Sad reality.
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Duck_Puddle wrote: »I lose less than a pound a week netting 1200 (1200 plus my exercise calories-and I wouldn’t do anything less than that ever). At best I lose 3 pounds a month (it’s usually less).
I started out morbidly obese. I couldn’t walk across the house without needing a break. I had to pull myself up my stairs-and take multiple tests. I could only carry in a single can of vegetables at a time - I was too weak to bring more groceries than that. And on and on and on.
I’m 8 1/2 years into this. I still have some weight to lose. I haven’t tried to lose the whole time, and I gained a bunch back when my parents died. I don’t want you thinking it takes that long.
But I’ve run multiple marathons (and tons of shorter races), I’ve hiked/trekked over 100 miles in the Canadian Rockies then Utah a week later (with 2 Half marathons tossed in), I can carry 20 liters of bottled things (plus a couple bags of random stuff), I can haul 200 pounds off the floor, and run up the stairs (I mean-If I have to). I’ve been skydiving (more than once), done flying trapeze, gone rappelling off cliffs, and on and on and on.
I have long since abandoned any worries about how long it’s going to take (hopefully a very long time-because I’m not doing anything to lose that I won’t continue doing forever to maintain). I’m living a great life now. I can (eventually) do virtually anything I choose to pursue.
And I absolutely refuse to under eat to lose faster - and sacrifice my ability to continue doing all the awesome things I’m doing (because running 10 miles is really hard on not enough food).
Anyway-it’s not sad IMO. It’s just the reality of weight loss for some. I don’t burn as much as a dude; or a taller person; or a heavier person or someone who works an active job or a thousand other situations. But it really doesn’t matter. My reality is my reality and I can eat what I can eat. The awesome part is my life is also my life and I’m going to keep working so I can keep doing awesome stuff. Someday I might hit my goal weight. If not-still awesome.
I needed to hear that today. I'm seriously depressed because the scale is going up and not down, but I've been swimming and weightlifting and doing Yoga and I know in my head that it's all the right direction... but there is a part of me that's all - BUT WHY!!!!!!!!6 -
In a word, you're feeling impatient. It's very understandable. But the languid pace of weight loss is similar to many other things. College gets a little tedious when you're a sophomore but it's still gonna take 4 years. An ambitious assistant manager can dream of being an SVP next month but it's gonna take years. You can start piano lessons now but you're not gonna play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4 next month. And so on.
But here is the great thing about weight loss. There is no guarantee that the ambitious asst manager will ever become an SVP, and if you start piano lessons, the odds are very high you will never be able to play Etude Op. 10 # 4. BUT ... if you plug away at a diet and hit your calorie target regularly, time will pass and you will lose the weight.
I have to admit when I started in June '19, I too was a little frustrated with the 2 lbs/week limit. I was 320 lbs and when you're staring at a road that long, moving one small step down the road each week seems ... tiresome. I mean, why can't it be 3 or 4 lbs? But it can't. Anyway, here we are a year later, and the 2 lbs/week limit is a moot point for me, because I didn't even come close to hitting that metric, no thanks to quarantine stress. With my one year anniversary two weeks away, it looks like my weekly weight loss average for the year will end up at 1.4 pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply 1.4 by 52 and that's not chicken change. So that is my point - time is on your side when you're dieting. You just plug away and in time you'll get where you want to be. The most important number isn't the weight loss per week. It's your calorie target. You have to hit it regularly and often to get the right results. If you hit that calorie target, you will lose all the weight you want to lose. Try to focus on that calorie target and ignore the lbs per week stuff; let the weight loss take care of itself.28 -
Thank you for all the wonderful encouragement! We'll all get there...one glorious, freeing pound at a time!7
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When I first joined MFP, I lost enough to just get my BMI in to the Normal range and then, for multiple reasons, pretty much stopped tracking. Eight months later and in a new job where there's a seemingly endless supply of goodies available to snack on, I'd put all that weight back on and was also told I was now classed as diabetic. I came back to MFP and, thankfully, I found this forum. The advice I've read from people with way way more experience than me has been invaluable.
It took just over a year to lose 12kg (26.5 lbs). It then took almost another year to lose 5kg (11 lbs) to get to where I am now. On average, over those two years, I lost at a rate of 1.5 lb a month (so not even half a pound a week) and if I'd known at the beginning that I'd "only" lose at that rate, it would have been so tempting to think it's impossible and just give up but, as @igfrie says, if you plug away it'll work. Yes it was slow, but I'm now 17kg lighter than I was two years ago which, for someone who's just over 5ft, is an achievement I can be proud of.
