Sunday, November 3, 2024

Gut Flora

I am not asking for a medical opinion, but I would like to know what you guys think about the connection between gut flora and wellness/weight loss. I was a total junk food junky in the past, but I am trying to get better at eating healthier. I eat Greek yogurt, tuna/salmon, lots of vegetables, and whole grains. Currently, I have to use benefiber or muralax to keep my system regular. I would love to figure out how to make my system work better and help me with maintenance. I am 5’4”, 57 years old, female, and weight 131 pounds. I am a a happy weight, but I am working on adding more exercise.

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Saturday, November 2, 2024

How much junk food is too much?

Started at 195 lbs, down to 175 lbs. Goal weight is 145 lbs, a normal BMI for my height. Go to the gym 2-3 times a week, eat high protein, fruits and veggies everyday, and regularly take vitamins.

I’ve been dropping weight and gaining muscle the easiest I’ve ever had in my life. People have never noticed my weight loss attempts until now. I feel a lot better in my body, and no longer view junk food as the devil, that it is food and energy etc.

I got blood work back a couple weeks ago and was told my glucose levels were higher than normal. The last time I got blood work I had high cholesterol, so while I was glad that wasn’t the case this time, it still got me worried. Even though I’m losing weight, am I eating too much food high in sugar and sodium? I tend to stay in a caloric deficit, but have a sweet treat most days and don’t limit any takeout like pizza or fast food. So, in any normal week I could have 4-5 desserts and maybe one or two dinners out. I also drink alcohol, but no more than 2-4 drinks in one weekend, if at all.

The doctor didn’t seem extremely concerned but I don’t want anything to get out of hand. Is it bad for you to have a little bit of junk everyday? Will my blood sugar decrease as I continue to lose weight? Am I overthinking this? I don’t want to restrict myself since I’ve been doing well, but I also don’t want to make my health worse.

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Lost 7 pounds in 1 month!

Small victories! I recently started my weight loss/self-improvement journey and want to share. I've been a little down on myself because I haven't been doing as well with going to the gym and eating healthy, just stayed under my calorie goal but looking back I lost 7 pounds in one month! That's a little less than 2 lbs a week and that's healthy! That's good! And I'm proud of myself.

So share your small victories and celebrate. Congratulate each other because we are our biggest critiques and deserve to feel like someone's proud of us.

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Reactions to weight loss

Im wondering what reactions people have been getting when they lose weight. Ive been hovering at 210lbs for twenty years. I uses to play rugby but when i stopped i ballooned. Anyway i ran and tried to eat healthy. I tried diet after diet. I ran marathons and atkins etc. Id lose a few pounds but always always put it back on again. I was either off the wagon.. Eating like shite binge eating and pizza devouring or eating healthy. Both were filled with shame and guilt. But over past 5 months ive learned how to listen to my stomach and not my head. That now tells me when to eat. I always had an imaginary figure of 189lbs.i wanted to see the 8......today i saw it. Im so sl proud of myself.... I was 250lbs at one point 5 years ago..... Now im eating what I want when I want. I took up cycling and I feel slim. But here is my question. What reactions have people given you when you lose weight. Have you had nice compliments. Have you had people comment negative. Have people asked you out. Im wondering how friends family and strangers react to the new slim you?

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9 weeks into my 20 week fat loss journey, and officially halfway to my goal of losing 90 pounds!

I'm a 6'1, 23M who, on August 31st of this year, after years of zero exercise and consistent overeating, weighed 285.2 pounds. As a teen I was healthy and active, consistently in the gym and occasionally running. I was around 185-195 pounds, lean and somewhat muscular. That was, up until the age of 18, when I started gaining weight rapidly in 2020. I've been almost 100 pounds overweight and very sedentary since then.

On August 31st, I laid out a plan to try to lose 70 pounds in 144 days, with a goal weight of 215 pounds. Today is day 64 of 144, and over the last 9 weeks I've accomplished so much. I've gone from 285 to 239 pounds. Every part of my life has changed for the better, words can't even describe it. I am an entirely different person. I wake up and go to bed happy instead of depressed and anxious. I look forward to each and every day, even the difficult ones. I've even now changed my goal, as I was losing weight at a rate that meant I would hit 215 well before day 144. My goal now is to hit 195 pounds, which is a weight I would be happy to stay at for the rest of my life. The only reason it wasn't my initial goal is because I would never have thought it was possible for me to lose 90 pounds in 20 weeks. I think it's possible now.

Here's a nice summary of what I've been doing each week. I've been tracking everything pretty diligently. Still pissed and confused about Week 4 lmao, but obviously things have been rock solid otherwise, and I have nothing to complain about overall.

I've never been a runner before, and decided as a part of this journey that I would get into it (not because I think it'll massively help me lose weight. I know it won't. But just because I want to be healthier). I've managed not only to run consistently, but to love doing it. Just yesterday, I hit a goal that's been on my mind since week 3: A sub 1 hour 10k!

I've also been consistent about resistance training, adequate sleep, and keeping protein as high as possible; after all, I'm trying to lose fat here, not muscle. Even while losing 45+ pounds, I've gotten at least a little stronger on all of my lifts, which makes me feel confident that I'm not losing lean mass even while on such low calories. The body fat scale at my weight loss clinic's office says I've gained 12 pounds of muscle over the last 9 weeks, but obviously I don't trust that. Still, perhaps it's a sign I'm at least not losing muscle. I also can just look in the mirror and tell that if anything, I'm gaining muscle, not losing it.

