Please encourage me to lose weight slowly!

gracegettingittogether

I started MFP 20 some days ago, and have lost 10.5 lbs out of 75 lbs to go. I've always had trouble with binging, then starving myself to lose weight, and then binging and getting it all back plus some. Now I'm at the point where I've lost my appetite and feel sickened by food, plus I'm feeling a strong urge to lose more and more quickly, almost a compulsion. Could someone talk me off the cliff?

janejellyroll

I'm not sure this is something strangers on the internet can do for you. If you're feeling compulsive around eating, have you ever considered talking to a professional about it?

sdolan91

I agree ^
I'd seek help for this.

aeloine

Here's some logic:

You've lost and regained before;
You're losing too quickly now;
Losing too quickly means it's unsustainable and you'll binge;
If you binge, you'll keep binging;
If you keep binging, you'll regain;
If you regain, you'll be unhappy.

Don't be unhappy. Eat food that makes you happy, in a way that you can keep eating for a long time.

And reach out or help at home, reach out to a counselor, or a doctor, or a friend, or a hotline.

Be happy, be safe, breathe.

ETA: MFP is a proven tool. So many people have had success on here. There is no reason to expedite the process.

gracegettingittogether

Thank you! I'm going to come back and read this whenever I feel the urge to starve myself. I'm now going to go eat my alloted calories, even though I don't feel like it. Thank you! I love good hard logic!

RoxieDawn

cecilygthompson wrote: »

Thank you! I'm going to come back and read this whenever I feel the urge to starve myself. I'm now going to go eat my alloted calories, even though I don't feel like it. Thank you! I love good hard logic!

I have seen it many times here and it seems easy for certain individuals or personalities to start with weight loss, start losing it rapidly and stay down this path for a period of time. After a long enough period of time, things spiral, and these individuals have lost or suppress their appetite, they begin a cycle of disordered thinking, start eating very low calorie diets. Many aspects and to varying degrees of weight loss, food, etc are effected. It can be physical and psychological ignore hunger cues, suppress appetite and lose control of rational thinking etc.

Logic sometimes can be masked by our own thinking in one direction or the other. If you reach a point where eating more becomes difficult for you, please seek the help and guidance of professionals that can help you out of this pattern of thinking and new adopted behaviors that are possibly unhealthy.

toxikon

Sorry to hear you're struggling. It's hard to change the binge/restrict mindset and it can definitely spiral out of control.

Focus on fueling your body and keeping it healthy. Eating too few calories can result in all kinds of health issues. Losing muscles, losing your hair, brittle nails, sallow skin, fainting, exhaustion, organ damage. It's a bad path to go down.

Try to reach at least your minimum calorie goal every day - for women, no fewer than 1200 per day. Even if you binged the day before, try to stick to that minimum to stop the cycle before it starts. Remind yourself that any day below your TDEE is a step towards your goal. If your TDEE is 1800, and you eat 1750 calories - that is still a deficit! Awesome!

Slow and steady is sustainable and healthy for your body. There's no rush.

dimaslopes

the sucess or failure of diets can be resumed in one word: consistency
if you need to eat less, just keep eating less bit by bit everyday but do not fail to do so everyday
if you want to suddenly cut many calories, fine but make sure not to make your cheat days become cheat weekends, and fix the cheat day and never change it (i do sundays)
and track more of your body fat than your weight, it's harder to quantify but it is more satisfying

gracegettingittogether

Thank you all! I feel encouraged and steadied! I really do want to make this a sustainable thing. That's right, there is no rush, because this is for the rest of my life. Not losing, that is, but eating at a healthy level, including long term maintenance, when I get to it.
How do I figure out my TDEE? I don't want to have cheat days, as I feel that would open the door to binging, but I will have days that realistically I'll eat more, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. And I didn't binge on Thanksgiving this year, which I'm pleased with!

toxikon

cecilygthompson wrote: »

Thank you all! I feel encouraged and steadied! I really do want to make this a sustainable thing. That's right, there is no rush, because this is for the rest of my life. Not losing, that is, but eating at a healthy level, including long term maintenance, when I get to it.
How do I figure out my TDEE? I don't want to have cheat days, as I feel that would open the door to binging, but I will have days that realistically I'll eat more, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. And I didn't binge on Thanksgiving this year, which I'm pleased with!