Repeatedly reading feedback and advice given to others on this forum has reinforced the fact that going slow is fine. Don't worry about how long it'll take and concentrate on the fact that you're doing something and you're achieving something.14 -
staralbert709 wrote: »What kind of job do you have?
Administrative assistant at school...but home right now.0 -
In a word, you're feeling impatient. It's very understandable. But the languid pace of weight loss is similar to many other things. College gets a little tedious when you're a sophomore but it's still gonna take 4 years. An ambitious assistant manager can dream of being an SVP next month but it's gonna take years. You can start piano lessons now but you're not gonna play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4 next month. And so on.
But here is the great thing about weight loss. There is no guarantee that the ambitious asst manager will ever become an SVP, and if you start piano lessons, the odds are very high you will never be able to play Etude Op. 10 # 4. BUT ... if you plug away at a diet and hit your calorie target regularly, time will pass and you will lose the weight.
I have to admit when I started in June '19, I too was a little frustrated with the 2 lbs/week limit. I was 320 lbs and when you're staring at a road that long, moving one small step down the road each week seems ... tiresome. I mean, why can't it be 3 or 4 lbs? But it can't. Anyway, here we are a year later, and the 2 lbs/week limit is a moot point for me, because I didn't even come close to hitting that metric, no thanks to quarantine stress. With my one year anniversary two weeks away, it looks like my weekly weight loss average for the year will end up at 1.4 pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply 1.4 by 52 and that's not chicken change. So that is my point - time is on your side when you're dieting. You just plug away and in time you'll get where you want to be. The most important number isn't the weight loss per week. It's your calorie target. You have to hit it regularly and often to get the right results. If you hit that calorie target, you will lose all the weight you want to lose. Try to focus on that calorie target and ignore the lbs per week stuff; let the weight loss take care of itself.
I've been playing piano for 38 years and I can say I definitely cannot play that - I don't even know what it is lol (my training was with a small town country piano player so I don't have any background in classical).
But your example is spot on. I can remember when I was learning piano that the 2 year mark was the hardest part. I was tired of the lesson books. My teacher started me on some of the wedding music she had, and I think that was the best thing to keep me going. So many people seem to quit piano at about that 2 year mark. Sort of like how folks hit the weight loss effort strong, but eventually tire out and drop out after a few months. It takes determination to master either effort, and that can be very difficult when mental fatigue sets in, or our goals are too ambitious or things aren't working like we thought they would.7 -
just looked it up on Amazon music and I can saw without a doubt that I will never be able to play Chopin Etude Op. 10 #4
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bmeadows380 wrote: »In a word, you're feeling impatient. It's very understandable. But the languid pace of weight loss is similar to many other things. College gets a little tedious when you're a sophomore but it's still gonna take 4 years. An ambitious assistant manager can dream of being an SVP next month but it's gonna take years. You can start piano lessons now but you're not gonna play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4 next month. And so on.
But here is the great thing about weight loss. There is no guarantee that the ambitious asst manager will ever become an SVP, and if you start piano lessons, the odds are very high you will never be able to play Etude Op. 10 # 4. BUT ... if you plug away at a diet and hit your calorie target regularly, time will pass and you will lose the weight.
I have to admit when I started in June '19, I too was a little frustrated with the 2 lbs/week limit. I was 320 lbs and when you're staring at a road that long, moving one small step down the road each week seems ... tiresome. I mean, why can't it be 3 or 4 lbs? But it can't. Anyway, here we are a year later, and the 2 lbs/week limit is a moot point for me, because I didn't even come close to hitting that metric, no thanks to quarantine stress. With my one year anniversary two weeks away, it looks like my weekly weight loss average for the year will end up at 1.4 pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply 1.4 by 52 and that's not chicken change. So that is my point - time is on your side when you're dieting. You just plug away and in time you'll get where you want to be. The most important number isn't the weight loss per week. It's your calorie target. You have to hit it regularly and often to get the right results. If you hit that calorie target, you will lose all the weight you want to lose. Try to focus on that calorie target and ignore the lbs per week stuff; let the weight loss take care of itself.
I've been playing piano for 38 years and I can say I definitely cannot play that - I don't even know what it is lol (my training was with a small town country piano player so I don't have any background in classical).
