My Weight Loss Journey So Far

Hello! Been on this subreddit from time to time, but I figured it would be good to document my progress so far. For context, I started my weight loss journey roughly last month in May at a starting weight of 208 lbs. I am 27 years old, male, and 5'6". Been chunky pretty much my whole life and I want to change that.

Currently I am at about 190 lbs.

Here are some things I learned so far for anyone interested:

1 - It is all about lifestyle. I found that things I do daily, like eating, walking, sleeping, etc. are what ultimately contributes to weight loss. Better decisions accumulate over time.

2 - Calories in, calories out is key. It turns out that despite eating mostly whole foods and drinking only water, I was still eating too much overall. Tracking calories for me helped me get a better understanding of how much I was actually eating and helping me understand that I was in fact eating way too many calories.

3 - Volume eating is a game changer. I think this is the most important thing I learned. I will admit I love eating lots of food. Related with point 2, I discovered volume eating and realized I can still enjoy a large quantity of food without accumulating huge amounts of calories. Just the other day, for example, I learned that using cauliflower as a substitute for rice only has about 1/5 the calories of rice, meaning I can eat way more cauliflower and not gain as many calories. The cool thing is, a lot of low calorie recipes can actually taste identically or better than high calorie recipes. My favorite so far is my low calorie chicken curry recipe, which uses silken tofu instead of coconut milk, no butter, and no oil and tastes practically identical to the version of the recipe that uses the aforementioned ingredients. It's mind boggling.

4 - Make eating intuitive. I personally hate the concept of meticulously weighing food or counting calories super precisely. It just doesn't work for me. Instead, I just try to make everything more intuitive. For example, rather weighing an apple and trying to figure out the calories, I just guesstimate based on what Google says and be like "yeah, this is about 100 calories". It's kind of like how if someone asked you how long a foot is, you generally have a rough idea in your head how long a foot is, even if it is not super precise. This helps me have an idea of what I can eat, how much I can eat, as well as what to avoid. This approach has made my weight loss journey feel less of a struggle overall.

Finally, here are some things I am still trying to figure out and overcome:

1 - Grieving over the fact I missed out on a lot of things in my life because of my weight. I will be in my 30s in a few years and have basically not been able to do things like dating, meeting new people, traveling, etc. simply because of my appearance. I worry by the time I get fit, I will not be able to do a lot of things people do in their 20s.

2 - Those damn weight plateaus. I am currently on a weight plateau. I only eat like 1000 calories a day, walk 10k steps a day, and drink only water. Yet, for the past two weeks now, I been hovering between 190 - 192 lbs. I am not sure how to get over this, or if it just something I have to wait through.

Anywho, thanks for reading!

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Do antidepressants affect your metabolism?

I’ve seen other posts like this but nobody actually speaks to whether it affects your metabolism or not, usually they just cite eating habits. I know what I’m doing when it comes to weight loss as I used to be overweight and managed to get a 6 pack through hard work and informed dieting. A few months back I fell into a very deep depression and stopped training before starting antidepressants. After this I gained all of my weight back and I’m now overweight again. I finally had enough of being out of shape and started training like I did when I first got in shape in order to take back my body. I eat at a 750 calorie deficit, eat .8g of protein per pound of body weight, workout intensely 5 times a week, and run 6 times a week. I know that I’m not doing anything wrong, but it’s been over 3 weeks and my weight hasn’t budged even a pound.

I can only think of 2 explanations: 1. I’m either putting on muscle ridiculously fast and just haven’t been able to notice yet. (I know that someone who has seriously trained in the past but gained weight has an easier time building back muscle they lost, compared to doing it the first time)

1. The antidepressants I’ve started have affected my metabolism and what I thought would be a 750 calorie deficit is actually just maintenance.

I’m feeling very deflated because I don’t feel confident in any of my abilities, the only thing I felt good about myself was that I knew about fitness and had the drive to get in shape. But now that nothing has happened in over 3 weeks I feel like it’s impossible.

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10 Reasons to Try a New Recipe Every Week

While you’re losing weight with Nutrisystem, you’re learning how to eat well for the rest of your life. Your Flex meals are your chance to practice what you know about good food. To inspire you to discover new tastes you love, we’ve put together this list of reasons to try different recipes each week.

