Please encourage me to lose weight slowly!
gracegettingittogether
Posts: 176 Member
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?
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Replies
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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?29
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I agree ^
I'd seek help for this.10 -
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.36 -
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!12
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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.6 -
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.6 -
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
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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!5 -
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.3 -
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.15
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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.2 -
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.11 -
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.3
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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!8 -
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!2 -
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.4
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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.4 -
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.8 -
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.3 -
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.7
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I'm rather fond of the Buddhist approach to the inner voices. Fighting them just makes them stronger. The technique that brings peace is to observe the voice/compulsion, let if flow over you without comment or judgement, and let it pass along. Like a wave. No need to act on it. No need to attach any emotion to it either.10
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Why don't you throw out the idea of tracking calories and just pay attention to your body signals? When I first started losing I didn't pay attention whatsoever to calories. I still don't except to occasionally add it up to see what I eat. I was really sick all the time with undiagnosed food allergies. I put myself on an elimination diet and ate the same foods day after day. I learned what a craving feels like as opposed to real hunger and I learned when to pay attention and when to ignore. I have weighed every day because it helped me learn my patterns. But counting calories constantly would have held me back. It's too much thinking about food. For the first 2 months or so I probably ate 800 calories a day (at least thats what I estimated later) and I wasn't hungry at all. Because I had been sick and my body was healing. Eventually I got hungrier. But it seems like you are focusing waaaay too much on the calorie thing. Just plan an eating routine and eat the same kinds of foods over and over for a while and don't worry about the details of it. The weight will come off easily. Especially if you ditch simple carbs and sugar.14
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The problem is my appetite has never lead me in the right direction. Either I'm starving all the time while gaining weight, or I have no appetite at all while losing weight. I've always struggled with finding a balance because my appetite is just always off. That's why I love MFP. No more guess work. It's done for me.6
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gracegettingittogether wrote: »The problem is my appetite has never lead me in the right direction. Either I'm starving all the time while gaining weight, or I have no appetite at all while losing weight. I've always struggled with finding a balance because my appetite is just always off. That's why I love MFP. No more guess work. It's done for me.
I'm with you. I'm 55 years old, and I broke my appetite signalling switch a very long time ago.
One thing I'd suggest to you that's been helpful to me?
Well, a little backstory. I got stuck in a binge/restrict cycle for the past year. One of the many things that helped me get out of it was implementing weekend maintenance days.
One of the things that played into the cycle for me was over restricting, and the down regulation of the hormones that happens with caloric restriction told my body to eat. Well, I was so depleted, I didn't just eat, I binged.
The implementation of weekly maintenance refeed days helps bring those depleted hormones back to baseline levels, and I can go another week eating at deficit without facing possible consequences which ultimately lead me to binge.
I've been out of the binge/restrict cycle for ... I think it's going on eight weeks now because of this.
And yes, sometimes I have to force myself to eat at maintenance. Conquering this cycle is WORTH IT.
Read the first post of the dieting and refeeds thread for information about this. It might help you.9 -
I have a weird body. All that trusting your body? Yeah well, every time I do that, I end up in the hospital, have a traumatic birth, almost starve my son while breastfeeding because apparently my milk had no fat, the nutrients didn't go the the baby first, so he lost milestones and slept almost 24 hours per day. Even the pediatrician thought he had a neurological wasting disease. Nope, just my body starving him.
And the time I was sick for two weeks but thought I was ok? Ended up in the hospital with bilateral pneumonias, and had to be brought in by ambulance.
Really bad onset of severe cystic acne to the point the dermatologist said there's no way it could just be stress. Oh it was.
Then there was the time I got blurry vision and impaired hearing from stress, but thought there was nothing wrong with that.
Just my body reacts in weird unpredictable ways. I have no idea what's going on with it most of the time.4 -
[quote="GottaBurnEmAll;c-410
I'm with you. I'm 55 years old, and I broke my appetite signalling switch a very long time ago.
One thing I'd suggest to you that's been helpful to me?
Well, a little backstory. I got stuck in a binge/restrict cycle for the past year. One of the many things that helped me get out of it was implementing weekend maintenance days.
One of the things that played into the cycle for me was over restricting, and the down regulation of the hormones that happens with caloric restriction told my body to eat. Well, I was so depleted, I didn't just eat, I binged.
The implementation of weekly maintenance refeed days helps bring those depleted hormones back to baseline levels, and I can go another week eating at deficit without facing possible consequences which ultimately lead me to binge.
I've been out of the binge/restrict cycle for ... I think it's going on eight weeks now because of this.
And yes, sometimes I have to force myself to eat at maintenance. Conquering this cycle is WORTH IT.