But your example is spot on. I can remember when I was learning piano that the 2 year mark was the hardest part. I was tired of the lesson books. My teacher started me on some of the wedding music she had, and I think that was the best thing to keep me going. So many people seem to quit piano at about that 2 year mark. Sort of like how folks hit the weight loss effort strong, but eventually tire out and drop out after a few months. It takes determination to master either effort, and that can be very difficult when mental fatigue sets in, or our goals are too ambitious or things aren't working like we thought they would.
haha LOL
I started playing piano when I was 6. There was a stretch in high school when I was pretty sure that's what I wanted to do with my life. Then one day I was down in the music wing and heard some child prodigy type visiting from another school sit down and play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4. At that moment I realized I needed a better career plan.
My diet stalled a bit after 6-ish months and 50 lbs. Then one day I read an article about the "50 pound stall". Turns out, a lot of people kind of hit a wall after around 50 pounds, and the reasons it offered up, and why it happens at 50 pounds and/or 6 months, were exactly what I was going through. Your analogy to piano lessons after two years is spot on! In fact I think that article I read, which talked about how 50 lbs is normally when the rebellion and regain start, is what made me get refocused and dig in harder. There does come a point where it's like "This is not new and exciting anymore; this is a slog, and I look and feel pretty good, and I'd really like to just take some time off from dieting". Reading about how it's so commonly the beginning of the end for people at 50 pounds got me back in the game, although I don't think I'll ever be as diligent again as I was the first few months. There was a 40 day stretch where I wasn't a single calorie over, once. My streaks are now like 2 or 3 days LOL11 -
Igfrie, I’ve followed your story and posts with interest, but I gotta disagree with you for a moment.
I’m afraid the moment I start to consider it a “slog”, I’ll take the wrong fork in the road.
You have to think of it as a permanent change, and be willing to open yourself up to other opportunities and more creativity. You have to make sure you have options that you enjoy and that you’re flexible enough with it to make the most of them.
I’m not good at explaining this, but for example, I just started a new batch of beef jerky and automatically put the last of the old batch in today’s diary. I also have a slice of going-stale kefir cake left that needs to be eaten up.
I realized I’m way over on protein per today’s (pre-filled) diary, but low on carbs like usual, so I pulled the jerky, replaces it with the bit of leftover cake, along with a squirt of cream and 3 grams of shredded coconut. Fairly close to an even swap for the jerky, which will wait.
I will probably sub something else later in the day so I can have a cucumber and a couple tablespoons of homemade lebnah that are calling my name.
By giving myself constant opportunity to change, I’m trying to replace the “slog” aspect of it with the “hey, that sounds tasty and is still acceptable”.
It’s a mind game, a puzzle, a challenge, a reward system all rolled into one.
I know that’s how a lot of folks do it here, but simply replacing the word “slog”, drudgery, boredom or similar with “opportunity” keeps it fresh for me. Word have meaning, even if we only say them in our heads.
You keep on doing what works for you, though. You’ve done wonderfully and are a sincerely great and encouraging asset to this group!11 -
springlering62 wrote: »Igfrie, I’ve followed your story and posts with interest, but I gotta disagree with you for a moment.
I’m afraid the moment I start to consider it a “slog”, I’ll take the wrong fork in the road.
You have to think of it as a permanent change, and be willing to open yourself up to other opportunities and more creativity. You have to make sure you have options that you enjoy and that you’re flexible enough with it to make the most of them.
I’m not good at explaining this, but for example, I just started a new batch of beef jerky and automatically put the last of the old batch in today’s diary. I also have a slice of going-stale kefir cake left that needs to be eaten up.
I realized I’m way over on protein per today’s (pre-filled) diary, but low on carbs like usual, so I pulled the jerky, replaces it with the bit of leftover cake, along with a squirt of cream and 3 grams of shredded coconut. Fairly close to an even swap for the jerky, which will wait.
I will probably sub something else later in the day so I can have a cucumber and a couple tablespoons of homemade lebnah that are calling my name.
By giving myself constant opportunity to change, I’m trying to replace the “slog” aspect of it with the “hey, that sounds tasty and is still acceptable”.
It’s a mind game, a puzzle, a challenge, a reward system all rolled into one.
I know that’s how a lot of folks do it here, but simply replacing the word “slog”, drudgery, boredom or similar with “opportunity” keeps it fresh for me. Word have meaning, even if we only say them in our heads.
You keep on doing what works for you, though. You’ve done wonderfully and are a sincerely great and encouraging asset to this group!
