Weight Loss / Recomp with Muscle Memory Effect

Hi All,

Curious to hear about people's experiences with weight loss in the setting of muscle memory. For those who aren't familiar, the muscle memory effect is a cool phenomenon that allows your body to very quickly regain muscle you once previously had. So if you were jacked and then lost all your muscle from a hiatus, if you started up again, you could regain your muscles in 2-3 months, even if they required 10+ years to gain initially.

Anyway, while I've lost weight many times in my life, this is the first time I'm going at it with the muscle memory effect. Granted I was never that muscular, but I've probably lost around 5-10 lb of muscle from a few years ago when I got into weightlifting.

Now that I'm back in the gym lifting heavy again, I see my strength and muscle coming back very quickly, and that's while I'm in a caloric deficit of ~300-500. I'm also not feeling as tired as I usually feel during cuts but that could be because I'm in ketosis.

As far as my weight loss, this past week, I was 129.6lb on Monday and already I've lost 3.2 lbs. I'm 36 yo man at 5'4 (~20% BF). And FYI, I've already lost my initial water weight weeks ago and have been in a state of ketosis for a while now -- so the 3.2 lb drop is probably not mostly water weight.

On top of this, due to muscle memory, I imagine I've also gained some muscle right? I mean I can visually see a difference in size, even in my low glycogen state due to keto. So that means I've potentially burned even more fat than the scale shows.

I'm kind of at a loss here. I know it's healthy to aim for 1-2lb/week but maybe this isn't so abnormal when you have muscle memory on your side? I wonder if the crazy initial boost in muscle is increasing my metabolism, increasing my testosterone levels, and that's allowing me to persevere without much fatigue.

Would love to hear from other ppl's experiences

submitted by /u/throwra_confusedbf2
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/BuH53Sa

How do you even stick to weight loss meal plans without losing your mind?

Ok so I'm really trying to stick to this weight loss thing, but I always give up halfway through the week because either the meals are super boring, or I just don't have the energy to figure out what to cook. I keep seeing all these fancy meal plans online but they seem impossible to follow unless you have like hours to cook every day. Is there some kind of hack to make it easier, or am I doomed to just eating plain chicken and broccoli forever? Throw me your tips because I can't keep ordering takeout and pretending it's fine.

submitted by /u/thefieryanna
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/vgxzDab

One month in

I’m only one month in, but I feel like I should be seeing more results. I’ve lost 1.5 pounds and have been counting calories and going to the gym at least 3 days a week. I mainly do Orange Theory, but have gone to yoga twice this month. For context, I’m a female, 6’1, and currently weigh 213. For the most part, I’m under my calorie goal and hitting my fiber and protein goals at least 5 days a week. I’m not currently drinking because I wanted to see what impact that made, and it’s helped with energy and motivation, but otherwise, there's been no difference in weight. I know I should be patient, but I feel like it’s never going to happen. I wouldn’t care about the weight if my stomach didn’t show it, but here we are. I’m thirty-four, so obviously things change but I feel like I’m in the past when I wanted to lose weight; it was easier. I have also tried weight loss medication and it didn’t work for me. I saw no change and it had no impact on my appetite but I’m also worried that some how messed up something in my system.

Any advice?

submitted by /u/Fearless_Wafer2454
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/6GpAgOb

Really low confidence during weight loss.

Hey everyone, sorry for the upcoming venting. I hope this isn’t the wrong subreddit, since it’s related to weight loss. Anyways, it’s as the title suggests. I keep seeing photos of women my exact weight and height (I am 5’1 & 146lbs) and the way I carry my fat vs how they carry theirs has been driving me crazy. I know it’s ridiculous and childish, and I also know that everyone carries fat differently but does anyone else feel insecure DURING weight loss? I am 17 pounds down since December 29th and while I am noticing some slight changes, I obviously still am going to have fat knees, super fat thighs and flabby arms for now… and knowing that I could probably only lose this once I lose a shit ton of more weight sucks.

No judgement please, I am just trying to just voice my frustrations out and see if anyone relates.

submitted by /u/Acceptable_Hour7926
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/Oph8oqK

having a minor issue with calorie density of foods as I transition back up to maintenance calories

So I've been on this whole fitness journey for almost 14 months at this point, and I am ~6lbs away from my goal weight. I don't really want to overshoot my goal weight by too much, so I need to increase my calories for a soft landing at maintenance calories. I'm currently eating between 2000-2200 calories per day, and based on my rate of weight loss over the past 6 weeks, I am in about a 700-calorie-per-day deficit. So I need to bump up from 2200 to around 2900.

The issue I am having is that it was hard enough fitting in an extra 400 calories per day when I went from 1800->2200 calories. Like, I mean literally fitting those calories into my body is difficult because we have swapped entirely over to high-volume, low-calorie foods. I have about 800-900 calories between 5am and 1pm (protein coffee for breakfast, fruit/habanero/yogurt/granola bowl for mid-morning snack, chicken burger or hot dog for lunch) then I usually have stir fry for dinner for about 1k calories, then a snack before bed that is another fruit/yogurt/granola bowl for around 300 calories. The stir fry usually fills up an entire 60oz pho bowl to the brim and weighs 3-4lbs.

