Sat in a booth at a restaurant for the first time in probably 14 years. NSV

The number on the scale continues to tick down, granted at a much slower rate than before. The clothes I once loved, fit me like potato sacks. Yet most days I still feel like the 450 pound guy who started walking 30 minutes a day in January 2020 to prepare for a family trip to DisneyWorld.

But not today, today my weight loss felt real.

It was sophomore year of high school the last time I let peer pressure force me to squeeze into a booth. Since then, “No booth, please.” has been my shameful addition to every host interaction. At a certain point my younger sister began saying it just to spare me the humiliation.

Today for the first time in a year I went to lunch, fully immunized I figured it was time. “Table for 3. No booth, please.” My sister said the default script out of instinct, I shamefully averted my eyes and followed the hostess. After a few steps something clicked. “Actually a booth will be okay.”

I wanted to post the picture I took, but honestly just can’t bring myself to do it.

210 pounds down and still working towards my goals. But today really showed me that the scale isn’t all that matters, the things I’ll be able to experience again.. I can’t wait.

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Overweight new dad 31yo, 225lbs, 5'9", heaviest in my life

Hey All,

I am writing this as both a cathartic experience and a way for me to stay focused and on track.

I have always been overweight my whole life. My dad comes from a poor Brooklyn family. His parents came from Ireland knowing firsthand what famine looked like. So food was no to be wasted and was basically precious. My mom came from the midwest and so food was love and was typically drenching in cheese or something similar. I was not allowed to leave the table until my plate was clean no matter how much they gave me. This severely messed with my perception of food. To this day, i feel incredibly uncomfortable leaving food on my plate. I feel downright furious when food is wasted in my house.

I was picked on a lot as to be expected in Brooklyn schools and so I found solace in food. Junk food in particular. Likewise, I didn't like to go outside much. There wasn't much to do for me in Brooklyn so TV became my best friend. The only exception was the weekends my Dad took me to our camp in the Catskills. I loved the outdoors, hiking, fishing, hunting. But those calories were quickly made up with junk food as boys do. I tried in vain a few times to lose weight. I'd go hardcore, cut calories like crazy and then crash hard into a pizza (my favorite)

This was the norm until high school. I was able to take a weight training class which got me really into lifting/strength training. I lost a fair bit of weight without even really knowing it. I was still overweight but healthier. This was also when I first threw my back out. I didn't know it at the time, but I likely bulged a disc. This stopped me from doing any core exercises for years.

Over the years I have tried to lose weight using every trick and gaget. Most recently, I have learned that I have not one, but two herniated discs. This makes my old lifting impossible. Add to that, I have a newborn, I have ballooned to my highest weight, 225 lbs.

I'll take any advice or support stories anyone would like to share. I am terrified of screwing up again because I can't take it anymore. I'm so worried my emotions will get the better of me and ill find comfort in food again. I have wrestled with depression and my current situation is the most stressed and exhausted I have ever been.

So here I am. Reaching out to this sub for support and catharsis. I am devoting this account to my weight loss and nothing else. I'm going to try to get involved to keep me on track. Right now I'm doing MFP (back on the wagon) as well as Fitbit, and Happyscale to help manage. I like data and can use it to my advantage.

Let me have it.

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Does QUALITY of calories matter when losing weight?

I am a 5"9.75' man. At the beginning of the year, I was ~206 pounds. My goal is to go down to 155 pounds. Starting January, I limited myself to around 1250 calories a day.

However, I am mostly eating ~1250 calories of junk food each day. I am eating LOTS of eggs and protein-rich burritos, but other than that, it's mostly been junk food.

Nevertheless, I lost a lot of weight in the beginning. From January to late February, my weight went down from ~206 to ~186. However, starting late February, I stopped losing weight for 2 weeks despite strictly limiting my calorie intake. I did some research and learned about "weight loss plateaus." One solution I read about was to increase calorie intake for a week and then go back to the original diet in order to allow your body to reset. I upped my calorie intake to ~1500-2000 calories a day for a week and my weight WENT DOWN from ~186 to ~185.

And then I continued my original diet of ~1250 calories a day and in a week, my weight went down from ~185 to ~182. However for the week after that, I continued the diet and my weight has only gone down from ~182 to ~181. And for the past three days, my weight has not really changed at all.