I do know what you're saying, and in a (significant) way I agree with it. If a diet is just a "slog" that you have to struggle through the muck every day, it's only a matter of time before it implodes. So the challenge is to "bake in" new habits that are comfortable forever, and also to be creative so the diet fare doesn't get tedious, sowing the seeds of rebellion. I do agree 100 % with that. I've also mostly done that, in one very important way - I realized early on in the game that I was just not going to be one of the "I used to eat processed crap but now I love kale more than m&m's!" people. I'm just not, and staring into the mirror and realizing that I need hyperpalatable junky food not for 5 % of my diet as treats but like 30 % as a core element of my daily fare helped me reorganize things early on so that I could stay committed to it for weight loss and later. And I'm pretty comfortable with my routine and the foods I eat - I feel like I could drive this the remaining 50 pounds and then into maintenance.
But ...
What I mean by "slog" is: Friends call up and want to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Early in my diet, I would check the calories online, realize that any worthwhile entree there was my entire day's allotment of calories, and suggest an alternative. Then I would scour the menu at the alternative place in advance online, nail down exactly what I could eat, try to move things around between appetizer and entree so I could squeeze in one glass of wine, basically starve myself all day to free up the calories, and then go out and rigorously stick to plan, while other people were gorging on the things I really wanted.
When I hit around 50, 55, or thereabouts pounds, I don't know, someone would say, "Hey, let's go to Cheesecake Factory..." and I'd be like "OK". Tired of scouring menus for the lowest calorie options, I would skip that step and just go eat. I would have the three glasses of wine I really wanted, not one. And then I'd come home and log it and it'd be 3,000 cals, totaling 4,000 for the day, and I'd be like, you know, I've lost 50 pounds and I really don't care if I just gave 1/2 of a pound back, because it was GOOD to be out with friends gulping down wine like Vikings (if Vikings drank wine) and eating all the crap I really wanted all along.
What changed? Good question. I think at around 50-60 pounds I kind of felt good. I could actually fit into a booth at Cheesecake, for one thing LOL And I was wearing better clothes, a couple sizes down. I no longer felt (or was) morbidly obese, though still "obese", but more as a technical BMI definition than in how I actually felt. And so I didn't feel like denying myself.
Of course this slowed the weight loss rate - and yet I still had 50 or 60 pounds to lose! So I entered a new struggle phase, where some days I would nail that calorie target like a true fanatical warrior, and other days I'd be like "meh, I can handle getting to Goal a week later..." This delicate balancing act between short term pleasure and long-term goal attainment did not exist earlier in my project.
Then I stumbled onto that article somewhere on the web, and it was almost like it was written while observing me under a magnifying glass!! The whole thesis was that something happens to people after around 50 lbs or 6 months or thereabouts - they get bored with it, they start fudging, then it falls apart. So I really recommitted, and it's kinda worked, but I don't think I'll ever get back that honeymoon phase wherein I could just nail the number day after day after day.
But I totally agree that dieting in a way which is difficult or overrestrictive and just praying to get to Goal so that one can ditch it is a heinously terrible plan. It's really important to be creative about the foods and make it rewarding in a way that can be repeated perpetually, perhaps with a few hundred calories added back in. Today I made a whole new invention for lunch: two Ore-Ida hash brown patties, serving as the "bread" for a sandwich which had an egg, American cheese and bacon. 477 calories! LOL Probably the best breakfast I've ever had. Truly stunning. I'm very happy to be able to fit that in & that's the kind of thing that keeps me going, but ... I still want and need more time-outs than I did in the first few months.
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Well said and well explained.
Anecdotally, there is something to the article’s premise. I am a lot kinder to myself these days, and if I feel like going over, I will, without the subsequent self abuse.
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I agree with lgfrie. Sustainable habits are the backbone of my weight management, but no matter how sustainable a habit is, it's never going to be more sustainable than the easiest and the most pleasant choices. At first, you're focused. You have a reality you don't like (being fat) and you really want to change it, so sacrificing some pleasures sometimes feels worth it. Later you're thinner and your reality doesn't feel all that bad. So what if you put off your ultimate goal for just one more day in favor of something else?
Those moments are the difference between those who lose and maintain successfully and those who don't. You either force yourself to recover and plug along accepting that this is your life now, and it's a damn good one if you keep putting in the effort, or you switch entirely to the dark side where they have cookies, and you don't have fit them into your calories.
I'll even go as far as say the line of thinking that everything will be a happy game of "hey, that's great too" is a bit dangerous because it can lead to complacency. We need to accept that sometimes there will be "this won't feel great today, but I have to do it". There will also be plenty of "I could have done better" or even new situations and life changes that mess with your habits which you can't immediately solve with an acceptable alternative.
