Sw: 87.7kg (193lbs) CW: 79.6kg (175lbs) GW: <75kg (165lbs) Male, 176cm (5'9), 20 years old
Today my scale finally measured under 80kgs for the first time in lots of years. I always averaged 83-85 but quarantine and problems in my day to day life made me search for comfort in food. I do regret it in a way but I think it was necessary for me, it opened my eyes and one day I said from tomorrow I'll actually lose weight, without restrictive diets that I can't follow for long enough.
That was when I discovered this subreddit and learnt about CICO and macros. Found a food scale at home and started measuring EVERYTHING. I used Loseit to keep track of everything (even though I didn't use to pay attention to macro that much, I only tried aiming for a decent amount of protein, never enough but it was a start on my weight loss journey.
45 days later my scale showed me the good prefix.
Nowadays I started going to the gym and consequently started tracking macros with more attention.
What I learnt:
First and most important thing you need to lose weight is acknowledging you have a problem. The problem subsides in very unhealthy eating habits.
I used to eat pizza once every 3 days, my cupboards were full of potato chips and chocolate. My night snacks sometimes consisted of 2 sandwiches with around 300 calories each. I am sure lots of you find/found yourselves in this situation. Now, my cupboard is still full of chips and chocolate, but they are the same ones that were there 45 days ago when I started. A good tip if you find yourself being tempted by snacks is to just never buy them. You can't eat something you don't have. Don't get me wrong, I didn't switch to a healthy food only diet. Yes, I ate lots of salads and veggies, but occasionally I threw in some junk food too. However I did in a controlled manner. I tracked my calories and ate less during that day. This way even if I go over my calorie limit for the day, I'm still under maintenance. Of course, after eating junk food your weight for the next day or next two days will be a little inflated as they are usually very salty and you are going to retain the water. Don't worry! Losing weight is hard but gaining fat isn't that easy either. Most of the fluctuations is water that will eventually leave your body once you stabilize your diet again.
Another thing I want to mention is that personally, my hunger follows a pattern. This is something I observed in the last couple of years. If I eat something like chocolate after eating a meal, then next day I'll crave it after that meal. If you have this problem try forcing you not to eat a snack after a meal for a few days and see the difference.
Bread isn't your archenemy but isn't your friend either. I'm from Europe and here we eat bread with anything. Bread alone doesn't make you fat, but if you eat bread alongside your meal then you increase the calories of the same meal that can be eaten without bread.
Taking photos helped me a lot. Whenever I felt down I would check my progress in a Google Foto album (which I accidentally deleted and lost almost all the photos but I'm still going to take them). I had an update every week and every kg can be seen.
Now, after tracking for more than a month, I got used to smaller portion sizes. I don't necessarily finish everything on my plate as I used to. If you are just starting, as doctor Mike adviced, try chewing more until the food is very well chewed. Eat slowly and wait for your stomach to catch up on it being full.
If you have a setback don't worry. Even if you go 1k calories over, you can just lose them in the next few days. Weekly averages are important.
What more can I say, boiled potatoes are God given.
submitted by
/u/Tracerer
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2F4dCsu
