19F, 5'8", SW 265, CW 239, GW ~140
I haven't been in the 230's since I was a junior in high school, which was 4 years ago! I've only been dieting for 2 months, so I was shocked to be in the 230's so soon. In these 2 months, I've lost 26 pounds, 7.6 inches off my waist and 6 inches off my hips.
This was my third attempt at losing weight. Let me tell you about my other two attempts and what exactly went wrong.
Attempt #1: August 26 2019 to October 23 2019, SW 259.
This was my very first attempt at weight loss and I got over-enthusiastic. I would do too many workouts and end up injuring myself, I ate too few calories (maybe around 1200?) and I was miserable all the time because of it. I would spend all day dreading my workouts and looking forward to my next meal. It was hard to focus due to the lack of calories.
I would end up eating fast food every other day because my diet made me so miserable. I definitely wouldn't consider them binges, but it was enough to eliminate my deficit. One day, I hit 241.8 pounds and then ate fast food next day. My weight shot up to 245, but then went down to 240.6 the next day. I was so excited that I was close to the 230's and ate well that day in hopes to get down to the 230's, but the next day, my weight shot up to 241.8 again. I was so discouraged that I gave up.
Attempt #2: March 2 2020 to March 16 2020, SW 252.
This time around, I knew about CICO and how I could eat whatever I wanted and still technically lose weight. The only issue is that I took it waaayyyy too far. Rather than attempting healthy eating like last time, I ate fast food every day. Like, every single day. I would be under my calorie budget (which was 1500 this time around), but I would be eating Pizza Hut, Starbucks, China King, McDonald's, etc.
Now there's no issue with eating fast food within your calorie budget, but doing it EVERY DAY is not reasonable. I would still be hungry all the time because fast food doesn't have the nutrients that my body desperately needed. I would get a Starbucks iced coffee and banana bread before class, then be hungry an hour later. It was also super expensive.
Not to mention that I was still doing heavy workouts. Not as insane as the first time around, but hard enough that 30g of protein a day wasn't cutting it. I lasted only 2 weeks on this diet. Do you wanna guess the lowest weight I got to this time? It was 241.8 AGAIN. And yet again, my weight spiked the next day and I gave up.
Attempt #3: July 7 2020 and ongoing, SW 265.
My SW is so much higher this time because of quarantine. I was snacking so much when I'm normally not a huge snacker. I'm not gonna lie, it kinda discouraged me from the beginning that I was starting 10 pounds higher than I was expecting, but I'm so glad I stuck it through.
My approach this time can be considered a middle ground between my first and second attempt. Here's what I'm doing currently that helped me succeed this time around
-Calorie budget: Since I'm doing CICO, it depends on how active I was that day. For my lazier days it's around 1500, and for my busiest days where I'm at work (as a grocery stocker for 9 hours at a time), it can be closer to 2000.
-Workout: I'm starting off slow this time. Instead of jumping into a crazy workout program, I play Just Dance every day (I try to pick the harder songs that involve a lot of jumping or sweat versions of the songs, but I don't always). I only "require" myself to do 30 minutes 5 days a week, but more often than not it ends up being 45-60 minutes because I genuinely love the game. Now I look forward to working out instead of dreading it.
-OMAD/IF: I've always been the type of person who loves big meals and doesn't really find the appeal in snacking. When I combine all of my meals and snacks together, I feel more satisfied than if I ate them separately. Because of this, I just have one really big meal.
-Meal prepping and counting macros: I've made a meal prep that makes it easy to get all of the nutrients I need. I've been doing this since I started in July. My meal prep stays almost identical from week to week, and the only thing that changes is the main dish. I'm quite happy with my meal prep and I haven't gotten sick of eating the same foods; my main dish is enough variety for me.
-Health vs. weight loss: I'm more focused on my health now. I take vitamins, drink a gallon of water a day, and track my macros. Hell, I even got a Fitbit to track my calorie burn, sleep, and heart rate. (Though a message of warning to Fitbit users: the calories burned on those things can be really inaccurate. I usually subtract 20% of the calories burned to be safe)
Finally, one last thing:
-EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. In my first attempt at weight loss, I was miserable because I cut out too much. In my second weight loss attempt, I was miserable because I didn't cut out enough. Now, I've found a good balance. As an example, my meal prep includes 120 calories worth of gummy bears. Every single day. Plus, when I burn extra calories, I sometimes have a fun-sized bag of chips or cookies for 150 calories. Because of that, this weight loss doesn't even feel like a diet. I didn't really cut anything out.
I would normally just post on the daily post, but I told myself that once I made it past 241.8, I would make my first actual post in this subreddit. 241.8 has been such a scary number for me ever since my first two weight loss attempts. It was the number that I always failed at, and I always felt shame thinking about it. Now, not only have I passed it, I also dropped into the 230's! I'm so hyped! Sorry for the lack of progress pictures. Maybe I'll have the confidence to post some a bit further down the line. Thank you for taking the time to read about my journey :)
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