Did anyone else experience this when beginning to lose weight?

I hope I can post this here and not be met with judgment because I really just am looking to see if anyone out there has experienced anything similar.

For context, I would be considered morbidly obese. I recently decided that it is time for me to change my life. I'm 30. It's been hard so far but I've been doing my best.

For the last 5-6 years or so I have been completely inactive and unhealthy. The extent of my exercise would be walking 2-3 minutes at a time, and nothing more. The first part of my journey has mainly revolved around changing my diet and getting that in order, but recently I decided I want to start exercising too. For me, right now, that just means going for walks. Eventually I'll take it further of course but this is what I feel I can do right now.

Here's where my issue comes in: when I walk, even for a few minutes, my calves start burning. This has been the case for a few years but I always chalked it up to being really fat and really out of shape. However, the other day I decided to google it just to see, and everywhere you look it basically says I have peripheral artery disease (PAD). Apparently this is characterized by burning calves when walking. The hallmark symptom. I guess I have it in my head now that this is what I have and it is destroying me. This could be the case and I have already made an appointment with my GP but it isn't for a few weeks and I don't know how to cope until then.

Has anyone else experienced pretty intense calf burning and fatigue when starting their weight loss journey/exercising? It would just be nice to know that this can just be a normal thing I'm experiencing and that it doesn't mean I have another thing destroying me.

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Dang, the body dysmorphia is real

I always see posts about body dysmorphia across the weight loss subreddits, but it’s one of those things you don’t understand until you experience it. Man were y’all right. It sucks.

I wouldn’t say I was more confident before losing 14 pounds (so far), but I was more consistent with my self-image. A lot of the time it was neutral. I knew I could change the way I looked but just didn’t. But now that I’m trying to better my looks, my self-image has been very volatile. Some days I feel great, but a lot of days I feel down.

Don’t get me wrong, I would never undo this progress to feel better. I feel so much healthier, and now I’m able to go about life without the background noise in my head telling me “you’re fat” (despite the fact that I’m ~20 lbs away from my GW). But ya know. My mind likes games.

I hope it doesn’t get much worse than this. Maybe my confidence will stabilize when I’m done.

I’m still proud of myself though.

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How do you deal with or respond to the uncomfortable, “you’re getting to skinny” comments?

I’m a 5’4 F and went from weighing ~150+ lbs a few years ago then started my weight loss journey getting around to 125 lb. Back then I would get comments from other women suggesting I’m “too skinny” and “look anorexic” … These were from people I hardly knew. A family member also started making fun of my thighs saying it looks like there’s a tumour in my thigh and my body is like a tree. After that I lost weight loss momentum and stopped losing weight and stayed around ~130 lb for quite awhile.

I have a strange body shape therefore weight doesn’t look good on me in the 130 lb zone. I do not hold the weight well and it’s always been tough.

Recently I’ve lost another 10 lb after over a year of maintaining ~130 lb and now I’m at 120 lb. This is the lowest I’ve been. I’ve been doing ab workouts, consistent walking since I enjoy walking! And sometimes 35 minutes per day on a stationary bike and I feel much better!

Now it’s constantly back to the strange comments again, my mother for e.g is showing her friends photos of me, and them lecturing me that I “look too gaunt” …. I have naturally very high prominent cheekbones so… Those comments don’t make sense to me. My mom is also now starting to buy unhealthy foods like she always does (pastries, baked goods) or cook heavier meals suddenly now since the weight loss.

My sister also started getting weird and grabbing my butt saying I’m not gonna have a butt, etc that my body is weird…

Then there’s other people saying I look really good, my best friend … My brother’s fiancé immediately noticing, etc.

I’m really starting to lose momentum again and don’t know what to think. My best friend said it’s probably because people aren’t use to me being that in shape now and they don’t like that. I need some advice! How do you guys do it, how do you avoid commentary like this or people nosing into your progress? Did you listen or did you not?

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Anyone feel like the more you loose weight the bigger your head looks?

25M 250lbs->200lbs

Ok this may sound ridiculous, but I believe the more I loose weight, the bigger my head looks. Not only that, but before my head used to look more square, and now it looks more triangular with, unfortunately, my jaw being the thinner part. Maybe just the top part of my head is super wide and now after i’ve lost some weight it starts to look disproportional?

I know the skeletal structure cannot change with weight loss, but I’m almost certain my head did not look like this before gaining weight. Honestly I hate it and am starting to doubt losing the remainder of the weight. My goal is to get back to around 180-185lbs

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I Am A Spherical Cow (A Numbers-Oriented Dieter's Attempt to Visualize the Paper Towel Effect)

(Chart first because I don't know how image previews work)

Today, I hit 15 pounds down! Definitely an exciting day, and definitely a lot more to go on my journey to lose 80 pounds total. I'm a short guy (5'5, 210 pounds), so a lot of the progress pictures I see feel like they may not represent me very closely. Luckily, I do have pictures from successful weight loss from a decade ago for reference.This time around, motivation is a major concern of mine. This is the heaviest I've ever been, and correcting it will take a long time. Visualizations are really important to me to make my progress feel tangible, and I've found a few ways to visualize my progress and the road ahead. As of today, based on my old pictures, I have about 30 more pounds to lose before I feel like the changes are visual, so I wanted to do my best to chart the Paper Towel Effect.

