How does one lose weight in a complete healthy way and keep it off?

To give background info: I'm a short, pear shaped, low muscle tone woman with two children who is currently still breastfeeding a baby. I want to lose about 12-15lbs. I just can't seem to do it in a healthy, long term way. I don't want to look like Barbie. I want to feel comfortable in my clothes.

From everything I've read and experienced, it seems impossible to do. I almost fell like wanting to lose weight when you aren't very overweight or obese is actually considered wrong and unhealthy in itself? I think it's good if I accept my body and love it as it is, but after having two children and doing extended breastfeeding for both and losing any focus on myself or my looks, I feel frumpy, chubby, unattractive and weak. I really would feel happier with myself if I had more muscle and less fat on my body.

In the past, when my first child turned two, I did slim down with exercise and very strict calorie counting, but it made me focus way too much on calorie counting. I knew it wasn't sustainable. I gained weight again as soon as I stopped counting calories when stressful life events began (a couple years of secondary infertility, then the pandemic, then a high risk pregnancy, now parenting a baby and a preschooler, etc).

And isn't calorie counting just dieting, which is scientifically proven to fail and result in more weight gain in the long term? Something will always come up. And it seems like you can't keep weight off unless it's your whole life's focus to keep it off.

I know this seems defeatist, but these are real w questions and not hypotheticals. I would love to hear from people who have actually made lifestyle changes that are healthy, sustainable, and lasting which result in long term weight loss and keeping it off. What is the secret? Because what I read and hear from a science perspective is pretty uninspiring.

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Tips and Tricks

Hi LoseIt,

Long time lurker. Not sure what I hope to gain from this post, I guess just trying to see if maybe I can see that one line, or those words of wisdom that happen to serve as motivation to stick with this weight loss journey. I'm 32 year old male, 6 ft 3, 430lbs. I have sort of a fall from grace type of story where I used to be a strong and competitive athlete--- excelled at all the sports, hiked all the mountains, did 100 mile bike rides for fun etc. I used to be popular, get attention from women, and just enjoy life. I could go travel without worrying if I'd be kicked off the plane for not fitting in the seats, I could go to amusement parks, I could go out to restaurants without worrying about fitting in the booth or in the chairs, I could go to the zoo and not worry about standing too long, or getting tired. I could go to the movies and fit in the chair... the list goes on. Things started to go wrong when I went to college. I had all you can eat dorm food, and tore my ACL. That put me out of commission for a long time, and I gained a bunch of weight. The freshmen 15 was the Freshmen 50. Physical activity was such a big part of my life, when I suddenly couldn't do it, I legitimately got depressed. I didn't utilize my resources, I didn't understand the importance of mental health or try to get help. I spiraled more, got more depressed, ate more, gained more weight. I Graduated college at 360 lb. I then went on to graduate school where I put on another 60 lb. I've never been more miserable. In constant pain, and losing weight has always felt like such a losing battle. I now have bad ankle pain on an ankle that I had injured multiple times in the past, and I can hardly walk any significant distance. I try to ride the stationary bike, but literally my butt hurts so bad and my genitalia goes numb and it's pretty scary feeling. I know it sounds like I'm full of excuses, but it also feels like that's another trait that has developed with my out of control size and health. I tried many times to do things right, by tracking meals, exercising etc. I just fall off the wagon-- something happens to throw me off and I can't recover. I'll be running late one day and wont have time to pack a meal or make food and I'll grab some fast food or something quick and unhealthy. What's most bizarre is how much I know that I'm killing myself, shortening my life with every bite of bad food, every latte, and it doesn't seem to matter. Why can I not have the will power to do things right? It's like I'm totally powerless in certain situations... Man it' is madness. Anyway not sure what the point of this post is, but if anyone has any tips on how they found the motivation to care about themselves and stick with something, I'd love to hear them.

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Thanks!

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I went clothes shopping in a store for the first time since pre-COVID this past week...

..I was slapped with the realization I am obese. I was like, "I gained 100lbs, I'm probably a 1x now." WRONG. I left the store in tears because I'm a 2x-3x. Precovid I was a size 8-10.

First post, but I want a supportive community and hopefully, this can be it!

