Stop or reduce drinking for a month or two
2. Exercise more
3. Eat a bit cleaner
4. Drop 10 pounds
5. Declare victory, go back to old lifestyle and put all the goddamn weight back on
6. Replay for 10 years around January of each new year

This year I decided I was sick of that and had an honest assessment of my lifestyle. Essentially, that boiled down to this:

When I drink, I tend to drink a lot which equates to empty calories. Drinking also translates to shitty eating, which often presented itself in the form of late night burgers via my pal UberEats. To compound things, several drinks often means lousy dietary choices in the morning, lethargy and missed workouts.

Taken all together, it was clear that successful weight loss starts with cutting something out that is so obviously detrimental to weight loss, that it would be a fools errand to attempt to lose weight whilst still engaging in that behavior. For some it might be fast food, for others it might be 2 liters of soda, but for me, it was booze.

So, I decided to to quit for 6 months.

Once the booze was eradicated, I found that my eating naturally started to clean up. That said, it has been far from perfect. Even so, by cutting out something that you know is accumulating tons of empty calories, you give yourself some leeway to not be so stringent with other areas of the diet.

Once diet became a bit more clean, it was time to add some exercise. I started with long walks, which totaled anywhere from an hour to hour and a half at night. Those led to some progress, but then Covid hit, so I shifted to workouts focused more on being inside. Those currently look like the following:

1. Body weight circuits (w/ some kettle bell and resistance band work) 5 days a week
2. Yoga (been using DDP, which I never thought I’d do) 3 to 4 times a week

Results: As of this week, and since 1/1/20, I’m down 23 lbs to 265. Goal is 245 and I hope to be close by Sept/Oct.

Parting words: 1. If you’re trying to lose weight, be honest about where the majority of your empty calories are coming from and what domino effect they may be having on the rest of your fitness/activity. Once you identify, cut it out. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a stalemate with your progress vs habits

1. Don’t lose site of the fact that there is more to just lbs on the scale. I used to get pissed if I didn’t see major drops on the scale after a week or two of logging major miles walking. However, had to remind myself that even if I didn’t lose weight, that didn’t negate the fact that walking and not drinking were certainly having positive impacts on my body beyond just weight

2. You may be missing the gym or outside activities. I know I do. However, there are ways to get excellent at home workouts and now is as good a time as any to explore those options to see what works for you

Good luck. And thanks for the motivation 👊

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Ramadan Weight Loss 2020

Ramadan Mubarak/Karim!

Thank you all for being a fantastic community and providing such a supportive atmosphere!

I thought I’d start a thread for those Muslims looking to lose weight in the month of Ramadan.

The month is truly about faith, gaining taqwa (God-consciousness) and becoming a better person. However, it’s also a great opportunity to lose weight if done right with no over indulging after opening the fast.

I’ll start off with my current weight, goal weight and meal plans:

Current weight - 81kg

Goal weight after 30 days - 77kg

Suhoor (Breakfast) - 3 eggs scrambled, one slice of toast. Half a protein shake.

Iftar (Opening the fast) - 3 dates, 1 glass of milk.

Main meal - Baked/grilled chicken with veggies +/- sweet potatoes

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How to lose weight when you have a shitty history with food?

Hello, I’ll start with post with my stats and plain goal. I’m 5’2, 17-18F, 123lbs. Highest was 155-160. Lowest was 115. I want to lose 10 pounds.

But all my life, my eating has been disordered in every way. As an autistic child, I would only eat one thing for years straight. Then I’d binge when I got bullied as a pre-teen. Then I’d binge/purge later on. Then I’d starve (Which is what led to my weight loss).

Despite being a healthy weight, I’m pudgy, and I want to be able to be a lower weight and maintain it. Problem is, I find it harder and harder to control myself around any food. School and studying used to be a great distraction that, although I starved at the time being, helped me. (School ended prematurely for me, and I was in my final year so no E-learning for me)

But the lockdown fucked it all up for me. And I’ve genuinely tried everything. I would try to plan healthy meals and stick to a healthy calorie budget. I would try to get back to IF. I would try to find alternatives to whatever craving. No matter what I do, at one point I lose control and gobble up everything until I’m painfully full, regardless of what food I’m having.

Exercising is very hit or miss for me. Because the lockdown and sent me back into the same deep depression that made me regularly suicidal a couple years ago, moving is a burden and I start hating it after 5 seconds, and then hating myself. On days where I do exercise, I constantly fear I’m not doing enough, or binge as a “reward”, then hate myself again.

