Finally found what works for me - with pics!
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nklp
Posts: 62 Member
Edited from a previous post so I can include pictures:
Hi everyone. I began MFP in 2014, after gaining 50lbs in my first two years at Uni, going from 8st6lbs to 11st. While calorie restriction and excercise did help me to lose weight, because I'm short and have a really weird metabolism, in order to lose weight I was having to eat around 1,100 to get any weight loss at all. Over time this was obviously unsustainable. I felt cold all the time, my brain wasn't working properly, and eventually the weight loss plateaued at around 10st and wouldn't shift at all despite the extreme restriction.
I tried the 5-2 diet, eating 500kcal on fasting days, but found that on fasting days I was so ravenously hungry that I would either overconsume and go above my alloted 500kcal, or I would massively over eat on the following day; sometimes up to 2,300. The weight didn't climb up, but it wouldn't budge, and I had wild mood swings and was constantly battling with hunger and obsessive food cravings.
After a battle that lasted years, I gave up, and decided I would intuitively eat. I would allow myself to take comfort in food when I really felt the need, and focus my energy on my career, friendships and self-care. I'm really glad I did this, as completeing teacher training in the UK without these comforts would have been really really mentally draining. However, my weight began to creep up over the course of 3 years. Suddenly, my weight had creeped back up - higher than it had ever been - and I was 12st. I took up running and swimming and began to concentrate on healthy eating, and the weight stopped creeping, but suddenly lockdown happened.
I stopped going to the gym (they were closed). I was still concentrating on healthy eating, but I was definitely over-consuming even though the food was healthy. I went for long walks, but between walks was entirely sedentary. I weighed myself in May 2020 (three months after my previous weigh-in in February), and I was over 14st, and nearly morbidly obese. I was heart-broken. I felt rage at the unfairness of the situation. I felt as though I was doing things right; I was vegetarian, avoided most fats (desipte craving them all the time), ate a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, went for long walks, and ate a mostly balanced diet - very few processed foods, rarely ate take aways etc.
How on earth had I gained 30lbs in three months?? The would have meant (assuming 1lbs = 3500 calories) I would have had to over-consume by 1,166 kcals every single day. I knew that I hadn't done this; a rough estimate of my average daily calories using MFP showed that I had eaten around 2,000 kcal - exactly what I should have eaten for maintanence (in line with my BMR of 1,500 and 500kcal from my 2-3 hours of walking). I remembered the YEARS of calorie restriction that had only resulted in 14lbs lost, and was horrified to think that this would be my life again - for even longer this time.
I was stumped. How on earth was this possible? I despised my body for betraying me, and raged at the calories-in-calories-out equation that didn't account for my weight spiraling this out of control this quickly. Clearly there was something else at work, too.
I began researching on line, and remembered that when I was slim as a teen I would routinely intuitively and often accidentally fast. I've never been a breakfast person, and for a lot of my teens I was accidentally doing OMAD because I was often late for school and forgot to make time for breakfast or remember my lunch money. Some days, I would stay out hopping from friend to friend and miss dinner because I was so engrossed in a conversation / walk that I would genuinely not be hungry (forgive the drunken mess I was at 18!).
In fact, I often wasn't hungry at all; not the way I felt later in life, after forcing myself to eat at least three (healthy, but low-calorie and unsatiating) meals a day, constantly battling uncontrollable hunger and intense food cravings.
I used to think this was awful for my health - and I'm sure that as a teen it most certainly was - but the more I researched into intermittent fasting, the more it intuitively felt right for my body. I could eat whenever I was hungry until I was full, and whenever I wasn't hungry I didn't have to eat. I rejected the mantra that breakfast was the most important meal of the day (all it ever did for me was make me feel a bit sick while I was eating it, and then be so ravenously hungry that I'd over-consume later in the day once the spike in blood sugar fell), and began to really tune into my own body's hunger signals. It turns out, I'm not actually hungry that often, as long as I eat enough for me to feel full in the first place and limit carbs that cause my blood-sugar to massively spike and fall. The beauty of it is that if I eat until I'm full (with enough protein, fat and fiber), even if I do over-consume in that moment, I am as a conequence fuller for longer - the balance between fasting and feasting feels completely natural, as though it is what my body has always been designed to do. And intense food cravings are for the most part, completely gone. It's hugely helping with binge-eating too; because I'm eating almost exclusively high-fat, low-carb food, I don't get those crazy dips and falls in blood glucose that have historically led me to binge when my blood-sugar dips. I'm not strictly doing Keto, just trying to focus on protein and fat and fiber in every meal, and eating any refined carbs/sugar a maximum of once a week as a treat.
