high protein helps!

i lost about 40lbs in 2023 by counting calories but it was sooooo triggering. i had a pretty severe eating disorder when i was a teenager and obsessing over calories brought me right back to that. the thing is, being like 100lbs overweight, i had to do anything to get some weight off and calories in calories out is basically the only thing i could do. i exercised too, of course, but that doesn't do much for weight.

after 40lbs down, i hit a wall and couldn't seem to go any further. it was a struggle just to maintain that weight loss and i kept gaining and losing the same five pounds over and over. i started a college course this january and kept using food to self-sooth because i found it incredibly stressful. i knew my eating habits were deteriorating but i kept making the same stupid decisions over and over. i gained back about 8lbs and knew i couldn't keep doing this.

i set a goal for myself in march to stop eating processed sugar and exercise more to lose 15lbs by the end of april. i've almost done it and i'm not obsessing over calories and food. i've heard people tell me before i should do high protein but i always thought that was just a fad and not really helpful. my strategy has been high volume, low calorie which doesn't include a ton of meat. mostly fruit and vegetables. turns out, high protein is actually effective! i've included a lot of protein like eggs, lentils and of course meat to my diet and, just naturally, i've reduced carb loading. i still eat carbs, but i don't always want to fill up on them the way i used to. also less sugary cravings. i don't feel the urge to eat an entire bag of chips or tub of ice cream the way i used to. i have cookies in my house as we speak and i have actually chosen frozen fruit over them several times.

try high protein!

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NSV: hotel bath towel wrapped fully around me!

I made a post recently on how I've made it a quarter of the way to my weight loss goal (down 25lbs) but that I haven't been able to notice a different when I look at myself.

Well, this weekend I was staying at a hotel and when I got out of the shower I was shocked that those dreaded hotel bath towels actually wrapped all the way around me and I was fully covered!

I didn't have ~much~ wiggle room, but that was the first time I've been able to notice in a non-scale way that I've actually lost weight.

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Weight graphs, dieting alone vs dieting and exercise

tldr: Just look at the Weight Graphs section if you just want to see the difference in the data and don't care about my personal progress.

Overview

I began counting calories early last September when I was at my heaviest ever at 252lbs. I work a desk job and am not particularly active otherwise. Through CICO management I managed to drop ~25lbs up until Thanksgiving when I "took a break for the holidays." It ended up lasting longer than I intended and it was early February before I got back on the wagon, and had put 5 pounds back on. At the same time that I restarted managing my diet, I also began exercising and am now down to 206lbs (46lbs total). In addition to the weight loss, my resting heart rate has dropped from the 80s into the 50s, and I've gone from size 44 to size 38 pants.

Weight Graphs

I noticed an interesting trend where when I was dieting alone, I had much less variation in my daily weigh-ins. It's pretty logical when you consider that I'm building muscle while losing weight in the exercise phase, but just losing fat (and muscle) in the diet-only stages. But I find the data very interesting to look at, and thought I would share.

Diet-only (the plateau was a vacation):
https://i.imgur.com/VYYBawc.jpeg

Diet and exercise:
https://i.imgur.com/8DX8uiQ.jpeg

My diet

I don't focus too hard on macros, I do try to eat more protein and less carbs, because that seems to work for me, but I don't make any crazy efforts to avoid things. I'll order a thin crust pizza from Dominos and eat it 1/4 at a time for example. I focus more on my caloric deficit than anything else. I usually eat around 1500 calories per day. One of my staples is buying a bag of frozen salmon filets from Costco or Sam's club and alternating dinners of salmon or chicken cooked in a cast iron skillet with a heaping side of broccoli, corn, or carrots as stomach-fillers. It helps me keep a little variety in my meal and is fairly quick and easy. I've also been making sure to take a multivitamin with meals to help make sure I'm getting good nutrition. Since I started exercise I've been incorporating BCAAs, L-Carnitine, and Protein shakes into my diet, which is the only dietary difference (caloric intake has been pretty consistent throughout). I also keep a half gallon water bottle with me at all times and try to drink from it constantly.

My exercise

I started with a spin class and a HIIT class once a week on my first week. The first spin class was absolutely brutal, and gave me the worst DOMS of my life. I then added an additional HIIT class each week for a month and a half. Then I worked in an additional spin class each week. So I'm now doing 2 spin classes and 2 HIIT classes each week. My next step once I get a little closer to my goal weight is to add more weight lifting in on my spin days so that I'm not only lifting weights in my HIIT classes.

My takeaways so far

I feel dropping the extra pounds in the kitchen before I began exercising made it easier on my body to return to the workouts (although it was still hard!). In addition it allowed me to focus on just changing one habit first. It may not be the best or most efficient way, but it has worked for me so far.

I don't have complete progress pics because I didn't take any when I first started, but here's late October of last year through today for the curious:
https://i.imgur.com/1Yx3rbA.png

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Gained 6 pounds in 4 days

Currently a student (f) with a tough test week.

Been ok about weight loss til now, (10 pounds over the last 3 months, with occasional cheat days.)

But the problem is to cope with stress I always end up binge-eating a lot. For the past 4 days I've binged on a bunch of sweets, snacks, and big meals. This also happened during my last test period unfortunately.

I've gained about 6 pounds just from this and I was wondering is there a way to stop stress-eating or a good way to control weight during these periods?

I know a bit of this may be water weight, but considering this is a span of 4 days, I'm definitely very concerned.

