On a 38lb weight loss journey!

J_Rod92

Hi. I went from being heavily involved in sports in school, being in the army for a few years to now back home. I have been home for the last 7 years and my fitness and dieting has been up and down. I no longer am held accountable by others with sports and army life to stay in shape. I have never been one who has eaten healthy, it seems all the calories i use to burn outweighed the calories I took in so I always kept in shape. Now a days, I tend to take in those same calories but not exercise enough for maintenance and deficit. I have gained 38 lbs and I am not in good shape. When I try to keep myself in a caloric deficit with eating, I am left starving and craving and it makes it near impossible for me to keep going strong. I am not sure what to do at this point…I could use some friends and accountability partners. I am ready to commit. Send help only if you’re able to offer it. I want to lose the 38lbs.

HoneyBadger302

Can't say I'm looking for accountabilty, but I was in a somewhat similar situation - very active jobs and lifestyle, pretty much ate what I wanted, if a few pounds were creeping on, just cut back on the junk.

Then I got the dreaded desk job - and it's been a struggle ever since since my hunger never seems to adapt.

A few things that have helped me:
-Regular, intense workout routines. I hate mornings, but mornings are when it WILL get done, so mornings it is.
-Part time jobs that are physically active/demanding
-Finding the macro mix that satiates me the best, while still giving me what I need for workouts/etc. For me, this meant low(er) carb (less than 150 net g/day, but under 100 was best), higher protein and fats. In fact, this was the only eating plan I didn't feel hungry on, and sometimes struggled to eat enough - I have the opposite issue if there are more carbs included. Downfall is it took a lot of planning, was expensive, and made eating out difficult.
-Recently been trying to rephrase what I tell myself when I'm hungry - rather than "OMG I'm starving/hungry/grrr" I try to go, "oh, cool, my body is working on burning some of this stored fat right now" or something along that line - weird, but it helps calm that "feeling" of hunger to something more manageable.

candylilacs

Keep tabs of your snacking times. Try to limit to twice a day (mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks).

Try to limit eating 6:00 a.m- 7 p.m. (It's best to 6:00 a.m.- 6 p.m., but I can't handle that with rush-hour traffic)

Try protein (cheese, roast beef, and nuts) and not carbohydrates (chips, cookies, and crackers).

Try vegetables at least two servings times a day with your meal. (And it you're doing the two -- three or four!)

My husband goes for 30-minute walk on his lunch break. Your lunch break is only 30 minutes? You do 20-minute walk.

Kiwi2mfp

I am 38 and prior Navy. I was a Navy firefighter for 8.5 years. Then went on to refuel planes, then to work at a couple more active jobs. When I quit my last job and started school full time, I gained 40 pounds very quickly. Do to a health scare I am on a mission to lose 50 pounds in 6 months. I am one month in and 15 pounds down. 35 more to go. It's hard to go from an active to Simi inactive without gaining weight. Time to get active again!

asellitti6523

Jerrod_Ainsworth wrote: »

Hi. I went from being heavily involved in sports in school, being in the army for a few years to now back home. I have been home for the last 7 years and my fitness and dieting has been up and down. I no longer am held accountable by others with sports and army life to stay in shape. I have never been one who has eaten healthy, it seems all the calories i use to burn outweighed the calories I took in so I always kept in shape. Now a days, I tend to take in those same calories but not exercise enough for maintenance and deficit. I have gained 38 lbs and I am not in good shape. When I try to keep myself in a caloric deficit with eating, I am left starving and craving and it makes it near impossible for me to keep going strong. I am not sure what to do at this point…I could use some friends and accountability partners. I am ready to commit. Send help only if you’re able to offer it. I want to lose the 38lbs.

How low are you going with your calorie deficit that you feel starving? My advice is to start with a modest deficit rather than a really big one. I know the temptation will be "If I eat at a big deficit and lose the weight quicker I can get back to eating at maintenance sooner." Many try that and it works for a couple weeks or maybe even a month but inevitably their will power crumbles and it's not sustainable. Look for easy calories you can cut out and not miss (liquid calories, limit alcohol consumption, replace high sugar condiments with reduced/no sugar ones, etc).

Another thing besides changing what you eat is to change how you eat. For example, I love pizza and eat it once a week for dinner. When I eat pizza I want real pizza with real crust not that cauliflower crap, haha. So old me would down half or more of a large pizza for dinner. Today I eat two slices of pizza and eat a salad with grilled chicken strips to get myself full without over indulging on the higher calorie pizza. What I do is eat half of the first slice and then eat the salad. Once I finish the salad I finish the 1 1/2 slices of pizza. Its a little mental hack because I am really looking forward to the pizza not the salad. But by beginning and finishing with the pizza my mind almost forgets I had the salad as I simply used it as lower calorie filler and I feel like I ate more pizza than I actually did. This is just one example of many ways you can get creative with food (especially less than ideally healthy food) to stay within a deficit.