How Easy Was It For You To Lose Weight?

Hello MFP community!!

I've been using MFP for about 1.5 years now and just decided to check out the forums....I've lost 30lbs and maintained it from simply logging my foods and exercising.

I'm plateauing at 30 lbs weight lost cause I'm finding that I can't reduce my meals (or rather I don't want to, 'cause there's so much good food around throughout the day and it's hard to resist).

Question is: how easy was it for you to lose weight?

The first 30 lbs was pretty easy for me and I didn't change a whole lot in my diet (more greens and smaller portions).

Honestly, the hard part for me was just eating less and being held accountable to go to the gym.

What's your weight loss story?
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Replies

  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,481 Member
    It was relatively easy for me. I had 30 lbs to lose. I was at the top of the normal BMI range.

    My calories all the way through and into maintenance were 1200 without exercise.

    I didn't like the way I looked so I stuck with my cals and worked out, eating back the exercise cals.

    It was slow, a whole year for the 30 lbs, but it was easy.

    I wanted my outside to match my inside more than I wanted to eat all the food all the time.

    Deteemination to reach ones goals goes a long way.

    Something you should do is look at what your calories for maintenance at your goal weight will be. If that is not a calorie goal that you will find sustainable, reassess your goal.

    Cal you have a slower rate of loss for this next stage? This will give you a few more calories.

    Cheers, h.
  • 88olds
    88olds Posts: 4,454 Member
    I lost about 65-70 lbs at a rate of about 4 lbs per month fairly easy.

    Then like a lot of guys I hit the gym. Lifted. Ate. Stayed at 215-220 for years. My goal had been 204. Never got below 212.

    Then I joined Weight Watchers. This was my first experience with a food log. It worked. I lost all the way to 170 in about 6 months. I was uncomfortable some of the time, but it wasn't so bad.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,706 Member
    JragonTree wrote: »
    Question is: how easy was it for you to lose weight?

    What's your weight loss story?

    Very easy and straightforward.

    I stuck to net 1250 calories for the first 16 weeks and lost 15 kg.

    Took a 1-month break.

    Stuck to net 1350 calories for the next 16 weeks and lost an additional 10 kg ... and arrived at the lowest weight I've been since my early 30s, and also the lower half of my normal BMI range.


    That said, there were occasional melt-down days during that time, but I hung in there and usually felt better the next day. :)
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,262 Member
    First 30 lbs or so was extremely easy. I just had to stop eating so much crap and have a more nutritionally well rounded diet. After that I had to start counting calories for the next 20ish lbs but it still felt easy. Once I hit a healthy weight, weight loss was very frustrating and I had some challenges. Overall, I think that the physical act of losing weight has been easier than the some of the psychological aspects of it (body image, etc.)
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,220 Member
    I struggled, a lot. I lost an average of about 20 pounds per year. I would do well and lose 5 pounds then struggle for a few months gaining and re-losing the same 3 pounds until things clicked again and I was down 5 more.
  • Luna3386
    Luna3386 Posts: 888 Member
    JragonTree wrote: »

    Question is: how easy was it for you to lose weight?


    What's your weight loss story?

    Not easy.
    I've spent more time maintaining my weight whilst trying to lose than losing.

    I've finally had success this year, for the first time since 2012 (mostly pregnancy weight ). I lost about 22 pounds since Thanksgiving. I have lost 15 since April but it's been a struggle. July has felt like a total wash, reminding me of 2013-2016. Bah.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    It's pretty easy for me to lose weight, a bit more difficult to keep it off, but a lot easier with the right tools and attitudes. I had to rearrange my food environment, my eating habits, cook more, educate myself, learn to handle stress and emotions better, and simply start to think like a normal weight person.

    I think you're way ahead of the game because you're honest about what's holding you back from losing more - not eating at a calorie deficit, and not wanting to do that, and acknowledging temptations.

    If you want the rest of your weight to go away and stay away (great job on the 30 you've already lost, btw), you have to eat less, there is no way around that. The most effective approach is to want it, but in order to want it, you have to find a way to eat less that you like, because this, you'll be doing for a long, long time (the rest of your life). Exactly what that would be, is up to you to find out, but a suggestion to what you can do, is reframing:

    You can still eat good food, and eat what you like, but you have to be more ruthless in your priorities - work smarter, not harder. Plan your meals. Plan for meals you know you enjoy, line up your favorites. Base your intake on rewarding, but not too stimulating, foods. Don't bring home foods you tend to want to overeat, instead eat them at intervals, reserve them for special occasions where servings are controlled because portions are normal, or by social norms. Eating at "all you can eat" buffets are best avoided as much as possible, until you feel more relaxed around food. (Keep in mind that even though you may find eating relaxing, overeating so much that you've gotten overweight, is an indication that the way you are eating, is somehow causing you stress.)

