This is honestly mainly for those who are trying to get their own weight loss journey started or having a bit of a bumpy road at the moment. I won't get into details about my personal life and woes and such, but in general I was hovering around 270 pounds at the start of the year and it wasn't until mid-may that i got my butt in gear to lose weight, and since then I've gotten down to less than 200.
The overall process can be summed up in one word: DOCUMENTATION. It wasn't even about eating healthier (though that helps immensely) but rather making sure I wasn't going over the calorie count I established. With a program I enrolled in, I settled on 1550 calories a day, no more no less, and I needed to make sure I ended every day with 0 calories remaining. As long as I stuck with that, I was on the track to losing weight even with a very sedentary lifestyle. Working out helped a bit but I could only ever find the time to do walks around the office during some down time, usually 2000 steps a day for 5 days, and as of late I've been amping it up to 3500. As for what I ate? It was pretty much whatever as long as I spread it out enough to where I wasn't starving throughout the day. If I noticed I wasn't losing weight that week I looked back at what I was eating and I usually found that having a lot of sodium, like 3000+mg, is usually what did it in after several days, and after I stopped eating that much salt-filled food, I lost the weight I was expecting. I set milestone rewards to help keep myself motivated, every 20 pounds lost I treated myself to a cheat day where I said 'screw it' to the documentation but still made sure to at least not go SUPER overboard, i.e. I'd buy a pizza and get a soda bottle and that would be my lunch and dinner, even if I went like 2000+ calories but I wouldn't have like a pizza, bag of chips, ice cream, a soda, and so on as part of a single meal. After some time the idea of losing all that weight and being closer to 200 helped keep me excited and motivated so I ended up not having a cheat day after getting to 220 (I also made sure I kept that weight off for a week before treating myself as an extra layer of insurance).
As far as documenting stuff goes, I used a calorie tracking app as they were generally a lot more accurate due to the labels being outdated or such, and lately I've started using a digital food scale for everything as it seems like measuring cups and spoons aren't super accurate either. I also made sure to weigh myself in the same conditions each time: naked, after having used the restroom and did my best to completely empty myself (this is important), and making sure I hadn't eaten anything yet (this can be killer for some because depending on your bowel movements you may not be able to use the restroom for some time so I'm only speaking on my behalf of what I was able to do). All in all, making sure that everything I ate and keeping myself to my calorie limit pretty much did 90% of the work.
As for suggestions I have for anyone who's in the process and struggling? Stop beating yourself up, and think of the whole process like a science experiment. If you're sticking to a diet plan and it isn't working, then clearly something hasn't been accounted for, so look back and try something else. If you aren't sticking to it, well find out what specifically happened and do your best to not repeat those mistakes. Beyond that, any problems you have with will power is something I can't help with and you might want to talk with a professional about. I can't guarantee that you'll have the same kind of progress I've made but try thinking about the issue in a different way and that should help with the process.
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/3AX7Y2h
