Frustrated but determined!!

fmichelle57
fmichelle57 Posts: 5 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello MFP folks!
I have been overweight for a good 20 years if I'm going to be honest with myself. I have lost and gained the same 30 lbs so many times! I'm over it!
I feel as though my mind is finally in the right place. I am tired of not liking the way I look when I walk by a mirror. So on June 12th, I started for the very last time on a healthy body journey. I am only eating basically what God put on this earth...proteins, veges and fruit. Add some cheese and greek yogurt and that's about it.
I am working out about 5 days a week in different ways, some days longer and harder than others, to build different muscles and eating correctly. I have only lost 11 pounds.
My only thought is - maybe old school muscles weigh more, so the weight is coming off slower??? I'm in this for the win and to make me amazing. Any thoughts on how I may be able to change things up a bit to speed up the process? Tricks and Tips are so welcomed!!
Have I mentioned that I am impatient? LOL

Replies

  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    11 pounds since June 12 is AMAZING. You mentioned losing & gaining 30 pounds repeatedly over the years, but did not indicate your overall weight loss goal. If you have 20 or so pounds to reach your final healthy weight, then .5-1 pounds per week is a realistic goal from this point onward.

    Patience IS hard. Try to focus on the physical improvements you are making. Can you do more for longer now than 6 weeks ago? That is the real benefit - building a healthier you to enjoy life.
  • Chef_Barbell
    Chef_Barbell Posts: 6,644 Member
    Patience will be your friend in this journey. Wish you well.
  • fmichelle57
    fmichelle57 Posts: 5 Member
    I really appreciate the feedback! My husband and I cook very well! Very different fun healthy foods-he gardens and I use it all! So eating like this to me is very attainable. Sure...let's add some bread or carbs back in at some time, but not right now! I have to lose 50 lbs total. I am seriously taking it 10 pounds at a time, but to not lose any weight in a week drives me crazy...can I repeat...I am a workhorse when it comes to work and life very impatient when it comes to myself! LOL
  • Readytokickass2003
    Readytokickass2003 Posts: 17 Member
    Add me . I am new to this thing .I don't know how to add anyone . We can help eachother .
  • ktilton70130
    ktilton70130 Posts: 211 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    "but to not lose any weight in a week drives me crazy" - that's not a good place to be. People going for fast weight loss are massively over-represented on these boards reporting weight loss stalls and results not meeting expectation. And of course giving up and failing.

    "I feel as though my mind is finally in the right place" - I would disagree, maybe in a better place but you are still driven by a need for rapid and consistent weight loss.
    Ask yourself how much these slow weeks will matter in a year or five years from now?
    You really have work to do on your mindset if you think 11lbs in a short timescale is described as "only".

    "Tricks and Tips are so welcomed!!"
    Tip - look far further ahead (months and years not days and weeks), slow down.
    Tricks - main trick is to make the process sustainable, not absolutely miserable and as easy as possible. You can use your motivation and work ethic to do it right instead of do it fast.



    this is great information and feedback I found it very useful and needed the reminder to keep moving forward even though my weight loss appeared to have stall. I do feel better so I will continue to focus on that and use it as motivation.
  • fmichelle57
    fmichelle57 Posts: 5 Member
    Does anyone else see that logging the daily foods doesn't seem to match the number they give you at the bottom after you have completed the diary for the day?
    It's an incentive for me to see that in a 5 week period - you will weigh this amount...I get excited by it. I never go of course and I see that, for example 5 weeks ago, it said I would be 15 lbs lighter. That did not occur. I am wondering if it is really true??
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,889 Member
    The 5 week projection is pretty useless - I never paid attention to it. It's a bit of very basic math, and presuming every day in the following weeks will be the same.

    You don't actually need to close your diary, BTW: all it does is give you the 5 week projection, and post on your wall :smile:
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,634 Member
    fmichelle57 wrote: »
    Does anyone else see that logging the daily foods doesn't seem to match the number they give you at the bottom after you have completed the diary for the day?
    It's an incentive for me to see that in a 5 week period - you will weigh this amount...I get excited by it. I never go of course and I see that, for example 5 weeks ago, it said I would be 15 lbs lighter. That did not occur. I am wondering if it is really true??

    To put a sharper point on it, for that prediction to be accurate:

    1. We'd have to eat the same total actual number of calories every single day. We can't: Think about it. One apple is a little sweeter than the next (so more calories), one burger gets a little more oil on it in the frying, etc.

    2. We'd have to move in ways that burn the same number of calories every single day: Same amount of moving around on the job, in home chores, exercise duration/intensity, all the same - or different mix of activities adding up to same calorie total. Not gonna happen.

    3. Our logging would have to be exactly accurate. Product labels are allowed to be within a certain percentage of exactly exact, because regulators understand that variation can't be controlled exactly. We have to select accurate entries from the food database for every food we eat. We must not forget to log each bite, lick, taste, or sip of anything with calories. I don't know about you, but I make mistakes sometimes.

    4. Our calorie needs would have to be exactly the average for people similar to us in the entries we put into the MFP profile (height, weight, age, etc.). In reality, not every single person is average. Most people are close (rarely spot on), but a rare few are fairly far off. That's just how statistics work. The calorie estimate is just a starting point. We may need to fine-tune goals once we get a couple of months of logging data, to be more in line with our individual needs.

    5. Our activity level setting (or synched fitness tracker) needs to to be correct for our daily life activity level (not very active/sedentary, lightly active, etc.). There are only a small number of settings. How can that cover the full range of people's different lives exactly?

    6. Our exercise calorie estimates (or those from a synched fitness tracker) need to be correct, too. Here again, people vary and will not burn the same number of calories in the same time period doing aerobics, or at heart rate 147, or whatever.

    7. Our water weight fluctuations would have to . . . not fluctuate. Since our bodies can be 60%+ water, and healthy bodies stay healthy by shifting water weight in and out as needed, that's not going to happen. That's several pounds of variability up or down, right there. Digestive contents (on their way to becoming pee/poo) also vary day to day.

    14. And more.

    Does that mean calorie counting can't work? No.

    Calorie counting can work. All of that stuff just needs to be close enough to accurate. That's achievable. Once we get some personal logging experience (month or two), we need to fine-tune our calorie goals to dial in our personal weight loss. That will give us even clearer expectations (MFP may or may not reflect that in the 5-week estimate, depending on what's happening in the data.)

    Even then, there'll be some variability from week to week or month to month in our loss rate, but it'll be plenty close enough to let us succeed.

    Don't let minor things like the 5-week prediction mess with your head. Staying clear-eyed about calorie counting as a skill, that can work on average, over multi-week periods, is a useful cognitive frame for sticking with it and actually succeeding.
  • lynz2137
    lynz2137 Posts: 5 Member
    me too and I'm turning 40 next month and getting married next year. Ready to commit!

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