For ~1.5 weeks, I've only lost 1 pound.

Have I stopped losing weight despite the low amount of calories because of the terrible quality of the calories I am consuming?

Many of you guys have probably heard of the "Twinkie diet" where the guy ate mostly junk food but counted calories and still lost a lot of weight. Does that only work to a certain point? In order to continue to lose weight, should I change the quality of my calories? Did changing the quality of calories work for any of you guys?

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Would bike riding be a good way for me to lose weight? If so, what general info/tips do you have for beginning riding for obese people?

• SW: 310
• CW: 277
• GW: 137

Probably a really dumb question but I’m wondering if biking is good for weight loss, and if it is, if it’s good for someone who is morbidly obese.

Prior to now my weight loss has been successful at ~3lbs/week with NO exercise because I’m following my doctor’s strict diet of 1200 calories per day. However now that I’ve got a good chunk of weight off we want to start adding movement in.

Before I became morbidly obese I was VERY fit, I was a state champion gymnast as a kid and I did competitive cheerleading, dance, club volleyball and soccer, all the way through college. I let myself go after college when I worked retail and hated every second of my working life. I used fast food to cope.

When I first went back to the gym I went WAY too hard too fast and injured myself in multiple ways. I was NOT prepared to be in a gym in a morbidly obese body. My mind had went straight back to my fit younger days where I could do a lot more a lot quicker. So I learned my lesson in that I have limits due to my size and how out of shape I am.

What I’m currently doing for activity is an aqua fit class 1-3 times a week depending on my schedule. It’s really easy (too easy) and I want to add more.

My sister-in-law just gave me her old bike and my husband is fixing it up for me and I’m wondering if this could be a good option for me for an activity. Is this a good way to burn calories? What should I know before starting? Is there anything special I should know about biking due to me being obese? Basically I’m just looking for any info / tips on starting biking for obese people.

My doc recommended I start with the aqua fit and walking (oh yeah I also walk my dog). And then he kinda left it up to me after that. He just said I need to start a lot lower and slower and listen to my body.

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A message to the teenagers losing weight...

Hello fellow Redditors. I am a fifteen year old girl, 5’5 and two months ago I weighed 182 lbs . I was obese, unhealthy and began having back issues due to my bodying carrying so much weight. I decided to begin my journey to become healthier and more fit. I struggle with binge eating and anxiety as well. A message to teens who are looking to lose weight keep in mind it’s not a fast process especially if you are making a lifestyle change as well. You will make mistakes and will gain weight then lose it again. It’s a rough journey and you will experience so many emotions; motivation, disappointment, gratitude, regret. Be prepared to fail and start again. Be prepared to have people say mean horrible things. You got this. Look at your weight loss journey as a health goal rather than a way to look “hotter or prettier”. Adapting these lifestyle changes now will help you as an adult. Keep in mind you can still enjoy food and be healthy and fit. Never stop enjoying food. Allow yourself to enjoy the flavors and tastes without binging afterwards. Focus on food as something that helps your body to feel healthy and great rather than for pleasure. It’s your body, it deserves all the love you have, I’m not saying obsess over your health but treat your body well, you have to live in it for the rest of your life. Don’t ever punish yourself when you make mistakes, instead think of ways you can do better tomorrow. Most importantly stay strong. I know how hard it is to lose weight especially when adults, parents, siblings, friends and strangers can be cruel and comment on your weight in bad ways rather than motivating you. I know those hard nights crying because you hate the way you look and feel, but rest assured everyone can find the motivation to lose weight. Whether it takes weeks or a year, once you are persistent and never give up you will achieve your goals eventually. Stay strong everyone <3

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Family frustrations

I've been working on losing weight and getting fit for about a year now, I've taken some breaks here and there and it's been up and down but I've been very serious since January and I've been making some great progress. I (5'6"/168cm) started at 175lbs (last year) and I'm currently down to 147lbs :o I'm honestly not sure what my goal is anymore, weight-wise, but I'm currently very happily still on my program working on building up my muscles.

