How to lose weight while unwell?

I have had long covid for over a year now. Long covid has been a big reason that I am currently overweight. I am single, live in a different country from the rest of my family and work full time. Once you add debilitating fatigue to the mix you can understand how I ended up living on takeaways for months on end. Also the tiredness from fatigue makes me overeat to compensate for my lack of energy.

The past six months I have felt a bit better. As in I no longer need to sleep 14 hours a day and I can actually do more physical exercise than a slow walk. However my reserves of energy are very small and I need to pace myself or else I risk regressing again. This means I can only do small amounts of low intensity exercise and suitably spaced out.

I know that weight loss is mainly due to calorie intake and I should count the calories in my meals and weight my food. I have successfully lost weight like that in the past. However getting through my days: working full time, forcing myself outdoors some days to see sunlight, going swimming whenever I can manage, doing housework, seeing friends to combat the isolation, contributing whatever little I can to community causes I care about is an uphill battle. I am finding it impossible not to fall back to takeaways at least twice a week. The other day was a working from the office day. After lunch I was so exhausted and not able to lie down a bit, that I ended up buying a pack of 5 custard filled donuts from the supermarket and eating them all in an effort to give myself the energy to make it to the end of the day.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just wanted to vent. And ask whether there are ways to lose weight while dealing with chronic fatigue and no family network to help you.

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No Seriously, Weigh All Your Food

I'm currently experiencing the weight loss stall that many of us know all too well. While reading a different post on LoseIt to see if I'm doing something wrong or if I need to be patient, I came across this very important lesson:

This comparison picture was made by u/brbgottagofast.

Weigh all of your food. Your measuring cups are adding calories. The serving size in grams is correct but how many pieces/slices that equates to on the package is probably not. Even the slices of ham that say two slices equals 39 calories each. Or 8 M&Ms equals X amount of calories. If you don't think companies are happily abusing their margin of error so they don't look as bad you're mistaken.

I was completely unaware of this and I had only been measuring anything that I would guesstimate before owning a food scale. Now I know it's not just the milk and the cereal that I need to be wary of.

Maybe a lot of you know this, but this was eye opening to me and I'm really happy brbgottagofast went out of their way to make the comparison images. Now I'm more confident I'll see significant weight loss next month!

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I need to vent to people that understand

I'm so over unsolicited advice and judgment from people regarding my health journey. Especially people that have been unsuccessful at weight loss.

I want to scream at them that if they knows so dang much about living a healthy life then why are they eating junk food and severely overweight.

But I know it's more complicated than that so I'm polite and change the topic. But damn it's hard some days.

End. Rant.

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Regretting my weight loss. I feel like a monster.

I've been crying for what feels like ages, staring at my naked self in the mirror. I have worked so freaking hard, and for what? For my body to look like a melted mess of skin, fat and stretch marks? For my stomach to sag with loose skin and left-over fat like a disgusting apron? For my boobs, which I used carry with pride, to deflate into flabby, empty, sad sacks of skin that I need to fold and roll into my bra? For my thighs and arms to turn into jiggly dough I can stretch with both hands? If I had known from the start this was to be my new body, I honestly would have rather stayed obese. This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I worked for. I feel betrayed.

Hi. If you've read this far into my little breakdown vent, let me tell you some background info about myself and my journey. I'm a 25-year-old, 163 cm (~5'3) woman, who at her heaviest weighed 102 kgs (224 lbs), which means back in the day I was very obese according to BMI. I started my weight loss journey in 2019, and as of today I have lost 37 kgs (81 lbs) in total. The first ~20 kgs (~44 lbs) I lost during my first year or so. After that I maintained, then gained some and lost some for over a year because of personal life changes, eating disorder recovery attempts, covid and on-and-off gym habits. During the summer of 2021 I picked up calorie counting again and have since then lost another 10 kgs (22 lbs). I now weigh 65 kgs (143 lbs) and for the first time since childhood, I am now sitting inside the normal BMI weight range (albeit, still on the high end of the range).

This journey hasn't been easy on my mental health and throughout it I have struggled a lot with my body image. (And developing EDNOS mid-way hasn't helped at all, but that's a story for another time. Let's just say calorie counting can do funny things to your brain...) But now my self-image has gotten so bad it's seriously affecting my every-day life. For example, I dread showering since it means I have to strip naked and see and feel my body.

I feel so tired. How am I supposed to feel at home in a body I despise this much? At this point I have zero self-esteem left. I can't even be intimate with my boyfriend anymore because I feel so insecure about my loose skin, boobs (or more like the lack of them) and my body in general. I feel like a monster. I honestly don't even want to go outside anymore. I dress in the same baggy clothes every single day in attempts to hiding my body from the world and myself.

I just... really thought losing weight would help me feel better about myself? Make me feel more confident and healthy and more... Content? It feels like it did the exact opposite, I hate my body now more than ever. A 25-year-old body isn't supposed look like this. I feel like a deformed monster.

The things is, I feel like I have done everything by the book; taking good care of my skin, drinking 3 liters of water a day, trying to eat a lot of protein, nutrient dense foods and healthy fats, taking vitamins and collagen, exercising and trying to build muscle, maintaining my weight for a while, losing weight slowly... What else is there to do? It's been three years since I started after all! I suppose I just got really unlucky with my genetics, and I just have to accept that this will be my body for the rest of my life? Of course, the last, and probably the only option, would be to get surgery. The problem is I wouldn't even be able to afford it for another 10+ years. So surgery isn't really an option, at least not in near future.

