Tortoise and the Hare

EtTeaPerpetua

I've always been a little overweight all my life, borderline between obese and overweight at times, but never in the normal category. It's never bothered me too much because I was extremely active in dance, but such is the way of dance classes, I was pretty much always the biggest girl there.

I had lots of attempts in my life to lose weight after realising that I'm in the overweight category, and tried to drop my calorie defecit by 500 or 600, not huge amounts, but with the amount of exercise I was doing I'd end up getting hungry and then stuffing myself with even more than if I'd just had a regular diet.

Now mum to a delightful daughter I've stopped all dance for the moment, and once I'd stopped nursing full time I noticed my weight creep up.

I realised that I've never known what an appropriate amount of calories for my body looks like. I've either just eaten what I wanted and trusted that my 5-6 hours of dance a week could make up the difference, or tried to restrict to get a more rapid weight loss.

Instead I've decided that I just want to learn what a normal calorie intake should be for a body of my height, not a diet, not worrying about how big a defecit, but just taking in the calories for the weight I aim to be. If I get it right, then I know how I'm going to eat for the rest of my life.

And so far it's working, it's been the longest and most successful weight loss progress I've seen in my life, it's only about half a pound a week, but it's half a pound every week. I don't know, I'm just really excited, because it's actually not been that hard to stick to the calorie count. 13.5lbs over 90 days thus far.

I'm probably going to try and sort out my macros a bit next, have more protein, but after years of trying to be a hare, I found that slow and steady does actually seem to win the race.

AnnPT77

@EtTeaPerpetua, your post is packed full of good sense. I predict long-term success for you, because your insight about this now bodes well for that. I'm cheering for you all the way!

I had a similar history of being active for a dozen years, but remaining overweight/obese, except I mostly row (boats and machines) rather than dance. Getting the calorie needs estimated reasonably, and finding a way of eating that kept me mostly full, happy and well-nourished was what finally got me to a healthy weight (and has kept me there for 8 years since, and I hope beyond).

Slow and steady, easy rather than fast: Good plan.