1. Battle boredom.

When you feel like you’re stuck in a rut with your favorite healthy foods, those junk food cravings can be hard to resist. Make a new dish every week and you’ll never be bored. The Leaf has thousands of healthy and delicious weekly recipe ideas that fit perfectly into your Nutrisystem program. Explore our recipe section here! >

2. Very versatile.

There are no dull ingredients, just tired ways of preparing them. PowerFuels like chicken or turkey breast and SmartCarbs such as winter squash can be used in so many ways, they may seem like different foods in each recipe.

Turkey Stuffed Acorn Squash features melted mozzarella, meaty mushrooms and zesty garlic. Butternut Squash Turkey Chili serves up steaming bowls full of hearty beans, sweet and hot peppers, and chunks of tender squash. The two main ingredients are the same, but the taste is completely different!

5 Steps for Cooking the Perfect Flex Meal

Read More

3. Discover new tastes.

You know what you like. Or do you? A good way to find out if you enjoy any vegetable or other healthy ingredient is to try it three different ways before you pass judgment. Get started with these 11 awesome vegetable recipes that aren’t salads! >

4. Explore the world.

The foods of other countries excite your taste buds with exotic flavors. You can experience a bit of Greece with Spanakopita Spinach Pie, get a taste of Thailand with Instant Pot Chicken Pad Thai or enjoy a fiesta with Mexican Corn Dip.

5. Lifetime skills.

Making a new recipe deepens your knowledge about healthy foods and helps you to make well-informed decisions about everything you eat. That know-how will help you maintain your healthy weight for the rest of your life.

6. The power of variety.

Each type of food comes with its own unique balance of nutrients. The more varied your diet, the better nourished you will be. That protects your health and helps you lose weight.

5 Colors That Should Always Be on Your Plate

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7. Social scene.

Cooking a meal can bring the family together to share the experience. Give each member of the household a chance to pick a new recipe and everyone will be excited about healthy eating. Here are 20 healthy recipes you can make for the whole family! >

8. Easy as pie.

Even if you have limited (or no) cooking skills, you can still try new dishes and enjoy success with them. So many recipes on The Leaf take just a few steps to make. Sheet pan recipes, for example, are so simple because you put all of the ingredients on one tray and cook them together.

9. So many choices.

With the right recipe, you can eat almost anything you like while you’re losing weight. Five-Ingredient Buffalo Cauliflower Breadsticks satisfy several cravings. You’ll be amazed that you can stay on your weight loss plan and enjoy Air Fryer Funnel Cake.

The Top 9 Hardest Foods to Give Up for Weight Loss (And How to Still Enjoy Them!)

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10. Simple pleasures.

We need to eat to fuel our bodies but savoring good food also brings us a little joy. Trying new recipes brings excitement to our daily meals and makes any day a bit more pleasurable. Now that’s something we’ll never get tired of.

The post 10 Reasons to Try a New Recipe Every Week appeared first on The Leaf.

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Overate by 2200 calories!

So basically tomorrow I hit three weeks on this diet. I’ve been enjoying it, being able to go under and over some days but staying fairly consistent at 1600 calories. Today I ate almost 4000 (title is wrong, it’s slightly more).

I’m really annoyed at myself and I’m making this post because I’m conscious of the fact that I’ve made these mistakes before and they’ve snowballed. I don’t even know why I ate so much! I had a banana and strawberry smoothie with soy milk, these mini fridge raiders (vegan), 4 rolls with 2 meat-free sausages on each, another roll with nothing, a mushroom stroganoff (which was healthy, and is normally just a good dinner), some chips from a takeaway later on, some BBQ crisps, and 3 new magnum ice creams. I just couldn’t get full, or content I guess. I just craved more and more, and now I feel full but I could still probably eat more.

To say I have issues with food is an understatement but for the life of me I don’t know why it happened today. All I can do is do better tomorrow, but it has made me worried. I feel fantastic when I’m not eating so much and all I want is to be healthy and happy. I hate that I’m obese and if my stomach just shrunk after weight loss at least it wouldn’t take as much for me to feel full.

I think more exercise, and less processed food. Maybe just cut out the meat-free substitutes and the snacks. Because when I ate that stroganoff and the smoothie, when I have my morning coffee, and when I spend some calories on a beer with a friend or a cake at a coffee shop with the family, that’s when I enjoy food the most.

