Looking for advice

I have never posted here before, whether I was too afraid or or too ashamed. I’m 26/M/5’8” and looking for advice to start a serious weight loss regiment. I’ve already come a long way, I graduated college last year and lost 80 pounds just by drinking water and not much change in my daily life, and much less stress. I’m still at around 270, and still am uncomfortable with who I am. The problem is I stress eat, and am self conscious to the point where I can’t bring myself to go to a gym or walk/run in public because I’m anxious I’ll be fat shamed. I want to lose the rest of this weight to get down to a healthy size and be fit, but I’m not sure where to start. Any advice or encouragement would be welcome.

Thanks

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Monday, 07 September 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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Stopped dating or talking to guys to first lose weight

I was always on the average to heavy side. I lost so much weight in the 2nd year or college and had a taste of how weight loss can boost your dating life. (I was still in the average side). That came to an end quickly after I got sciatica because of my poor eating and gym habits. I worked out too hard and gained back the weight I lost and a little more. It came to the point where I was scared to even step outside my house because of my weight.

I continued to talk to a few guys and get dating profiles. It was eh. Every guy I matched with either didn’t reply or just said they wanted something really casual. I don’t blame them. I’m not the best looking and I accept that. You only get what you give. I just have so much love and compassion to give.

I got a dietitian and physical therapist recently. I was done feeling sorry for myself. Im on track to being in my goal weight in about 15 months. I told myself I never wanted to feel this ugly again and feel like I can not even step outside the house. It got so bad to the point where I was insecure to put my face on zoom video for my online college classes.

Sorry.. I’m just ranting at this point.

Basically, I am so unconfident and have such low esteem I can’t really do anything. I completely stopped dating in order to not get hurt. But I’m kinda lonely now, I guess that’s the trade off.

TLDR: Do you think it’s a good idea to wait until you reach your goal weight to date?

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Three major things I learned from my two-and-a-half-year weight loss journey

I've never posted here before, but I've lurked for tips and encouragement, and seeing as I've now been around my goal weight for a month, I wanted to make this post to say thanks and possibly help someone else out there :)

I started my weight loss journey in early 2018 at 116 kg (256 lb). I was just starting university, and since uni gives you a chance to somewhat re-invent yourself I thought it'd be a good time to try losing some weight. I didn't have a goal at first, but somewhere along the way I settled on losing 40 kg (88 lb), with a goal weight of 76 kg (168 lb).

2018 was great, but after uni ended for the year I reverted to old habits and stayed that way through 2019. At the start of this year I got back on track and finished it this time. You can see the where each years starts and ends pretty clearly on my weight graph.

After trying a bunch of different tools and techniques, here are the main points that I'd tell my younger self:

Collect relevant data

Consistent data makes it easier to track your progress and make informed decisions. It doesn't have to be detailed, but I've found that just having some sort of data makes things a lot easier. Initially (pre-2018) I just focused on cutting down how much junk food I ate, so I made a note and recorded each time I ate any. Whether you're tracking your weight, the food you eat (what kinds of food, how much, the number of kilojoules - whatever metric you choose) or your activity (workouts per week, step goal, kilojoule burn etc), I can highly recommend keeping track of something, even if you're not trying to actively change it yet. Being able to look back and point out trends and changes in your behaviour is great.

Try to form habits

Routines and rules are great, but habits are king. Whenever I tried to change what I was doing/eating/measuring, it worked fine at first, but I could never keep it up for more than a week or two unless it became second nature. I didn't start keeping track of my weight consistently until it became part of my mindless morning routine - I don't have to remember to do it any more, I just do it between brushing my teeth and having my morning coffee. Personally I used daily nagging notifications until I didn't need them any more.

Don't forget to have fun!

Doing what you enjoy really helps with long-term motivation. Working out or eating better can really suck at first, and I found it hard to stay motivated until I discovered something that hooked me, in my case working out in VR by playing Beat Saber (play some custom maps by Majorpickle or Stumi with Faster Song turned on, they get intense!). Find something that you really look forward to, maybe it's running on a treadmill while watching TV, or listening to podcasts while going for long walks/jogs/hikes, or playing Ring Fit Adventure. If even just some small part of your routine makes you happy, it can really boost your motivation for your entire weight loss journey.

I really love this community, thank you for the unending support and optimism, and I hope this post was of use to someone! <3

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Sweet tooth tricks and other weight loss Judo (or in Internet Meme terms, Uno Reverse card it)

Judo is where you use your opponents power against them.

In this case your opponent is your evolutionary instinct to eat too much and as many calorie dense / sweet foods as you can get your hands on.

I realized there are many ways to use some of these instincts for our own good, for weight loss:

1. “Use your sweet tooth for good”: obvious but: You don’t have to stop eating sweet stuff!! So many Artificial Sweeteners options in 2020 trick our bodies into thinking something has lots of sugar when it doesn’t
2. You can put sweetener on so many things if you’re a true member of the Sweet Tooth club. Pickles, Turkey slices, Brussels Sprouts, Grits. Also goes well with both Salt AND Sweetener.
3. Check out /r/volumeeating for lots of sweet goodness for low calories.
4. “Use your instinct to finish an entire plate for good”: put a huge salad or sliced huge cucumber in front of you. If you finish it you’ll be full.
5. “Use your laziness for good”: especially good to slow down late night snacking if you force yourself to track before eating, you might be too lazy to bother and then prefer to not snack. To make it require even more work, don’t log your dinner yet, and plan to log it if you eat more later. That way the first thing you snack on will require tracking your entire dinner first.
6. “use the social/community part of your brain for good”: I’ve found that being active in /r/loseit helps me stay motivated and its almost like it allows me to see my own big picture of my weight loss which helps me make better decision on a day by day/meal by meal basis. Ive found a similar effect when I went to weekly Weight Watchers meetings 10 years ago, but not when I tried to diet without it. I attribute it to something basic in our brain that responds to “community support”. The funny thing is I think the part that helps the most is providing encouragement to others. I try to sort by “New” at least once a day and respond especially to posts woth no or low comments.