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NSV: Going through closet

Hi there! I just wanted to share todays non scale victory, which I am super happy about😁

Well, a little back story first. I am a type of person that loves clothes, and I had a closet full of them. I usually buy a new piece of clothing ever so often, so my closet was literally bursting. So, my boyfriend(who I live with) told me that I can’t buy any more before I go through what I already have, and get rid of everything that now is to big for me.. And I just kind of thought that nothing was too big, because I can’t see my weight loss myself, but he tells me that I am crazy for not seeing it..

To tell a kind of long story shorter, I got rid of almost an entire garbage bag.. So many pieces were way too big and didn’t fit right anymore. I was so shocked, like.. What happened? I’m am certainly not a size XL anymore, which I am thrilled, but also a little sad about, because I loved so many of the XL pieces that I owned, but now they are gone.

I also had a few pieces of goal clothes in the back of my closet that I hadn’t tried on for a while, and some of them got moved to the front because they now fit! One of them is a pair of pants that I got in a bundle of used clothes I bought and I have been dying to wear them, but they are a size M, without stretch, so I just tried them on for fun, not believing I could get them past my butt like always, but they fit!

This was kind of a long post, sorry about that! I am just so excited!

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Small Victories. Small losses. Big wins.

Today I am proud of myself. I’m down about 15lbs since I started my journey in July.

Last spring my PCP fat shamed me for the last time. I set out to prove that not everything is because I’m overweight. But I struggled to lose weight.

In July I had my first appointment with the local hospitals weight loss clinic. They gave me 3 programs. The first was the most aggressive with a severe caloric deficit and a liquid diet for 4 weeks followed by metabolic screenings and weekly weigh ins and meetings. The third was regular office visits. With the middle option being a combo of 1 and 3. I chose 3. I didn’t want the weekly meetings, and the liquid diet sounded terrible and not what I was looking for.

If I’m going to lose weight I’m going to do it right and make it permanent. So this way is slower but it has worked. I weigh my food, I watch my caloric intake. I follow the diet they suggested. I have not given up my favorite foods. When I stalled out I met with a dietitian who looked at my food log and helped me make a few more changes. I drink enough water. I am doing all of the things and I am down 15 lbs. I am thrilled.

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250lbs in August 2022 - currently 170lbs (29F, 5'6") - this is my story

Huge wall of text in 3.... 2.... 1....

I was diagnosed with ADHD in May of 2023. My doctor prescribed Strattera (a non-stimulant ADHD med) which helped enough that I realized my depression and anxiety were symptoms of ADHD. This led me to asking my psychiatrist to help me wean off the Effexor (antidepressant) I was on.

Weaning off Effexor was rough. Horrible withdrawals that incapacitated me for nearly a week, and then for months afterwards I continued to have withdrawals of lessening intensity until finally they stopped. It was awful and I truly worried that I would never feel 100% better.

One of the main withdrawals I experienced was nausea. I went from eating fast food 3x a day (think 2 double cheeseburgers from mcdonalds every day for lunch,) to not being able to hold down more than 1 meal a day. I had to miss a few days off work because I would throw up every time I tried to eat.

In less than a month, I had dropped from 240 down to 220lbs. At that point I was eating 2-3 meals a day again, but I was eating less than half the volume of food that I once had. I could not stomach more. Instead of 2 double cheeseburgers and a whole large fry, I would eat half a single burger and nibble a few fries. I continued to lose weight.

My doctor recommended we try Vyvanse after we reached the max dose of Strattera and I still wasn't getting the full benefit of the medicine. She started me on 30mg, and for the first 2 weeks, the appetite I had managed to work back up was gone. I still ate, but most days I skipped at least 1 meal, and when I did eat I was eating a few bites at a time before stopping.

By the time my appetite began improving again, I was down to 195lbs. Under 200 for the first time since middle school. I was elated. My appetite was coming back but I began tracking my calories religiously.

Now, I've been on adderall XR for a few months and it does nothing to my appetite at all. I'm back to being hungry, hungry. But I am still losing weight at a deficit, eating 1600-1900 calories most days. I have 2 weekly cheat days where I will eat up to 2500 calories. The days that I eat only 1600 calories, I may feel some more hunger but something about having those cheat days to look forward to makes the hunger easy to deal with.

My weight loss is slower now, but I am still losing at least 1lb per week. My goal weight is 145lbs, but my body is already starting to look and feel drastically different. I marvel at it nearly every day. I feel like the same obese mess that I was sometimes, but then I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and I do a double-take. Is that me? That doesn't look like me. I don't recall ever having seen myself this small.

My tummy is still very much there, round and sticking out way farther than I'd like. But there's also noticeably less stomach than there ever has been. The skin of my stomach feels looser, when before it used to be stretched tight. My belly still touches the tops of my thighs when I am seated, but only barely. I can look down while seated and see most of my thighs and it's bizarre.

I have been obese for the vast majority of my life. To the point that, I have no memories of a time that my body was this size. It's like getting adjusted to a new body, but every 10lbs lost I have to readjust. I love it and it makes me so very proud of myself, but it is really bizarre too.

I never, ever imagined I would get this far. But now that I am here, I cannot imagine stopping short of my goal. I love my new body. I love feeling like I finally have power to control my body, when every diet I ever went on in the past left me feeling like it's impossible to lose weight - so why even try? Turns out, weight loss is actually possible. And fun. Who knew it would be fun??

I'm actually going clothes shopping this weekend. And looking forward to it. For the first time in my life I am excited to go clothes shopping. All my clothes are baggy and smock-like on me. It makes me feel frumpy and strange, and I can't wait to get into some clothes that fit this new frame of mine.

Anyway. Posting this to celebrate my achievement of reaching 170lbs. I really never thought I'd be here. It really feels like I'm dreaming sometimes.

Sorry this is so long, but thank you for reading my story.

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