Is It Time???

alissagorkin91 wrote: »

I don't have it set to maintenance though.

Doesn't matter. If you're not losing for longer than 2 months = you're eating at maintenance. Increasing calories will make you gain.

My guess is that it's only been 2 weeks so you'll experience a 'woosh' (big drop in weight) soon. Is your period due soon? Because that usually explains stalls.

alissagorkin91 wrote: »

How did you know it was time to maintain? What was going on?

I'll throw my story in!
I've never put in such hard work to reach a weight goal in my life, and I finally did it about 2 months ago. I completely relate to that "what now?" feeling, because what I did then was...nothing. I just kept going. My body would quit on me if it were exhausted, right? I must have more to lose...
But my "ah-ha" moment came with outside forces, when my husband said one night "You look so good, I'm so proud of you..but could you please not lose any more weight? I don't think I could handle any less of you..literally." I was shocked, I had never been told to NOT lose weight. Ever. I was so confused, a little hurt even for some reason. But it made me stop and inspect myself, and then it started clicking.. feeling bones everywhere, being cold all the time.. I had actually WAY surpassed my goal. I had such number blinders on I had forgotten healthy facts like muscle weighs more than fat. I had simply stopped paying attention to anything but the scale. So I took a few days off from MFP to re-evaluate myself and how I felt about my body and my health routine. And then I did the math on paper: if I didn't start maintaining, I would be dead by Christmas. A literal skeleton. Simple as that. No thanks.

My takeaway advice is the same basic advice for crossing a street: stop, look, and listen. To your body. It's an amazingly wise vessel. Give it a chance to speak.

Oh I absolutely know. I guess that's where trusting your loved ones comes into play. I think if your fiancé says you look great, he really thinks you look great, and therefore you look great

You can always take a break and start losing again. Diet breaks are good for the mind and body anyway.

I went into maintenance. I might like to drop some more someday though. Entering maintenance is not the be all end all.

Emilia777 wrote: »

alissagorkin91 wrote: »

Emilia777 wrote: »

If you’re confident your tracking is accurate, and nothing happens in another couple of weeks, then you might have a reason to take a step back and see where the problem is. In the meantime, it could just be a bit of a stall, which is normal. But that’s just my view. I know how frustrating it is to be doing everything you can and not see the results.

Taking measurements might help too, btw. And I would definitely get onto a strength training program (though be mindful that there is usually some water retention weight gain as your muscles repair themselves at the beginning).

ETA: Ok, so I looked through your diary, and I don’t think your logging is accurate. Some days seem incomplete, I see a lot of estimates for take-out (i.e. Chinese food), you don’t actually weigh most things (cheese, sour cream?). You need to tighten up your logging. Maybe read this:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1

I measure out the Chinese food in measuring cups and Sour Cream with measuring spoons. Tell me how you weigh these things when it tells you 1 TBSP or one cup. One cup is one cup. One TBSP is one TBSP.

I don’t know about the Chinese food (which I love too btw!) - if it’s from a restaurant, you just have to give it your best guess, and if it’s from a box, you can look at the weight of the box in oz or grams and calculate your serving size from that. For sour cream (which I’m having for dinner right now!), I weigh it out in grams on the plate. A tablespoon can be around 15-20 grams, depending on how you spoon it out. This guide is really helpful and explains accurate tracking in grams: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

I will make it even easier: weigh the container (of sour cream, etc.) Take out how much you want and weight the container again. You can even use the tare function when you put it on the scale, it will then show how much you took out the second time you put it on.

faithyang wrote: »

alissagorkin91 wrote: »

spacepony wrote: »

alissagorkin91 wrote: »

How did you know it was time to maintain? What was going on?

