4 years using MFP - 12 months losing 80 lb then 3 years keeping it off

Orphia
Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
in Success Stories

Well done you, reading threads in MFP Community! This community has been a huge part of my success.

Here’s a bunch of things I’ve learnt here that have been very important and helpful.

Make friends with and learn from successful people.

Use the Help Section and the Most Helpful Posts in General Weight Loss, Getting Started, and Fitness. These are the Announcement threads stickied at the top of those forums in Community.

Learn how to log accurately and quickly using advice given in those posts. A digital food scale is a great addition to your kitchen. Log solid food in grams, and liquids in millilitres. Don’t just log “1 cup of pasta” or “1 medium avocado”. These things can be out by hundreds of calories, especially if you’re not honest with yourself.

You MUST be honest with yourself! Try to log food before or as soon as you eat it, or, as many studies have shown, you won’t let yourself remember. Logging is very quick once you have your regular foods entered once.

Find an exercise you love. If you love it, you’ll keep exercising.

Eat back exercise calories! Fast weight loss is bad! Fast weight loss messes with your leptin (satiety hormone) and ghrelin (hunger hormone) which are part of our metabolism. When those are out of whack, that is when people can’t control their hunger and binge and yo-yo. All those “serial starters” probably crash diet, then overeat, repeatedly and repeatedly. Learning not to crash diet is very, very important!

Once I’d had a talking-to and learned I must eat back my exercise calories, I discovered I had more energy and really got into running. My Fitbit Charge HR (and now my Garmin Fenix 5) both measured my walking/running exercise burns very accurately. I ate/eat back 95% of the calories.

MFP sets your calorie limit according to your weight loss goal.

So if you eat back the extra calories you earn, it’s still going to mean you will lose weight.

If you don’t eat exercise calories back, that’s when you lose muscle, get weaker, move less, get really hungry, and can end up with an eating disorder, or crashing and burning and failing to reach goal weight.

Stick to your weekly calorie limit. Have some days or weeks where you eat at maintenance, to help regulate your metabolism/hormones.

The idea is to eat in a way that will teach you habits you can stick to for life.

There’s no point doing a crazy diet then going back to eating the way you used to. Hello yo-yo!

Reduce your weekly weight loss goal when you lose weight along the way.

Volume Eating. Fruit and veg have fibre which makes you feel full, and they bulk up the size of your meal without adding many calories. Protein, fat, and fibre can make you feel fuller. My macronutrients are usually around 50% carbohydrates, 30% fat, 20% protein, and that keeps me very healthy, active, and happy. Please talk regularly to a doctor and/or dietitian about your health and dietary requirements.

Better health through technology. MFP of course! Strava! I love this app! Lots of health apps. Daybreak for alcohol regulation.

Happy Scale app, iPeriod app! Daily weight fluctuations are normal! Most successful people seem to weigh themselves daily and record it. It gives you an idea how sodium, hormone cycles, exercise, and stress can mean you hold more water some days. Eating a “forbidden food” (I don’t have any) will not make you gain 2 lb in one day. The human body can’t convert an additional 7,000 calories over your calorie limit into 2 lb of fat in one day! (1 lb of fat = 3,500 calories.) The “weight gain” has got to have been a big workout, ovulation/menstruation, a few thousand milligrams of salt, a little bit more waste in the digestive tract, or something like that.

Body Recomposition. It’s hard to get your weightloss mindset switched to a maintenance mindset. I went 2 kg lower than what turned out to be my perfect weight. But by exercising daily I’ve added that 2 kg back in muscle. Even though I weigh a little more now, I’m more defined.

Make friends with successful people! Join some Challenges in the Challenges forum. I’ve learned so much from my friends in the Running, Less Alcohol, and Self-care challenge threads, and we’ve done some amazing things together.

Decluttering. Letting go. Have your life filled with things you love. Don’t give space or time to things or behaviour that drag you down.

Get regular health checks by doctors, psychologists, dieticians. I don’t need any medication anymore.

Medical and mental health advice are awesome!

Thanks for reading, and thank you, My Fitness Pal!


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Finally, some of my favourite mantras:

You might as well keep trying because the time will pass anyway.

Don’t wait around for motivation. Just do it.

Don’t believe everything you think.
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Replies

  • Fflpnari
    Fflpnari Posts: 975 Member
    so inspiring!!!!!!
  • Fflpnari
    Fflpnari Posts: 975 Member
    and great tips!
  • bentojo
    bentojo Posts: 6 Member
    I needed this. Great job and thank you!
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,871 Member
    Love! :heart:
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    You the man! Wait! You the woman!
  • Sew3rin
    Sew3rin Posts: 115 Member
    Thank you so much for sharing and congratulations on your success. <3
  • HASWLRS
    HASWLRS Posts: 8,001 Member
    Such common sense!! Thank you for this morning's dose of inspiration!!!
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    middlehaitch wrote: »
    Bloody marvellous!

    I’ll just add -
    If your like me and can’t find an exercise you love, find an activity or goal and train for that.

    I know it is splitting hairs a bit, but if I was told to exercise 60x5 a week I’d never get there even though my thoughts on exercise have moved from hate to a mild dislike, and I recognize the health benefits.

