Tips and accountability buddies

Hey guys,

Who would like to be accountability buddies by messaging / checking in every day - few days, to hold themselves accountable? I had my first successful day in a while yesterday of staying under 1500 calories by spacing out my meals, and allowing for a small treat at the end of the day. It felt great, and I don't want to slip off the bandwagon so it would be good to check in with other people :)

My current stats: Height 5'7 169, M, 23, SW 179 (81.7), CW (Just started my journey) 173 (79), GW1 154 (70), UGW 140 (64). 33lb (15kg) to go.

My plan: 1500 daily, 1200-1500 in November, 1200-1300 with safety net of 1500 Dec-Feb, 1500 March (Use MFP, still need to buy food scales)

Cardio at gym from November 6-7x a week

Intermittent fasting: 14:10 work up to 16:8, then ultimately 18:6 and 20:4

Anyone who is currently going through weight loss, what tips worked for you the most?

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Frustrated and not sure how to proceed. Keto or CICO?

40M; 5’ 7”; SW: 256lbs, CW: 233lbs, GW: 180lbs. I have struggled with my weight my whole life and it is a constant source of anxiety and disappointment. By the end of 2020, my pandemic eating habits caught up with me and I reached an all-time high of ~256lbs. In January 2021, I decided to deal with this problem seriously. Things went well at first. I started using Noom. I obsessively logged all my calories. I stuck to a CICO approach, sticking to foods with low caloric density (lots of chicken and veggie stir fries with rice) and maintaining a calorie deficit every day. I closed all the rings on my Apple Watch for months-long stretches. I regularly attended Orangetheory classes in my neighborhood and even won the weight-loss challenge there in the spring. While my weight loss trend slowed after that, by the end of June, I was down to 218lbs.

I attributed much of my progress to the lack of social interaction those days (because of pandemic fears and restrictions), which gave me more time to devote to diet and exercise, but also kept me away from temptation and the frequent food binges that come when I drink too much. As the warmer months arrived, that changed, and so my weight loss slowed. In the beginning of July, I went on a road trip with a friend for about two and a half weeks. During that time I pretty much let everything slide. I also got sick then (not COVID thankfully), which put me out of commission for the rest of July.

By August, I was back to 230lbs and felt absolutely terrible about it. I had lost control of my diet. My cardio fitness had almost completely reverted back to my 2020 levels and I could barely run a mile. Moreover, the Orangetheory classes had been taking a serious toll on my body (I had previously needed two bouts of physical therapy for exercise-related neck and shoulder issues) and I have been classes much less frequently. I’m planning to quit this month, as $200/month is a steep price for a gym that I barely attend. I quit Noom, as I found it largely unhelpful, apart from the calorie counting and weight tracking functions. My weight continued trending upwards and after a recent trip, I was back at 236lbs last week.

Long story short, I’m trying to recommit to my weight loss, but I’m not sure how to proceed. I don’t want to go back to my old plan, so I’ve started doing Keto again, because I know it works, at least in the short term. I’ve also been going for long walks in the neighborhood. No real exercise plan beyond that. However, with the holidays coming up, I don’t know if it’s sustainable, and I might just be setting myself up for failure. My weight has cycled up and down over the course of my life and my biggest fear is that my metabolism is now in permanent starvation mode, and just like the Biggest Loser contestants, my weight will rebound faster than I can lose it and I will never be able to reach and/or maintain my goal weight. Should I continue Keto or go back to my previous plan? I would definitely appreciate advice from people with similar histories.

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Down Six Pounds

I have been curvy for years. College packed on the pounds and then adulthood along with working began to add up. I entered college at a trim 126lbs and at my highest, hit the scales with a lumbering 169lbs.

A couple years ago I dropped 15lbs and was in the 150s. I felt much better, but was too lazy to forge ahead with more weight loss. Then, the pandemic came and bitch slapped my mental health into the gutter. Cue all that weight jumping back on.

To say I feel huge is an understatement. My “ah-ha” moment came last month after binging on Mexican food. I looked in my closet and realized I can’t fit into the beautiful suit I bought when I was in the 150s. My face was bloated and huge. I hated to look at my body.

So, I changed that shit up. I’ve been eating clean and walking for the past 3 weeks and can excitedly announce that I saw 161.8 lbs on the scale this morning. Down from 167.

I am already seeing changes. My stomach is less bloated, my pants fit better, and my face has slimmed a bit. I am headed to my goal: 145lbs. Feeling good.