I personally like this TDEE calculator: http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Eating above your TDEE on special occasions won't derail you - as long as it's not often. I never deprive myself on special occasions - but I also try to listen to my body and only eat enough to satisfy me.

cheryldumais

Oh my friend I have so many things to tell you..... I have lost and gained all my life but this time I took my time. Here's what's different: I've learned to eat smaller portions and be satisfied. I have found a way of eating that I can LIVE with permanently. The biggest one... When I overeat I get nauseated. Why? Because I think my stomach has returned to a normal size and I can't fit as much food in there anymore. Most of my life I never felt full and I think it's because I was always overeating. The coolest part for me this time is I MADE IT TO GOAL, and I feel I can maintain. I've never felt that way before. I always felt like I couldn't wait to finish dieting so I could get back to "normal". This time I am content. I also found alot of foods I never would have eaten before that are now part of my normal diet and I like them. Take your time. Learn some stuff and you'll get there but most importantly you'll stay there.

gracegettingittogether

So I'm still losing too quickly, I'm not sure why. I set my activity level too low, I think, since I'm trying to get 10,000 steps in. Sometimes, I don't, which makes me anxious, so I thought by setting it low, any extra calories burned would be icing on the cake. I raised my activity level, so that should help. Unfortunately, I also got a staph infection on my face which caused me a lot of pain and I lost desire to eat. Then the antibiotics has caused loss of appetite, so I'm really struggling to get my calories in. I did switch antibiotics and it's better now, at least food doesn't taste like dirt anymore. I still am losing quite quickly still, and am wondering if the staph infection could cause that. I haven't been having huge deficits.
I'm really loving MFP because I can have guilt free treats, which were what I would restrict myself from and then end up binging. So I hope I won't go back to binging. It does feel strange to force myself to eat, when overeating is what caused a 70 lb gain. However, I'm losing around 2.8 lbs per week, so I need to eat more to slow it down to at least 2 lbs per week, though 1.5 lbs would be better.
Sorry for the long post! Writing things out really helps me realize them better.

PAV8888

For the love of ""kitten**

Your deficit for weight loss should be based on a sustainable percentage off of your tdee, not some preconceived notion that you have the right to target a certain amount of weight loss per week.

Deficits of up to 20% off of your TDEE are as far as we should go unless we're obese in which case we have enough fat available to tolerate deficits of up to 25%.

Larger deficits generate larger reactions from the various hormones and neurotransmitters in our bodies.

For people who are susceptible, large enough deficits, by themselves, are enough to trigger ED ideation.

A rough estimate of your deficit is to divide your weight loss by 3500 calories per pound. Add that amount to what you've eaten to estimate your own TDEE better than an online calculator.

As an individual who is susceptible you would be much much better served by reducing your deficit to something in the 20% or less range... For most people that will end up being somewhere near the one pound a week range and not the two pound or one and a half pound range that is so often targeted.

sexymamadraeger

I initially cut out carbs and ate a very narrow diet and lost 85 lbs in 9 months. So that's a little over 2 lbs a week. I did just fine! I had a lot of weight to lose. I gave it a break for a year and coasted at the same weight. Then I started losing again last February. This time I have been losing about a pound a week. I am fine with that. I think when you get closer to your goal weight you lose slower. I am one of those people btw, who has lost a lot of weight and am starting to struggle mentally with the idea stopping and maintaining. I have regularly ignored my body for months now. It's a way of life. Hunger is no big deal! It's been a good thing but I worry now that I will go too far and lose too much weight. Crazy how things turn around on you as the journey comes to an end.

PAV8888

sexymamadraeger wrote: »

Crazy how things turn around on you as the journey comes to an end.

Unless you keel over as soon as you reach your goal you are NOT actually at the end of your journey.

Maintaining your loss takes effort and work, and cannot usually be left to chance. You will also have to contend with your body not always cooperating with your wishes.

Being flexible, incentive and willing to use the tools you developed while losing may be enough to help you win the never ending maintenance phase!

gracegettingittogether

Well, I'm glad to hear that you were losing 2 lbs per week and it didn't hurt you! The thing is, I just have no appetite. It's not that I'm restricting myself, I'm just not hungry. I always do lose my appetite when I exercise more, which is just 10,000 steps. Previously, I was extremely depressed and very sedentary, which is how I got to where I am now. I'm going to give myself 200 calories more, which should slow the excessively fast loss down, but I'm having trouble just getting my 1400 calories in. I do have a good 70 lbs to lose and am 20 lbs away from being even just overweight. So I am obese. 5' 4" and 193 lbs currently. I'm going to try to eat more but not obsess over it, if I don't make it, since after all, I have a lot to lose. Anyway, the more I worry, the less appetite I have. Before, I would worry and eat too much, now I worry and eat too little. I guess the lesson is to stop worrying and my appetite will even out!
Thank you both!

skinnyjing

I had similar experience to you, when I started, since I am doing low carb which naturally suppress your appetite, I had days I am just not hungry and ate less than 1000 calorie but I know that's not good, so I started to think of my meal ahead of time. I will log what I plan to eat for tomorrow, so when the day come, I finish everything I packed even though I am not hungry. It also help to get some snacks you like, make small package of them to keep with you. This phase will sure past, specially after you recover from your infection.

