Don't Miss the Forest for the Trees

It is very common for those losing weight to see a gain on the scale from one day or week to the next and assume that their weight loss plan isn't working. At this point, it's easy to give up. Because, why bother putting in the effort if you aren't going to get any results?

But, it is so so important to keep going and be patient. Why? Because the scale can be unreliable in the short term.

I weigh myself daily and this is the graph of my daily weigh-ins from the last three months: graph

Overall, you can see that the trend is downward, indicating weight loss. However, within the graph, you can see so many increases. For example, my weight on April 8 was higher than that on March 1. If I only weighed myself once a week or once a month, I could end up catching some of these random "high weight days" and not being able to see that I was losing: thus increasing the odds of giving up.

This is why I say "don't miss the forest for the trees". It's easy to get hung up on single weigh-ins (the trees). But, these individual data points do not matter on their own. What matters in the long-term trend (the forest).

The graph I linked above is just the default one from My Fitness Pal. But, there are other apps that can help you visualize these trends like Happy Scale and Libra.

TLDR overall PSA: Don't stress if the scale shows no loss or even a gain from day-to-day or week-to-week. It's the month+ trend that matters!

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Small happiness of weight loss

Ive felt really happy in weight loss ive been having, was 174lbs two years ago and didnt realize I was overweight and unhealthy until i got my blood pressure checked and gave me a smack to the head!!

im 19 now, around 5'6" and at 147 lbs so i am at normal bmi and not overweight anymore ^{_^} my goal weight is 125 though. i eat healthy once in awhile but definitely not enough. i think id look and move around way better skinnier and its my main motivator, but it definitely weighs on the back on my mind to control the fried and sugary foods, my body feels horrible after eating them, im going to make healthy body my main motivator someday...

the strangest thing is that my family says i look skinnier but i feel exactly the same, and feel like i look the same as well. i feel they are concerned im not eating enough and say that to make me relax on my diet, but it makes me curious if im just not seeing it like they are. i like to skim this page sometimes and it makes me happy reading peoples happy successes :-) good luck everyone

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Monday, 04 May 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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I can do it. AGAIN.

Hi!

This is both a confession and, hopefully, something that can help others that, just like me, fell of the wagon completely. I'm a 5'7" female, at 31 years old. Between November 2015 and April 2016 I lost 40lbs, from ~180 to ~140. I was so proud, I was estatic and I swore to any and all Gods that I would never ever ever be fat again. For more than 3 years that was true and I felt great. And then life threw me for a nice horrible stressful 2019 and lo and behold, when I went to the doctor in late February of 2020 I was once again at 180. FUCK.

My brain started yelling at me like crazy "What had I done, why had I ruined all the hard work, how could I?" I was so so ashamed of myself and my failure. Piling on all that guilt and anger on top of my already miserable situation made me feel like I should just give up. I was doomed to be fat, this proved it, didn't it? I couldn't even do something as simple as not stuffing my face....

But there was a tiny little voice somewhere in that missery and chaos that said "Hey, look. You did just fine for years, when you where okay, not depressed, stressed out and scared 24/7. You need to sit down and look at what went wrong ASIDE from your diet. WHAT triggered all this? What made you eat the wrong things for comfort, why did you feel the need to do that? And we got this, yeah? We did it once before, we know what to do now to do it again, yes?

So I sat down and took a long good look at the past year. My moms illness had gotten a lot worse and its a progressive one with no cure, the place I had worked at for six years at that point had just got a new boss again and I came home crying more often than not because the work enviroment had gotten so bad. I was not given the permanent position I had been promised for years, throwing a complete wrench in my husbands and my plans to buy a house because w/o a permanent job I could not co-sign on a loan. Somehow we still managed to buy a small house in May, but at that point I worked six days a week, no vaccation and and on top of moving houses on that schedule, there was no time to care about when or what I ate. In Novemeber I gave my two week notice and left and slept for a month, more or less. My body and mind was burnt out completely. I was supposed to be estatic and happily set up our new home, instead I hid in bed for days. No wonder I had absolutely no energy left to care for my diet....