I feel trapped, depressed and defeated. I'm stuck in a constant state of being scared of gaining the weight back, but also being scared of continuing to lose weight (which would mean even more loose skin), and all at the same time feeling extremely unhappy and anxious in my current body. Every day feels like a struggle. I just don't know what to do. This isn't living anymore.

I'm sorry for the lengthy vent. All of this is probably way above Reddit's pay grade, but I just needed a place to get this out. Maybe someone out there can relate.

(PS. I do go to therapy, have been going for years, but unfortunately it hasn't really helped me with my body image issues.)

((PPS. First time posting, and I'm on mobile. I hope the formatting is alright and not super wonky))

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Down 20lbs in around 6 weeks

M 20 6’2 sw:~255 cw:236 gw:215

Almost 2 weeks ago, I posted here and was super discouraged because I couldn’t visually notice any change in my weight loss. Since then I’ve lost 10 more pounds and I’m feeling very good about myself. My face is thinner, my pants are starting to fit again Etc. I thought it was a fluke when I weighed myself after a few days and saw I was below 240 for the first time in months. Another few days go by and I’m sitting at 236 now. I’ve weighed myself at different times throughout the day since then to see if it was really a fluke and it is staying at that weight. I know 10lbs is a lot to lose in 2 weeks but I haven’t changed my eating at all and I’m still consuming about 1700 calories a day (I’ve been doing a lot more cardio though). I feel like 1700 calories is perfect for me and I STILL have a lot of energy after 6 weeks. Should I change anything?

Tldr: feeling awesome. Lost 10 lbs in 4 weeks and then another 10lbs in 2 weeks. Bad or good?

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Home workouts, junk food, and making weight loss work for me in a global pandemic. (Kind if long, sorry!)

I lost 50 pounds in 2019 using meal prepping, calorie counting, and working out at the gym and pandemic really screwed up my routine. Over the last 2 years I’ve been hitting highs and lows in trying to get back on track and failing. I had myself convinced I just had to do exactly what I was doing before to succeed but unfortunately, that’s just not possible and I ultimately needed to find a new way to succeed that worked with the current state of this pandemic.

So first and foremost- the gym. I’m still not comfortable going. I wouldn’t want to wear a mask while working out, and neither does anyone else. With the new variant right now I’m just not comfortable with that. I’ve tried a lot of home workouts (I have an exercise bike that I don’t like, tried a few workout videos, tried making HIIT routines) but nothing has really stuck for me until I found growwithjo on youtube. The thing I love most about her videos is she doesn’t talk. I find it annoying and distracting in workout videos when a stranger is saying things like “yeah you got this!” “Pump through it!” “10 more seconds, you’re doing great!” “Feel that sweat, breathe through it!” I’m just trying to workout and I just want to focus and listen to some tunes. She does this, she has intro but once the workout starts she literally does not talk, it’s just good music. Her routines are also really varied. I typically do her ab routines, but she has “dance workouts” that are still good workouts but feel more fun when I don’t really feel like doing it. I burn pretty close to the same amount of calories regardless of the kind of video I use. I definitely recommend her videos if you’re looking for a good home workout routine!

Next- I have redefined my relationship with junk food. In 2019 I pretty much eliminated junk food and sweets entirely. Occasionally, I’d grab a bag of chips or something from the gas station and it was a “cheat day,” I was vehemently against having ANY unhealthy food in my house period. Currently, I have bbq chips and a dark chocolate bar in my pantry. I lived under the impression that if they were around I couldn’t resist them but that actually hasn’t been the case. For the most part, I haven’t craved them. When I do crave them, I portion out a single serving of chips or a single square of chocolate (sometimes both together as an indulgent snack!) and even with both together it’s still only a 207 cal snack. This makes it pretty easy to work in when the craving hits, and since I do still keep healthy lower cal snacks around the house if my junk food snack leaves me hungry I’ll just have a healthy snack after to round off the hunger. Something else major I’ve noticed in doing this- last night I did I have chips and chocolate and I WAS still hungry after BUT I wasn’t craving anymore of it, I actually wanted some veggies and homemade ranch so I had around 100 cals of that and felt fully satisfied. I’ve realized this time around that it’s ok to eat bad things sometimes. That’s it’s easier and more sustainable for me to just make the food I want work in smaller portions rather than try and keep up a really strict “diet” and then ending up have a really high cal portion of those unhealthy things when I get to a point that I just can’t resist like before. It feels significantly less restrictive for me to just have a small amount when I want it, and it helps me overall stay on track. Junk food is no longer some forbidden villain that I can’t eat unless I’m “cheating,” it’s just something I don’t have often but can make work when I want to.

I dunno if this will help anyone, but these two things have absolutely been the tipping point of success for me so I wanted to share! For the first time in 2 years, I’ve stuck with losing weight again longer than I ever have, I feel good about it, I find it sustainable, and I don’t wake up feeling like it will be a challenge to meet my calorie goal or get a workout in. I genuinely feel good and like I’m on track.

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If I go from being sedentary to doing personal training 3 hours per week, will my body change without diet changes?

Basically the question. I suffered a severe injury last year and have been pretty inactive for a year. Doing personal training 3xs/week, 1 hour each time, and realize how weak I am. Wondering if or how much my body will change (weight loss or body recomp) without changing my diet, and what the timeline might be? I plan to improve my diet later but have a lot on my plate now and trying to get 1 routine established at a time, not change a bunch of stuff at once. I do go on a leisurely daily walk with my small dog but I wouldn’t call that exercise lol

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