If I want to add more calories to this with my current methods, there will physically not be space inside of me to fit the extra 700 calories into this meal. I could spread them out over my other stuff that I eat, but I'm going to have a similar issue with volume. I don't necessarily want to add more meals/snacks because that's just more stuff to keep on top of timing-wise, and I can get off schedule pretty easily depending on what I have going on with work/life things.

I don't really want to fall into the trap of adding stuff like cheese, butter, or sauces back to the mix because that can spiral out of control pretty quickly.

what did yall do when you got to maintenance and had to bump your calories by a significant amount?

submitted by /u/Schadenfreude_Taco
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/HxL6mnT

Weight loss bringing back trauma

Hi guys. I’m new to this subreddit and I’ve successfully lost 30 lbs. I was severely overweight and it was causing a lot of health problems for me. The weight loss has definitely improved my quality of life and I only have 39 lbs left to get to my goal weight. However, when I started to see the changes in the mirror and seeing myself get smaller, its scaring me a little bit. I have a lot of trauma from my teenage years where I felt small, controlled, manipulated, and vulnerable. I think subconsciously I gained so much weight because eating and getting bigger protected me from my trauma. I know these feelings will get better with time and I am seeking out a therapist to talk through these things with me, I just wanted to rant about it a bit. Has anyone else felt this way?

submitted by /u/lavanderlemongrass
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/5Hft6Lr

Thinking about documenting my 100lbs weight loss journey online, but struggling with privacy concerns. Looking for honest input.

TLDR:
28F, previously fit but struggled with mental health for years, which led to unhealthy habits and ~100 lb weight gain. I am finally feeling much better mentally and feel ready to focus on my health consistently. I’m considering documenting my weight loss journey on TikTok/Instagram for accountability and to help others, but I do not want having unflattering face photos/videos permanently online. I’m open to faceless or partially faceless content and full face reveal after getting to my goal weight. Looking for input on whether people follow weight loss creators, what content they enjoy or dislike, whether real-time journeys or “already lost it” creators are more appealing, and whether seeing the creator’s face actually matters.

Full post:

I’m 28F. For most of my life, I was fairly fit and healthy, and had pretty healthy habits but I struggled a lot with my body image due to harsh beauty standards and severe bullying throughout my childhood and adolescence. At my smallest as young adult, I was around 120 lbs at 5’3”, and still genuinely believed I was fat.

I had several pretty rough years struggling with my mental health severely and I coped in unhealthy ways and developed a severe food addiction with bingeing, which eventually led to me gaining around 100 lbs. I’ve been sitting at roughly 220 lbs for a few years now and at this point, I am just so over it. Over the past year, I’ve been seriously working on my mental health and have healed quite a bit and am in a much better place now with the healthiest mindset I've had in probably over a decade, if not the healthiest ever. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m constantly in survival mode and I finally feel like I have the emotional capacity to take care of my health and body consistently, instead of swinging between extremes, like I always used to.

Because of that, I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a TikTok and/or Instagram account to document my journey (meals, routines, fitness, things that work for me, things that don’t, and just the overall process + possibly some other glow up stuff like figuring out beauty/makeup etc.). I feel like it could help keep me accountable even on “off” days, and maybe also help other people who are on the other side of something similar feel less alone and see that there’s always a way forward.

That said, I still struggle with insecurities/concerns from my past, and there are a few things that really hold me back:

• I come from a small hometown in a country with extremely strict beauty standards for women (to clarify - I no longer live there and live in the US and personally do not adhere to these "rules" nor find them healthy), and no one back home has seen me in several years. But I really don’t want people there to see my content, become the talk of the town, or judge how much weight I’ve gained. I especially don’t want my parents or family to have to hear comments like “what happened to her?” or “how did she let herself go?”.
• If the account were to gain traction and I decided to keep it long-term (even after reaching my goal weight, posting fitness, cooking, beauty, or general “glow up” content), I honestly don’t want unflattering photos or videos of my face permanently floating around online. I can handle people seeing my body pre-weight loss, but showing my face feels extremely vulnerable to me. With extra weight, my face looks very awkward and honestly just not like me, and I don’t want those images to exist forever for public consumption or potentially be used against me to make fun of me or anything of the sort.

I’m much more open to revealing my face after losing the weight, but I’d really prefer not to do so beforehand. I could maybe be okay (if truly needed or preferred by the audience) with showing my face in selfies/"talking head" videos, where I'd have more control over angles and lighting, but not in full-body shots, before videos, or casual clips - and even then, that's a big if. I’ve thought about covering my face with a sticker, wearing a mask, or something similar. My goal isn’t necessarily to be anonymous as I’m okay with people online knowing who I am, I just don’t want bad photos or videos of my face following me forever if I decide to move on from the account one day.

All of this brings me to a few questions, and I’d really appreciate honest input:

1. Do you follow (or would you follow) weight loss creators?
2. What kind of content do you enjoy seeing from them? And on the flip side, what do you dislike?
3. Are you more likely to follow someone who is going through weight loss and figuring things out in real time, or someone who already lost the weight and is explaining exactly what they did, what worked, and what didn’t?
4. Do you care about seeing the creator’s face, or are you just as likely to watch and engage with faceless content (such as making meals, POV grocery shopping/fitness, walks etc.?

Thanks so much if you read all of this. I really appreciate any perspectives or experiences you’re willing to share.

submitted by /u/MariasLittleCorner
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/0IexBzR