I can still recognize that it was my actions that caused the weight gain, but I refuse to attach any shame or guilt to it anymore. I did what I did. It happened. It wasn't a good choice, but I've learnt from it. Now I know that when my world falls apart I still revert to comfort foods, candy and overeating. That is a lesson I have to work on, propably for the rest of my life.

It took another couple of weeks before I was in a place where I felt I could try to start undoing what I did. I downloaded MFP again, set a goal of 1200kcal/day, just like I did last time, bought a small mountain of vegetables and bit the bullet.

Since mid March I've lost 11lbs. Im already a quarter of the way there, again. I am so so proud of myself, with IF and calorie counting I am once again working towards a happy and healthy self. Without the guilt and shame. I am still overweight, but each and every day is now a small step in the right direction. The big angry voice telling me I failed is silent. The small hopefull one is still there, whispering "We got this!"

I will not let this be the road block at the end of my weight loss journey, I rather look back and see it as a bigger bump among the smaller ones on a long road stretching behind me.

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Maintenance Monday: Optimism and Realism

Reached your goal weight and in need of a space to discuss your maintenance journey with others who have gone or are going through similar experiences? Welcome to the weekly Maintenance Monday thread, for weight loss maintainers! Whether you're new to maintenance and don't believe your TDEE can be that high or wondering how to increase your calories, you've been around a while and want to get advice during times of struggle or the holidays, or if you're keeping on as normal, this place is for you! (If you're losing weight, community threads are posted daily and weekly, linked in the side bar, as well as the daily US and European 30 Day Challenge.)

What did you hope for from maintenance and what’s your reality been? What are your hopes for the future and what do you think might actually happen?

Maybe you hoped your stomach would shrink, but your tastes simply changed for the better. Maybe you hope to move toward intuitive eating long-term, but know that for now you have emotional eating tendencies left to overcome when times get hard. Maybe you just hoped reaching maintenance would be a check box you'd tick and never think about again, but really what maintenance means changes, as things do. Let us know!

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Anything else on your mind pertaining to maintenance? Is your diet going effortlessly, or have the last few weeks been more of a struggle? All questions, remarks and worries are welcome topics of conversation!

Previous Maintenance Monday threads can be found here.

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missed my goal by a hair

M36 178cm 5ft10
went from 107.4kg to 90.3 today (136lbs to 199)
i realy wanted that 9 gone before my birthday. :-(
so i'ts a bit of a double feeling: kinda sad, because i didn't reach the goal.
but still..., i've lost 17kg (37,5) so far :-) so that 400 grams isn't the world.
today is a cheat day. i'm not going to look after calories on my birthday ;-)
not going extravagant either....
tomorow i'm going back to the counting.
current goal 77 (170) ; hoping to reach it by christmas, but not going to beat myself up, if i don't reach it by then.
i would beat myself up if i'm still the same or more heavy than now.
on my 3rth weight loss journey. -30 -20 now going for -30 again.
this is what i've learned so far.
it doesn't matter how fast you get there.
enjoy the road toward it, and make sure you arrive
and don't fall back into old habbits when you reach the goal.
honestly didn't know this, the first 2x. i know, stupid right?

wow, just did the calculations to add lbs after typing all the rest...
now that 199lbs looks good :-D
weird how numbers work

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Just celebrating some loses .. feel free to skip/ignore ..

I've been in coronavirus lockdown, and I was afraid I'd start eating all the food I put aside to prepare for being in lockdown, so I went on a strict 1500 cal/day diet, and OMG .. I've lost SO much weight. I'm reluctant to say how much because I've seen that there are people who just go on and on about "dangerous .." and "too much .." and all that, and I just don't want to hear it, I'd rather just be happy I've lost so much weight. Best of all it has been pretty easy. I mean I'm a little bit hungry and times during the day, but not that much, certainly not as much as I expected. I did calculations with the NIH body calculator and made graphs of what it projected my weight would be over time and amazingly it's almost spot on so far, my weight loss has been following that graph with bumps and dives along the way almost exactly.

Anyway, I don't have anyone to be happy with so I decided to be happy with ya'll. :)

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