    Exercise moderately (whatever that means to you), find an activity you enjoy, keep at it, and change it up when you don't enjoy it anymore.

    Get enough sleep and rest, too.

    Then accept that no plan is so great and perfect that you'll never feel tempted to overeat, or never find yourself having overeaten. That is perfectly OK! If you make it easier to make better choices, you will make better choices, and if you make good choices more often than bad choices, you will succeed.
  • irowlands
    irowlands Posts: 3 Member
    I feel like pretty much everyone else on this thread. The first thirty pounds hasn't been too tough, but now I've hit a plateau. I understand "eat less" and I get the idea that as weight goes down, so does BMR, so net calories need to decline. I have two issues: 1) How do you accurately track calories used? I can count steps, and measure activities -- but knowing how that links to calories used is hard to figure. 2) How much "less" food? I don't have any desire to lose weight fast -- I'm quite happy with 1-2 pounds/week -- but I do want to shed another 30 pounds.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,706 Member
    irowlands wrote: »
    I feel like pretty much everyone else on this thread. The first thirty pounds hasn't been too tough, but now I've hit a plateau. I understand "eat less" and I get the idea that as weight goes down, so does BMR, so net calories need to decline. I have two issues: 1) How do you accurately track calories used? I can count steps, and measure activities -- but knowing how that links to calories used is hard to figure. 2) How much "less" food? I don't have any desire to lose weight fast -- I'm quite happy with 1-2 pounds/week -- but I do want to shed another 30 pounds.

    1) Estimate low. Don't count all your steps ... only log actual exercise. When you log actual exercise, choose the low/light/slow options even if you think you put in much more of an effort. Then eat 50-75% of your exercise calories back.

    2) Have you entered your details into MFP ... selected sedentary as your activity level ... and chosen to lose 1 lb/week? When you did that, how many calories did MFP give you?
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
    I already owned a treadmill. I didn't have to join a gym for that. Once I decided to do it, doing it was easy. Deciding to do it was hard.
  • laurenebargar
    laurenebargar Posts: 3,081 Member
    I'm not even half way there yet, but I've lost 30 pounds and its been pretty easy so far. Honestly I never really tried to lose weight before because I had an idea in my head that it was going to be super hard and I would fail. So compared to that, 4 months later and 32 pounds down it has been easy. But I have a tendency to assume things are going to be worse than they actually are.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,706 Member
    I already owned a treadmill. I didn't have to join a gym for that. Once I decided to do it, doing it was easy. Deciding to do it was hard.

    Yeah ... kind of the same thing with me and my bicycles.

    There I was struggling and wheezing up hills on my bicycle, and having a miserable time. Then one day in early December 2014, I thought ... "I could continue to have a miserable time ... or I could start to do something about it".

    I started attacking the local hills and cycling a lot more ... and then in mid-Feb 2015, I joined MFP. :)
  • brockhampton
    brockhampton Posts: 211 Member
    amtyrell wrote: »
    Very easy and very hard.
    Very easy in that it is a simple rule of eat less than burn.
    Very hard in that it takes willpower.

    This sums it up perfectly imo.

    Everybody wants to be fit. And there are resources available to most to go be fit. But the desire or the information is not the hard part. The hard part is actually having the determination to keep at it (which I'm slowly learning).
  • kokonani
    kokonani Posts: 507 Member
    If you've plateaued, just switch up on something, whether it be how you workout, frequency, intensity. Or try a different method of eating, such as Intermittent fasting or keto.
  • bruby28
    bruby28 Posts: 4,123 Member
    I'd say at first it was easier , being heavier it's easier for weight to come off . First 30 lbs took 6 months ..now have another 30 to go . Now it's getting harder , don't see the scale moving as much , but still loosing inches which is great . Changing up my workouts every week and staying on track calorie wise . For me it's hard to stay focused if there's a special occasion that revolves around food . That usually sets me back , but the next day I start again and get back on track feeling so much better .