End of road assistance

Hey all!

Background information:

In about October I decided to take health seriously and start focusing on weight loss. I think this is the point where I decided to "change who I am" vs being an overweight person trying to lose weight if you know what I mean.

I'm 5'11" and started at about 236 pounds. I now find myself at ~184. I've always been pretty active but the main thing I've changed is my diet (surprise!). I stopped tracking calories at about 205ish and just focused on exercising/training hard and not eating horrible foods. I ate until I felt "fueled" so to speak and made sure to modulate the workout intensity to the amount of calories I felt I was eating.

However, I find myself sort of stuck at 184ish. I still have a bit of a gut, and can feel my hard-worked abs underneath it awaiting to surface. How since I only have a scale, how do I differentiate between losing fat while gaining muscle mass, or just plateauing at 184? Is it natural to have a hard time at the end? Do I need to intensify my workouts? Begin tracking macros again?

Any words of advice to finish strong would be appreciated. I've been at 184 for about ~3-4ish weeks now.

Thanks!

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Am I doing this right?

28f, 5’4”, CW:250, GW:150. I’m on my second big weight loss push. A few years ago, I became fed up and started making some drastic changes to my diet and workout routine. I ate paleo and consumed 1400 calories a day, and added running for an hour 5 days a week. I pumped up my working out by adding weightlifting a few days a week as well. I lost about 40lbs in 4 months. After such quick weight loss and rapid changes in my diet, my gallbladder failed and I had to have emergency surgery to remove it.

Over the next 2 years, I had to change how I was eating and wasn’t able to work out as frequently after the surgery. The weight came back, plus some. I’ve done a lot of mental work this last year and feel like I have identified my emotional eating triggers. I’ve used a few apps for tracking that were extremely unhelpful and pushed my emotional eating. I recently started using an app that I really like using and doesn’t just focus on calories.... but, I’m not sure if the goals set on the app for daily eating are going to help me lose weight. I’ve been following the app’s plan since the end of April and have only lost 5lbs. I’m getting really frustrated with myself and can feel the emotional eating triggers creeping back up.

Currently on the plan, my calorie intake is max 2414, carbs: 224g, protein: 58-70g, and fat: 75g.

Most days, I eat 1600-1900cal, carbs: 180, protein: 60, fat: 50. So, am I doing this right?

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NSV: Doctor didn't say anything about my weight!!!!

Started this weight loss journey in June 2018 at 218 pounds/about 99 kg. That's a lot of pounds on my 5' 3.5" frame. I've since gotten down to 150 and hoped to be at 147 before my first appointment with this new doctor today. I didn't reach that arbitrary goal, but I've still been consistently making progress (even lost over 10 pounds since starting stay-at-home in March), so I'm not too upset about it.

But the real victory for me today was with this brand new doctor that I had never seen before. She said absolutely nothing about my weight. Every doctor I've seen since college has remarked on it in some way. Either "you've gained some weight since you were here last," or "you've lost some weight since you were here last!" Or, if it was a new provider, "You're overweight and would benefit from losing some weight."

This is the first time in about 10 years that my weight was completely unremarkable. I never thought I'd be so happy to be unremarkable! I'm still carrying a little extra fat and I will continue to work towards my ultimate goal. But I am so happy for the progress I've made, both physically and mentally, over the past two years.

Some strategies that have worked for me:

• I'm not patient, so when i started, I went all out. 1200 calories a day, 1500 on weekends. It was a huge deficit and I lost 20 pounds in about three months. I then relaxed a little bit because I had a better understanding of my true needs, daily expenditure, portion sizes, etc. It's been incredibly sustainable, even through really stressful times when I decided loss wasn't a priority. I have never "backtracked" in my two years. I've had periods of maintenance, but never gained, and I attribute that to how I managed the first two or three months.

• I love lifting weights, but lifting heavy makes me insatiably hungry. When I'm focused on fat loss, I stick to running, body weight exercises, and light weights. Those activities don't make me hungry. Heavy lifting, swimming, and long bike rides make me so hungry, so I save those for maintenance or muscle-building periods. It makes the mental game easier.

• One day never ruined anyone's progress, so enjoy the pizza or the burrito or the ice cream and learn to manage your calories around it.

• Feeling hungry is not the worst thing. It's ok to feel hungry sometimes. In fact, it's totally normal.

• One ounce of cheese or one tablespoon of almond butter is a lot less than you think it is.