Edit:
It's also worth mentioning the phase where you're neither here nor there. You're lighter, but not as light as you want to be, and you're getting less out of your effort and things are slowing down because you're lighter. That's when many feel it's not fair. The mental aspect of the process can become a slog sometimes even if you have built sustainable habits, and even after you're already in maintenance. I tend to want to reframe when that happens, but when that doesn't work, plugging along and waiting out the harder mental phase also works, often combined with hitting pause in my case.7 -
Isn't this why so many people on here recommend diet breaks, where you eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks, every so often?
As a short, sedentary, overweight female, my maintenance figure wasn't particularly high (certainly under 1500), even when I started on MFP, so my deficit was quite small throughout the whole time I was losing weight. As such, I never felt deprived or the need to have a break, but I can totally understand why people do need it and why it's good for your state of mind.
And I'll also happily go over my calories, once in a while, and not worry about it. It took me two years to get to where I am now and a meal out with friends, or few glasses of wine because I feel like it, is not going to suddenly add 17kg back on overnight. I just don't do it every day.0 -
springlering62 wrote: »Igfrie, I’ve followed your story and posts with interest, but I gotta disagree with you for a moment.
I’m afraid the moment I start to consider it a “slog”, I’ll take the wrong fork in the road.
You have to think of it as a permanent change, and be willing to open yourself up to other opportunities and more creativity. You have to make sure you have options that you enjoy and that you’re flexible enough with it to make the most of them.
I’m not good at explaining this, but for example, I just started a new batch of beef jerky and automatically put the last of the old batch in today’s diary. I also have a slice of going-stale kefir cake left that needs to be eaten up.
I realized I’m way over on protein per today’s (pre-filled) diary, but low on carbs like usual, so I pulled the jerky, replaces it with the bit of leftover cake, along with a squirt of cream and 3 grams of shredded coconut. Fairly close to an even swap for the jerky, which will wait.
I will probably sub something else later in the day so I can have a cucumber and a couple tablespoons of homemade lebnah that are calling my name.
By giving myself constant opportunity to change, I’m trying to replace the “slog” aspect of it with the “hey, that sounds tasty and is still acceptable”.
It’s a mind game, a puzzle, a challenge, a reward system all rolled into one.
I know that’s how a lot of folks do it here, but simply replacing the word “slog”, drudgery, boredom or similar with “opportunity” keeps it fresh for me. Word have meaning, even if we only say them in our heads.
You keep on doing what works for you, though. You’ve done wonderfully and are a sincerely great and encouraging asset to this group!
I do know what you're saying, and in a (significant) way I agree with it. If a diet is just a "slog" that you have to struggle through the muck every day, it's only a matter of time before it implodes. So the challenge is to "bake in" new habits that are comfortable forever, and also to be creative so the diet fare doesn't get tedious, sowing the seeds of rebellion. I do agree 100 % with that. I've also mostly done that, in one very important way - I realized early on in the game that I was just not going to be one of the "I used to eat processed crap but now I love kale more than m&m's!" people. I'm just not, and staring into the mirror and realizing that I need hyperpalatable junky food not for 5 % of my diet as treats but like 30 % as a core element of my daily fare helped me reorganize things early on so that I could stay committed to it for weight loss and later. And I'm pretty comfortable with my routine and the foods I eat - I feel like I could drive this the remaining 50 pounds and then into maintenance.
But ...
What I mean by "slog" is: Friends call up and want to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Early in my diet, I would check the calories online, realize that any worthwhile entree there was my entire day's allotment of calories, and suggest an alternative. Then I would scour the menu at the alternative place in advance online, nail down exactly what I could eat, try to move things around between appetizer and entree so I could squeeze in one glass of wine, basically starve myself all day to free up the calories, and then go out and rigorously stick to plan, while other people were gorging on the things I really wanted.
When I hit around 50, 55, or thereabouts pounds, I don't know, someone would say, "Hey, let's go to Cheesecake Factory..." and I'd be like "OK". Tired of scouring menus for the lowest calorie options, I would skip that step and just go eat. I would have the three glasses of wine I really wanted, not one. And then I'd come home and log it and it'd be 3,000 cals, totaling 4,000 for the day, and I'd be like, you know, I've lost 50 pounds and I really don't care if I just gave 1/2 of a pound back, because it was GOOD to be out with friends gulping down wine like Vikings (if Vikings drank wine) and eating all the crap I really wanted all along.
What changed? Good question. I think at around 50-60 pounds I kind of felt good. I could actually fit into a booth at Cheesecake, for one thing LOL And I was wearing better clothes, a couple sizes down. I no longer felt (or was) morbidly obese, though still "obese", but more as a technical BMI definition than in how I actually felt. And so I didn't feel like denying myself.
