A couple of years ago I lost weight very successfully with CICO, from 124lbs to 107lbs in 2017 in 6 months (that's a deficit of 0.71lbs/week on average, and I am 5'1"). My weight then fluctuated between 106-115lbs with very tight control on my diet, to the point I would now consider it unhealthy. Part of the unhealthiness was the perpetual fear of undoing all my hard work. I was never actually happy with my naked body in the mirror. Part of the huge fluctuation was do to the fact that I would have on and off months, where off months included vacation and I ate a lot, to my heart's content, and then on months were I maintained a .5~1 lbs/week calorie deficit in order to lose the vacation weight. In a way I guess I was kind of yo-yo dieting, and an increase on the scale made me very unhappy. This lasted for about 2 years.
Then, last March, because of what my therapist said to me, I decided I was no longer going to hold myself to a certain range on the scale (my max was 112, and it was time to lose if I got there). That level of control was exhausting, and I hated living in fear of gaining weight. So, I embarked on a journey to be at peace with food and not live in a world where I would be content for a couple months before I have to torturously try to lose weight for the next couple of months. I also wanted to really put my all into weight lifting (I had begun after my initial weight loss), and the dieting phase just wasn't doing me any favors.
So, I let myself eat until I was content, and for the last year, eating has been a happy and unfearful thing for me again. At the time, a big push for me to stop that on and off dieting was that I couldn't deal with the hunger anymore, and I think this aspect seems to differ for people. Most of the dieting months, I would wake up in the middle of the night because I was so hungry (on a .5lbs/week calorie deficit, so I wasn't doing anything outrageous), and my meals only made me not hungry for ~4 hours. During that phase, even when I wasn't dieting, I was never really that content with my meals. Its like something primal in me was telling me more food.
Fast forward to now, I am at 122lbs, but at least everyday I am content and happy with the food I eat and I don't think about it in the same ravenous hunger context anymore. I am still learning to love my body even if it is larger than I would like, but I miss how easy it was to dress myself and how good everything looked when my weight was lower.
I will add that weight lifting has been my main fitness focus (I see it as perpendicular to weight loss anyway), but along the way I've increased activity levels by walking for my commute and dance classes. Those are all on hold right now, but I will get back into it as soon as I can. I also understand that I can achieve a lower body fat by increasing muscle mass, but honestly building muscle takes way more time than just losing fat (and some muscle). In a way that will be my last resort - stay at 120lbs while I increase my muscle mass throughout the years and eventually I will be a size 0 again lol.
So my question, for those of you that have more successfully maintained without extreme control, what has your experience been like? Did I do it wrong and crash diet the first time? Should I maybe try to lose 1 lbs and month, be in it for the long haul? Is the answer simply that, with the way my body's hunger cue is built, I am going to be 120lbs forever? Less fat = less leptin = more hunger, therefore I'm hoping for a pipe dream? Is there a specific type of professional I can work with to get what I want? I keep wondering if there is a way to be less than 110lb and maintain it with the same ease I stay at 120lbs now. Any advice or sharing of experiences is welcome.
Thanks for reading, and I hope all of you stay safe out there.
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