[Century Club] April 15, 2021 - Have you lost or need to lose 100 lbs or more? Here’s a thread just for you!

I have often welcomed those who have lost 100+ lbs (~ 50 kg , ~7 stone) to “the club” and joked that club meetings were on Thursdays. I recently suggested that we try out having a regular weekly thread to talk about issues that are particular to those who have lost 100+ lbs, those who are well on their way and those who are just at the beginning of a journey this big.

Welcome back to the Century Club! Each week I will provide a topic of the day that has been on my mind or inspired by previous posts. However you are free to talk about any topics you think might be relevant to current and prospective club members.

Previous Topics: Multiple Centuries - April Fools! - What didn't work? - Milestones - Seasonal changes - Is it worth it? - Surprising Food Facts - Mistakes were made - Time to Vent - Relief Valves - Seeing Objectively - Tips you hate - Fear and Self-Loathing - Starting - 2020 recap

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Today's topic: Loose Skin Redux

Thanks to all the Super-Centurions that participated in last week's thread. My hat is off to all of you that have not only lost 100 lbs, but so many quite a bit more than that! It's amazing and inspiring.

Even though it hasn't been quite a year since we last covered this topic, we have a bunch of new members and regular participants and it seems to come up frequently as a reason not to even start a large weight loss journey.

Each of us has carried the weight of an additional adult human being under our skin. A smaller woman in my case, but an adult male for many of you that have lost even more than the 115-120 lbs I have lost.

I lost my weight slowly, 1.2 lbs/week on average maximum for any three month period, but that's the only thing I did to try and prevent loose skin. Give it time to keep up with my changing body.

A year later and I find that my loose skin has continued to change and evolve. It still doesn't bother me on a daily basis. It's there, but generally invisible, under my boxer briefs. I really have to look at myself naked to see the full extent of it. A year ago I had more obvious loose skin on my inner thighs, and my butt kind of looked like a Shar-Pei. Those areas have continued to improve. I barely notice them even if I do wide squats naked, and some of that is that I have continued to run and do lower body exercise for the past year and have probably added some muscle to my thighs and glutes.

If anything, I feel that my loose skin on the lower part of my belly appears looser than a year ago. I can pinch the skin there and pull it about an inch away from my body. My waist circumference hasn't changed much if at all, but my midsection doesn't look quite as slim as it did last April/May. Despite my adding core work to the mix throughout the winter. I still see vague outlines of some of my abdominal muscles when my weight is under 160, but if I plank naked the skin seems to hang a bit lower.

The loose skin on my neck seems better than it did a year ago, or maybe I'm just used to it now. Dropping ~ 3 inches in neck circumference from 18+ to 15 is a pretty big change, but it doesn't quite look like a turkey neck on Zoom calls anymore.

I'm still not planning to have any of it surgically removed. I spend most of my life clothed, and since most of it is contained under my boxer briefs, it's rarely visible to anyone but me.

How about you Centurion? Do you have lots of loose skin after weight loss? What did you do to prevent loose skin during weight loss? How did you deal with getting over the mental block of worrying about loose skin being a problem for you? Have you done anything after weight loss to reduce the loose skin or at least reduce it's appearance? Have you had any skin surgically removed or are you planning to do so later?

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NSV: I have back dimples!

F - 5’3” - SW 242 CW 200 GW 140 I hit my highest ever weight in August, had a job that I hated and was just generally miserable. After a lot of consideration I left that job in January and decided it was time to try to take control back over my life. I set out to make sustainable life changes and things have been going well so far!

I am thrilled that the numbers have continued to go down, but the most fun thing so far happened a few weeks ago when I happened to catch a glance at my lower back in the mirror and saw shallow dimples appearing there! I’ve been heavy for almost my entire life and I didn’t even know I had them since they were lost in the extra pounds. Every once in while I’ll check in to see how much more defined they are as I continue to lose weight. It’s like a funny little treat from my body as a “thank you” for finally getting my act together. 😆

I still have a ways to go, but I feel like I can do it. My advice to those starting out we be to know that starting can 100% suck - the first month or so was a challenge for sure. But eventually you’ll notice subtle changes. “Oh, my legs feel stronger from walking.” “Huh, I feel full sooner than I did a few months ago. I also don’t crave sweets constantly.” Use those changes as motivation to make more changes! It’s all so gradual that sometimes you have to step back to see them.