I am at the heaviest I've ever been at 260 (the closest was 220 before giving birth) My fiancee thinks I'm 240, shh. My average weight is about 145, but I had a starvation approach (anorexia nervousa) most of my life and during VID I had a major life change I decided to stop denying my great love for food and cooking. I tried everything I previously denied myself and loved every minute of it.

I know from all areas of my life that I need to take baby steps to make healthy choices in creating a healthier life for myself. When I went shopping, that was the devastation I needed to kick my ass into gear!! No crying, just determination!!!!

So this time I took a different approach to my weight loss. I lacked follow through on commitments because it was "too hard". I started going to the gym again in late August, and I'm super proud of my endurance and consistency as I have never actually sweated before and I leave every day at least damp.. I started going for 30 minutes to an hour 5-6 days a week and have made the jump to 1-2 hours this past week with 45-1 hour cardio. I have a bad traumatic arthritic ankle I've had surgery on it 7 years ago so I've been isolating the muscle groups surrounding it to help support my ankle for the weights so I am able to be more active.

Slow starts I have made in my lifestyle change are incorporating intermittent fasting from ABOUT 7 PM - noon. I say *about* because I might shave off an hour or two in either direction. If I'm so strict I feel like everything is too much and I have given up in the past so I feel the lax approach is better for me now.

I only allow myself my favorite tortillas two meals a week as opposed to the Hispanic daily and only use low-carb bread and incorporate more fiber. I'm TRYING to stick to high fiber high protein foods. The next thing I plan to do is incorporate a sweat stomach wrap for my workouts, not using fats when I cook just veggie broth and water, and only order salads or meat without breading on the rare occasions I do go out.

My mood is the best progress I've seen since late August, my ankle hurts way less and more often, the amount I'm able to do at the gym has drastically increased and my PRIDE of wanting to quit so many times in a workout but just pushing on until my original goal. I surprised myself so many times.

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I'm getting married in November of next year, and my current goal is 60 lbs by then. Old me thinks it's too low, but this me thinks it is attainable. My father said it's too high and suggested 30 and my future husband thinks 50 is a more attainable goal. I've lost 5 so far.

My perception of food and my body are out of whack as one could gather from my polarity relationships with food.

Advice?

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Embrace the Suck

This post is not for the people who generally feel awesome while they're trying to lose weight. It's not for the people that feel great all the time or even most of the time. It's not for the people that enjoy this process.

This post is for the people who are not doing as much as they know they could or worse, haven't gotten started yet with their weight loss journey. Maybe because they know it will require some things that a lot of us don't really care for up front like learning new habits and not being able to eat as much or the same things as we used to like to eat. Taking time out of your day to cook and plan or workout, perhaps.

I'm here to remind you of what you already know. This process generally speaking, isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows. You won't have as much free time. You're gonna screw up. You're gonna have to say no to yourself, and others. The scale sometimes won't cooperate no matter how awesome you did. You'll sometimes be tired. You'll sometimes be hungry. You'll sometimes be grumpy.

You should do it anyway. Embrace the suck and do it anyway.

I am a 5'6" female that has been all up and down this road, up to 240 and down to 140 and back up to 210. I knew as I saw the weight creeping back what I had to do. I had done it before, after all. CICO and calories. But man I make excuses to myself for YEARS not to do it.

"I'm gonna be hungry. I didn't like that." "Work is so busy. I don't have the mental bandwidth right now." "Maybe this other way/diet will work and not be as awful." (Spoiler, it didn't.)

But one day I faced facts and sat myself down and said "Hey, you know what, all that shit you hated about losing the first time, yup. That's all true and you hated all that and that all sucked. So the fuck what? You gonna woman up or continue to make shitty excuses?"

And allow me to tell you that that has not only gotten me started but has given me ironclad motivation and resolve that I haven't had in a very long time.

