The Things No One Tells You About Weight Loss

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  • waluouija
    waluouija Posts: 61 Member
    That just because you ate less calories for x amount of years to get to your goal doesn't mean you're now that skinny girl you grew up with who can eat 5,000 calories per day and not gain a single ounce!
    THIS. UUUGGGHHHHH
  • GemimaFitzTed
    GemimaFitzTed Posts: 260 Member
    Awesome thread!

    1) You will have down days

    2) People will comment. Some are positive and inspirational. Some are negative and uncalled for.

    3) Knowing when to start maintaining your weight. Achieving your ideal weight is only the beginning

    4) The first 10 kilos are the hardest

    5) It's hard work!

    6) The weightloss equation is easy: calories burnt > calories eaten

    7) There are no magic potions, pills, shakes, biscuits, chants, prayers etc that will make those extra kilos magically disappear.

    8) How awesome that adrenlin rush is after you completed a workout. And let's not mention the endorphins....

    9) You will, eventually, enjoy leg day at the gym :-)

    10) Strength training, in the case for women, will not result in you looking like Arnie. It will tone you and increase your metabolism

    11) Exercise is addictive. And pain is your friend

    12) Losing weight and being healthy is a state of mind and a lifestyle. You need to listen and believe in yourself. Most importantly, you need to surround yourself with positive people who appreciate and understand the journey you have embarked on.

    13) You will find body parts that: a) you never knew existed and b) had muscles attached to them which friggin' hurt after a workout!

    14) You're investing in your future by making all these changes
  • moya_rargh
    moya_rargh Posts: 1,473 Member
    The protein farts...
  • jennifersmiles444
    jennifersmiles444 Posts: 118 Member
    The fat doesn't come off evenly! You can lose a lot of weight, gain muscle, and have great-looking legs, a thin face, small top...but still have a jiggly stomach for a while...thank goodness for Spanx!
  • Sporttster
    Sporttster Posts: 433 Member
    It didn't get like this overnight and it ain't comin' off overnight, either! I keep telling myself this over and over. Persistence is the key to winning the battle.....
  • Jessie24330
    Jessie24330 Posts: 224 Member
    That it was actually pretty easy when I didn't over complicate the process.

    I am still early in my journey but I am finding this to be so true. All the times I have tried before I have given up so quickly because it seemed too difficult. This time I am seeing that it is not so complicated, it's really basic math.

    I am also finding out that I love to exercise. I feel so much better after an hour at the gym vs an hour watching tv.
  • akkimberly
    akkimberly Posts: 63 Member
    I actually learned that I can lose inches with out losing any weight. I never read up on that and know I am very knowledgeable thanks to MFP.
    This! :)
  • sunseeker100
    sunseeker100 Posts: 90 Member
    I'm bumping this so I can read later. I'm trying to get back on the wagon after multiple attempts and this will really help!:flowerforyou:
  • Elektrolyfe
    Elektrolyfe Posts: 151 Member
    For me:
    1.The scale will break your heart 335786313689 times. All you can do is keep going.
    2. You will have to learn to forgive yourself over and over again because you will mess up more times than you will think possible
    3. To do it right takes patience, patience, and more patience.

    What things have you learned that you didn't expect?

    100% on number 1, every lb my weight drops below 170 while cutting my heart sinks and I get the temptation to go back on a lean bulk. But this year, I bit my lip and drove on. I don't know how much I weigh now but I am the leanest I have been and it feels good.
  • dillasa
    dillasa Posts: 7 Member
    That one day you will be sitting and randomly cross your legs.. WAIT! That's possible now?

    Yes!!!!
  • lessismoreohio
    lessismoreohio Posts: 910 Member
    No one tells you that you will stumble and fall many times during the process and that it is very necessary to pick yourself up and keep moving forward.
  • SlaughterHouseFive
    SlaughterHouseFive Posts: 24 Member
    Your shoe size will go down.
  • lessismoreohio
    lessismoreohio Posts: 910 Member
    Your shoe size will go down.

    This is true. Go figure.
  • CynCyndi
    CynCyndi Posts: 58
    bump
  • Clovergirl143
    Clovergirl143 Posts: 61 Member
    Sometimes the scale says "Forget you and your weight loss efforts. I do what I wanna do."

    OMGosh THIS!!! I freakin' HATE that scale man! I can crush my Turbo Fire workouts every day of the week and be way under calories and eat GREAT...And it'll say I GAINED weight. WHAT THE CRAP?! LOL

    Then you'll have a bad week where you don't workout hardly at all and eat crap food, and the scale is like, 'You lose 5 pounds, She loses 5 pounds, EVERYBODY loses 5 pounds!!!!' :tongue:

    One thing that I'm finding is that the more I'm actively doing to change my life and my body, the less I care what random people in public think about me.

    No one tells you how emotional losing weight is.

