the TRUTH about weightloss

1. Losing weight is easy. Maintenance is a b*tch

1st corollary: It's never too early to begin cultivating a good maintenance mindset, along with the skill set you'll need to be successful long term.

You'll need to settle into a sustainable exercise routine at some point anyway - at least as far as the amount of time you're willing to devote to it is concerned. And you'll have to learn to "eat normal" at some point anyway, and conditioning yourself to normal sized servings is a really tedious process if you're used to having a lot of super-sized variety in your diet. It's best to face both issues early in your diet when your enthusiasm and resolve are at their highest. The transition to maintenance will be a lot easier if you do.

Wait, what? Exercise? What is this thing you call exercise? :huh:

You don't "have" to exercise to maintain weight. And eating "normal" is what got us to our starting weight, so clearly a new normal is needed. Weight maintenance is a kitchen thing, not a gym thing. And if you've been dieting to lose weight, you already have the skills to maintain your weight. All you have to do is the same things you were doing to lose weight, except you have additional calories that you can either eat, or that you no longer have to burn through exercise.

So if you're like me, and you skipped the exercise option because you knew it wouldn't be a sustainable lifestyle change, then you can just eat more than you were before. Woohoo! :drinker:

Or if you've doggedly stuck to the grind and exercised your way to your goal weight, you can simply continue to eat the way you've been eating during your weight loss journey, but ease up on the exercise a bit. :drinker:

If you're one of those bizarre people that likes to exercise, you can do the same level of exercise as before, but allow yourself more calories to eat each day. :drinker:

In all three scenarios, it's still a win, because you get to do more of what you like to do. :bigsmile:

As soon as you lose the weight, you find 10,000 other things "wrong" with you! lol

Diets don't work in the long run - permanent lifestyle changes do.

It's all just math.

When people stumble, it's because they're doing the math wrong.

Wishful thinking leads to bad math.

Maintaining is easy when you minimize deprivation during the weight loss phase, but you still have to track everything accurately.

Sometimes, you just have to eat everything in sight. And that's okay. As long as you do that less often than before, you're good to go.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Speaking of marathons and sprints, exercise is really not necessary to lose weight, and should be undertaken to achieve other fitness goals, not simply to burn calories that can then be eaten. It's easier to burn calories by not eating them in the first place. No cupcake is worth an hour at the gym.

Sometimes a simple substitution can make your math much more favorable. Knowing which components of a meal are the real calorie killers is essential. Fill up on the low cal stuff, and savor the smaller portion of the high-cal stuff.

Fast food is not the enemy.

When you're conscious and you count calories, you can eat things that you'd previously thought were off-limits, which feels very indulgent.

Weigh in the morning, every morning. After you pee/poop, but before you shower. Not only will you be your lightest at that time of day, it's the most consistent baseline for measuring your progress.

Did I mention that it's math? Because it's math.

If you don't know why you're not losing weight, it's because your math is off and you're eating at maintenance. Pie in the sky thinking with regards to calorie intake and the calories burned through exercise (and then "eaten back") leads to unintentional maintenance, i.e., "plateau".

People, really, really, really, don't want want to be told they're eating too much. They want to have their cake and eat it too. Literally.

Losing weight feels good, and so does keeping it off, and it's totally worth it. But it shouldn't consume your life and your thoughts.

Some people want you to fail. Some people on this very website want you to fail. You can tell who those people are because they pooh-pooh the importance of calories, even though the whole point of this website is to track calories.

Some people want you to succeed. Sometimes to help someone succeed, they have to tell you what you don't want to hear. Any time you hear something that you don't want to hear, pay attention, because that might be what you need to hear.

Smileys are fun. :drinker: :smokin: :devil: :flowerforyou: :noway: :grumble: :explode: :laugh: :bigsmile: :huh:

^^ So happy you are on my friend list. Every single thing here is true!! Thanks for the reminder!!

Edited since I just figured out how to BOLD! :-)

It's interesting to me that so many people say no food is bad food, and that fast food is not the enemy, and other stuff like that. To me, it's important to eat nutritious food. Or else, I'd have a very hard time keeping to a low calorie count.

Most of those people don't mean that you can or should eat fast food, chocolate, bacon, whatever all day every day. They mean that it's perfectly fine to work it into your day. Yes, fill up mostly on fruits, veggies, lean proteins, etc (everything you're calling nutritious food). But if you love bacon, work it into your day (it's got protein and fat, and mostly people can easily have 2 slices without totally throwing off their calories). Allow yourself fast food once in a while if you like it, again fit it into your day or compensate through the week. I have ice cream most nights, but that's because I've learned how to make sure there is room for 1 serving in my calories while still reasonably meeting my macro needs and getting the micros (and note that it's 1 serving, 1/2 cup, most of the time, not a pint every night!)

1. Love and accept yourself before you lose the weight. Otherwise your journey will be centered around negativity and you won't be happy at your goal weight.
2. Measure everything. The little devil on your shoulder wants to convince you that portions are bigger than they really are.
3. Strength training may not burn many calories while exercising, but it sure makes you feel and look amazing.
4. Read more scientific articles. This does NOT include mainstream media articles. Read everything skeptically and critically in order to prevent yourself from subscribing to myths with little to no scientific basis.
5. Associate yourself with people who actually know what they're talking about. You will learn so much from them.
6. Stop calculating "lose X much weight in Y amount of time." It will only disappoint and frustrate you when you don't meet your unrealistic goals.
7. People have different definitions of "healthy food" and though this is frustrating, you will most likely polarize the people you try to get to see your side of things. Just care less about them and focus on what works for you.

1. Discipline is more important than motivation
2. Nothing is more important than calories
3. Everything else is a minor detail