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Crossed into normal BMI two months ago - when do I stop?

Quick backstory:

Started on March 10th at 32.7 BMI (type 1 obese). I picked my 'ideal weight' as a target weight and decided to make some changes. Originally shot for a 1000 calorie deficit, with 1 hour of cardio on an elliptical, upping the resistance a notch every month or so (I have a mechanical aortic valve so the cardio was for heart health but the weight loss was a big bonus).

Slowly evolved my diet over this time and I gradually made changes and kept stepping things up a notch every ten pounds lost so as not to lose momentum. Was averaging around 2.2 pounds per week lost which was pretty much on target with my calorie deficit.

May 6th I crossed from 'obese' to 'overweight'. Still maintained around 2.2 lbs week. Kept adding resistance to elliptical every month and kept honing my diet.

First true plateau happened at 25.1 BMI (just a shade above normal BMI). That, coupled with the fact that my wife told me some people thought I was sick (they hadn't seen me due to the pandemic so the weight loss was understandably jarring to a few people) let me to finally introduce weight training into the mix.

I work out 7-12 minutes every day. Two alternating routines per day, three sets of x. I rotate the below three regimes:

Day 1: CORE/CHEST Planking (3 sets of 60 seconds) and pushups (currently 3 sets of 28)

Day 2: BICEPS/BACK curls and reverse flys

Day 3: FOREARM/TRICEPS dumbbell wrist flexes and tricep kickbacks

I figure the elliptical machine with the increased resistance has my legs covered. So all told with the hour of cardio immediately followed by weights/protein shake and shower, it's 1.5 hours per day.

The weights did the trick. Normal BMI achieved on August 16th. At this point I was still a shade above 2 lbs per week lost.

HOWEVER, due to the weight training, the 1000 calorie deficit was now no longer possible. I was ravenously hungry ALL THE TIME. I now hover 100-500 below my TDEE. Not surprisingly, the much smaller deficit has impeded weight loss and since August 16th I've lost...five pounds. BUT, I've put on a lot of muscle and it shows, so I know this net number is misleading.

Today I'm 4.8 pounds away from the (arguably arbitrary) ideal weight I picked back in March. BMI is now 24.1 and I'm over five pounds down from the normal weight / overweight line.

Questions / concerns:

My concern is the muscle that I've put on might have moved the goalposts. I'm still (very, VERY slowly) losing weight and I suppose I could continue, and I do NOT want to hover just below overweight desperately clinging to normal weight territory but I'm wondering if a 23.3 BMI is achievable if you're putting on muscle mass (I'm 46, so no spring chicken).

Also, there's the psychological impact of 'stopping'. Relinquishing the 1000 cal deficit was tough enough, so truly eating maintenance scares me.

So, when and how do I stop? Are the rules different for losing weight when you're already normal weight? If anyone who has hit 'their number' has any anecdotes or advice, I'd love to hear it, an for anyone who revised their number, what was your reason?

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Videos that keep you motivated to lose weight?

I'm currently trying to reach my ideal weight, and find the hardest part is reminding myself every day to stay on track.

When it comes to hard work, the internet is filled with videos (like this one) to motivate you.

However, with weight loss it's different. Those videos inspire you to take action, but I need videos that inspire me to do nothing.

When it comes to weight loss, it's less about doing something ("get up and go work out!") and more about doing nothing ("don't eat that chocolate", "don't order pizza", "don't do it").

Do you watch anything that keeps you inspired every day to stay on track/ not deviate? Specifically, that keeps you focused on reaching your ideal weight.

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248.8lbs - 179lbs: A Guide On How I Did It

Like the title says says I have a lost a lot weight but also I've learned so much about how to do it the right way. I'm going to setting this post up as a guide for people who aren't sure how to start like how I was when I first started. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you need a question answered or advice.

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Before You Start

Going through weight loss journey is going to difficult for a multitude of reasons. I'd say that 90% of losing weight is mental. There are going to be times where you just wanna give up because the scale isn't moving the way you wanted to. Just remember weight loss takes time and trust the process. Also remember sometimes you are going to have bad days with eating and that's completely normal (I've had a lot of bad days lol). At the end of the day the only person you are competing against is yourself so don't beat yourself up if you had a bad day, just move on and keep going. One last I would say before you start is to take progress pictures. My biggest mistake wasn't taking any because I was embarrassed of myself at the time. I've heard from many people that progress pics are very motivating and I agree because you can compare to how much progressed throughout your journey.