Of course this slowed the weight loss rate - and yet I still had 50 or 60 pounds to lose! So I entered a new struggle phase, where some days I would nail that calorie target like a true fanatical warrior, and other days I'd be like "meh, I can handle getting to Goal a week later..." This delicate balancing act between short term pleasure and long-term goal attainment did not exist earlier in my project.
Then I stumbled onto that article somewhere on the web, and it was almost like it was written while observing me under a magnifying glass!! The whole thesis was that something happens to people after around 50 lbs or 6 months or thereabouts - they get bored with it, they start fudging, then it falls apart. So I really recommitted, and it's kinda worked, but I don't think I'll ever get back that honeymoon phase wherein I could just nail the number day after day after day.
But I totally agree that dieting in a way which is difficult or overrestrictive and just praying to get to Goal so that one can ditch it is a heinously terrible plan. It's really important to be creative about the foods and make it rewarding in a way that can be repeated perpetually, perhaps with a few hundred calories added back in. Today I made a whole new invention for lunch: two Ore-Ida hash brown patties, serving as the "bread" for a sandwich which had an egg, American cheese and bacon. 477 calories! LOL Probably the best breakfast I've ever had. Truly stunning. I'm very happy to be able to fit that in & that's the kind of thing that keeps me going, but ... I still want and need more time-outs than I did in the first few months.
My first fatigue period hit me just after I had been losing for a year. I was about 160 pounds down. I have been pretty fortunate that my periods of fatigue have been fairly short-lived and usually solved by a break or a short period of overfeeding. Once over, my process is so normal for me now I do it on autopilot. While others are struggling during the pandemic and I have been indifferent to weight loss since my cruise was cancelled I am still losing on schedule. I find the whole thing to be kind of surreal. I am on a break at the moment which I also don't seem to care about but I needed to take it because I was losing a little too fast. I decided to eat in a small surplus during the break and that is causing me mental friction. Again, surreal.
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I hit mental fatigue right around the 100 lb mark. The first time I lost 90 lbs back in 2012, it took me a little under a year to hit that fatigue, to start slipping and getting sloppy on my counts and then to quit counting all together when the plateau set in hard because of the sloppy counting. And then began the slow regain that spiked in 2014 after thyroid surgery.
This time around, I lost the first 100 lbs in 2017, but by the end of the year, I had slowed down to a stop once again. Part of it was the diet fatigue, I think. An even larger part was the fact that I was moving, we had to gut and remodel the place I was moving into which took 4 months (after having to get rid of the 1 1/2 dumpsters full of garbage the guy had left behind - he was a hoarder), I was driving back and forth between the old location 3 hours south to the new location and back and I was moving back home around family and living with them at the time, and my family has no interest in losing weight or making healthier choices and certainly no understanding about weighing food.
I let those influences get to me and plateaued for 18 months. Thankfully, this time, I only regained 30 lbs before I finally got myself back under control, but I can say that it was not easy getting myself back into the deficit mindset those first 6 months back; I was hitting and missing constantly. In january we finally got thyroid levels straightened out and it became easier for me to stick to it. There is something about seeing great success being motivating in keeping on keeping on. I can see now looking back at some of the new habits that are becoming ingrained as I keep at it.
What's really got me for a loop is the amount of calories I'm adding back due to activity. I'm 240 lbs right now, 5'8 1/2" (and yes, that 1/2" is VERY important! lol), and am doing low impact activity at least 2 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week. I struggled to believe I was really adding that many calories back to my deficit, but after a month's run of 3 lb/week loss, I finally had to accept the calorie burn and add them back to slow that rate down. Now I'm taking a diet break since vacation is next week and they've reopened the state parks so i get to keep my plans for our secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere WV, and I'm experiencing something I've never ever thought would ever happen - I'm having a hard time eating enough calories to maintain my weight! Like NovusDies says - its surreal the struggle I'm having just to eat enough each day. I can't bring myself to go back to cooking the old way and its showing me just how ingrained some of these new methods have become - ingrained enough, I hope that when I get to the point of really needing to slow the weight loss down to a crawl, they'll be routine enough that I won't slip up this time around.
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springlering62 wrote: »Igfrie, I’ve followed your story and posts with interest, but I gotta disagree with you for a moment.
I’m afraid the moment I start to consider it a “slog”, I’ll take the wrong fork in the road.
You have to think of it as a permanent change, and be willing to open yourself up to other opportunities and more creativity. You have to make sure you have options that you enjoy and that you’re flexible enough with it to make the most of them.
I’m not good at explaining this, but for example, I just started a new batch of beef jerky and automatically put the last of the old batch in today’s diary. I also have a slice of going-stale kefir cake left that needs to be eaten up.
