What's your Secret Truth on Weight Loss?
elisa123gal
Posts: 4,324 Member
Share your truth. The time when you realized truly why you weren't losing the weight.
My pandemic pounds have bee coming of so slow I thought I was stuck....
Then I realized;
- I wasn't drinking my 100 ounces of water.
- - I was eating fruit higher in sugar.
- - I was eating those new prepared bags of salad and putting the packaged dressing on instead of making my own.
- I thought that evening glass of wine or two shouldn't hurt.. I was walking two miles a day!
I changed those little cheats.. and now the weight is coming off again.
My pandemic pounds have bee coming of so slow I thought I was stuck....
Then I realized;
- I wasn't drinking my 100 ounces of water.
- - I was eating fruit higher in sugar.
- - I was eating those new prepared bags of salad and putting the packaged dressing on instead of making my own.
- I thought that evening glass of wine or two shouldn't hurt.. I was walking two miles a day!
I changed those little cheats.. and now the weight is coming off again.
5
Replies
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Extra water past what you need to be properly hydrated doesn’t cause weight loss. Eating fruit high in sugar doesn’t prevent weight loss. Prepared bags of salad and store bought dressing are fine as long as you accurately account for the calories in them. No need to demonize perfectly good food.
However, two miles a day is maybe a couple hundred calories, and a couple of generous glasses of wine could easily equal that! Congrats on getting back on track.
I never had a moment where I realized why I wasn’t losing weight because that never happened to me. I had times when I was heavy because I wasn’t trying to lose weight, and then I made it a priority to lose weight and lost the weight. Not being able to lose the weight has never been my issue.
However I had a bunch of excuses for making weight loss not a priority in my life, for years and years! I told myself I was fine with it and enjoying my food and free time was more important to me than being fit. My secret (not really secret now) truth: I was not fine. I was seriously unhealthy, and eventually ended up with type 2 diabetes. All those excuses I told myself when I was fat? Yeah those were lies. Fat stopped me from living a life. It was not okay.10 -
Thanks for your unsolicited advice.. but I have successfully lost all my weight 2.5 years ago without counting one calorie. I sort of know what I'm doing. It works for me and that's what matters.
The point of the post was to disclose what you've done to start losing weight when you kid yourself that nothing is working at the moment.
And yes.. those points I made have made me start losing my last pandemic pounds.4 -
elisa123gal wrote: »Thanks for your unsolicited advice.. but I have successfully lost all my weight 2.5 years ago without counting one calorie. I sort of know what I'm doing. It works for me and that's what matters.
The point of the post was to disclose what you've done to start losing weight when you kid yourself that nothing is working at the moment.
And yes.. those points I made have made me start losing my last pandemic pounds.
Other people might read your post and think they needed to guzzle gallons of water or cut out nutritious fruit and salad to lose weight. They don’t. There’s already enough misinformation out there without adding to it.13 -
I thought I had hit a plateau a week or two ago. I changed up from basically just doing cardio and yoga to incorporating some strength training. I wrote down what I did for exercise each day. I stay within my calories and eat my exercise cals. I’m now down 3 more lbs 👍🏽
Hopefully this keeps going 🤗7 -
I quit eating in a caloric surplus.8
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I'm up about 10 Lbs from maintenance with the pandemic...I haven't lost it because honestly I haven't really tried. This whole things has been exhausting...hybrid work schedule...kids doing distance learning at home...not being able to go anywhere because nothing is open...not being able to travel out of state to see family because my work requires me to quarantine for 2 weeks and use my annual leave if I do, etc.
I have generalized anxiety disorder and all of this has made it worse and have had some major anxiety attacks over the last several months. Right now my focus is just on taking care of my mental health ad keeping it together for my family...10 Lbs isn't really very high on my priority list right now...definitely a back burner issue at the moment.8 -
CICO4
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I changed my workout programming so I was retaining water and the scale wasn't moving.1
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Ate less... moved more. 🤷♀️6
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cwolfman13 wrote: »I'm up about 10 Lbs from maintenance with the pandemic...I haven't lost it because honestly I haven't really tried. This whole things has been exhausting...hybrid work schedule...kids doing distance learning at home...not being able to go anywhere because nothing is open...not being able to travel out of state to see family because my work requires me to quarantine for 2 weeks and use my annual leave if I do, etc.