• Lentils are your best friend. Filling with a lot of fiber and relatively low calories for volume.

• Gather data. Weighing every day sounds crazy to some people, but it helps me keep tabs on what my body is doing. I sometimes weigh myself several times during the day just out of curiosity. Peeing every half-hour all morning usually means I'm a couple pounds lighter by mid-day. Our bodies do some weird stuff, and having all that data in the background helps you keep fluctuations in perspective.

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Is anybody else struggling to order clothes in a smaller size, even though you have lost weight?

I am 26/F SW: 180lb CW: 148lb GW: 135lb

My entire adult life I have always fluctuated between 160-180 lbs. I would go through phases of diet and exercise where I would lose weight to get to 160lbs, only to gain all or some of it back. I never bought new clothes for weight loss and have worn consistently the same size clothes for the past 8 years. My clothes always fit at 180lbs but were more flattering on me at 160lbs.

Fast forward to this year. I started a weight loss kick (again) in January when I weighed in at 180 lbs. I lost about 15 pounds by the start of March. Normally, this is when my work gets busy and I start reverting to old habits. I don’t feel I have time to go to the gym and I start eating unhealthy as well. However, due to quarantine, my work did not get busier, and like many of you, I started working from home.

Working from home and being quarantined really helped continue my weight loss. My fiancé is an avid runner and over quarantine I started running with him in the mornings. We were not going out to eat and got really into cooking healthy meals at home. From March-June I managed to lose another 17 pounds which put me at my lowest weight ever. The last time I remember having any number in the 140’s was in the 8th grade.

Also in mid-June, things in my area starting opening up again. Specifically coed recreational sports. My fiancé and I met playing slow pitch softball and spend a lot of our weekends playing tournaments. One of the teams we play on was wanting to order new uniforms and asked us our sizes. I have always been a size medium in these jerseys but they do run big. I remembered the current medium I owned being a little loose but I decided to order a medium anyways.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to play in a tournament in the new uniforms. I showed up and put on the jersey top and was swimming in it. It was definitely too large for me. While I got comments on my weight loss, I mostly got asked why I didn’t order the jersey in smaller size.

I still can’t wrap my head around ordering anything in a size small, even something that runs big. If I were asked to order the same thing again, I would still probably order a medium out of fear of general fear of being consider a size small (I know this should make me happy but it doesn’t) and potentially gaining the weight back. This also promoted me to try on work clothes since I haven’t worn them since March. All the shirts still fit, but the pants were pretty baggy. I had to put on a belt to keep them from falling down. However, in my mind, that meant they still fit and I do not need to order new clothes (I am expected to return to work in August). I would probably be more comfortable in a smaller size but ordering clothes in a smaller size terrifies me.

Does anyone else mentally struggle with ordering clothes in a smaller size. Do you combat the fear of gaining weight again?

TL;DR - I lost weight during quarantine and some clothes are too big, but I am terrified of ordering clothes in a smaller size

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NSV: None of my friends have pestered me about my eating habits this time around.

26F/ 5’3.5/ SW: 216-219/ GW: 125-140 (undecided)/ CW: 210

I’ve been trying to lose weight for years. Last year I was seeing a personal trainer, eating a 1200-1500 diet, weight training, and running. I was losing weight, but my friends were starting to get really annoying about it. (I should probably note that all the friends I mention here are guys my age of various body types from very athletic to obese, and I am a female who has been obese since before I met any of them. My female friends have never judged my weight loss habits).

On one hand I had a few friends who were not trying to lose weight, but were trying to eat healthier. We would motivate each other by tracking how many days in a row we had stuck to our eating plans. They would always complain that I didn’t have a real diet because I was just tracking my calories and protein but not cutting anything (like sugar). So I would save calories for ice cream and it would be my 5th day sticking to my calorie limit and they would complain that ice cream isn’t healthy so the streak shouldn’t count.

On the other hand the rest of my friends were not watching their eating at all. Every time they saw me take out my phone to track calories, or wonder aloud how many calories were in an unlabeled item they would complain. They would tell me I should be eating intuitively. If I ate a snack they would jokingly go “but think of the calories!” and then when I explained that I had enough calories for a snack they would just go back to the intuitive eating argument. These conversations were happening every day, it was getting super repetitive.

Overall I lost about 15 lbs but by the Winter I stopped counting calories, working out, or running and then gained it all back.