    Now one tells you that you're going to plateau and it's going to SUCK.

    No one tells you that eventually, you're going to start craving healthy foods. For instance, I've been craving carrots this week and have nearly demolished two bags of baby carrots in one week.

    No one tells you how AMAZING it feels to try on something you 'knew' wouldn't fit...and then it does :happy:

    No one tells you how overwhelming it is to look back on all your hard work and realize you've lost X amount of pounds, or gone down X number of sizes.

    No one tells you that losing weight means you can lose friends. Not everyone is going to support you in your healthy choices. Some will even become hostile about it :grumble:

    No one tells you that you will still have days where you just don't want to do a dang thing. That even after all your progress, you are STILL going to want to be a couch potato from time to time.

    No one tells you that YOU are going to be your hardest critic. No one told me that almost everyone around me would be supportive and the b*tchy voice that I heard was MINE. :noway:
  • SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage
    SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage Posts: 2,668 Member
    Loving this thread. You people rock. Every one of you. :flowerforyou:
  • arewethereyet
    arewethereyet Posts: 18,702 Member
    A few things:

    You will hit your goal weight and still feel fat

    If you do not lift weights then you will still look fat :laugh:
  • michikade
    michikade Posts: 313 Member
    Things I learned:

    -- You don't remember the aches and soreness; what you remember is the accomplishment.

    -- You are capable of much, much more than you think you are. That stuff they say about telling the inner voice to shut up? True.

    -- Everybody messes up. There is no shame in it. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back on track.

    -- It is not that big of a deal if you didn't lose weight in one week; in fact, it's rather normal for weight loss to bounce around a bit.

    And the biggest one:

    Regardless of everything else, you have to be 100% honest with yourself about everything. You know when you're fudging your numbers in MFP. You know when you choose to be lazy rather than taking a walk. You know when you add in some extra butter. You know when your morning coffee had more in it than coffee. If you can't be honest with yourself, the scale can and will reflect it.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,347 Member
    That it's not just me feeling the effects. My (very supportive, happy for my weight loss) husband is waking up with dead arms, rib cramps and sore backs because I'm so much smaller, it's screwing up his spooning/sleeping position!!
  • 47Jacqueline
    47Jacqueline Posts: 6,993 Member
    When you reach your goal, you will have to find someting else to focus on or you will be stuck in a rut.
  • Phrick
    Phrick Posts: 2,765 Member
    Just because I don't *have* to be a "cardio bunny," doesn't mean I *can't* be one if that's what I enjoy. Learning to tune out opinionated MUSTs and MUST NOTs has been key.

    That said, just because I despise lifting, doesn't mean I shouldn't still DO it - bone health, weight bearing exercise, and all that.

    Not everyone will be excited and happy for you when you lose - but you'll find out who your truest friends are.

    Speaking of "true friends," sometimes, you'll find out that you AREN'T one to some of the people in your real life, and you'll have to do some work to change that. My best friend of almost 25 years moans and cries about her weight and I get frustrated. It's hard not to offer unsolicited advice, and I'll ashamedly admit it's hard not to think negatively about her sometimes. My mom calls me her "inspiration," even though she doesn't seem particularly "inspired" to actually make changes, and it's positively maddening. I'm actively working on it.

    You can't force change in others, no matter how much it may be needed. My husband is morbidly obese, and I have a real hard time walking the line of being genuinely worried for his health without being a pushy, angry bish about it. The more I push, the more he balks and even goes in the opposite direction. But it is a huge concern and I don't know how to address it.

    My husband and I were both fat and sex was OK. Now that I'm much thinner and he's not, sex is painful. We've had to come up with alternate positions or I feel crushed. Sad truth.

    When two people (or more) in the house are dieting, meeting everyone's caloric needs can be a royal pain in the a** for the cook. Because of my new activity level, my intake to lose is about 500 cal higher than my husband's needed intake to lose. If I cook lower calorie foods so that he can eat the large portions he is comfortable with, then I have a hard time meeting my own goal because I can't physically handle that volume of food anymore. (I know... ice cream and potato chips can help, but if I keep ice cream and potato chips in the house, guess who doesn't exercise self control and then there isn't any left for me)

    But now that I've listed a pile of negatives, I'd like to end with some positives:

    Thrift stores are awesome for the shrinking wardrobe (but you might develop an inability to force yourself to shell out for NEW stuff that fits when you're maintaining, OMG)

    Genuine compliments come from some of the most unexpected places - a cashier at my local grocery store recently told me that her 65-lb weight loss was inspired by watching me come in looking smaller every time, and that she paid attention to what I was buying. Someone who works at another store I frequent never fails to ask how I'm doing and how close I am to my goal, which could be weird but she's great about not making it weird at all.