I have generalized anxiety disorder and all of this has made it worse and have had some major anxiety attacks over the last several months. Right now my focus is just on taking care of my mental health ad keeping it together for my family...10 Lbs isn't really very high on my priority list right now...definitely a back burner issue at the moment.
It is a lot to handle.. and the only reason I'm losing my pandemic weight now.. is stress levels are down and I'm taking advantage of the moment. Nothing is worse than anxiety...and when that's going on..weight loss takes a back seat. I get that. Hopefully the light is at the end of the tunnel with this covid crisis.1 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »Ate less... moved more. 🤷♀️
I actually eat more and move less.. no kidding. I used to count calories and starve at 1300 and exercise like crazy at the gym..and never reach my goals.
When I started eating six balanced meals a day and exercising less.. I lost my weight. I'm a size 10 now.. 5' 10". and need to get back to my size 8 ..should be there early December. That will put me at the lower middle of my BMI.
Interesting how different things work for different people.3 -
elisa123gal wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Ate less... moved more. 🤷♀️
I actually eat more and move less.. no kidding. I used to count calories and starve at 1300 and exercise like crazy at the gym..and never reach my goals.
I eat less and move less. It wasn't until the pandemic that I appreciated how little impact exercise makes on my weight. I mean, exercise is good for me, there's no denying that, but when it comes to my weight, it's almost entirely about what I eat.
If you look at Past Me in February and Me Right Now, the difference is -10,000 to -15,000 steps a day, but probably also -300 to -600 calories a day. And I'm over 2 stone lighter.
I used to think I couldn't lose weight unless I ran regularly, and that was just another barrier to doing something about it. Now I know that it's a nice thing to do, but it's not essential. The trick to weight loss is to make it as easy for yourself as possible and to stop making excuses.
You don't have to go to the gym. You don't have to cut out chocolate or carbs. You just have to weigh everything and log everything. It takes a lot more willpower (and cost) to go to the gym than it does to buy a cheap set of scales and weigh everything you eat.6 -
elisa123gal wrote: »Share your truth. The time when you realized truly why you weren't losing the weight.
My pandemic pounds have bee coming of so slow I thought I was stuck....
Then I realized;
- I wasn't drinking my 100 ounces of water.
- - I was eating fruit higher in sugar.
- - I was eating those new prepared bags of salad and putting the packaged dressing on instead of making my own.
- I thought that evening glass of wine or two shouldn't hurt.. I was walking two miles a day!
I changed those little cheats.. and now the weight is coming off again.
I'm not really a stall/plateau person, I think, compared to what some people report here. However, lately, working to ultra-slowly lose some vanity pounds in year 5 of maintenance, there have been times as long as a month when it looked like I wasn't losing, and was maybe even gaining.
At this point, I have the luxury of understanding my calorie needs quite clearly, with or without exercise; and of trusting my weight-management practices (for me, the practices involved in calorie counting), so during those periods that look like plateau/stall, I just stick with it, and what I expect to happen, eventually happens . . . so far.
Early on, when first on MFP, I made an investment of time and attention in learning how to log in ways that required tolerably moderate effort, but gave tolerably accurate results. ("Tolerable" varies by individual.) Then I just kept going, with the food logging, weight trending app (also misleading sometimes), bodyweight scale, food scale, fun levels of (logged) exercise. Works for me.
There's no secret in there, anywhere, that I can see. 🤷♀️2 -
There is no secret and only one truth ... losing body fat requires eating fewer calories than you burn.8
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Wow! I don’t get it. You can lose muscle weight (which is heavier than fat weight) by cutting back on exercise. However, if your caloric intake is higher, it doesn’t make sense physiologically.0
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Psyjohn319 wrote: »Wow! I don’t get it. You can lose muscle weight (which is heavier than fat weight) by cutting back on exercise. However, if your caloric intake is higher, it doesn’t make sense physiologically.
Muscle is more dense per pound than fat (smaller volume) but a pound is a pound, when it comes to how it affects the bodyweight scale.