I also started doing a daily mindfulness session when I began this process. It honestly has been a huge help to keep things in perspective. Observing how my mind works also helped me find my personal line between what motivates me and what is a step too far. In previous weight loss efforts I would weigh myself everyday, sometimes twice a day. I felt like I needed that to know what I was doing right or wrong and keep my spreadsheet-centric brain engaged with the process, but I realized that what I was actually doing was burning myself out. On the days when the scale didn’t budge or went up a little, though logically I knew that was totally normal, it would throw me into a tailspin for the rest of the day. Now my lovely and understanding husband and I have a deal where he will literally hide the scale from me so I can only weigh in once a week. I know I wouldn’t be able to help myself otherwise. It keeps me motivated without throwing me off.

Thank you to this community. Y’all inspire me everyday and I am excited to keep going. :)

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Can’t lose enough weight without working out :(

Me and a friend of mine decided to start our weight loss journeys this year together, downloaded MFP, and started working out. We have been doing this for almost 2 months. I’ve lost a little over 7 lbs. My weight loss significantly slows when I don’t work out, even if I am still only eating 1000-1200 calories. Like i’m talking I’ll lose .2 lbs in a week instead of 1.5-2. What makes it so maddening is the friend I am doing this with hasnt worked out ONCE and has lost a pound more than me.

Well I say no more! One of my biggest setbacks was not having what I really needed to workout at home every day. I had enough for strength workouts, but not cardio, and I love cardio. So I splurged and bought a stationary bike that came in yesterday. Yall I’m so excited for this, this is exactly what I needed to keep myself in check. A workout that I love to do. I know my journey started 2 months ago, but it feels like it’s starting again, even better.

Just needed someone to talk at about this but also feel free to comment with any tips/personal experiences/anything :)))

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My life changing experience with boredom eating, procrastination eating, poor impulse control, yo-yo-ing

Hey all

Long time lurker. Long time everything really, trying so hard to take care of myself so I’m healthy for a long time to come.

It hasn’t been easy, and while I’ve made some major achievements, one thing that has always tormented me was HOW HARD it was to just: eat when I was hungry, not wolf down donuts I passed by a shop window, to stick to anything (healthy balanced and flexible diet, long term exercise, etc). Despite significant progress in other areas of my life (overcoming trauma, building self-esteem, dealing with anxiety) and knowing what I need to do but bing unable to do it, I knew my impulse control and ability to stick to a plan were my barriers to eating healthy and exercising regularly.

So, life changing experience. I was diagnosed with ADHD at 36 and medicated, after a life of being prescribed anti-depressants that never felt like a right fit. The profound impact medication has had on impulsivity, consistency, self-awareness (amongst a whole other list of unexpected things) was one of the defining moments of my life for so many reasons not related to weight management. The meds do curb appetite initially, but that went away for me and life became simply thinking about food when I was hungry, and finding consistency astronomically easier - which my psych explained is because I’m not not searching for a constant dopamine fix.

With such a huge shift, I started to research the link. I learned just HOW strong the correlation is between ADHD and obesity, - “decades of research show a strong correlation between ADHD and obesity — so strong, in fact, that someone with ADHD is four times more likely to become obese than is someone without ADHD. Brain chemistry, poor impulse control, and erratic sleeping habits all conspire to encourage unhealthy eating — and to make weight loss feel impossible (https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-and-obesity-hard-wired-for-weight-gain/)

It blew my mind that despite a lifelong search for why it just seemed so hard for me, that I never heard this. Now I’m not saving you have ADHD if you struggle, but I’m here sharing my story because more people need to be aware of this if they are genuinely trying their best and it all feels utterly impossible to do the things you want to do in other areas of life too (like work, or drug use, or relationships, the list goes in).

If this resonates, get evaluated: and women, we are so much more likely to not be diagnosed because we mask things well, so especially you.