  • Ellaskat
    Ellaskat Posts: 386 Member
    Successful weight loss has to be to get healthy, not to like my body. If I need to be a certain weight to like my body, when I hit that weight, I'll just find something else about myself to dislike. The journey gets easy when you love yourself, and dont need to punish yourself for looks, mistakes, stalls, etc.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    It's not that complicated. In fact, the more simple your plan, the easy it is to implement and sustain.
  • rebeccahunt718
    rebeccahunt718 Posts: 48 Member
    I agree that no one told me it would take your self image to catch up to your actual image. I had lost 45 pounds and still saw myself with that 45lb for a long time.

    2. what has worked in the past for you, may not work for you now.
    3. what has worked for someone else may not work for you.
  • qn4bx9pzg8aifd
    qn4bx9pzg8aifd Posts: 258 Member
    edited March 2015
    Phrick wrote: »
    Genuine compliments come from some of the most unexpected places - a cashier at my local grocery store recently told me that her 65-lb weight loss was inspired by watching me come in looking smaller every time, and that she paid attention to what I was buying.

    Among the SO many truths, insights, and observations conveyed by the wonderful folks in this thread, I somehow feel compelled to take a moment right now to comment on (and celebrate) the specific (and fantastic) reality quoted above... (I just chanced upon this thread, and look forward to later contributing a series of 'hey, guess what'(s) that have been unveiled to my mind and eyes, during my journey :), but for now, I'd like to shine a spotlight on the quoted excerpt above)...

    Phrick, the fact that your life-changing actions -- and their results -- positively influenced, inspired, and resulted in profound change in someone else's life, highlights one of the gifts we can unknowingly give to others by simply being the best version of ourselves that we can be (and more often than not, we'll never be aware of having had any such impact -- but in some ways, it would seem to be an inevitable reality for it to occur).

    While we might not happen to start out with any awareness of how our individual journeys may positively affect the lives of people who we happen to cross paths with (or if/when simply seen by, or casually interacting with, any of various random strangers in our midst (and whose existence or eyes on us (and even if only fleetingly) we might not ever learn of)), it nonetheless remains that one of the many wondrous potential realities that exists as we embark on change, 'double down' on commitment, and 'keep at it', is that any of various consequences of our improved way of living just might 'be' the 'whatever it is' that someone else happens to notice, and just might need, to make a difference in *their* life.

    Additionally, on the flip-side, there are definitely others who have no idea that in my having noticed even one aspect of something associated with the 'how' of what they're doing, or the outcome of what they've done, or the confidence emanating from them as they do whatever they've set out to do (or even if/when they're not yet confident, but they forge on, and simply *try*, and *do*), has informed, inspired, and positively affected me in my journey -- let alone, that it continues to... (it's remarkable that some aspect of some random stranger, who happened to be in the vicinity of where I happened to be, at one just-by-chance moment in time, and who was simply living their life -- and unbeknownst to them, served as an example to me -- not only had a positive impact on me, but that it seems to 'live on', indefinitely)...

    We have no idea what sort of 'point of light' we might end up being in the life of another, as we navigate and continue our respective journeys... but it's a pretty wonderful consequence... :)
  • Asher_Ethan
    Asher_Ethan Posts: 2,430 Member
    Your boobs get smaller first (I hate it!)
  • HoopingFanatic
    HoopingFanatic Posts: 11 Member
    Ooh, would love to see this thread get going again...
  • unlikelyathlete
    unlikelyathlete Posts: 62 Member
    1) As a short girl, I have to make a conscious effort to get in a nice healthy dose of cardio every day if I want to see results on the scale.
    2) If I get a healthy dose of cardio, I'm going to be hungrier, and going to have to add in a little more food than that 1200 number that is the standard.
    3) Which means that I'm going to have to make sure I get that healthy dose of cardio on the regular.
  • kindrabbit
    kindrabbit Posts: 837 Member
    PJPrimrose wrote: »
    Lifting heavy is always better than working with light weights for "toning only". Heavy weights increase your tone, strength, and speed for sports even if you can't or do not want to "bulk". The difference was astounding! Also, you burn a whole heck of a lot more calories to support muscle. I didn't know that either. Women who lift heavy don't start to look like men unless they "juice" with steroids. You cannot tell they lift until they flex or lift something really heavy. You also shrink without losing weight with heavy lifting. I've found cardio (my sport is cardio heavy) and heavy weights are the perfect combination.

  • crosbylee
    crosbylee Posts: 3,455 Member
    tethar wrote: »
    Being healthy is a NEED, not a want. When I started putting my NEEDS above the rest of my household's WANTS, I don't feel guilty for going for a run/buying more veggies/bringing home less junk/making different dinners for me vs husband and daughter/using the TV to play Zumba on the Xbox (except when Hockey is on because then I'm pretty sure both of them would murder me)

    THIS!!! I don't know why I should feel guilty about taking care of myself but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around this.
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