Food...control...the endless loop
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Twins!….Laurie!…. I joined in May 2019 and lost 110 pounds in about 18 months…the next six months I was staying about the same and in the the last year I have regained 80 lbs….so bite the bullet, log, get weighed and find your mojo….I finally bought some bigger clothes because I had thrown out my old big clothes…at least now I don’t feel like a stuffed sausage!….2
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Hi Connie!
I'm definitely logging. I'm just trying to avoid going overboard. I lost the 110 pounds in in 7 months. Big part of me wants to achieve that speed again. BAD IDEA. That is why I'm thinking maybe I should avoid weighing myself. Just trust the process...eat at maintenance for someone who weighs 170 pounds (my new goal - 150 was maybe too low???) and accept that this is they way I will eat for the rest of my life...not "to lose this weight" not something "to get past" ... just what I need to do to feel good ????3 -
I joined my first time in 2020. I lost more than 50 lbs. Gained it all back plus 13lbs. I had to start my account over due to not having the email address that I set it up with (Got laid off during COVID hence the giving up and eating all the things!)
I had to weigh myself so that I would know how bad I had let it get. Not to beat myself up (that doesn't help anything) but to motivate me to get off my fat butt and take control back.
@conniewilkins56 I had to break down and buy new underwear a few weeks ago. I was wearing 2 sizes too small because I didn't want to admit that I had let it get back to this. I can't tell you the relief my behind feels now!! I didn't throw out my smaller ones this time though. I am keeping them and hope to be back in them soon enough!4 -
Speaking of logging...when did the label scanning go to a premium perk. That really has set me back on ease of logging. Very much thought about paying for the premium just for this feature. I guess that's how they get ya2
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I weighed myself for the first time for this. Now, I am down 5lbs from the last time I had my weight taken which was when I was in the ER a couple months ago. So there is that. But I about cried when I saw the number and I am so mad at myself for getting to this point.4
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I never used the scanning - now I'm sorry I didn't use it when I had the premium - I don't have that any more because I couldn't see any reason for it.
Be gentle with yourself, Athijade. You are a trooper.3 -
Oh gosh, my undies were the same way and rubbing the insides of my upper thighs raw….we all breathed a sigh of relief with new ones!…
I think I set my goals too low, also…I felt good at my lowest weight but I wanted to lose more and lose it fast….I burned out…this time I am also trying to “ digest “ ( heh heh heh )…. The idea of slow and steady and a way of life that I have to follow….we know we can do this!
Athijade I think you and I have a lot in common…just hang in there….
I am trying so hard to keep myself “ up “ mentally….eating healthier really does help….2 -
The thing is that the difference between maintenance and gaining weight is a couple hundred calories. So really you’re never really done with monitoring your diet.
Oh you can have too much holiday or vacation eating but then it’s back to eating carefully.
Unlike my hubby, I cannot just NOT worry about it. He’ll eat a handful if nuts, chunks of cheese, cookies between good sized meals. Somehow his weight stays firmly in a five pound range. I, on the other hand, do not have that metabolism or self control.
I’ve resigned myself to consider my weight control as a medical condition that I need to address daily so I can be healthy. It’s a condition that isn’t going to disappear even at goal weight.3 -
You are a smart lady!1
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Yes, Yooly. I agree. That is why I'm trying this approach. I'm going to start eating at "maintenance" now. Maintenance for my ideal weight. I think that should mean I will gradually lose weight and should taper off at my goal weight. Obviously there might be some fine tuning needed at the end....but this eliminates the "when my diet is over" mindset. I'm setting an eating plan for life - not for weight loss.1
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conniewilkins56 wrote: »You are a smart lady!
Wish I’d gotten smarter when I was much younger. But better late than never. I can honestly say I’ve been happier in the last three years after losing the bulk of my weight than I’ve been in a long time. It’s still a daily battle but worth the effort.
Whether or not I lose those last twenty pounds - I’m good with where I am for the most part.2 -
lauriekallis wrote: »I tend to be your way to, Yooly. But I'm trying to do things differently this time.
Patience + Moderation = Long term success????
From from early 2020 until I joined this group in October of that year I lost just about 110 pounds. That was no problem. The following year I ended up maintaining while attempting to lose another 20. But then, when I tried to switch to maintenance in preparation for and post surgery - everything just went mad. I still don't fully understand how I let that happen.