(Also side talk, my go-to exercising method is doing step-ups on a foot long stool while watching an episode of an anime, then sometimes doing some moderate weight training for my upper body or following a workout video for the abs/legs on top, If i’m asked to go get groceries, I try to jog to the store (Not back though because the groceries get too heavy))

My environment is not great either. My parents are fine, but my younger brother, who is extremely annoying(Can’t blame him) and has sent me into panic attacks before due to overwhelm, which leads to stress binging.

The worst part is, I’m somewhat aware of my triggers towards binging: My brother is a trigger, sweet or fatty things, stepping into the kitchen, the subconscious need to “finish off something” and depressive episodes are triggers. Yet I keep binging as if I intentionally let the triggers, well, do their thing.

I’m also aware of my lack of willpower. My primary reasons behind weight loss was being confident during summer, and while I could adjust that to “being more confident after quarantine”, depressive thoughts come to mind like how there’s no point since there’s no certain date this will end and no one is seeing me anyway. In fact, I did adjust to that at first, but then I just became less motivated to keep it going, thinking if there’s a point.

I somewhat tried to open up to my mom. She forced me to tell my weight when I wasn’t comfortable, then gave me diet advice that I already knew. I know nutrition pretty well I think, It’s all a psychological stuff I suck at.

And I’m just in an extremely bad situation. I want to be able to find some balance with food and fitness while losing those 10 pounds. I want to find better ways to cope with stress and depression. Animal Crossing helps eat up like, a couple hours at a time, but then it returns because of the boredom. I fear doing certain hobbies like drawing because my brother might barge in and take over. Not to mention there’s my grandma, who will constantly urge me to eat.

(Second side note, my birthday is in a couple of days. That means cake and pizza. I’ll allow myself to indulge because it’s my birthday and I have no choice, all is planned out. Please excuse that)

So, what should I do? Honestly, if I lived on my own, I would’ve been able to manage this a lot better, but because I have no control over the food around me, I feel disgusting and helpless.

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Celebrating 30 Pound Weight Loss

5'3" 40ish F. CW:235 SW: 266 GW: <150

About 7 months ago I started a new strategy to lose weight and it has really done well for me. The number one thing has been simply to only eat when hungry and stop eating when I am satisfies. No calorie tracking, no limitations on what foods I can eat, no judgement of good foods or bad foods.

After 7 months I get to celebrate that simply trying to cut out eating for reasons other than hunger has helped me lose 30 pounds. I am so proud of what I have learned. Like I eat when I feel sad or angry, to keep me from saying how I feel, to keep me from feeling things, to avoid doing work. I am learning to deal with all of those things in a way that does not involve food.

That is a major milestone for me. And the losing 30 pounds and being 2 sizes smaller

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I messed up :(

I binged 500g (so in the UK, that’s basically a tub) of ice cream and I feel like absolute shit. I don’t know what overcame me, usually I just give myself a little bit of what I’m craving to feed the crave and I can control myself from there, but fucking hell I just couldn’t stop eating no matter how full or sick I felt.

I’m not gonna let it fuck up the rest of my weight loss. I’m gonna still stick to the deficit thing + keep exercising on occasion but I feel, so ! shit ! like idk it’s just so demotivating now that I know I’m gonna put weight back on again after my mum said I’ve been doing so well, and I was FINALLY starting to see some sort of progress and then I just went and fucked up like that and God it’s so fucking shittyyyyyy

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30 pounds down in a year, 50 pounds to go.

5'4" 18y/o F. CW:193 SW: 225 GW: <145

I've posted here before, but I wanted to share a frustration. I'm losing weight consistently, I look and feel better than I have in years, and I'm probably in some of the best shape of post-adolescent life. I know I /will/ achieve my GW, but It somehow bugs me that it took me a full year to lose 30 pounds. It barely feels like it happened, and in reality, after an initial and quick drop to 215, It feels like I only lost 20.

And I already know, it's not "only 20." its the fact that I lost weight consistently for a full year. Logically, I understand I'm on a fantastic and consistent path down, but I'm still frustrated by how long it's taking, and how undramatic the before/after pictures of the first 20 pounds are. It's not *that much* of a mental block, but it's just kinda getting at me recently. Why did it take so long for me to lose that much? It's not a small amount, but 52 weeks is a lot. that's like, 2 ish pounds a month.

I've made a goal to be sub 175 by the end of summer, which is faster than I've recently been losing weight. I think I can try and accelerate my weight loss a bit now that I've got 20 pounds and a lot of better habits behind me to launch myself forward.

I'm rambling, it's just frustrating to have made this progress and not feel like its god enough for the time I had, even though I understand conceptually that it's huge that I've consistently lost weight for a year

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