The lesson to be learned is that fat, like paper towels, comes off in sheets. When you are heavy, you are big around. And when you are big around, that fat is spread over a MUCH larger area - just like that outside towel sheet. The closer you get to the lean you, the more each lost pound of fat shows, because it is spread over a smaller area.

While the outside sheet may only cover 1 layer of the roll, the inside sheet may go around 4 times. That last sheet looks like it gives you 4 times the results of the first sheet, but in reality, the results are the same - your perception is just different! And you’ll never see the inside, if you aren’t patient while the outside is coming off!

I've experienced this myself. The changes between me at 225lbs and 190lbs are small. The changes from 190lbs to 175lbs are noticeable. The changes from 165lbs to 155lbs are massive. I'm excited to see what happens when I go from 155lbs to 145lbs!

I wanted to see if I could chart that effect, and decided on the following approach:

1. I am a spherical cow. For calculation purposes, I'm going to assume I'm a cylinder (because being fat hasn't made me taller yet).
2. The surface area of that sphere is calculated using the Mosteller formula
3. I calculate the average fat thickness (that's what we care about, right?) by subtracting the surface area of my lean weight (from DEXA scan).
4. I see what percentage difference in fat thickness each pound makes

Here's what I ended up with:

BMI	Mass, kg	Surface Area, m, Mosteller	Avg Thickness, cm	1kg's % Impact on Fat Thickness
37.0	102	2.17	4.67	2.0%
36.7	101	2.16	4.57	2.1%
36.3	100	2.15	4.48	2.1%
35.9	99	2.14	4.38	2.2%
35.6	98	2.13	4.29	2.2%
35.2	97	2.11	4.19	2.3%
34.8	96	2.10	4.10	2.4%
34.5	95	2.09	4.00	2.4%
34.1	94	2.08	3.90	2.5%
33.7	93	2.07	3.80	2.6%
33.4	92	2.06	3.71	2.7%
33.0	91	2.05	3.61	2.8%
32.7	90	2.04	3.51	2.9%
32.3	89	2.03	3.41	3.0%
31.9	88	2.01	3.30	3.1%
31.6	87	2.00	3.20	3.2%
31.2	86	1.99	3.10	3.3%
30.8	85	1.98	3.00	3.5%
30.5	84	1.97	2.89	3.6%
30.1	83	1.96	2.79	3.8%
29.8	82	1.94	2.68	4.0%
29.4	81	1.93	2.57	4.2%
29.0	80	1.92	2.47	4.4%
28.7	79	1.91	2.36	4.6%
28.3	78	1.90	2.25	4.9%
27.9	77	1.88	2.14	5.2%
27.6	76	1.87	2.03	5.5%
27.2	75	1.86	1.92	5.9%
26.9	74	1.85	1.81	6.3%
26.5	73	1.83	1.69	6.7%
26.1	72	1.82	1.58	7.3%
25.8	71	1.81	1.46	7.9%
25.4	70	1.80	1.35	8.7%
25.0	69	1.78	1.23	9.6%
24.7	68	1.77	1.11	10.7%
24.3	67	1.76	0.99	12.1%
24.0	66	1.74	0.87	13.9%

And the pretty graph linked here

BMI on the bottom so it can better apply to other people.

I was really happy to see this visualization! I can see that changes start coming way more quickly after around a BMI of 28, which is about 170lbs for me, which lines up with my experience. I can also clearly see that a lack of visual changes now doesn't mean progress isn't being made, but my efforts will be rewarded in a few months.

Maybe this helps someone who has been disheartened from not seeing the visual changes they were hoping for after months of discipline. The scale may tell small lies, but who are you going to believe? Your scale or your lying eyes?

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My husband I'd asking em to stop losing weight

I (25F, 5'6) started a weight loss journey recently, and so far I've lost about 27 pounds. I'm feeling like it's a great start, but I started off at 238 pounds and I'm down to about 211. My husband (27M) has noticed my weight loss, and is asking me to do more of a maintenance phase now because I've lost enough. He's worried I'll just keep losing it in unwanted places (like my chest and ass) and my stomach will still stay big. He says he likes how I look now, but I'm not doing this for him. I'm doing it for me. It's not like I'm 125 and he's asking me to stop cause I'm too skinny, I'm still over 200 pounds. I want to get down to a healthy weight for my height, but now I'm worried he's going to try to stop me at every turn because I don't plan on stopping. I've been eating low carb, and I feel like he's going to start trying to push me to eat carbs when he's around. Good thing is he works 6 days a week, but I don't want him to stop my progress at all. I'm really proud of myself. Has anyone else dealt with an unsupportive partner during their journey? And how did you deal with it?

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Weight loss at 15

I’m 212 pounds and 5’6, my weight has never been higher. I’m a female and 15 yrs old. I know cutting out unhealthy foods is best, but I’m allergic to some healthy things (eggs, nuts, lactose intolerant) so I can’t have those. I want to start walking inside and I found this walking pad thing that’s small, would it be a good idea to get it? How much would I have to walk every day to lose around 50 pounds? It doesn’t have to be quick, I just want to since I’m beginning to have high blood pressure and I get out of breath easily, and I’m insecure and want to look thinner before I enter a relationship with literally anyone in the future.

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