A big part of me wants to go back to 1000-1200 calories a day and just get this over with. Again. But why would that work any better than it did last time? Long term I mean
Part of me wonders if I should just avoid weighing myself completely. lol. And just focus on tracking my calories in. For the moment I have set my weight at 170 pounds (where I was when I lost control of it all), my activity level at sedentary (which for the moment is close enough to the truth), and my goal at "maintenance." If I eat at the level I imagine I will lose weight - and theoretically end up weighing 170 pounds? There will be no "shift to maintenance" as I will already be eating at "maintenance."
Writing this has brought me some clarity. I think. Weighing in daily helped me stick to my strict deficit because I got such a charge of dopamine whenever I weighed myself. But that ended and will end again. I need to find something more sustainable.
I want to spout
But I can't right now! well I did anyway.
I will only give hint of what's going through mind. Aren't we lucky I didn't set out to write a book!
Goldilocks depends on mental and physical current starting point for each of us individually.
Too slow may end up discouragingly slow. And may require a lot of patience to see the progress. BUT it COULD have other benefits depending on where one is and what one is doing with their time.
Too fast is a recipe for its own disaster. It WILL end up backfiring. Sure there are some exceptions to the rule. Sure there's even studies that say there is no difference in the (absolutely dismal statistics after five years) in terms of whether you lose fast or slow and assuming you have nutritional counselling setup to provide ongoing support to the fast cohort
I guess you know what I think about too fast. You can probably pull it for a few months maybe even as much as six for most people. With fingernails bleeding a bit longer. But then your hormonal debts start getting called. And you better have a great plan in place on how to adjust because it can go out of control fast.
My bright idea when faced with the dilemma was very close to everything Novus was articulating when he was posting in the main forums and creating the group... hence my affinity.
You need to strike a balance between doing what is necessary without making it too hard. In fact if you have to err one side or another chose the less hard. Because you will still need your reserves to tackle the actual major issues that exist in your life.
Most of us don't hit obese status because we eat too many eggs in the morning. Too many cookies in the middle of the night without stopping till a bag or two are gone... that's a different story (the exact details may be different for each of us, of course)
My story was:
2014 lose as fast as possible eating as little as possible.... effective about 40-50lbs to November
Nov 2014 to Nov 2015 eat as much as possible given my activity level and try to limit it first to 2lbs a week, then 1.5lbs a week, then 1lb a week = effective 1.5lbs a week for the year (695 Cal effective deficit if I recall--and that was as fast as I should have gone even if at the time I thought I could do even more)
Nov 2015 to Nov 2016 another 11.1lbs. I was trying for double that rate; but was not complaining because my focus was on sustainable!
Nov 2016 to Nov 2017 another 2.7lbs "trying" in the sense that Yooly mentioned. Not very hard as long as things weren't backsliding.
It took to about halfway through that time period for hunger cues to become more normal.
That's a long amount of time if I was just trying to maintain without a careful focus on continuous management.
Note that all the time periods involved some ups and downs and Christmas cookies.
Nov 2017 to Feb 2020... within 2 to 3 lbs of the mean
Feb 2020 to June 2020.... down 4lbs deliberately
June 2020 to December 2020.... did NOT control the rebound as the end of losing coincided with increased travel back and forth to dad AND Christmas... doing a nice and quick rebound to above where I started the year by December.
January 2021 to January 2023 more or less lax logging plus all the fun and games with closing and selling dad's place and moving provinces and all that = I am somewhere in the middle of that 11.5lbs from 2016.
But... and this is relatively important... all these trials and tribulations basically boil down to (USING TRENDWEIGHT, NOT SCALE WEIGHT)... a year and a half losing "fast", some of it smarter than the rest. A long time at 153lbs to 155lbs stabilizing before starting to feel more normal yet still watching relatively carefully what I was doing. Just needing less active management.
A very short time at 150lbs trying to be gready
Followed by a gradual increase to 162lbs not putting much effective effort AND having some emotional stress triggers in the mix... bringing me back to halfway through year two of MFP which was 168 to 156.9
In my case I am planning on continuing to log while bringing individual days more consistently within the daily calories and just aiming for now to go slightly below that. I have relatively good expectation that even a -250/-300 in my case will result in scale movement and I am in a position where this should be sufficient to make a difference. <-- I still expect a rebound in a few months time, assuming I achieve the goal in the first place.
