Lockdown has really pushed me to change myself. I am now 30lbs down and determined more than ever to keep moving forward. [23F/168cm/160lbs > 130lbs]

Front progress (used an older before pic but WOW... the difference is truly shocking to me): https://imgur.com/87fm2iY

Side progress (a year ago until today): https://imgur.com/a/ncQvCvL

I have struggled for many (if not all) of my teenage years trying out different diets and exercise regimes, some working slightly until I'd give up or go back to square one.

But now I've found something that works for me (someone who is also suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome), and I have adjusted everything based on how my body reacts. Here are the most effective things that have made me experience weight loss/muscle growth/feeling overall happier. This exact thing may not work for everyone but if you're able to try it please do!

- Realising this is a long-ass process. It's taken me nearly a year to get to the point I am at now and I still can do a whole lot more fitness/health-wise.

- Taking pictures! Videos! This year I've been taking a photo every single day at different angles in the same mirror because sometimes your eyes want to trick you into thinking you haven't made any progress. Don't just trust the scales! It's always going to be about how you look/feel in the end, regardless of what the number says.

- Not trusting my fitness watch calories (it's impossible to base some workouts just off of your heart rate and you may be burning more/less than it says) and trying not to 'eat back' any calories I have burned.

- Incorporated jump rope into my routine, I can now jump rope really fast and it feels like a very effective form of cardio and is quite easy to save 10/20 minutes for if you are busy.

- Running up and down the stairs. I can't go to the gym right now and I used the stair master during my routine, so I just traded this for some actual stairs. Super effective!

- Forcing myself to go on more walks even when I'm feeling down, getting some fresh air, and just appreciating nature for a little bit makes a world of difference.

- Intuitive eating! I do not calorie count, I would go crazy. Instead, I've just learned how much is roughly in things I eat on a daily basis and keep this in mind when I make my food.

- Substituting foods! This is a big one for me, and I think contributes to a lot of my weight loss overall. Instead of regular slices of bread, I'll have the 40cal per slice versions. I put almond milk in my cereal and oats (still regular in my coffee though, the taste is too much). I use 1 cal oil spray instead of actual oil when cooking. It's the small substitutions that all add up in the end, and I think I've found a way of keeping it sustainable for myself.

- Don't restrict because it will always lead to overeating. And also realising that you can allow yourself some of the 'good' stuff! (I make meals that are tasty regardless so I never feel like I'm missing out)

Here are the things I am doing! I hope this helps at least one person.

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Recommendations for supplements for weight loss?

I saw a post on a different subreddit and it made me think about this. I've just started my weight loss journey about a month ago and so I'm obviously eating less while trying to make most of the foods I do eat, healthier. In turn, I'm feeling hungry a lot and in a bad mood most of the time because of it. Everyday I'm worried about what meals I'll have and if I can fit in a snack and still be under my calories for the day. All while cooking for a family of 5 some of whom are actually trying to GAIN weight so, go figure.

My point is that I feel like I might be missing out on some key vitamins or other things I might need to be taking supplements for. Is there a recommended set of supplements you can take to aid in weight loss or assist in keeping you healthy while losing weight and eating less?

I heard fish oil and vitamin D so far but I also was picking up some fiber gummies at the store and noticed some of them aid in appetite suppression? They said weight management and I was intrigued but don't want to introduce anything that might screw me up so I figured I'd ask here! I took the quiz for the "Nurish, by Nature Made" thing and I just don't know about taking vitamins prescribed for me online from a quiz lol.

Also, I'm a 23 year old woman, which I'm sure is important in deciding what kind of supplements to be taking.

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Weight Loss Journey and Worries

Hello everybody! My name is Jessica. In the past year and a half, I have lost approximately ninety pounds. I’m 5’1, 115 pounds. I was a little over 200 pounds in mid to late 2019. I have always struggled with my weight, but after coming off of multiple mental health meds, I stopped binge eating and lost a lot of weight over a short period of time.

I’m concerned about this, however. I’ve read a lot online about people losing weight rapidly who gain it back and more. Granted, I have maintained my weight of 115 for over six months now. Due to a recent work injury, I’m taking muscle relaxants which make me very groggy and sedentary.

Due to the injury I also haven’t gone to the gym in a couple months in fear of exacerbating my pain. I still go for walks and my job requires a lot of manual labor, but the fear is still deep inside that I will gain weight again. I haven’t really had this fear until recently.

Despite other people commenting on how small I am, I’m beginning to notice just a bit of cellulite on the back of my thighs. This was worse when I was heavy, but hitting the gym three days a week really improved the appearance of it. I’m anxious to be able to weight lift again.