Things/Tools To Use In Your Journey

The tools that I've used to help me lose weight were mostly free and really essential to my weightless. First I found how much of a calorie deficit needed to be eating. So what I did is go to: https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html and entered in all of my details and found what I should be intaking a day (Note: calculators aren't always accurate so I would find a range between numbers where you can lose weight and have a sustainable diet). Next to get is an app called MyFittnessPal. This app can do a multitude of tracking for dieting, but the only thing we need to worry about is calories. MFP imo is essential because you can scan bar codes of food, search for food, and just add calories if you want. This is such a great app due to the fact you can log all of the calories with ease. Last thing which is optional is a food scale and measuring cups. Both are really cheap and helpful to make sure you are counting calories in the correct way instead of under/over shooting your calorie intake. Again, they're really cheap and both in total are 15$ together on amazon.

Exercise

Honestly I'm not going in depth in this part of the post, but just understand exercise in general is good for health. There is no secret exercise that gets rid of fat on a certain body part (You could build muscle on that part instead which could be an option). For exercise just find some athletic activity you enjoy and participate in it. Whether its walking at the part, playing some pickup basketball, or even intense strength training just find some sort of exercise to do. One last thing is that exercise isn't essential to lose weight but I HIGHLY recommend doing it because its good for your mental and physical help.

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Enjoy Your Diet

You don't have to just eat salads, chicken and rice, and boring foods. You can find so many creative and healthy meal ideas on social media. Personally I found many recipe ideas from tiktok:thenutritionnarc which have benefitted me on my journey. Also you can literally google your favorite food and add "healthy" and you will find healthier versions of your favorite food. It's not bad to eat out either, just know what you're putting into your body. In those situations its alright to get what you want and just try again the next day. Having a "cheat meal" every once in a while doesn't hurt at all. Personally I chose to have one every week. Again, your diet should just be more than chicken and rice, try to spice it up with something good.

Don't Under Eat

This was one of the most critical mistakes while on my weight loss journey. There was a point during my diet where I basically was eating 800 calories a day which was terrible for my health. I was so malnourished that I passed out in the shower home alone (didn't know how long I was out). Thankfully I only got a concussion from fainting but its still a concussion. Like I said earlier in the guide remember that its going to take time and eating this little is either going to faint like me or lead to binge eating. Rome wasn't built in a day and you're body as well. Just remember your body still needs fuel to complete certain tasks throughout the day.

Conclusion

Again, if you need any advice please PM me because I'd love to help anyone because I was also confused in the beginning. I'm still on my journey as well which is almost over. I've learned so much and glad got the opportunity to change my life. Anyways, cheers to everyone whether they're losing weight or not. Good luck to you all.

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The mathematics of weight loss AKA, "Why have I stopped losing?"

Hello! I've been seeing a lot of posts lately tend to revolve around the "i've CICO'd for 2 weeks now and i've stopped losing weight, what's wrong?" and I thought I would share my own personal data. Here is my weight loss graph over the last ~4ish months. In that time period I have lost almost 35 pounds. You can see exactly where I decided to get my act together.

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https://imgur.com/a/MPEhsyy

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Note that the dark line represents the trend and the white line represents the day-day measurements. To achieve this, I reduced my carb intake, increased my protein and incorporated light exercise almost every day. This is what worked for me, your results may vary.

There is 3 important takeaways here.

• Some days you will lose weight and other days you will gain. If you are sticking to your diet, gains are almost always explainable by water weight. The important measure is the trend, don't let a temporary gain kill your ambition.
• The trend is not linear. As you lose weight, your rate of loss will decrease. Why? As you lose weight, it takes less energy to stay alive and your basal calorie expenditure will decrease. Initially my weight loss rate was about 10lbs/month. Now its about 5 and I am ok with that.
• Day-day weight fluctuates a lot and for many reasons other than fat gain! Some that I have noticed: Sore muscles tend to retain water. Higher salt intake will tend to retain water.
  

Long story short, don't pay a huge amount of attention to the day-day measurements. The trend is where the real data is. Just keep working at it, manage your intake and you will achieve your goal! Your health is important, you can do it!

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NOTE: This data came from my Fitbit Aria scale. Its wifi connected and it automatically keeps track of my progress. Ive used it for years and it seems to be pretty sturdy.

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