I realized I’m way over on protein per today’s (pre-filled) diary, but low on carbs like usual, so I pulled the jerky, replaces it with the bit of leftover cake, along with a squirt of cream and 3 grams of shredded coconut. Fairly close to an even swap for the jerky, which will wait.
I will probably sub something else later in the day so I can have a cucumber and a couple tablespoons of homemade lebnah that are calling my name.
By giving myself constant opportunity to change, I’m trying to replace the “slog” aspect of it with the “hey, that sounds tasty and is still acceptable”.
It’s a mind game, a puzzle, a challenge, a reward system all rolled into one.
I know that’s how a lot of folks do it here, but simply replacing the word “slog”, drudgery, boredom or similar with “opportunity” keeps it fresh for me. Word have meaning, even if we only say them in our heads.
You keep on doing what works for you, though. You’ve done wonderfully and are a sincerely great and encouraging asset to this group!
I do know what you're saying, and in a (significant) way I agree with it. If a diet is just a "slog" that you have to struggle through the muck every day, it's only a matter of time before it implodes. So the challenge is to "bake in" new habits that are comfortable forever, and also to be creative so the diet fare doesn't get tedious, sowing the seeds of rebellion. I do agree 100 % with that. I've also mostly done that, in one very important way - I realized early on in the game that I was just not going to be one of the "I used to eat processed crap but now I love kale more than m&m's!" people. I'm just not, and staring into the mirror and realizing that I need hyperpalatable junky food not for 5 % of my diet as treats but like 30 % as a core element of my daily fare helped me reorganize things early on so that I could stay committed to it for weight loss and later. And I'm pretty comfortable with my routine and the foods I eat - I feel like I could drive this the remaining 50 pounds and then into maintenance.
But ...
What I mean by "slog" is: Friends call up and want to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Early in my diet, I would check the calories online, realize that any worthwhile entree there was my entire day's allotment of calories, and suggest an alternative. Then I would scour the menu at the alternative place in advance online, nail down exactly what I could eat, try to move things around between appetizer and entree so I could squeeze in one glass of wine, basically starve myself all day to free up the calories, and then go out and rigorously stick to plan, while other people were gorging on the things I really wanted.
When I hit around 50, 55, or thereabouts pounds, I don't know, someone would say, "Hey, let's go to Cheesecake Factory..." and I'd be like "OK". Tired of scouring menus for the lowest calorie options, I would skip that step and just go eat. I would have the three glasses of wine I really wanted, not one. And then I'd come home and log it and it'd be 3,000 cals, totaling 4,000 for the day, and I'd be like, you know, I've lost 50 pounds and I really don't care if I just gave 1/2 of a pound back, because it was GOOD to be out with friends gulping down wine like Vikings (if Vikings drank wine) and eating all the crap I really wanted all along.
What changed? Good question. I think at around 50-60 pounds I kind of felt good. I could actually fit into a booth at Cheesecake, for one thing LOL And I was wearing better clothes, a couple sizes down. I no longer felt (or was) morbidly obese, though still "obese", but more as a technical BMI definition than in how I actually felt. And so I didn't feel like denying myself.
Of course this slowed the weight loss rate - and yet I still had 50 or 60 pounds to lose! So I entered a new struggle phase, where some days I would nail that calorie target like a true fanatical warrior, and other days I'd be like "meh, I can handle getting to Goal a week later..." This delicate balancing act between short term pleasure and long-term goal attainment did not exist earlier in my project.
Then I stumbled onto that article somewhere on the web, and it was almost like it was written while observing me under a magnifying glass!! The whole thesis was that something happens to people after around 50 lbs or 6 months or thereabouts - they get bored with it, they start fudging, then it falls apart. So I really recommitted, and it's kinda worked, but I don't think I'll ever get back that honeymoon phase wherein I could just nail the number day after day after day.
But I totally agree that dieting in a way which is difficult or overrestrictive and just praying to get to Goal so that one can ditch it is a heinously terrible plan. It's really important to be creative about the foods and make it rewarding in a way that can be repeated perpetually, perhaps with a few hundred calories added back in. Today I made a whole new invention for lunch: two Ore-Ida hash brown patties, serving as the "bread" for a sandwich which had an egg, American cheese and bacon. 477 calories! LOL Probably the best breakfast I've ever had. Truly stunning. I'm very happy to be able to fit that in & that's the kind of thing that keeps me going, but ... I still want and need more time-outs than I did in the first few months.