Does anybody have any advice for this? Or perhaps some of you have experienced rapid weight loss? Did you guys gain any weight back? What are the best tips for keeping weight off when certain types of exercise aren’t an option?

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Lost 25 lbs, now mentally struggling to get past the weight I was at for a decade

I was at about the same weight (60 lbs over healthy) for almost a decade. Two years ago I actually lost 15lbs during pregnancy because of gestational diabetes and nausea. Being 15lbs lower than my prepregnancy weight at my first follow up appointment was so great! But then I had postpartum depression and insomnia, was medicated for a year, then a pandemic and I was actually up 40lbs, 25lbs over my prepregnancy weight.

I went in for a doctor’s visit for the kid in September and their kid scale was broken so they asked me to weigh myself, then weigh with the kid so they could get her weight. Never mind the fact that that’s a really shitty thing to do to someone, just make them get on a scale with no warning, and a pretty terrible way to get an accurate reading for the kid (2 weeks later she had lost a lot of weight...) Seeing my weight then really shocked me and gave me the fright I needed to get serious about my weight loss.

I’m kinda proud I lost the antidepressant/pandemic weight of 25 lbs, though it’s always hard for me to be truly happy and not angry at myself that I let it happen. But I’ve been stuck for about two weeks and mentally I’ve been fighting a battle.

I get intense cravings all day, mostly for salty fatty foods like cheese or potato chips. My brain is constantly trying to negotiate with itself, no matter how much I plan out my days. If I have 50 cal room in the budget I’ll think “oh maybe I can have a little less dinner and have a bowl of chips” “oh I know I had a bowl of chips with lunch, so really just a little more won’t add much”. I’m feeling super hungry and kinda light headed. And I tried having a non counting day last weekend and I still never felt full and satisfied, not even for a minute. My stomach was bulging and my mind was thinking MORE MORE MORE.

Ugghhhh it just feels like my brain is fighting me to stay at this weight and trying to trick me.

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A message to short girls, and people with low TDEE (or everyone, really) wanting to lose weight

I'm sure everyone on this page is familiar with the concept of TDEE, maintenance calories, and the caloric deficit. If not, here's a link to a website where you can learn more about it and calculate your own TDEE: https://tdeecalculator.net/

It has been demonstrated to be true that 500 calories is the "magic number" deficit in order to lose weight. By taking your maintenance calories, and subtracting 500, you will get your amount of calories needed to lose weight.

For many people with low maintenance calories- short people, not-so-active people (office jobs perhaps), this can be really tough. For example, I am a 5'0" lightly active female and my maintenance calories are only ~1,800. If I wasn't active at all, (like when I had my office job ha) it would be ~1,650. As we all know, 1,800-500= 1,300. Yes, 1,300 calories per day. While average/lightly active.

Now I want to preface my next point by saying if you are totally comfortable eating only 1,300 calories per day I am proud of you and i'm happy for you. As long as you are eating enough for your body to function, I won't judge you for eating 1,150-1,300 cals. Good on you. I'm not trying to gatekeep anyone by any means. I'm also not trying to be mean to tall people and insinuate that weight loss must be easy for them. Weight loss is hard for all of us, otherwise this subreddit wouldn't exist.

That being said, my weightloss journey has been ROUGH for many reasons including this one. I've seen other short girls come to this subreddit with the same problem so I wanted to talk a bit about my experience and offer a solution. In the past I have gotten SO JEALOUS of people who are able to eat way more than me and lose weight faster. My S.O and I have started trying to lose weight together about a year ago, and he has been doing amazingly. He lost ~40 lbs simply by taking a more physically active job and eating a bit less takeout. I, on the other hand, have been fluctuating ~10 lbs for years now. In the past year, i've changed to a more active job, i've started calorie counting, i've restricted takeout, i've started measuring ingredients when cooking- 1,300 seems like an impossible number to me.

Again, if you're cool with eating 1,300 cal, that's good. But to me, it feels like deprivation. It's waking up at 7 AM and choosing whether I should cut out breakfast or lunch for the day since I only have enough cals for 2 meals. I simply cannot be sustained by 1,300 calories especially with my busy lifestyle. The weeks I succeeded to only eat 1,300/day, were the weeks where I was groggy, shaky, and irritable. Those weeks were often the weeks where I would give up and binge anyways.

It is okay to admit that 1,150-1,300 cals is not enough food for you. You are not a fatty for saying that you need to eat 3 meals per day instead of 2. You are not any less capable of losing weight than the beautiful dainty 110 lbs girl who drinks cucumber water for breakfast (god I wish I was her LMAO). Some people just can't do that and it's OKAY.