Oh. As to HOW I will try to achieve. Well I am planning to try and increase my focus a little bit on more satiating foods. Or possibly not. There is little question that sleep and emotions are what is mainly causing trouble for myself and what I probably need to address
OK. not sure if any of this helps and the girl is TOTALLY unhappy with me now
Here is one thought that has been driving a lot of my decisions especially when it comes to pushing less and tapering....
Random numbers and very rough back of napkin
300lbs on day 1
200lbs on day 180
300lbs on day 365
320lbs on day 730
Result is a rough average weight of 250lbs for 365 days and 310lbs for 365
What is the amount of days at 10 to 20% below max weight (which would be numbers that yields clear health benefits) if you go:
300lbs on day 1 and lose "just" 0.5% of your body weight a week
263lbs on week 26
229lbs on week 52
203lbs on week 78
178lbs on week 104
156lbs on week 130
And that's "just" from achieving the "minimum" in the 0.5% to 1% body weight to lose per week recommendation
1% is actually quite hard ON YOUR BODY other than at the very beginning and from a high weight.
Anyway... think about what the average time at a weight reduced state is under the second scenario and add that to the, I believe indisputable fact, that at the levels of weight some of us have been at our weight is both a health and life style defining issue.
i.e. we make decisions about our life BECAUSE of our weight and it acts as a limiting factor to what we can and DO do and how we act.
At least that's how things look from MY experience and reality so far!
PS: that's not exactly what I did do, and a lot of the "information" and opinions I gathered along the way. But it is where my current thinking is finding itself.
PPS: food "ideation" IS a side effect of starvation. so is a propensity to binge which is probably not unknown to us for this and most probably other reasons too. Controlled "starvation" IS what we are trying to achieve. The Minnesota semi-starvation experiment was cutting 50% off of TDEE for people who did NOT have a previous history of binge or any other eating disorder. Yes, yes they were much closer to normal BMI than where all of us in this group started at. And most of the effects did not show up till they were well within normal bmi. But their findings/reactions are one of the reasons I advocate 20 to 25% cuts off TDEE not absolute numbers of Calories.
OK... so now this is a GOOD amount of time later and I don't think I will inflict more first draft verbiage on poor innocent group members.
My only "concern" with Laurie's plan is that I love the plan for someone tapering off faster weight loss into slower loss to maintenance to stabilize. It is quite close to what I did hence my liking it!
I don't know the exact numbers for Laurie in terms of current weight bmr * activity factor vs the same at 170lbs, but I do know that it took at least 250 Cal a day of achieved deficit for my brain to be perceiving that I was effectively losing. Once I started achieving less than that my brain needed extra help and graphs to be convinced that things were working! That was MY brain (a questionable vehicle in the first place! )
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PPS : hunger cues are both emotionally and hormonally mediated. They sure aren't always 100% reliable for me--nor are they always wrong.
Sometimes (not always) the diary and Fitbit tell the tale and I should eat. Sometimes of course they lie and are in error. And sometimes I am subverting them to justify what I want to do anyway.
Giving oneself time to figure out oneself is part of the game!😜🤣3 -
Mental health is one of my biggest obstacles. I deal with anxiety, depression, and OCD which all impact my ability to count calories and lose weight. Right now I can tell my depression is being not great. Most likely due to the cold and cloudy weather which makes it hard for me to get out of the apartment. Also the holidays are really tough so still dealing with that. I feel burned out and struggle to focus at work. I don't want to sit and read or cook which I usually enjoy. So yea... really on the struggle bus with it right now.
I did redo my calories and ended up with a few more. Gonna set that as my maximum and then mentally set a minimum as well. That way I don't end up eating too little. My hunger has been all over the place, even before starting to count. Somedays I can barely get myself to eat and nothing sounds good. I end up forcing myself to put food in my mouth because I know I have to. Other days I feel like an bottomless pit and my stomach aches for more food. Ugh!
Okay, deep breaths.
Thank you for reading my mini break down. I appreciate it.4 -
Giving oneself time to figure out oneself is part of the game!😜🤣
Isn't that the truth!
I'm still processing your post, PAV. Thank you for your taking the time to help me wrangle my hamsters. Everytime I come read it I absorb a bit more.