I have finally lost over a stone for the first time in my whole life, and feel incredible. I have energy, whenever I'm hungry I eat something that is filling and nutricious, no more spreading 500kcals out across the day in a weird 5:2 version of 'intermittent fasting', no more limiting to 1100 spilt between 3 meals and feeling like I was shrivelling up and dying, contantly starving and never satisfied and full. This is something I am managing to sustain, and because it's not as restrictive as keto (I need a variety of veg in my life, and lots of it!) and I allow a scheduled treat once a week, it fits really easily into my life.
Discalimer - PLEASE do not fast if your body is still developing; it is likely why I have struggled so much with my weight in adulthood! And even if you are an adult, please listen to your own body and do what feels good for it and helps keep it healthy. Listening and copying what I've done and expecting the same results is like a fish watching an ant climb a tree; you may have very different needs and your body may have different (equally cool) mechanisms to keep you healthy. I just wanted to share my story in case someone out there needed to hear that there are other ways than extreme calorie restriction and constant hunger and mood swings, if this has caused your weight to yo-yo in the past.
Hi everyone. I began MFP in 2014, after gaining 50lbs in my first two years at Uni, going from 8st6lbs to 11st. While calorie restriction and excercise did help me to lose weight, because I'm short and have a really weird metabolism, in order to lose weight I was having to eat around 1,100 to get any weight loss at all. Over time this was obviously unsustainable. I felt cold all the time, my brain wasn't working properly, and eventually the weight loss plateaued at around 10st and wouldn't shift at all despite the extreme restriction.
I tried the 5-2 diet, eating 500kcal on fasting days, but found that on fasting days I was so ravenously hungry that I would either overconsume and go above my alloted 500kcal, or I would massively over eat on the following day; sometimes up to 2,300. The weight didn't climb up, but it wouldn't budge, and I had wild mood swings and was constantly battling with hunger and obsessive food cravings.
After a battle that lasted years, I gave up, and decided I would intuitively eat. I would allow myself to take comfort in food when I really felt the need, and focus my energy on my career, friendships and self-care. I'm really glad I did this, as completeing teacher training in the UK without these comforts would have been really really mentally draining. However, my weight began to creep up over the course of 3 years. Suddenly, my weight had creeped back up - higher than it had ever been - and I was 12st. I took up running and swimming and began to concentrate on healthy eating, and the weight stopped creeping, but suddenly lockdown happened.
I stopped going to the gym (they were closed). I was still concentrating on healthy eating, but I was definitely over-consuming even though the food was healthy. I went for long walks, but between walks was entirely sedentary. I weighed myself in May 2020 (three months after my previous weigh-in in February), and I was over 14st, and nearly morbidly obese. I was heart-broken. I felt rage at the unfairness of the situation. I felt as though I was doing things right; I was vegetarian, avoided most fats (desipte craving them all the time), ate a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, went for long walks, and ate a mostly balanced diet - very few processed foods, rarely ate take aways etc.
How on earth had I gained 30lbs in three months?? The would have meant (assuming 1lbs = 3500 calories) I would have had to over-consume by 1,166 kcals every single day. I knew that I hadn't done this; a rough estimate of my average daily calories using MFP showed that I had eaten around 2,000 kcal - exactly what I should have eaten for maintanence (in line with my BMR of 1,500 and 500kcal from my 2-3 hours of walking). I remembered the YEARS of calorie restriction that had only resulted in 14lbs lost, and was horrified to think that this would be my life again - for even longer this time.
I was stumped. How on earth was this possible? I despised my body for betraying me, and raged at the calories-in-calories-out equation that didn't account for my weight spiraling this out of control this quickly. Clearly there was something else at work, too.
