Weight-loss struggles amongst so many success stories

amyepdx

svlofthouse wrote: »

amyepdx wrote: »

rachelannette wrote: »

Try leaving bread, potatoes, rice, pasta,cereal, and anything with sugar out of your diet. Stock up on Dannon yogurt, 80 calories, keep boiled eggs on hand, and turkey slices, a little fruit. Very carefully, log everything you eat. You will lose weight

And after a week or 2, chances are you’ll have an epic binge!

How about instead of that extremely limited diet, eat foods you like, weigh and log (not just log), stay in your deficit and you will lose weight - kind of how I lost 98 lbs eating bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, cereal and sugar along with many other foods.

Yeah it’s so hard. You want to lose weight, but a restrictive diet (that would work for weight loss) eventually causes a binge that sabotages your efforts. Do you believe that all calories are created equal??

Yep - pretty much. The only exception might be alcohol. If I had started out on such a restrictive diet, (like the other times I lost weight put gained in back within a year) I never would have made it as far as I have or been able to maintain my loss so far.

svlofthouse

bemyyfriend0918 wrote: »

The only thing that helps me is to stay off the scale! I know for some people this has the opposite impact, but for me, when I weigh myself and don't see a number I was hoping for, I get EXTREMELY discouraged. Nothing can cause me to binge faster than not losing as much weight as I hoped. I get that this may sound weird, but for some reason in my head if I "didn't lose enough", something happens subconsciously in my head that causes me to say screw it, I'm not succeeding so what's the point?!

I realize my thoughts are NOT true, but in my head, telling myself that it's enough just doesn't work. I weigh myself once per month. This helps me not be as obsessive, and usually seeing a more substantial drop because I've waited a whole month between weigh ins makes me feel more motivated.

Good luck!

I’m actually the same. A bad scale day (and I know that might just be water weight) can lead to a total spiral off my plan.
I do want to see my numbers go down, but it’s not everything. However, some days I just cry because my appearance feels like everything and I can’t get it how I want it to be, but I also know that I’m so so much more than a number or an ideal cultivated by the media.

PAV8888

svlofthouse wrote: »

bemyyfriend0918 wrote: »

The only thing that helps me is to stay off the scale! I know for some people this has the opposite impact, but for me, when I weigh myself and don't see a number I was hoping for, I get EXTREMELY discouraged. Nothing can cause me to binge faster than not losing as much weight as I hoped. I get that this may sound weird, but for some reason in my head if I "didn't lose enough", something happens subconsciously in my head that causes me to say screw it, I'm not succeeding so what's the point?!

I realize my thoughts are NOT true, but in my head, telling myself that it's enough just doesn't work. I weigh myself once per month. This helps me not be as obsessive, and usually seeing a more substantial drop because I've waited a whole month between weigh ins makes me feel more motivated.

Good luck!

I’m actually the same. A bad scale day (and I know that might just be water weight) can lead to a total spiral off my plan.
I do want to see my numbers go down, but it’s not everything. However, some days I just cry because my appearance feels like everything and I can’t get it how I want it to be, but I also know that I’m so so much more than a number or an ideal cultivated by the media.

Selecting what looked like a likely time-frame via eyeballing my weight trendline:

November 7, 2015: Scale: 166.3
December 6, 2015: Scale: 166.8 <-- OMG +0.5lbs nothing is working time to throw in the towel!

November 7, 2015: Weight Trend: 169.1
December 6, 2015: Weight Trend: 166.8 <-- actual approximate underlying weight change: -2.3lbs

I was not even dealing with water retention due to exercise.

Or, as is much more common for probably the majority of MFPers, water weight variations due to the time of the month.

Once a month is NOT the answer.

Trending weigh app or web site and looking at weight trend over time is a much closer answer.

Understanding yourself and how your weight changes an even better one...

bigbandjohn

As far a weight monitoring goes, I find that I can swing as much as 5 lbs during a week, even with strict dieting. An example would be weighing in at 249, the next day at 252, and the following day at 247, then back to 248. To see the fewest swings, I try to weigh myself at the same time every day, wearing the same thing. My rule is 2 days of weight loss before I accept it (i.e., if I hit 237, I check the next day to verify). I also never accept more than 1 lb of loss at a time. Others may argue against it, but one day I lost 7 lbs - but it was due to a stomach bug. Not real weight loss there. It was mostly back 2 days later.

Over time, I have gotten use to the pattern, and in many ways understand the causes for me. YMMV.

For now, daily. Once I hit my goal, weekly or bi-weekly is about all I plan to do for maintenance.