If a healthy person cuts back exercise (doesn't eliminate it altogether) I suspect muscle mass loss will be somewhat slow, especially if nutrition (especially protein) is adequate. I can't prove it, but here's what makes me think that: Lazy, pleasure-seeking, and undermotivated soul that I am, I've reduced exercise pretty much every Winter for 15+ years now. Most of those years**, my weight was stable, i.e., I was maintaining, and I didn't have to buy new clothes every Spring to accommodate a body that had materially increased in size (because fat is less dense) at that same weight. (As measured by readily-measurable exercise performance, I wasn't significantly weaker by Spring, either, though of course I realize that muscle mass and functional strength are related but not identical things.) (** In the few other years, I was either intentionally losing weight, or gaining it at a slow-creep rate.)
If a person loses weight (on the scale) more readily at a higher calorie level, the physiological mechanisms would be things like the effect of fatigue (or adaptive thermogenesis) on daily life activity level, and on exercise intensity; plus the cortisol-related water retention that can come from the physical stress of a long-ish term excessive calorie deficit. Then, of course, there's also the role of compliance with calorie goal, and the possibility of self-denial/selective memory about overeating incidents that are more likely to happen when the calorie deficit is too extreme.0 -
Psyjohn319 wrote: »Wow! I don’t get it. You can lose muscle weight (which is heavier than fat weight) by cutting back on exercise. However, if your caloric intake is higher, it doesn’t make sense physiologically.
@Psyjohn319 spoiler alert:
1 lb of muscle and 1 lb of fat weigh EXACTLY the same amount. Not sure why you would think that muscle would weigh more than fat? I think you might be confused. As above muscle is more dense than fat, but a lb of feathers and a lb of bricks are still just 1 lb each1 -
Discipline1
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I read an article years ago, leading diet exercise researchers gave their thoughts on weight loss. One said the exercise was key to keeping the weight off. However, when losing, it actually made dieters more hungry and foiled or hampered their weight loss efforts. Also..my thought.. I sometimes think I can eat more because I exercised..and most likely get out of the deficit mode.thelastnightingale wrote: »elisa123gal wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Ate less... moved more. 🤷♀️
I actually eat more and move less.. no kidding. I used to count calories and starve at 1300 and exercise like crazy at the gym..and never reach my goals.
I eat less and move less. It wasn't until the pandemic that I appreciated how little impact exercise makes on my weight. I mean, exercise is good for me, there's no denying that, but when it comes to my weight, it's almost entirely about what I eat.
If you look at Past Me in February and Me Right Now, the difference is -10,000 to -15,000 steps a day, but probably also -300 to -600 calories a day. And I'm over 2 stone lighter.
I used to think I couldn't lose weight unless I ran regularly, and that was just another barrier to doing something about it. Now I know that it's a nice thing to do, but it's not essential. The trick to weight loss is to make it as easy for yourself as possible and to stop making excuses.
You don't have to go to the gym. You don't have to cut out chocolate or carbs. You just have to weigh everything and log everything. It takes a lot more willpower (and cost) to go to the gym than it does to buy a cheap set of scales and weigh everything you eat.
Now, what I do is never over exercise.. I get so tempted to want to burn more calories to compensate or lose faster. But, I know I will lose steady and fast if I only exercise at what I know doesn't fatigue me or make me more hungry. Also..I always fuel my exercise by eating right before. It works for me.
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The only secret is taking responsibility for how much food I eat.
Choices - Actions - Consequences.4 -
elisa123gal wrote: »Share your truth. The time when you realized truly why you weren't losing the weight.
When I eat fewer calories than I burn, I lose weight.
When I eat more calories than I burn, I gain weight.
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I've put on some COVID weight as well and I know why. Changing that now.
- drinking my calories way too often. For me this is #1. On the rare occasion I went out to coffee shops, I'd gone back to old habits of ordering "skinny mochas" and sometimes even full calorie lattes when I normally - for years post weight loss - I'd had a 5-10 calorie coffee or Americano.
- baking way too much.
- feeling like takeout was a free for all. If I was going to a restaurant I'd also go running errands for 2 hours and a hike. Just waking up on a Saturday and ordering takeout, I was burning no calories and actually eating more food because it felt like a "treat" more so than previously.
Bad ideas.1 -
With regards to my journey on MFP, there were only two periods when I had seemingly stalled weight loss:
- a period when I really increased my step count - I was still losing fat, but water retention was masking it on the scale.
- a period when my calorie intake was hovering just under maintenance (a 100kcal deficit per day, on average) - sort of a diet break/not having the drive for a larger deficit. My weight loss seemed stalled for a while since the slow rate of fat loss was being masked by regular weight fluctuations.1
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