Read the first post of the dieting and refeeds thread for information about this. It might help you.[/quote]
Thank you!! That's really helpful!! This gives me hope! I've been so worried about the possibility of binging. I'm also glad to hear of someone else who has to force themselves to eat and it actually prevents binging instead of bringing it on. Thank you!4 -
sexymamadraeger wrote: »Why don't you throw out the idea of tracking calories and just pay attention to your body signals? When I first started losing I didn't pay attention whatsoever to calories. I still don't except to occasionally add it up to see what I eat. I was really sick all the time with undiagnosed food allergies. I put myself on an elimination diet and ate the same foods day after day. I learned what a craving feels like as opposed to real hunger and I learned when to pay attention and when to ignore. I have weighed every day because it helped me learn my patterns. But counting calories constantly would have held me back. It's too much thinking about food. For the first 2 months or so I probably ate 800 calories a day (at least thats what I estimated later) and I wasn't hungry at all. Because I had been sick and my body was healing. Eventually I got hungrier. But it seems like you are focusing waaaay too much on the calorie thing. Just plan an eating routine and eat the same kinds of foods over and over for a while and don't worry about the details of it. The weight will come off easily. Especially if you ditch simple carbs and sugar.
Hopefully without being too far out of line... but what exactly are you either doing or advocating here.
Help us out with the backstory.of a person
* who is on a calorie tracking and counting forum saying that she doesn't count calories.
* who is in a forum of a site with a policy of advocating a minimum caloric intake, yet you're implicitly suggesting eating well below that
* who is advising a person with a history of at least some adverse reaction to over-restricting... to over restrict.
You also said, if I understood correctly, that you're in a bit of a spiral of enjoying feeling hungry, and you're also not sure you want to stop when you get to maintenance... thoughts that on the surface sound slightly questionable.
So tell us something about your backstory.
Because if I had to guess I would say that a) your are dieting with a deficit that is sufficiently large that you have now tipped into ed ideation and b) that you have a history of losing and gaining weight... but not one of maintaining for a long time after a weight loss.
And tell us what your advice to the op is (an OP who asked to be encouraged to lose weight slowly).
Because if I am reading you correctly you are advising her to under eat and go for a big deficit to lose weight fast because...(well I'm not clear about that because. Hence I'm asking you about your back story and thought process @sexymamadraeger )
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Fair enough! I realize her question was how to lose slowly and count the calories. I guess I was sharing what has worked for me in the past. I wasn't encouraging her to eat way low calories to lose fast. I was observing that she seems extremely anxious about it. It is ok to eat very low calories if you are truly not hungry. Because eventually your body is hungry and will want to eat more. I was suggesting that she learn when she is truly hungry and when she is craving and let that be the guide. It may not be appropriate for her question. You are correct. I was just sharing my thoughts is all.
Here's my backstory. I was thin and in great shape until I had my first child who is special needs. My coping mechanism was food because I never slept and life was hard. I gained weight until I was 283. But I was also sick and didn't realize it. I found out my food allergies and started eating an elimination diet and healing my gut. I was not very hungry. But I was healing ulcers and inflammation etc and bouts of sickness when I ate something wrong. I had to learn to not worry about the calories and focus on how my body felt. And that is what made the difference for me! I tried counting calories many times and I always sabotaged myself. Because counting calories makes you focus on food constantly. It didn't work for me. I learned what cravings felt like and what hunger felt like. I never yo yo dieted. When I lost I lost. I started 3 years ago and I have lost 125 pounds total as of today. My struggle is unique because of my allergies. I have a narrow diet and I worry mostly about getting enough nutrition in the long run. I am used to hunger because I can't eat out or conveniently many times. And it really is ok to be hungry sometimes as long as you aren't bottoming out with your blood sugar. So I was trying to help. But I do have a unique perspective. I used this app as a guide but I never used the calorie counter much. I log exercise and journal my health and track my weight. It's good for much more than just calorie counting.3 -
sexymamadraeger wrote: »Fair enough! I realize her question was how to lose slowly and count the calories. I guess I was sharing what has worked for me in the past. I wasn't encouraging her to eat way low calories to lose fast. I was observing that she seems extremely anxious about it. It is ok to eat very low calories if you are truly not hungry. Because eventually your body is hungry and will want to eat more. I was suggesting that she learn when she is truly hungry and when she is craving and let that be the guide. It may not be appropriate for her question. You are correct. I was just sharing my thoughts is all.
Occasionally? Sure. Consistently, absolutely not. And actually especially if your body is trying to heal. I just went through the mother of all eczema flares. Between the rash and the prednisone required to stop my immune system from over-reacting, I was really not hungry a lot of the time. I made damn sure I hit my TDEE every day, because my body needed those calories to heal the ridiculous damage it had done to itself.12 -
I lost the first 85 pounds quickly because I wasn't eating carbs. The last 40 has been slow and steady... a pound a week. I still don't eat carbs. I don't think I have an eating disorder. I did when I was big. But I do worry a lot about finding a happy place when I reach my goal weight. I think because of my food sensitivities I will have trouble not losing weight. I need a nutritionist to help find a balance. That's all.1
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