My problem has been my family, they aren't outwardly disapproving but seem to keep undermining how much progress I've made. My mother and father first made some comments that I was "skinny enough" and essentially told me to stop losing weight. This really bugged me, as I was definitely overweight and it's not a situation where I'm going too far. The most recent time I saw my dad he seemed to warm up to it, saying it was good I was looking after myself but again no congratulations on losing almost 30 pounds. They encouraged me when I was younger to lose weight so I figured they would be really happy for me but they're not. They want to keep focusing on that "I was never fat," which again I don't understand. I was overweight and now I'm not, there is no point protecting my feelings about someone that I no longer am and I feel it just reduces all my progress to nothing. Maybe it's the use of the word "fat" that is bugging them? But I don't see how calling my past self fat is even a problem or worth focusing on.

I want to celebrate myself and my transformation, it's what I've wanted for so long, but I feel so deflated now. Maybe it's my fault for trying to seek approval from others about my weight loss but I just want someone to say something along the lines of "wow you look great, amazing job." Maybe I just have to accept that it's not going to come and praise my work myself.

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Something I want to share with people that want to eat more and still lose weight.

Hello everyone, I'm new here and want to share some of my experiences of my weight loss journey from 230lb to 157lb.

If you are like me and want to eat a lot while still losing weight, it may be possible, but you will have to put in some serious work with intense workouts. I know many people say outrunning your fork is not great, but from my experience, it truly is and could be very rewarding. Of course, this is mainly for people that have the time and ability to do so!

​

So, starting out, my TDEE is around 2000 calories per day, and at one time, I used to eat 1800 calories for a few weeks with 40 mins of exercise a day and lost next to no weight every week. I thought I was exercising pretty hard, but apparently not. Fast forward to now, I still eat 1800 calories a day, and even with a massive cheat meal of 3000+ calories every Saturday, I still lose close to 2 pounds a week. I couldn't believe this at first until I realized that it's very consistent across 5 whole weeks and my body seemed to be losing a large amount of actual body fat that has been very stubborn. There was a period of time where I also ate 2400-2500 calories per day and this caused me to gain a pound every week.

​

So, with all of this information that includes that massive cheat meal days that leave me full the entire day, it's possible I may be burning over 1000 calories a day from pure exercise. I have made no other changes other than increasing the intensity of the exercise by a very large amount.

​

The exercise is very low-impact and I do it a minimum of twice a day. This allowed me to lose a little over a pound every week despite basically having a full cheat day. I then however increased it to three times a day with the 3rd being much shorter and somewhat less intense. This caused me to lose closer to 2 pounds a week. I even had days where I increased my calories to 2400-2600 and still lost close to 2 pounds by the end of the week.

​

I'm not very knowledgeable about exercise or anything. I just researched different exercises, performed them for a few days, and watched how my body reacted. It consists of modified Burpees that include 5 close-hand pushups, and 5-10 mountain climbers. After that 15 High Knees, 10 Jumping Jacks, and a modified version of shadow boxing that really works my upper and lower body by doing small hops very often, which keeps my heart rate sky high with a rest time of only 5-10 seconds after reaching failure.

​

I believe the key to burning a huge amount of calories is in keeping your heart rate VERY high for as long as possible. To achieve this for someone not very fit, you do lower intensity exercises that you can safely push yourself to do with ease. For me, this is the modified shadow boxing and Jumping Jacks. Both of these alone can keep my heart rate very high if I only allow a rest time of 5-10 seconds. I also lift very heavy weights(for me) 10 reps in between my workouts about 2-3 times, but I have doubts that this makes much of a difference, but I know it helps me keep the muscles I've built over the year. The workouts last 25-35 mins each. Once in the morning and once in the evening. My whole journey was done right in my own home.

​

I know this is really long and I'm sorry, I'm not the best with things like this. I just wanted people to know that it is possible to eat a lot more than you think you can and still lose a noticeable amount of weight each week.

I'm not sure if I have become a much fitter person and the average person cannot do this, but it's really easy for me to do and I tend to avoid overdoing hard exercises in favor of keeping my heart rate up with easier ones.

​

I was previously just some near obese gamer guy that ended up falling in love with exercising. This is the first time that exercise actually seems to be making a huge impact on my weight loss in the 2 years that I have been losing weight. Nowadays, I just eat to fuel my workouts, mostly because I'm scared that the workouts could make me burn too many calories and cause issues.

​

This probably didn't come out great, but I hope it may help someone that enjoys exercising!

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