Point I'm hanging on at the moment is:
" I do know that it took at least 250 Cal a day of achieved deficit for my brain to be perceiving that I was effectively losing. Once I started achieving less than that my brain needed extra help and graphs to be convinced that things were working! That was MY brain (a questionable vehicle in the first place! "
I'm hoping to get past this. Hoping that I can keep my focus on controlling the food input not on the "loss." I'm not sure if this will fly or not. Maybe? Maybe not? I'm also uncertain about exercise calories. Which are a bit nonexistent at the moment, but will hopefully return once the knee stops screaming at me.
BUT THEN.
Screaming knee. Just got report back - MCL sprain/thickening and medial meniscus extrusion (which likely means that there is a meniscus tear in there or it wouldn't be poking out). Perhaps this calls for an "emergency" weight drop?
Must go back and read more of PAV's post.
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Athijade. Amazing how closely interconnected our mental health and eating patterns are. I keep trying to find other ways to self soothe ... so far no real success. But the game isn't over. I hope you can find a way to feel better that doesn't involve calories.3
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It all starts from the head
Hamster wrangling can be a full time job!
And yes. You have to care enough to make it a priority.
deep breaths are always good!
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Just read the "big draft" again - pondering.
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Food control!!! I did fine yesterday with planned meals. BUT lost my way with grab-n-go snacks of the calorific variety. It was one day and the scale didn’t register significant damage. Why do I lose control on gym days? I don’t think it’s actual hunger. Time to rethink …….1
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Why do I lose control on gym days?
It could be a number of things really! And it not uncommon at all.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2639700/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3771367/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23470300/
For me, it tended to be "hey, one more snack won't really hurt..I exercised well today", or "man, that was a serious workout. I really earned one more burger I reckon!"
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Very interesting, Dante...not really surprising. I only read the first article - skimmed the other two. I guess it comes down to balance? Finding just that right point for yourself?
When I do that I actually feel less inclined to snack. It leaves me feeling good and wanting to rest and then "nourish" my body well. The activity that tends to bring on more snacking for me is brain work (intellectual or emotional). That just asks me to eat lots of refined carbs...
Thank you for these links.
Perhaps you need to plan more food on gym days, Yooly?2 -
Thank you Dante! Those articles explain a lot. I think I’ll just have to be more careful and maybe plan for an extra snack rather than fight the hunger.3
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Last year when I was swimming like I was supposed to be doing ( and will be again in a few weeks ) I burn between 300 and 500 calories from exercise….I ate a protein bar or some yogurt and a banana to keep me from starving and I drank Zero Gatorade or water on swim breaks…I was still burning more calories than I was consuming…3
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The thing is I’m not exercising really hard. 200-300 calories at most. I don’t think it’s really exercise induced real hunger because I just grab and graze all day afterwards. I’m thinking it’s either thirst or just compensating for tiredness? On days when I don’t go to the gym I feel more in control and do better.
I guess the easy answer would be to quit going to the gym! But I need the exercise at my age to keep healthy and mobile. It’s a conundrum 🤔2 -
Really - our bodies are fascinating. Exercise is really no where near as cut and dry as CICO.
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Okay...I am so messed up on the food front. Here I am at 1:45 in the afternoon...so far I've eaten 3 clementines and drank 2 cups of tea with milk. Everything in me is resisting eating a meal. Just like yesterday when everything in me insisted on eating 4000 calories of junk. I swear it feels like I have no control over any of it.
Freaking hamsters think they are running the show. Right now it feels as if they might just be.3 -
You may be fairly full from yesterday? A small balanced (protein blah blah) meal whether you need it or not? (Going with theory of not getting too hungry before fueling again?)
How is paw status?3 -
That is what I did. Because I don't even really know if I was full I swear the hamsters were setting me up for another binge because they knew I would be vulnerable if I hadn't eaten something decent.
I'm still just hobbling around the house. Poor pup(s) - plural because I'm babysitting Reese this week.
I'm going to try taking them to the dog park tonight because I can drive really close to the gate and if I go late at night there's nobody else there so I can let my little wicked witch out to run too.2 -
I will bring some old tennis balls so that when they abandon them I don't have to go and retrieve them 😁1
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Driving is still a challenge... But at least I have a car to drive this week 🙂 and I can drive short distances as long as I stay consciously aware of lifting my leg to move from the gas to the brake pedal rather than twisting at the knee. That is significant progress from a few weeks ago 🙂1