Just take it slow. If you do your calculations and you see that your allotted calories seem dangerously or unrealistically low, adjust the equation. You don't absolutely need to be at a 500 cal deficit. Yes, it helps to lose weight rather quickly, but I would rather take 6 months to lose 15 lbs than to be in a binge cycle forever. If you cut out 400, 300, 200, or even 5 cals per day, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT. Just slower, and that is okay. *slower is better than never*.

I use MyFitness Pal, and whenever I eat 1,700 cals instead of 1,300, i'm still losing weight even though it's only a 100 cal deficit. When you're done logging for the day, the app will tell you "if you ate like this every day, you will by x lbs by x month". I love that and it gets me going. As long as I can stick to a slow, *doable* diet, I don't care if it takes me 3 years to reach my goal.

TLDR; You don't need to be at a 500 cal deficit at all times. Any deficit will work, it will just be slower. Slower is better than never.

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Took a month off and now finding it real hard to get back into my calorie counting routine.

Last October I found real success in weight loss by counting calories. I started off at 262lb, the heaviest I’ve ever been in my entire life, from then to January I ended up losing about 42lbs in total, I was 222 in the beginning of January.

My goal weight has always been 195, I’m a 6’0 male, early 20’s for reference. But when January came by I decided to take a break from my calorie counting and exercise routine. I ended up gaining 7lbs and I am now 229, I’ve been maintaining weight since then.

Recently I’ve been trying to get back to into the routine I had going on but it’s pretty difficult. I’ll start my day out pretty good but by the end of the day I’ll mess up by ordering out or over snacking. This has been going on for almost two weeks now, I’ll tell myself that it’s the last day of eating however I want and that tomorrow will be the day I get back on track. But I’ve failed every single day.

When I was calorie counting I had little issue with self control, the first week was the hardest, I remember. After that it felt like a breeze I was able to overcome my bad cravings and stick to a good diet for months with one weekly cheat meal.

But yeah that’s basically the whole gist of things. I’m having a really hard time getting back into it. Anyone else go through something similar, I’m hoping I can get some pointers because I certainly do not want to gain all my weight back, I want to reach my goal weight and maintain from then on out.

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I lost my period the last time I reached my goal weight (gained some back since then), would I be able to do it again but without the amenorrhea part?

Short background: 2 years ago I reached a weight where I actually didn't hate my body (I've been dieting or trying to diet my whole life of course) but I lost my period which is, obviously, not desirable. I went from a BMI of about 22.5 to about 18.5 for a little less than a year and during that time my period was getting very irregular with time periods between each cycle between 40 and 60 days until it just stopped for maybe 6 months.

I then started gaining weight slowly and steadily though unintentionally (due to stress from work, university, personal issues and simply the fact that I was gaining weight) and eventually my period came back although it took a year until it was regular again (I am now at BMI 21).

Question: What I wanted to ask was whether amenorrhea has more to do with the rate of weight loss or with the body weight itself, like, if I tried to lose weight again but slowlier and reached my weight from two years ago would I be able to physiologically sustain it, you know, with my menstrual cycle still intact. At that weight I am still in the healthy range, I would maybe even try to keep it a little bit higher than that, but I'm just worried that I'll lose my period again.

Rants and excuses etc: On the other hand I really hate how I look right now to the point that I avoid social interactions as much as possible and get severe anxiety whenever I catch a glimpse of myself outside. That doesn't sound very healthy to me either.

I am sorry about how vain this sounds, I know that many of you here are trying to lose weight for health reasons and I am, objectively speaking, healthy but as I said I'm feeling mentally exhausted of myself, some days I am barely functional because of that and have been avoiding the outside world. And I hate that I feel this way I really wish I didn't care about how I look but no matter how hard I try, doing whatever mental excercises that exist, I just can't shake off the disgust I feel for myself. And the frustrating part is that when I reached my goal weight it felt like I finally had everything that I was missing in my life. I could go out without stressing about how I looked, wear the clothes that I wanted, talk to people without as much anxiety. I still had problems of course, but at least I didn't have to worry about my looks on top of those. I was also less judgemental towards other people and generally didn't care about how they looked (whereas I would always compare them to myself before that). I had such a boost of confidence and just enjoyed life so much. And I can remember it. And I want it again. But I just don't know if the cost of my physical health is worth that.

It turned into quite a long post, I'm sorry about that too. I just wanted to provide some background since my question may seem controversial to some people. I know I obviously have some mental issues going on, I just want to know if it's possible to to align my brain with my body healthily at this point. I don't know if anyone will respond but it definitely feels good to finally let it out.

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