Micro-wins: my wedding ring is back on my ring finger!

It has been a year and a half since I took off my wedding rings due to my weight gain and excessive swelling of my extremities but I was finally able to put on one of my wedding rings onto my ring finger! Currently have lost 25lbs since December 29th.

The past few years have been a roller coaster of events; back to back pregnancies, postpartum depression, laid off, job search, new job, hated new job, found another new job, licensing for job, reorganization at the new job, massive layoffs(me not affected but feel the trickle down effects of it), and just trying to juggle being a good parent, better wife, all while trying to make more money to support my family become financially secure; I haven’t had time to focus on myself. Clothes don’t fit right so I don’t feel like myself. I was getting frustrated with myself for looking /feeling like an absolute slob all the time and being sluggish.

I have previously tried making a lifestyle change before and have been unsuccessful due to the lack of commitment. I have been making excuses on why I wouldn’t go to the gym like “I don’t have the right shoes”, “I don’t have earbuds to listen to music”, “there’s other people at the gym”, “I don’t have a good sports bra”, etc. I’ve been joking about getting a peloton and finally bought one at the end of November. With the holidays and vacation, I ended up riding maybe 3 or 4 times for December. I stepped on a scale while I was on vacation and was astounded that I was the heaviest I have ever been, 235lbs, but I really realized how bad it was when I saw Christmas pictures with my kids. I looked absolutely wrecked; tired, bloated, unhappy. I was tired of feeling like this.

I started working out once I returned from vacation in January. Started small with 15 - 20 minutes classes on the Peloton 3 days a week and started an intermittent fasting schedule. I measure out my cereals with a measuring cup instead of filling the bowl till it looks about right. I am mindful to pick healthier options but allow myself to enjoy meals with friends so it doesn’t feel like a strict meal plan. Have been eating a lot less processed foods and cut back on my sweets as well.

By the end of January, I had cycled a little over 150 miles for the month. For the month of February, I challenged myself to ride every single day and as of tonight, have ridden over 250 miles to date for this month! Weight loss has been a much slower this month than last month but I’m feeling stronger, healthier, and more motivated than ever.

I continuously have to remind myself, “this is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.”

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I realized because of wanting to lose weight, I developed unhealthy eating habits

Yeah, so this is not great news. I've been denying the truth for about a month now, but my friends and family have been calling me over the week because I talk to them a lot about my eating habits and weight loss stuff. They're telling me it sounds like I have an intermittent? binge eating problem and man. I just feel defeated. I wanted to get healthy, but seems like I'm doing this all wrong. Of course, I am not taking this as an official diagnosis, but I kind of see why they're concerned.

The usual pattern is me sticking to a rough calorie deficit 1300-1500 cal/day, light exercise from walking around at work, hitting a new low weight, then eating 3000 - 5000 cal/day for the 3-4 days afterwards, and then lowering calorie count again. I previously did OMAD (stopped recently) and I was afraid of eating dinners with my family and stuff.

Apparently my mood really depends day by day on how much I eat (like if I went over calorie count I will feel gross). Today I came home and just started shoving food into my mouth. I wasn't hungry. IDK.

I know the right move is to not fast for 36 hours or something. I need to get back to a state where I only eat when I am truly hungry, and to make sure I have a protein and a fat source in 1 morning drink/2 meals. I think some small steps I will take starting tomorrow are: portion control. Set a time limit for a meal and no grazing/snacking. and the 1 morning drink (coffee + protein shake) and two meals. I really want my relationship with food to improve

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I'm finally at peace with fluctuations of weight & the number on a scale during weight loss & fitness improvement

Bit of a rant, but I could also call this a success...

Until very recently (the last month or two) I'd weigh myself in a morning with a sense of excitement for what it was going to say. That excitement was short lived if the number I 'thought' I should see wasn't there. This then set me up for a mightily miserable day and lead to me paying less attention to food and exercise choices.

Through a combination of educating myself on how the process of weight loss occurs, improving the food I ate and recognising the fact that longer term trends mattered. I came to realise that these fluctuations were perfectly normal and that overall my weight trend was still on a steady decline, I rarely use the scales now and when I do it's an information gathering exercise and not a show trial for a mindset dooming me to fail.

It hit me like a tonne of bricks that the number on that scale paled in comparison to the improved stamina, skin complexion, looser clothing fit and gut health that I'd been gifted by dropping 20+ lb.