I began researching on line, and remembered that when I was slim as a teen I would routinely intuitively and often accidentally fast. I've never been a breakfast person, and for a lot of my teens I was accidentally doing OMAD because I was often late for school and forgot to make time for breakfast or remember my lunch money. Some days, I would stay out hopping from friend to friend and miss dinner because I was so engrossed in a conversation / walk that I would genuinely not be hungry (forgive the drunken mess I was at 18!).
In fact, I often wasn't hungry at all; not the way I felt later in life, after forcing myself to eat at least three (healthy, but low-calorie and unsatiating) meals a day, constantly battling uncontrollable hunger and intense food cravings.
I used to think this was awful for my health - and I'm sure that as a teen it most certainly was - but the more I researched into intermittent fasting, the more it intuitively felt right for my body. I could eat whenever I was hungry until I was full, and whenever I wasn't hungry I didn't have to eat. I rejected the mantra that breakfast was the most important meal of the day (all it ever did for me was make me feel a bit sick while I was eating it, and then be so ravenously hungry that I'd over-consume later in the day once the spike in blood sugar fell), and began to really tune into my own body's hunger signals. It turns out, I'm not actually hungry that often, as long as I eat enough for me to feel full in the first place and limit carbs that cause my blood-sugar to massively spike and fall. The beauty of it is that if I eat until I'm full (with enough protein, fat and fiber), even if I do over-consume in that moment, I am as a conequence fuller for longer - the balance between fasting and feasting feels completely natural, as though it is what my body has always been designed to do. And intense food cravings are for the most part, completely gone. It's hugely helping with binge-eating too; because I'm eating almost exclusively high-fat, low-carb food, I don't get those crazy dips and falls in blood glucose that have historically led me to binge when my blood-sugar dips. I'm not strictly doing Keto, just trying to focus on protein and fat and fiber in every meal, and eating any refined carbs/sugar a maximum of once a week as a treat.
I have finally lost over a stone for the first time in my whole life, and feel incredible. I have energy, whenever I'm hungry I eat something that is filling and nutricious, no more spreading 500kcals out across the day in a weird 5:2 version of 'intermittent fasting', no more limiting to 1100 spilt between 3 meals and feeling like I was shrivelling up and dying, contantly starving and never satisfied and full. This is something I am managing to sustain, and because it's not as restrictive as keto (I need a variety of veg in my life, and lots of it!) and I allow a scheduled treat once a week, it fits really easily into my life.
Discalimer - PLEASE do not fast if your body is still developing; it is likely why I have struggled so much with my weight in adulthood! And even if you are an adult, please listen to your own body and do what feels good for it and helps keep it healthy. Listening and copying what I've done and expecting the same results is like a fish watching an ant climb a tree; you may have very different needs and your body may have different (equally cool) mechanisms to keep you healthy. I just wanted to share my story in case someone out there needed to hear that there are other ways than extreme calorie restriction and constant hunger and mood swings, if this has caused your weight to yo-yo in the past.
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Replies
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Just curious, what made you think your metabolism was really weird?
Congrats on finding something you can stick to that provides a calorie deficit! That’s the goal 😊2 -
@Msalicia07 I would often go over my kcal by only 500 but would put on 2-3lbs!0
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@Msalicia07 I would often go over my kcal by only 500 but would put on 2-3lbs!
That’s not your metabolism though, that’s normal 👍🏼😊1 -
msalicia07 wrote: »
That’s not your metabolism though, that’s normal 👍🏼😊
I've always heard that a pound is 3,500 kcal?
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msalicia07 wrote: »
That’s not your metabolism though, that’s normal 👍🏼😊
I've always heard that a pound is 3,500 kcal?
A pound of fat contains 3500 kilocalories of energy. Your body is about 60% water, and water fluctuates a lot more readily than fat. 500ml of water weighs a pound - if you drank a glass of water alongside your 500 extra kcal and weighed yourself before and after, wha-bam, you've gained a pound. Of water, not fat. Probably closer to 2 pounds, water plus whatever you ate. The food in your belly still has mass as it makes its way through your digestive tract, it's not instantly converted to fat or muscle as soon as you swallow it. Eat a one-pound sandwich? You've gained a pound. Of sandwich, not fat.5
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