I'll throw my story in!
I've never put in such hard work to reach a weight goal in my life, and I finally did it about 2 months ago. I completely relate to that "what now?" feeling, because what I did then was...nothing. I just kept going. My body would quit on me if it were exhausted, right? I must have more to lose...
But my "ah-ha" moment came with outside forces, when my husband said one night "You look so good, I'm so proud of you..but could you please not lose any more weight? I don't think I could handle any less of you..literally." I was shocked, I had never been told to NOT lose weight. Ever. I was so confused, a little hurt even for some reason. But it made me stop and inspect myself, and then it started clicking.. feeling bones everywhere, being cold all the time.. I had actually WAY surpassed my goal. I had such number blinders on I had forgotten healthy facts like muscle weighs more than fat. I had simply stopped paying attention to anything but the scale. So I took a few days off from MFP to re-evaluate myself and how I felt about my body and my health routine. And then I did the math on paper: if I didn't start maintaining, I would be dead by Christmas. A literal skeleton. Simple as that. No thanks.

My takeaway advice is the same basic advice for crossing a street: stop, look, and listen. To your body. It's an amazingly wise vessel. Give it a chance to speak.

Thank you so much for sharing and I will definitely do that. My fiancé tells me that I don't have to lose any more weight but I feel like he's just saying it just to say it, you know?

I'm so glad that there are people going through this too and that I can really relate to you guys.

My moment was when I dropped below my BMI quite alarmingly quick. The biggest one was visual. I was changing and saw myself in the mirror and was a little disgusted with what I saw. Bones showing everywhere, ribs showing in a gross way which I wasn't comfortable. Knobs of my shoulder blades. I realised no, this is not on. This is not beautiful, and not healthy. That was my aha moment.

I hate to say it but there was a very small little voice at that back of my head glowing with a kind of satisfaction seeing myself so skinny. But I stomped on that worm quick smart.

This is secondary, but also the fact my hubby said, "Can you gain a little more weight? You need to eat more, you already look so slim and great...but you're getting a little too skinny."

He made me promise to gain 2 kg.

I thought he was just saying it at first, but then I realised he comes from a family of women who are really skinny because they are really unhealthy and quite sickly, so he sees skinny as a 'bad' thing and "shape" as a good thing (not like obese but a little more meat, which I translate as 'chubby'. But I don't like that so we agreed to meet in between) and he likes "meat" on my bones because I look "beautiful" and "womanly".

I can totally relate to that. In the beginning I was okay with losing weight, since our society is so focused on it. However, when my ribs started showing and my breast were getting smaller I realised that it was not a good thing. In started getting uncomfortable in my skin. I feel way better now that I have all the weight I lost back.

Emilia777 wrote: »

samantham425 wrote: »

My first advice to anyone with weight questions is to always ask your doctor, but if that's not an option then I can probably help you out. I weigh 98.4 lbs and I'm 5'1 and I have seen my doctor recently and she had told me that it's perfectly healthy, so since you're shorter than I am then it will definitely be okay for you to lose more weight. Just remember that if you FEEL healthy, then you probably are and there's no need for you to lose weight unless it's for your own happiness. Good luck!

You’re on the border of being underweight, based on BMI (for what it’s worth, 18.6). I wouldn’t use your stats as the reference point for other people.

OP, I was recently in a similar situation, having reached my “goal weight”. What I ended up doing is increasing my calories and maintaining a much smaller deficit for about .5lb/week loss, and I’m thinking of going to maintenance soon at this point. How you feel is really all that matters once you’re in a healthy weight range. You can always go to maintenance and focus on other goals, like lifting weights or running or whatever other fitness-y things you might enjoy. I’ve discovered weight lifting not too long ago, so I always peddle that. It’s a ton of fun to have strength goals rather than weight loss goals

Regardless, congrats on your success thus far

That's what I did when I got to the top of my final range. It took a while to hit that final point. And I sat there for a year at that small deficit. Then my exercise and light summer food and I upped my calories to 0 deficit and dropped 5 pounds - shooting past my goal.

And after that I've still lost more inches but not weight. You can look many different ways - and be more or less healthy - at the same weight.