This year things have been different. No personal trainer, I’m still running though and most days I have a 1500 calorie limit which is what my doctor suggested I start with. I’ve also begun tracking even when I go over my limit or binge. This time things seem smoother. I’m not binging, and when I go over my limit it’s a decision, not me losing control. In the last month there have only been 4 days where I haven’t been at a calorie deficit and those were all by choice. I’ve also noticed that this year these same friends all seem supportive!

When I mention calories or take out my phone to track they don’t bat an eye, when I eat a snack they don’t comment. Once they were passing around some Oreos and asked if I wanted one. I stared at it for a while trying to decide if it was worth it. One of my friends asked what was wrong “do you not want it, or do you just not know if you should have it?” And I said he was right the second time but that I’d just have one. And the conversation ended there, no lecture, no intuitive eating plug, just moved on. On the 4th of July I even whipped out a food scale to weigh the burgers someone had made (1/2 a pound!) and no one complained. They just marveled with me about how huge the burgers were. This weekend I asked them if they wanted to eat a cauliflower pizza (mixed in with the regular pizzas) and everyone tried a slice and no one made me feel bad about having both a cauliflower slice and a regular pizza slice. Overall they seem more tolerant of my eating, more supportive of my running (they’ve never had a problem with it— one of them is a very good runner, it just feels like more of them ask about my running and show interest in joining me for post-COVID races or at least the post-race celebrations), just in general they have not been a source of stress this year.

I don’t know why their attitudes have changed. My hope is that it’s because what I’m doing now is less extreme and more sustainable. I don’t feel as stressed about food and maybe they recognize that? Im eating mostly the same food that they eat, just less, but when I bring healthy snacks to share they are happy to eat that too. It feels so nice to be able to eat however I want around them without the judgement. Hopefully that will be part of my key to long term success.

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First time being consistent: 4.2 lbs in 4 weeks

TL;DR: I'm finally being consistent in my weight loss, and here's what helped: meal kit delivery service, consistent calorie tracking, a physical activity I enjoy (pickleball)!

I've been on my on-and-off weight loss journey since 2017. I've lost and gained back 10 lbs probably six times. Now, I'm about 30 lbs heavier than when I first started trying to lose weight.

Each time I lost those 10 lbs, it was over the course of 5-6 weeks (so fairly quickly for my weight), and I'd lose steam around that time. I'd gain back the weight I'd lost, and then some. Those weight loss stents were through WW (though it works great for my friends and family!).

Here's what's working this time: * Meal kit delivery service - we are finally in a place financially where we can afford to have 4 meals delivered a week. We prefer to have our dinners delivered. We know the calorie count of each meal (the entire meal!) before we have them delivered, so I know I can reasonably have them within my calorie budget. * Consistent tracking - I am absolutely NOT estimating calories this time. It's frustrating at first, but once you know for a fact how much your common meals/snacks are going to cost calorie-wise, it's much easier to track throughout the day. I'd say it took me about a week or two for it to not feel like so much work this time. * A physical activity I actually enjoy! - I've always struggled with exercise. I hate cardio, it makes me feel like I'm going to drop dead at any moment. I LOVED lifting weights, but gyms aren't safe right now, and we don't have room in our apartment to keep weights. My fiance and I have picked up a love of pickleball! We've gotten our friends into it, too, so we're playing (at a safe distance) just about every day! It feels GOOD to move and not feel like "working out," but rather just playing a game. I know diet is 80% of weight loss, but it helps so much to find any physical activity that you enjoy to remind you of what your body can do!

This was a lot longer than I expected it to be, and it might be too much to celebrate just for 4 lbs, but it feels like a different 4 lbs this time. I worked hard to lose them. I feel that they're going to stay off this time.

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Weight loss advice - hitting a plateau

Hi guys, I’m 5’4 136lbs (F) and I wanted to seek advice as I’ve hit a plateau in my weight.

I started my journey at 145lbs and lost most of my weight in the first 2 months. I’ve made a lot of changes to my lifestyle: cutting out alcohol, doing insanity workouts 5x per week, counting cals (1400-1500pd), intermittent fasting 18-6 etc.

For over a month now I’ve seen absolutely no changes in my weight or my measurements. I’d really like to hit my goal weight of 125-127lbs but I feel so stuck. Is there anything that I can do to overcome this or has my body reached the point where it won’t change much? Cheers ~

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