How do you get your head round slow steady weight loss

drivingahead

Okay so this is a massive battle for me. I had around 12 stone to loose. Joined slimming world 9 weeks ago and am 1 stone 7lbs down, 8 of those lost in the first week. Most weeks the scales say I have lost 1.5lbs, which I know is great and how it should be done slow and steady but I see so many posts and hear so many bigger people who drop regularly 3-4lbs a week. At weigh in on Saturday I stayed the same and I cried with disappointment - just felt like another week further from where I want to be and relatively early in my journey. I have no idea what it's like to walk into a high street store and just pick up a size 14 jeans and to feel normal. Most of the people at my slimming group have at most 2 stone to loose. In the past a stay the same, when I know I've done everything right would derail me but I haven't let it and I have just carried on eating good nutrious food. I know this will happen a lot on my journey but not sure how I get my head round it but I also know what's the alternative to be defeated go off the rails and end up back at square one the same weight I was or heavier. I'd really appreciate any advice you can give me.

cmriverside

Wow. First things first.

Celebrate your wins!

Second: Comparison is the thief of joy.


You're doing great. It takes as long as it takes. I know that when I first started weight loss I beat myself up mentally, too. I mean, I did this. I gained all this weight. Now I have to really buckle down and change. I don't like change. I'd rather keep eating all the treat foods and keep drinking all the alcohol and blah blah blah. What? I have to exercise too? Nooooooooooo.

Just take it a day at a time.

It's okay to have a day here and there where you over-eat at a celebration. Just don't make that twice a week. Make it once or twice a month.

You'll get there.

Celebrate your wins. Maybe a weight loss group isn't the right place for you if it makes you feel bad. I would think it should be an encouraging place.

drivingahead

Thank you that's really helpful. I went to group and weighed feeling sad but by the end when I left all the members had made me feel much better and my consultant made me lift a box weighing a stone and it was so heavy, I was really shocked and it motivated me. I also realised yesterday that I had not been to the loo for a few days which is very unlike me so I'm sure that had something to do with it, I'm trying to celebrate the fact that I have not felt tempted as yet to eat my trigger foods so chocolate, cake or ice cream. Over Easter there was several eggs in the house for my son and I didn't have any of it and nor did I feel deprived because I knew 1 egg would lead to way more!

cmriverside

That's right. I'm the same way, it's way better for me to not even eat that first bite of sweets...

Well done on your weight loss so far. You'll get there, and it will all be worth it. I cannot tell you how much better I feel and how much better my life and mental health are at a healthy weight.

Keep going.

mmillsrd1177

I can only talk from personal experience. I try and think of this as a Marathon without a finish line. We are always working towards something, moving forward, striving towards something. The journey does not end -- its just changes. You have to continue to make adaptations along the way. It is hard work, and don't let anyone tell you that its not. But.....its worth all the struggles. I too looked at "just the weight" in the beginning. I now think of "how good I feel" and weight is just a part of that equation. I now have fitness goals (being able to walk a certain distance, or in a certain time). Or being able complete a certain exercise (I use resistance bands as part to my routine). I remember the first time I was able to go to a "normal" store and buy new clothes (for years, I had to go to the "big mens or online store". Or bring able to cut the whole lawn and not have to have a rest period. Set some reachable goals, don't go too far out there. I got to 440# and would say, I have to lose 200+ lbs. I now look at it as much smaller increments. Maybe 10#, or getting under that big number -- for me it was getting under 400, then 10% of my original, and then 100#. My next is 325#.

Someone once told me "weight loss is not linear" --= you will not lose every week, you have to battle thru weeks of gains when you think you are doing right. Stay with it. Always be evaluating what you are doing, you will have to "tweek" your program because your body becomes used to what you are doing and most of all DON'T EVER GIVE UP -- ITS WORTH ALL THE STRUGGLES. Hope this helps

Strudders67

If you're going to do a comparison, compare where you were 9 weeks ago to where you are now. The first week will have mostly been water loss, but you've still lost almost a stone over the subsequent 8 weeks - which is fantastic.