What are some other similar “weight loss judo” tips?

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Down 26 pounds but I don’t feel good about it.

Sorry if this sub isn’t the place for this kind of thing. I was 355 pounds initially (5’4”, female, age 26). I started losing weight when quarantine started because I stopped eating at fast food places. I was addicted to fast food and would eat it 4+ times a week. I was scared of getting the virus from food.

Weight loss wasn’t my goal when this all started but i was really surprised how much better I felt without fast food and losing about 5 pounds in a short time. It made me really optimistic about being able to lose weight, after years of me pretty much giving up. I was heavily in the fat acceptance movement on tumblr from 2013-2018, and I let myself get really bad in that time period. My mental health was also really bad, I was suicidal and didn’t really care about myself.

I eat one meal a day, dinner, home cooked most of the time (sometimes frozen meals). My meals aren’t that healthy though and I’m not really sure how to improve it. I don’t snack at all. I do very light workouts like walking every other day, using a 5 pound weight, squats and sit ups.

Im at 329, I can’t help but think my weight loss is a fluke and my scale is broken, or the position of my floor is messing with the result. I don’t think what I’m doing right now is good enough in terms of workouts and meals. I’m so new to all this, it really frightens me. I’m terrified I’ll go to the doctor or somewhere with a better scale and I’ll be weighed in at 355 again and all this has been a lie. All my hope will be false and all my effort will be pointless.

It just got drilled into my head so much that weight loss was impossible and I can’t believe it’s happening. In my past, I believed I attempted losing weight, but the truth was that I didn’t try that hard. This is the first time in my life I’ve actually given a shit about my health or fitness.

I plan on getting to 200 pounds. I know I’m still unhealthy at my current weight. I know I’ll have to make a lot of changes to get to that. I want to get to a healthy weight so that I can live a longer life. I was sick of being terrified of dying at 40, or getting diabetes. I don’t want to die before my time.

I just have a lot of fractured thoughts about it. Part of me believes this whole thing is a fluke and I haven’t lost anything. Part of me believes it and thinks I don’t deserve to lose weight because theres people that try harder than me and don’t lose weight. Part of me is worried about what my life is gonna be like if I do lose a significant amount of weight, will I have loose skin or have to get new clothes? Will I fail at this at the end of the day and just end up dying because of obesity anyway?

My closest friend has always had a similar body to me, we always understand what it was like to live as an obese female. I don’t mention my weight loss to her. If I get smaller, will she not relate to me as much or think that I’m conceited and look down on her? I would never look down on her, I love her.

Part of me is happy about it. But I’m filled with fear.

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don’t do what what i did for weight loss

When I started my weight-loss journey, I was basically in the early-overweight category. My health was fine, but, my grades were low and I had trouble focusing on anything besides my next meal/snack. I never ate vegetables, not even once that I can remember, besides like cucumbers or something. Anyways, I started out with something called “water fasting”, which was were you essentially eat nothing but water. It’d be a lose, binge, lose, binge cycle. Also, all I did was cardio- after some time, I could barely last a whole workout with some 8-pound dumbbells, even though I was a healthy weight, and seemed “healthy”. I had this way of thinking that I could never just take some days off from fasting, and any days that I did eat, I would binge, and then promise myself to fast the next day. Of course, intermittent fasting is fine for weight loss, however, long-term, you have to be able to keep it up and be okay with messing up sometimes. After about 2.5 months, I went from about 150 pounds to 110, which was my lowest since like 5th grade or so. I thought I lost a lot of weight, but it was mostly all water. The second I started eating again, the number on the scale went up, and I was bloated. This went on for a while, with several fad diets and fasting, and about a year later, I can clearly say that I was very desperate. I had lost a lot of muscle mass, my personality was just tired and hungry, and I just kept thinking that because I was skinny, everything was better. It wasn’t. Now, I track my calories to make sure i’m eating enough, exercise properly with weights and cardio in hopes of gaining muscle mass, and accept that I won’t look “better” if i’m unhappy. I will say that I did gain back about 10-15 pounds of water, but I pretty much look the same since I’m eating properly and am exercising properly. The moral here is DO NOT DO WHAT I DID. YOU WILL NOT FEEL GOOD. DO SOMETHING SUSTAINABLE FOR YOU. Whether that be intermittent fasting, keto, paleo, etc. Find something that will actually be a sufficient amount of food, and not something that you’ll give up on and binge on later. Nutrition is the most important factor (to me) in weight loss, or as I now call it, fat loss. Don’t jump into anything really fast, take it slow, make small changes to your diet. Whether that be standing up and walking for like 5 minutes more, or including a HIIT routine 3 times a week. Also, moderation is key, don’t deprive yourself of your favorite foods, just eat a smaller portion, try a healthier alternative, or just eat it, and don’t worry about it. Weight-loss shouldn’t be terrible. Don’t treat it like it is, and do crazy stuff.

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