Feeling stuck and need help

daneejela

I've started my weight loss in April, and by start of July I have lost around 20lbs . I've lost it mostly through the calorie counting eating on - 300, -400 cal deficit.

Last month and half my weight loss has stopped, and I know it's not a plateau, it's my discipline.
I started to eat more. I snack more, I go into debate with myself and I talk myself into eating more then I planned. There is a lot of fruit in season now and I just fail to resist. I still eat relatively good, keeping calories around maintenance, and eating mostly healthy foods, but I feel like I'm loosing control.
My highest recorded weight was 178lbs (81kg) and now I am at 158lbs (71.5kg). I would like to loose another 20lbs to reach my goal weight, but I am struggling to get back on track.

Have you ever had a similar period of struggling to make progress?
How did you get yourself back on track?

P.S. another thing that is blunting my focus is the fact that I am trying to get pregnant. But I don't want to use that as an excuse, since, in my case that can take months or even years to happen, and also, I don't see pregnancy as a break in mindful eating and keeping weight and calories in a healthy range.

How do I get that momentum back?

kommodevaran

Are you prelogging your food? For me, seeing the whole day, or week, at once, is really useful. I know I can fit anything in if I make some hard and smart priorities.

daneejela

I partially pre log...I prelog things that I know I'm gonna eat, like breakfast, other things I fill in during the day, since we eat meals together and usually plan it on the fly.

TilKingdomCome

I’ve sent you a friend request as our weight loss goal and current weight are the same.

I too have been having problems getting back into the swing of things and have held at maintenance for over 12 months, just 8 small kilos from goal. I’ve now put on 6kg and trying to get the motivation to get back into logging properly and not cheating myself.

I have found that preplanning my dinners helps a lot. That is, I have 2 choices for every day of the week including allowing a meal out once per week and wine on the weekends. Everyone knows what is being cooked that day and all the recipes have been preloaded into my recipe section on mfp.
I try to preload the entire day the day before when getting my lunch and snacks ready for work and I leave a couple of hundred calories for unexpected things such as coffee or popcorn etc if I feel that way inclined.

I love my seasonal fruit too so I feel your pain!

Seffell

Your math is off.
From April to start of July there are 3 months including April. 3x30=90days
20lbs x 3500cal = 70 000cal deficit needed
70 000cal / 90 days = 780cal deficit per day on average.

So you were eating at almost 800cal deficit per day. Maybe you were eating 300 below what MFP suggested and that's why you thought it is 300 deficit?
You are supposed to eat exactly what mfp gives you. The deficit is already included.

So if you lower the deficit to 250 now from 800 you might be able to get back on track.
To do this set your goal in mfp to lose 0.5lbs per week and eat all the calories mfp gives you and eat your exercise burns too.

You were torturing yourself. Of course you won't like to get back to it.

daneejela

@gebeziseva
Your math is correct, but somehow it really didn't felt that way...could be a water weight somewhere between those fat pounds maybe?
I ate around 1500 cals (1800 is my TDEE). What I didn't count was garden work I did at the time that was planed to be occasional but between mid April - mid Jun there was some work almost every day. So I guess it could be that huge deficit after all.

But I really didn't felt like starving. I ate a lot of home cooked meal, rich in fiber, I rarely felt so full and not constantly hungry as at the time.

daneejela

@TilKingdomCome
Thank you for the friend request! Preplanning is great, I tend to do that as much possible, but most of meals at the moment I eat with the family and since my family eats really light, cooked meals I feel that I benefit more from eating together then to do a separate meal just for the sake of pre logging. I do prelog meals that I eat solo like breakfast.

InkAndApples

When I felt that way I took a diet break, I wanted to preserve the psychology of "eating at a deficit works" as I knew my lazy logging was going to make it seem like I was making no progress.

Graelwyn75

The best way to handle it is to adjust for the fact that you don't have much more weight to lose now. This means setting your goal, as someone already suggested, to 0.5Ibs a week so that the loss is not as aggressive. That way, you can eat more and the remaining weight loss will not seem as daunting. It will also make it much smoother when you transition into maintenance.

In my personal experience, if I had been in a fairly large deficit for any period of time, my body and mind would both rebel and I would find it incredibly difficult to stay on track and not binge.

MegaMooseEsq

I would try to remember that any deficit is a win, as is maintaining. You've made a ton of progress! I'm given to understand that those last few pounds can be a bear, so maybe set a smaller deficit or maintenance and focus on fitness goals for a while.

reyoflightphoto

There is no shame in maintaining your weight for a while and taking a break. You may try a deficit 2 or 3 days a week and eat maintenance the rest. As long as your week is at any deficit you will lose weight. You don't have to lose large amounts each week to win. Small losses are great! I am at those last pounds and I just go off an on when I feel like it. So long as I keep off what I have lost I am always winning the battle.

MelanieCN77

Whenever it felt like I was being too deprived or just really over the detailed logging I would give myself a week at maintenance. I find even now that not logging tends to lead to silly choices so no matter how I am eating I always log, but having a little break for the funner foods or a more relaxed couple of days is healthy I think. Right now I'm practicing not logging but eating at maintenance, as I need to separate the not logging from absolute freedom in my head.

daneejela

@kommodevaran @reyoflightphoto @MegaMooseEsq @Graelwyn75 @gebeziseva @TilKingdomCome @MelanieCN77

You guys proved me once more that MPF is really such a great, "down to Earth" community. I wish I had discovered you way earlier

I did let myself go easier entire month - month and half. But I guess I do need a little more time, and I guess that it was relatively aggressive loss in my first three months. If I knew in the beginning that I would lost half of extra weight by this time, I would be more then happy to maintain it for a while.

I have started two fitness challenges - one is 100 days of yoga and other is one month squats challenge, so I am gonna focus on those. Although, regarding squat challenge I broke my rule of not doing things that I know are temporary, not a habit to keep.
But I'll try to stick with it for a month.