The number given to you by the scale is NOT a reflection of you, your progress or your journey. It's taken me almost 10 years of yo-yo dieting, self hate and frustration to make this discovery, but now that I have, there's no mountain I can't climb to reach my fitness and health goals.

I wish you every success in your fitness journey, you CAN do it!

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To dessert or not to dessert

So recently, now that I've got like 10 pounds remaining and I'm nearing maintainence, I really wanted to start looking at it from a long term perspective. I was initially religiously keto, but then realised that it created an unhealthy relationship with carbs for me, and that even a single tiny slip made me binge eat a shit ton of carbs, because "hey I might as well do it now because I won't be able to eat em later. "

Dont get me wrong, I absolutely loved how I felt on keto, but this binge-restrict thing was really making me feel mentally down. So I thought I'd let go off strict keto. If I want some fruit or a slice of bread, I will wholeheartedly get it, without the shame or stress.

Surprisingly enough, now that I've allowed myself to do this, I crave them less. In fact most of my meals are still keto. I'm not forcing it, I just prefer them, and I really enjoy them.

I know weight loss is about healthier options and getting those calories down, but I kinda was thinking to challenge myself with desserts, and see if I can change my behaviour around them. The only thing stopping me is the guilt and the fact that why would I go choose the actual desserts when there's so many low calorie options.

I don't know, should I incorporate, actual calorie-dense desserts in reasonable portions, just to improve my relationship with them, or is this a stupid idea and I should stick to the healthier versions?

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Why am I so hard on myself with weight loss?

SW: 201 CW: 183 GW: 160-170? (28 Male, 6’)

I weighed 201lbs until last November after struggling to move from that number for a long time. Since then I’ve been losing 1-2 pounds per week. The last 5 days my weight was 182.8, 182.4, 182.0, 181.2 and today 183.

By all means I should be proud of my progress but I can’t help but feel mad at myself for going up 1.8lbs.

And that could be anything. I ate healthy yesterday on my rest day. I went hard on Monday in the gym and snowboarding for the first time to exercise new muscles. I also increased the weights on almost every excersize I do at the gym in the last week. That weight difference could very well be a combo of more muscle and sleight water retention from not having my 3L of water and sweating yesterday.

I don’t get why I am so hard on myself on days like today. I am doing great but can’t help but focus on the negatives.

Also to anyone saying my CW should be my GW - I still have a small pot belly and arm fat that should be gone by the 160 mark.

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NSV: Finally figured out how to keep hunger cravings down!

There's been so many different pieces of advice for weight loss/muscle building around here, and so many of them have been helpful. But the one thing I couldn't figure out was how to keep myself from eating a bunch around noon/lunchtime. Usually the advice was centred around not binging around nighttime/late evening, which wasn't necessarily what I was looking for. I'm not a binge eater, and I don't really have a problem regulating at night.

It was just frustrating eating a bunch right around noon and then having to budget/plan for nighttime accounting for that. I tried several things, from fasting (isn't my thing, usually exacerbates my sense of cold, plus isn't super beneficial for me) to brushing my teeth (very odd thing to do around noon, I can't lie), and more. I never felt like throwing in the towel, but damn was it annoying.

But finally, I accidentally figured it out. A family member's birthday was a few days ago, so we had dinner and some dessert pretty late in the night. I usually didn't eat meals after 6pm, so it was unusual for me. I went to bed a few hours later, still full.

When I woke up, I ate breakfast like normal, but the feeling of fullness/not hunger carried over from last night, meaning when lunch came around, I wasn't really that hungry. At a small snack and carried on. I ate dinner like normal, had some snacks here and there like usual, and I was well under my calorie goal at the end of the day!

I tried it again the next day, eating a bowl of oatmeal before bed, and it happened again! Tried again the day after that. Same story. God, it's so nice just being able to have more flexibility in what I'm eating when I'm not eating whatever's in the fridge for lunch. It's given me more ideas on maintenance in the future, given my goal to lose is very little, without stressing about fitting in dinner or snacks.

Not a scale victory, but still a great feeling!

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How to find consistency

I find in several facets of my life that some days I’m super motivated to reach my long term goals, and other days I would rather do what I want in the moment rather than remaining focused on what that action does to me long term.

Weight loss is one of the bigger examples of this in my life. I wonder if people have any tips on how to create an environment where you’re consistently motivated to reach your goals, whether that be weight loss or other things. Or perhaps, how to find discipline during the days where you just don’t have the wind in your sails.

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