So I’m fine with some indulgence but I don’t want to include it in my daily life anymore. While my diet has been great, and I get my fruits and veg and eat well, I still haven’t fully quit sugar and processed shit. Maybe now’s the time. Still not sure I’ll enjoy my weigh-in tomorrow at the three week mark.

Appreciate this sub being here for support!

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First month of calorie counting! -4,4kg

Hello everyone, I just wanted to share my experience of my first month of calorie counting!

Since I was in middle school I started having problems with my weight that kept increasing year after year while my height didn't change. I went from 55 to 83kg, I still remember how hard I tried to diet to be under 60kg, then under 65, under 70 and so on.

I reached 80 kg last August and that broke me. I decided to change my life and started to take an hour long walk during my lunch break, tried some light workout at home and started focusing on eating more healthy and plant based food. In a couple of months I felt great, instead of walking I started jogging, and I never felt that great I'm my life until I weighted myself again. 83kg. I was so discouraged. Nothing seemed to work. Even my panties didn't fit me anymore. I was so frustrated and ashamed of myself, I couldn't look at my reflection in the mirror without a feeling of disgust.

But life continued, and then at the beginning of April 2024 I injured my back while running and I ignored it until it got worse and was forced to be bedridden from the mid April til the end of May. I started to eat less and less because of the pain and because everybody seemed to tell me that if I weighted less, I could have not gotten injured. The pain was so strong and I was so scared and anxious that it could have been something serious that would affect my life forever so I promised myself that this was the time I'll finally lose all that extra weight.

I decided to start calorie counting and downloaded the app Yazio (bought also the pro version to force me to stay accountable at least for 3 months). It was a gamechanger! I learned lots of things about the food and its macros, for example I didn't know that lentils were full of carbs, I always considered them a source of protein (I used to eat rice + lentis + a vegetable ) or also how full of carbs were fruits! I'm not demonizing carbs but just that made me realize how easily I coud eat 80% carbs 5% protein and 15% fat while thinking I was eating "healthy".

This first month of calorie counting was surprisingly easy, due to the fact that I was bedridden most of the time and all the graphs in Yazio that helped me see my weight loss more like a game, with eating less than 1500kcal and trying to balance macros as my daily quests. At the same time I increased my fasting going from 16:8 to 20:4 to 23:1, mostly because I didn't have the time to eat since May was a super busy month at work (I work from home).In 30 days I lost more than 4kg while still having a cheat meal/day a week! I feel so happy because I haven't been this "light" since 2022. If anyone has Yazio feel free to add me and let's support each other in this adventure! https://to.yazio.com/X217Q

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It's fascinating noticing how diet food commercials have changed in 20 years

I suddenly remembered something I hadn't thought of in a while: the Special K challenge.

I remember it being everywhere in the 2000s. In the US at least, the commercials were all over the television . Eat two bowls of Special K and one normal meal a day over the course of two weeks to lose a jean size.

Special K ads are a lot more vague nowadays. They're just about "doing something good for yourself" and health. Doing a little searching on YouTube, it seems the "Special K challenge" died around 2009. Explicit mention of weight loss has been mostly absent from their marketing campaigns since the early 2010s.

This all made me also think about yogurt commercials. Yogurt cups are still marketed as a health food but I don't see campaigns like the Yoplait Light campaigns using "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini".

It's not really that discussing dieting has gone away. It just seems like marketing is more vague. They focus on talking about health or protein instead of calorie counting or fad diets.

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First summer where my shorts fit better/looser!!

29F, 5'2", SW: 148lb, CW: 129lb

I started my weight loss journey January of 2023 and slowly started to lose the weight. The beginning of this year I started also doing consistent and clear progress photos, and got more serious with my weight lifting and calorie deficit again. I was getting a little discouraged feeling like my pictures weren't changing much, it's hard to not just focus on how my stomach looks.

But today I finally put away my winter sweaters and took out my jean shorts and couldn't believe how many of them fit well or were loose, compared to last year they were really tight on me!!

Although the number has gone down on the scale (slowly but surely), it was encouraging to finally see a drastic change with how something fit!!!

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