My first fatigue period hit me just after I had been losing for a year. I was about 160 pounds down. I have been pretty fortunate that my periods of fatigue have been fairly short-lived and usually solved by a break or a short period of overfeeding. Once over, my process is so normal for me now I do it on autopilot. While others are struggling during the pandemic and I have been indifferent to weight loss since my cruise was cancelled I am still losing on schedule. I find the whole thing to be kind of surreal. I am on a break at the moment which I also don't seem to care about but I needed to take it because I was losing a little too fast. I decided to eat in a small surplus during the break and that is causing me mental friction. Again, surreal.
Yes, the pandemic messed me up a bit too. I had a good system going and almost got complacent and overconfident. In my case, I'm in maintenance. Not much has changed about my schedule as I have always worked from home and I enjoy staying at home, but my family being around all day messed up my routines. At first I tried making things work, but then at some point I just stopped caring because things changed too much too soon.
I could no longer play my fitness games whenever I wanted because the TV was now being used for news. I couldn't use the treadmill as usual because it's in another family member's room and they switched to working from home. I couldn't walk outside because we had a full curfew at the time. I wasn't having my usual go-to breakfasts because we now ate all our meals as a family. Everyone suddenly had this urge to cook and bake and make high calorie foods, sometimes several kinds in one day, a food decision I didn't have to deal with daily before. Too many guess-type meals... and more.
Sure, I could have found an alternative for each and every one of these issues, but making so many changes at once felt too overwhelming and I just didn't want to deal with it. I went into "IDGAF" mode and started gaining weight. This mode is a defense mechanism that I can't control where I just stop caring. I rarely get classically depressed, I just become indifferent.
I knew I was overeating and I was still logging every day at a surplus, but I didn't care. I was still mentally watching out for the first glimmer of caring to grab it and take back control, and that's what saved my weight management efforts. I recognize things won't always go smoothly, but taking back control as soon as I'm able is the key. I gained a bit, nothing 2-3 of months of dieting can't fix, but I'm putting a pause on that and just maintaining my current weight until I'm ready to start dieting again. I'm glad I was able to stop gaining.8 -
joyanna2016 wrote: »scarlett_k wrote: »I'm 5'6" and have never had to eat that little to lose 2lb a week when I was 220lb or thereabouts. How are you calculating this? Have you actually tried it or is this all hypothetical? 1200 is very low. I ate 1500 for a while and felt *awful*.
I started noticing I wasnt losing quite as much each week and my "expected weight in 5 wks" was no longer a 10 lb loss at 1200 cals so I looked it up on the calculator mentioned by some on MFP called "fat to fit" after figuring my bmr and tdee it confirmed.
Honestly I don't think someone your height and weight could sustainably adhere to such a small amount of calories. You need to be able to stick to a calorie deficit over a long period of time instead of losing weight quickly only to create a binge cycle and eventually put it all back on.4 -
I've decided that I'm going to increase my calories to between 1300 and 1400 and just know that it's going to take a while! I'm also going to put my scale away and just weigh once a month since I wont be seeing progress as quickly. This way hopefully when I do step on the scale there will be some small loss each time. That's my plan anyway!
Honestly I don't think someone your height and weight could sustainably adhere to such a small amount of calories. You need to be able to stick to a calorie deficit over a long period of time instead of losing weight quickly only to create a binge cycle and eventually put it all back on.[/quote]
4 -
scarlett_k wrote: »joyanna2016 wrote: »scarlett_k wrote: »I'm 5'6" and have never had to eat that little to lose 2lb a week when I was 220lb or thereabouts. How are you calculating this? Have you actually tried it or is this all hypothetical? 1200 is very low. I ate 1500 for a while and felt *awful*.
I started noticing I wasnt losing quite as much each week and my "expected weight in 5 wks" was no longer a 10 lb loss at 1200 cals so I looked it up on the calculator mentioned by some on MFP called "fat to fit" after figuring my bmr and tdee it confirmed.
Honestly I don't think someone your height and weight could sustainably adhere to such a small amount of calories. You need to be able to stick to a calorie deficit over a long period of time instead of losing weight quickly only to create a binge cycle and eventually put it all back on.
In my post I think I accidently deleted your quotes Scarlet_K! Oops!0 -
I am currently helping a buddy who is very overweight get healthy. My biggest piece of advice is don't stress out about it. If you eat healthy food and exercise your health will improve. Pay attention to your calories (in and out) but I'm personally not a huge fan of tracking the scale every couple days or checking how many calories you burned on a run. It doesn't sound like your health is dire so I would just enjoy the progress and keep going
. Nice job thus far! 4
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