    Loving going on adventurous vacations once a year is what keeps me going to the gym etc.

    I come up with different things to do each trip and then train for that.
    Short term goals with long term benefits that have kept me moving for the past 10yr.

    Cheers, h.

    That's brilliant, h! @middlehaitch and thanks! I don't have a problem not wanting to keep running... choosing where I want to run keeps me out there.

    I don't have a goal other than to run for pleasure at the moment. I do have holidays coming up and the thought of being able to run somewhere new keeps me very keen to keep up my fitness.

    I like your line of thought!
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    bentojo wrote: »
    I needed this. Great job and thank you!

    @bentojo What a lovely comment to receive! Thank YOU!
  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    Orphia - yes! And thank you! All that in a nutshell. Is there a way of printing out your valuable and inspiring insight? Now I'll put on my shoes and go for a walk!
  • Ducks47
    Ducks47 Posts: 131 Member
    I just wanted to congratulate you!
  • NewLIFEstyle4ME
    NewLIFEstyle4ME Posts: 4,440 Member
    You're a beautiful person Orphia, thanks so much for posting this! YAY YOU as well.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    Absolutely brilliantly inspirational. <3
  • st0753353
    st0753353 Posts: 2 Member
    Very inspirational!
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,486 Member
    Orphia wrote: »
    I've received some lovely friend requests with beautiful messages from people who have been reading.

    This community is so special to me.

    And you are a valued member of this community.

    <3, h.
  • Tolstolobik
    Tolstolobik Posts: 78 Member
    Orphia wrote: »
    I've received some lovely friend requests with beautiful messages from people who have been reading.

    This community is so special to me.

    You have inspired and helped me beyond measure. I am forever grateful.

  • ashleygroizard
    ashleygroizard Posts: 181 Member
    Orphic you have done so well. Your body looks fantastic. I hope I can get a skinny and fit and small body like you have achieved. Well done. Thanks for all the tips. I get on the scales numerous times a day and it’s all over the place. But even though my weight goes up and down it’s more going down. I do get stuck sometimes on a number but I think that’s how weight loss goes. From what I have found my weight doesn’t just go down every day unfortunately. I wish it did but mine doesn’t. Good for you changing your life and getting healthy
  • SueSueDio
    SueSueDio Posts: 4,796 Member
    ashleygroizard wrote: »
    Orphic you have done so well. Your body looks fantastic. I hope I can get a skinny and fit and small body like you have achieved. Well done. Thanks for all the tips. I get on the scales numerous times a day and it’s all over the place. But even though my weight goes up and down it’s more going down. I do get stuck sometimes on a number but I think that’s how weight loss goes. From what I have found my weight doesn’t just go down every day unfortunately. I wish it did but mine doesn’t. Good for you changing your life and getting healthy

    Please don't do this. Weigh yourself once a day at the most, and always at the same time and under the same circumstances (e.g. in the morning, after using the bathroom but before breakfast). Preferably use a trending weight app like Libra or Happy Scale to smooth out the inevitable lumps and bumps... for the majority of people, there won't be a consistent drop daily or even weekly, it'll be all over the place like you said.

    And please do speak to your treatment team about everything you're currently feeling, based on your recent posts. I wish you well. *hugs*
  • yuko0407
    yuko0407 Posts: 67 Member
    @Orphia Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for sharing!
    Very inspirational.
    And congrats for your journey: you are so beautiful. :)<3
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    edited May 2019
    ashleygroizard wrote: »
    Orphic you have done so well. Your body looks fantastic. I hope I can get a skinny and fit and small body like you have achieved. Well done. Thanks for all the tips. I get on the scales numerous times a day and it’s all over the place. But even though my weight goes up and down it’s more going down. I do get stuck sometimes on a number but I think that’s how weight loss goes. From what I have found my weight doesn’t just go down every day unfortunately. I wish it did but mine doesn’t. Good for you changing your life and getting healthy

    Second the thought that weighing yourself multiple times per day is counterproductive in general and unhealthy for you, specifically.

    Of course your weight will fluctuate during the day based on how much food/liquid is currently in your system. Food and liquids have weight, and have absolutely nothing to do with how much your physical body weighs, or how much fat you've lost or gained because food and liquid weight are transitional and always fluctuating. What are you hoping to learn from weighing yourself multiple times per day?

    And nobody's weight goes down every single day. NOBODY'S. That's not how weight loss/management works. It's the trend over time that matters, and one day is not nearly sufficient to determine this. Weight trends are determined over weeks and months of data.
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    ashleygroizard wrote: »
    Orphic you have done so well. Your body looks fantastic. I hope I can get a skinny and fit and small body like you have achieved. Well done. Thanks for all the tips. I get on the scales numerous times a day and it’s all over the place. But even though my weight goes up and down it’s more going down. I do get stuck sometimes on a number but I think that’s how weight loss goes. From what I have found my weight doesn’t just go down every day unfortunately. I wish it did but mine doesn’t. Good for you changing your life and getting healthy

    Thanks for the appreciation, @ashleygroizard

    My weight has never gone down daily. That's perfectly normal, please don't worry.

    It depends on food, salt, exercise, hormones, fibre, water, stress levels and probably more things I've forgotten.

    I'm glad you realise you shouldn't get stuck on a number every day.

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