I've also been able to steadily increase my daily steps throughout this journey, as my feet and legs hurt less and less each week. In fact, I can now walk 35k steps in a day, with 12k of them being a hard 6 mile run, AND hit a hard gym session that night, and have ZERO pain afterwards. That is beyond insane to me, and it's one of the coolest things I've ever experienced/been able to do. My last four years of being obese and sedentary have basically taught me: "Don't move too much! Your knees and ankles will kill you at the end of the day and for the next 3 days after that!". To have that be gone is beyond exciting. I feel like I no longer get punished for being physically active, I get rewarded. It's a positive feedback loop that has been making things easier as this journey has progressed, not harder.

Now, to address the elephant in the room from the linked document: Yes, I am on a quite low calorie diet for someone of my height, age, sex, size, and activity level. I wouldn't recommend anyone copy this extreme of a deficit, and I consider myself to be in a somewhat unique situation with my overall schedule, motivation levels, and hunger signaling that I seem to be able to pull this off. I didn't actually plan to drop my calories quite this low, but the thing is: I haven't experienced any hunger, or any real struggle at all yet. I have been feeling amazing, and have the motivation to pretty much effortlessly eat the amount of food I've been eating, and no more. I know this may change in the future, moving into the second half of this 20 week journey. And if it does, I'll raise my calories without hesitation. I have no desire to crash and burn from pushing myself too hard, trust me. But going into week 10 now, I still feel absolutely amazing. I guess my body was pretty ready for me to stop stuffing it with insane amounts of food after 4 years of overeating. Again, I do NOT encourage others to try to copy this extreme deficit. It is NOT necessary to make progress, and in fact will only massively increase the chances that you won't be able to stick to the diet!

So that's been the last 9 weeks for me! After 4 years of constantly trying and failing to lose weight, I was really starting to think this would never happen for me, but here we are. I've found my groove, I suppose. I've managed to lose a little over half the weight I need to lose (46.5 pounds lost, 43.7 pounds to go) in 9 weeks, with 11 weeks and 4 days left to go. I'm excited to crush these last 11 weeks! If anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer them!

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Friday, November 1, 2024

Losing weight at a small calorie deficit

hello :) just to give some context: I'm male, 180cm, 110kg.

so, I want to lose some (more) weight. it has been a few years now since I've lost some good weight, and was able to maintain it. I am at 110kg, it's still quite high, but I knew I would lose track eventually and it led me to stop my weight loss plan. however, I was able to keep most of the weight I lost, well, lost, so I didn't gain any of it back. and mind you, it was some heavy chunk.

anyway, I want to go back, but I don't want to do the extreme I did. I was doing a 1800 calorie, 2k at weekends and, while I was able to keep it for quite sometime... I just don't have the right mind to maintain it. so, I want to take another jab at it, but at a (much) slower pace, at 2300 cal a day. and the reason is: I have a quite physical job, most of it dealing with lifting weights here and there, and there are weeks when it's simply too demanding. both mentally and physically.

my question is, was anyone able to lose weight at such a short deficit? it's literally saying it's 200cal a day deficit, so it would take quite the time hit my goal. but I'm fine with it so long it's doable.

any tips?

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Those of you who binge/disassociate/have excessive food noise….what’s the plan for the holidays?

So I did alright over Halloween! But, I have concerns for the next two months of American holiday season.

We had a Halloween party last weekend and I took off Saturday and Sunday from tracking after weighing and tracking pretty consistently for the past 3 months (and down 30 lbs!). I’ve been reading that it’s good to really give yourself cheat days here and there. The issue is that I’ve strongly suspected I have BED for quite some time and I’ve been very successful losing this weight by being so regimented and tracking carefully (I’m at around 1300-1600 cal per day depending on activity and I’m only walking for exercise at the moment as I’m recovering from a summer surgery and a recent wrist injury).

Last weekend I did not binge horrifically, I allowed myself some candy, charcuterie snacks and definitely ate too much caramel corn but in terms of how I usually do over Halloween, I did great. I no longer drink as it triggers my binges. Since then I have been much more hungry, snacky, dealing with salt and sugar cravings all week and the food noise has drastically increased. I’ve allowed myself more calories this week, trying to stay as healthy as possible but having grace with myself and working hard not to overdo it. I’m genuinely proud of myself but I’m now concerned about allowing myself treats for the next two months.

This did prompt me to make an appointment to my local eating disorder center for an assessment because I think I am finally ready to get some extra support and quite possibly an actual diagnosis. I’m so happy with my weight loss progress but I am worried that I don’t understand my triggers and the holidays are so stressful for me. I have bucketful’s of trauma for which I’ve had plenty of therapy for but the food noise was not really addressed in those sessions.

Curious how those of you with similar challenges navigates this time of year! How are you balancing restriction and over eating? How are you handling the food noise? I feel like if I indulge, it prompts disordered eating but I keep reading that careful tracking and sometimes avoiding all treats to be able to stay on track is also just disordered eating. Sometimes I feel like that’s coming from those who don’t have an actual ED…at least it feels that way sometimes. Like unless you GET IT, you can’t fully understand the disassociating and literally feeling like you’ve blacked out and consumed a whole bag of chips and you weren’t even conscious for it. Like, I get that it’s doable for many to limit their treats and it won’t take over their brain but I’m not sure my brain/body are capable of that, at least right now.

Weirdly enough, when I’m abstaining from sugar and treats, I do okay! It’s once I introduce it back, even in small amounts, it takes over my brain and I start to disassociate and really struggle with overdoing it.

Anyone relate? I need some insight!

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