If this helps one person I’ll be delighted. Thanks for listening.

TLDR: Realised undiagnosed ADHD was the reason I could never consistently kick goals, life is forever changed.

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Not obese anymore - one year later

I started my weight loss journey at the end of March 2020 when the pandemic began. It started because I was walking my sister's dog a lot. He's very energetic and was driving people in our house crazy - he needed to be walked multiple times a day. I was shocked to see weight flying off me!

A year later, I am so, so close to -60lbs (off by 1.2lbs, so I know it's coming within a week). At the very beginning I weighed 240lbs and for my height was hitting the bottom of the morbid obesity range on the BMI. I recognize there are issues with the BMI, but I do use it to measure progress.

As of my current weigh-in, I am not only far away from the morbid obesity range, but I am also OUT of the obesity range. It's taken a bit to sink in for me, because accepting that I was classified as obese took me almost a full year to accept before I started losing weight. So to truly no longer be is really overwhelming - in a wonderful way.

I have been, and continue to lose weight in stages. This is how it worked for me:

• Long walks, removed liquid calories - first 2 months
• Stopped eating breakfast, started couch to 5k (it took me about eight weeks to get out of the first week of intervals) - second 2 months
• OMAD every other day - 3 weeks
• Unstoppable binge stopped OMAD - 2 weeks
• 2 month plateau
• Calorie counting and weighing food - 2 months
• 3 month plateau (mangled my foot and had to stop running and walking)
• Mix of OMAD and TMAD (past month)

While the plateaus annoyed me, I took solace in the fact that my weight did not increase. I am now able to run 5ks, have run a 10k and am working on building up to a half marathon!

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Dieting while on the Spectrum?

I'm currently in the process of being diagnosed with autism, one of the red flags for it being my hyperfixations/all-or-nothing attitude.

I've managed to lose almost 30lbs last year, and have been roughly maintaining/trying not to go up too much since december. Most of the weight loss came from the fact it was all I could focus on, I religiously counted my calories for everything, only ever thought about my next meal, went on long walks etc etc. It got to the point where if I wanted alcohol I'd eat ~800 calories in food and drink the rest in vodka/diet lemonade in the evening (theres ~6 shots in 400 calories, so enough to get a short woman tipsy), and I'd get stressed if I ate something I didn't cook or couldn't find numbers for. I cried over a Chinese takeaway once.

But I've moved on since then. Weight loss no longer consumes my thoughts and it's difficult inputting things as I eat them, let alone using energy denying snacks or picking healthy options all the time. Takeaways, supermarket pastries and snack binges have become more than a 'once in a while' thing and I can't break out of it. How can I get back on track without becoming obsessive over my food again?

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No weight loss in almost 3 weeks, feeling like crap

Hi guys, just after weighing myself again this morning and honestly I'm so upset rn. For reference I am 5'5 (165cm) and currently weigh 10st 11lbs (151lbs). 27 year old female.

I started trying to lose weight again about a month ago, I've lost weight in the past, most recently before Christmas where I lost half a stone in a matter of weeks. At the time I was going to a gym to do weight training. Since Christmas I gained it all back and then some, to the point that I weighed the heaviest in my life (11st 1lb/155lbs).

So I figured out my tdee and started off on 1700 calories and lost 4lb the first week, I wasn't really doing workouts that week but still lost 4lb. Since then (27th March) I have stayed the same weight. I do home bodyweight workouts at least 3 times a week (gyms are closed rn) now and started back into c25k this week, have been getting plenty water and since Monday have dropped to 1500 calories per day. I'm getting more fruit and veg into my diet and apart from a few days at Easter where I couldn't weigh myself anyway, I have been at a deficit this whole time. Also getting 10k steps a day.

Still nothing.

I don't know how much more I can do? Going from weight training to bodyweight training makes me feel like my workouts aren't as intense rn which is why I added c25k but even at that I don't understand how things could have stalled so bad after a great start. I know people will say maybe I've lost some centimetres but honestly I care more about scale weight having managed it before so those types of comments won't be helpful.

Just wondering if anyone has advice or experienced the same?

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