Weight loss journey / low cal vs. low carb

Hi everyone :) My weight loss journey (this time around, anyway) began on Jan 29th of this year. For the first 44 days I counted calories but didn't cut out refined carbs. But when I got my blood tests (lipids, a1c of 6.3) back, I decided it was time to make more changes, so I switched to the same 1200 calorie a day diet but this time trying to keep my net carbs down to 50 per day. This lasted 32 days so far. It's not supposed to be keto, I'm doing it for my blood glucose. I've documented all of my weigh-ins and nutritional data in MyFitnessPal since the very start, so I decided to take advantage of the data export feature and see for myself how the low cal diet stood up against the low cal/carb diet in terms of weight loss. Given the same outgoing calorie ins/outs I lose considerably more weight (average weight loss per day) on a low carb diet, .22 per day on low cal and .32 per day on low carb. I think I've also felt happier and more energetic during this low carb period! I'm wearing a CGM now and if my average glucose stays where it is (around 109) I'll be down to a 5.5 a1C by my next test in June :) Yay, I'm doing it - taking control of my health!

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Those who tracked your calories AND your steps: what was the trajectory of your weight loss?

Oftentimes when people here and everywhere on the internet discuss exercise for losing weight, someone says in all caps "calories in calories out", that comment gets the most upvotes and everyone calls it a day.

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Given what we know about NEAT and homeostatic pressures against weight loss during a caloric deficit (decrease in BMR due to lower body mass, decreased thermic effect of food etcetc), physical activity, or "calories out" should absolutely be a considered parameter when trying to lose weight.

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So for those of you whose physical activity was in the form of mostly walking AND who also controlled your calories with a lot of discipline - how did your weight change over time? If you happen to have graphs I will be even happier :)

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Long road behind, Long Road ahead

So I'm not sure where else to put this but I also don't want to bother my friends with it as sometimes I feel like there's a limit to how far they'll tolerate my constant weight loss adventure babbling, but I'm kind of in a weird emotional state.

For started, here's my stats. 5'4" SW on 24-Dec-2023: 190 lbs. CW today: 161.5 lbs. GW is about 120lbs. Average weight loss per week has been between 1-2lbs consistently.

So by those stats, I'm on track, and I'm on course for my goal of roughly hitting my target by the end of the year. And yet despite all that, these past couple of weeks I've had this emotion that I'm failing to succeed and that it's not having any effect.

I am writing today to ask everyone honestly... how to handle the emotions of the middle of the journey. Knowing how far you've come, but still seeing how long you have to go. Early journey was admittedly full of joy as I started to finally dip after years of false starts but now it's hitting the chore phase.

I vary my meals constantly and have allowed for a healthy mix of all kinds of food, including treating myself to pizza and other fried favourites when I balance my calorie counts, so its not like I'm really depriving myself of any joy other than maintaining a target calorie range per day and making sure I'm doing a healthy amount of exercise (5 days a week out of seven, aiming for about 40 minutes of exercise those five days)

And honestly, I'm not even feeling emotions about not being able to eat like I used to, in fact the reverse. I am elated that I've gained the self control to manage my food intake and keep it reasonable. But the emotions of doing the math and seeing 4 months behind me and potentially 8 ahead of me just... it's giving me almost a desire to give up because I feel like it's so much more work ahead.

Somewhere in there I think was a point? but I may have lost it.

TL:DR In the middle of a very long journey and the journey ahead is daunting and giving me feelings of wanting to throw in the towel.

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104 down 75 pounds to go

https://imgur.com/a/VSVTxw8 Ive been a lurker on this sub for awhile and I just want to show my progress even tho it may not be drastic. I’ve been on a weight loss journey since the pandemic but I didn’t start taking it seriously up until last year during the summer. I went from 315 pounds to 211 pounds. The current image I used as the before was around 255 pounds since I avoided the camera at 315 pounds because of how self conscious I was and in the second picture I’m now at 211 pounds. I lost all of my weight through a calorie deficit and just working out 5x a week for an hour a day with videos on YouTube but eating in a calorie deficit is what truly made the weight come off. When I first got into it, I wasn’t making the healthiest choices but I was still eating within my calorie deficit and as I kept losing weight, I began to make healthier alternatives and incorporated more protein with my meals so I could stay full throughout the day and not snack or binge. I still want to lose a good 75 pounds to be around the 130’s since that seems to be around the appropriate weight for my height at 5’8. There are so many things that changed once I lost weight. My bloodwork finally came back normal and I wasn’t within the pre diabetic range, I struggled with insulin resistance so my neck was quite dark and since I’m very pale it was very apparent and as I lost the weight it began to clear up, my face has gotten slimmer and clearer, I can now workout without getting winded so easily, I’m actually treated like a person and not some monster who takes up space, I had a refreshing moment my senior year last year where I moved schools and the guy who bullied the absolute shit out of me for my weight ended up moving to my new school as well and we ended up having a period together and I would always notice him just looking my way but would never talk to me at all but god the karma he got because he ended up gaining a shit ton of weight and always seemed to just avoid me whenever I was near him because I guess he seemed embarrassed.

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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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