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Will I ever be satisfied with my body

Hey, I've been on a weight loss journey for over a year now, going from 120kgs to 80kgs and I still have a long way to go, but I am pretty proud that I was even able to keep up with it for this long, considering I've been struggling with my weight my whole life and I've been Obese (I/II) for half of it.
In theory I look better than I used to, everyone always compliments me about it (granted, just the people who knew me before because of the big change) but all I hear when they say that is "Man you were ugly before! Good job on being less ugly" and I even feel embarrassed and silly for the few times I looked in the mirror and thought I looked nice. Furthermore, although when dressed things aren't too bad, my skin and overall body are terrible, partly because of how heavy I used to be (stretch marks everywhere, cellulite, very poor skin texture - I look like a blob of cottage cheese) and partly because of the weight loss, ironically: flabby, saggy, loose skin everywhere. It's giving me a very hard time feeling more conscious and while before the weight loss I attributed everything to the fat, it's kinda driving me crazy that this time part of the culprit is the fat loss and I don't see a way to fix it. It's very frustrating and makes me feel kinda hopeless, just from the aesthetic POV (I'm not giving up on losing more weight, as a health goal). I know at a certain point I should just accept myself but it takes me back to when I thought there were too many things wrong about me that it wasn't even worth it to start working on them.
Sorry for the rant, share your thoughts if you want :)

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Weight loss > 30kg

I started at 117kg and I am now down to 85kg. I lose on average 1.2kg per week or 5kg per month. In one month, I'll be around 80kg and if not, then it's because of muscles.

Food

• no alcohol, never.
• mainly vegetables and less fruits
• some meat and a lot of eggs
• some milk and little carbs
• avoid eating everything with a high calorie per gram ratio. It's not forbidden, but when I eat it then not much of it.

• drinking 2, 3 or more liters a day of water, coffein free coffee or tee

• I had three food orgies in that time which you can see immediately on the scale but you can't see it on the long time scale - in the end it doesn't even matter.

Training

Most of the time I did not do anything special but

• I started contributing to openstreetmap and walked around my town and added info to the map! Nothing better to keep you moving than that. I'm not going for a walk to lose weight, I'm going for a walk to improve the map. I'm not forced to go, I just go whenever I want to. It gets addictive over time which helps a lot :)
• I started rucking. Rucking is walking or running with a rucksack. At the beginning with 5kg, and now mostly with 15kg. I even combine mapping and rucking.
• I started bicycling. Not fast or with the intention of losing weight (ok, maybe a little) but by making tours and having fun. I started with very short routes of 5km, then 20km, 60km, and now over 100km. I basically look on the map with brouter and select a circuit somewhere. It takes some time but it's fun, you see a lot, you do a lot. No stress. Just having a good time. No rush.

Problems

It's going to be very difficult to increase my calorie intake per day. I already started eating more over the last weeks but I don't really see a flattening curve. I'll see it over the long run so I'm not that concerned about it. I need to increase my calorie intake by (I guess) 1000 calories and that's going to be really difficult since I never fastened during that time and I'm always full at the end of a meal. I just eat (too) healthy. I need to start eating some "unhealthy" stuff! I hope it won't be too difficult to keep my weight and not to lose any further or gain weight again. My fear is that I will go up and down by eating too much or too little to compensate for the variance each day. Currently, I eat two meals a day and I think, I'll add a breakfast with 500 calories which will make it easy to reach my goal of 1000. We'll see when I get there!

Apps

• openscale connects easily with a bluetooth scale.
• waistline is great for looking up food information, you only need it in the beginning.
• opentracks is awesome for tracking a routine
• osmand is the best map out there
• streetcomplete and every door to contribute to osm
• paseo tracks your step count. Or a smartwatch (mi band is enough) with gadgetbridge
• opencamera to make progress pics
• tasks.org to keep track of todos and get reminded for the daily workout (it's nice to click completed afterwards)
• jefit to have a look into workouts

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Skin rashes during weight loss

I started a new job as a UPS driver a few months ago

Since i started my new job, I’ve lost 30 pounds last 2 months from 210 down to 180

Now i got this itchy rashes all over my armpits and groin, something I’ve never experienced before.

I’ve been applying skin lotions daily after shower but it doesn’t seem to get better..

Now, I’m wondering if this is related to the weight loss or something else like heat or infection.

Has anyone experienced this before during weight loss? Rashes are only concentrated on my armpit and groin, nowhere else.

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