GottaBurnEmAll

toxikon wrote: »

cecilygthompson wrote: »

Thank you all! I feel encouraged and steadied! I really do want to make this a sustainable thing. That's right, there is no rush, because this is for the rest of my life. Not losing, that is, but eating at a healthy level, including long term maintenance, when I get to it.
How do I figure out my TDEE? I don't want to have cheat days, as I feel that would open the door to binging, but I will have days that realistically I'll eat more, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. And I didn't binge on Thanksgiving this year, which I'm pleased with!

I personally like this TDEE calculator: http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

Eating above your TDEE on special occasions won't derail you - as long as it's not often. I never deprive myself on special occasions - but I also try to listen to my body and only eat enough to satisfy me.

One note about sailrabbit: make sure you're looking at the TDEE column, not the BMR column. I've been in threads where people have made that mistake before.

GottaBurnEmAll

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

Well, I'm glad to hear that you were losing 2 lbs per week and it didn't hurt you! The thing is, I just have no appetite. It's not that I'm restricting myself, I'm just not hungry. I always do lose my appetite when I exercise more, which is just 10,000 steps. Previously, I was extremely depressed and very sedentary, which is how I got to where I am now. I'm going to give myself 200 calories more, which should slow the excessively fast loss down, but I'm having trouble just getting my 1400 calories in. I do have a good 70 lbs to lose and am 20 lbs away from being even just overweight. So I am obese. 5' 4" and 193 lbs currently. I'm going to try to eat more but not obsess over it, if I don't make it, since after all, I have a lot to lose. Anyway, the more I worry, the less appetite I have. Before, I would worry and eat too much, now I worry and eat too little. I guess the lesson is to stop worrying and my appetite will even out!
Thank you both!

There's going to come a point where you're losing too great a percentage of your TDEE and your hormones are going to trigger your binge response.

You have been here before, because that is how binge/restrict cycles work.

Right now, your head is all about restrict mentality and that is the voice you're listening to.

That voice isn't going to remain the only one talking to you, and you know this.

gracegettingittogether

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

Well, I'm glad to hear that you were losing 2 lbs per week and it didn't hurt you! The thing is, I just have no appetite. It's not that I'm restricting myself, I'm just not hungry. I always do lose my appetite when I exercise more, which is just 10,000 steps. Previously, I was extremely depressed and very sedentary, which is how I got to where I am now. I'm going to give myself 200 calories more, which should slow the excessively fast loss down, but I'm having trouble just getting my 1400 calories in. I do have a good 70 lbs to lose and am 20 lbs away from being even just overweight. So I am obese. 5' 4" and 193 lbs currently. I'm going to try to eat more but not obsess over it, if I don't make it, since after all, I have a lot to lose. Anyway, the more I worry, the less appetite I have. Before, I would worry and eat too much, now I worry and eat too little. I guess the lesson is to stop worrying and my appetite will even out!
Thank you both!

There's going to come a point where you're losing too great a percentage of your TDEE and your hormones are going to trigger your binge response.

You have been here before, because that is how binge/restrict cycles work.

Right now, your head is all about restrict mentality and that is the voice you're listening to.

That voice isn't going to remain the only one talking to you, and you know this.

Dang it! I've got to get rid of that voice!! Since posting earlier, I got scared that now my infection is better, my weight loss will stop, so I changed my calories back to 1430. Now I'm changing it back to 1680, which it says will result in a lb loss per week, while being lightly active. This is so hard to control!! I've only just got over a long lasting, bad depression and now to work at this other voice in my head! It never ends. And I know I can never stop fighting it. With one struggle gone, there comes another always.

gracegettingittogether

It's embarrassing to read my posts and see the truth of what you're saying. I didn't fully realize it untill rereading my own posts. I'm going to keep posting here for that reason, if you guys don't mind. So you can call me out when I am unreasonable. It's humiliating but good for me.