Slimming World (and other such clubs) can sometimes make people feel bad for not losing 'enough', but it's far better to lose very slowly, than to slowly be gaining. Staying the same weight could be due to water retention, menstrual cycle (if that applies) or a multitude of other reasons. A Saturday to Saturday comparison could show an increase that wasn't there the day before and may not be there the day after. If you were weighing yourself daily, you'd see fluctuations galore because weight loss definitely isn't linear. I'm sure someone will post the graph that shows what most people's weight loss typically looks like - up, down, up a bit, down a lot, back up a lot, down a bit. If the trend is downwards, you're doing a great job.

If you're not already doing it, track your weight via MFP so that you can look at the weight graph every so often, to reaffirm your downward trend and remind yourself where you've come from.

Retroguy2000

You're doing great. Forget about what other people are doing. Your rate of loss is healthy and sustainable.

One week without a drop is irrelevant. Water weight can fluctuate multiple pounds per day, even more so if your weigh-in is during the day rather than first thing consistently.

I agree with something a couple of posts above. Set smaller goals, not just weight, also fitness. Maybe it's walk X distance, or climb or jog up a flight of stairs without being out of breath after, or do Y squats, etc.

The Biggest Loser people lost weight quickly, and look what happened to them after.

cwolfman13

One thing that helped me was the realization that there really isn't a finish line here. It's not like you get to some target point and it's game over. Actually, when you get to that point, you've not reached the finish line, but the starting line. I liken it to training for an endurance event...the dieting and getting acquainted with proper nutrition and a healthy amount of exercise isn't the race...it's training for the real race ahead, which is maintaining and healthy weight and lifestyle for the rest of your life.

I also didn't put my focus solely on losing weight...it wasn't really the primary goal, but rather it ended up being a very nice side effect of good living. Going into all of this, my health was pretty rough...really bad blood work all the way around, dangerously high blood pressure, class I obesity, etc, etc, etc. My primary goal was to get my health in order so I started researching nutrition...started implementing better nutrition into my diet...started exercising regularly, etc. Slowly but surely my health markers improved which was the biggest win for me...and as a nice side effect I was losing weight.

Also realize that 1.5 Lbs per week is actually a pretty good clip. Those 3-4 Lbs per week type of losses are typically short lived and take place in the early days of weight loss when a lot of that loss is mostly water. Mathematically speaking to lose 4 Lbs of actual fat in a week, one would need to be in a 2,000 calorie per day deficit which in most cases would mean starving ones self and not eating at all...so when in doubt, do the math. Nobody is really losing 4 Lbs of fat in a week.

Losing weight, and weight management in general is about long term trend lines. In your day to day and week to week as you go along, you're going to have times when your weight is up...when your weight is down...and when your weight is the same. This is because inevitably normal and natural bodyweight fluctuations come into play as bodyweight isn't a static thing. This is true for maintenance as well...nobody weighs exactly XXX Lbs all of the time because you're always going to have fluctuations in waste and food in your digestive tract...changes in body water composition, etc. Here's what losing weight looks like long term plotted on a graph...notice the individual weigh in points are all over the place, but also not the red trend line over time...that's what's important.

Lietchi

I lost just under 1lb per week for the first 6 months, and I took 3 years to lose the whole 75lbs.

I focused on the process: increasing my activity level (step count +exercise), staying within my calorie goal, and I weighed myself daily (entering the data in the weight trending app Libra). Just feeling better about myself mentally and feeling better physically was enough to keep me going, on top of just plain sticking with the habits I had built. The scale would do its thing, sometimes I would even seem to be regaining for a few weeks (water retention from exercise/hormonal cycle,...) but I had faith in the process after the first few months.

Time passes anyway, so I wasn't in a hurry. What's the alternative: quitting and regaining? And those 'small' losses still add up fairly quickly.