How fast did you gain your weight? (And why I'll be logging forever)
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Wiseandcurious
Posts: 730 Member
TL;DR: A 70 cal average surplus a day is all it took me to gain almost 100 lbs. in 13 years. That little. So yeah, I'll probably log my food forever. How did you gain your weight? How do you plan not to regain it when you're done losing?
So today I finally did the math on my own weight gain and I thought the result was worth sharing.
I have never in my life yo-yoed or really binged. I do sometimes boredom-eat, or eat to postpone an activity I don't want to do, or sometimes even anger-eat, but it's never been a huge thing. Yet at the start of 2015 I was 97 lbs up from where I was at the start of 2002.
I did the math today and that is a 70 cal a day surplus on average. Assuming it's all fat, which of course it isn't, but I'm just estimating here.
I truely did not have periods of very rapid weight gain, but there probably were more stressful periods when the weight did creep up a little bit faster so say I was maintaining two thirds of the time (it was closer to half actually) - that still makes it a 210 calorie surplus a day for the periods I was gaining faster. That is, what, 2 slices of bread? Three small apples? A large glass of fruit juice?
My point is, that kind of difference on a day -to - day basis is so easy to miss. Especially since I've been weighing and logging all my food, I am so acutely aware of this. So weighing and logging it is for me then, for weight loss and hopefully for maintenance after that.
BTW, why I didn't do anything to stop that creep up the scale? Because I was convinced that weight loss had to be this hard, spartan experience where you starve to be thin. Only on MFP did I learn different, and for that, thank you!
Did you gain your weight fast, or slowly? Have you regained multiple times? What is your syrategy this time, to lose it and to keep it off?
So today I finally did the math on my own weight gain and I thought the result was worth sharing.
I have never in my life yo-yoed or really binged. I do sometimes boredom-eat, or eat to postpone an activity I don't want to do, or sometimes even anger-eat, but it's never been a huge thing. Yet at the start of 2015 I was 97 lbs up from where I was at the start of 2002.
I did the math today and that is a 70 cal a day surplus on average. Assuming it's all fat, which of course it isn't, but I'm just estimating here.
I truely did not have periods of very rapid weight gain, but there probably were more stressful periods when the weight did creep up a little bit faster so say I was maintaining two thirds of the time (it was closer to half actually) - that still makes it a 210 calorie surplus a day for the periods I was gaining faster. That is, what, 2 slices of bread? Three small apples? A large glass of fruit juice?
My point is, that kind of difference on a day -to - day basis is so easy to miss. Especially since I've been weighing and logging all my food, I am so acutely aware of this. So weighing and logging it is for me then, for weight loss and hopefully for maintenance after that.
BTW, why I didn't do anything to stop that creep up the scale? Because I was convinced that weight loss had to be this hard, spartan experience where you starve to be thin. Only on MFP did I learn different, and for that, thank you!
Did you gain your weight fast, or slowly? Have you regained multiple times? What is your syrategy this time, to lose it and to keep it off?
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Replies
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It took me 2 yrs to gain 100lbs0
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It took me about a year and a half to gain 38 pounds. But I think most of that was within a year - I just gained a bit more (like 4/5 pounds) in the final 6 months.
I lost 12 pounds a few years ago, then regained it (and a few more) within 3 months. My goal is to see this as a lifestyle change and discover yummy food that is also healthy. Before I only saw it as a "temporary" thing.0 -
I've been overweight for pretty much all of my adult life, and I've gained and lost 15 pounds more times on more "diets" than I can count. In the last couple of years, it just crept up on me because I wasn't paying attention. It only takes an extra 200 calories a day to add up to 20 pounds a year. I'm active (triathlete) and I ate pretty healthy to start with, but I ate too much. Period. And now that I'm, um, over 50, it's that much easier for the pounds to creep back on. After I hit my highest weight ever, I started going to a so-called "nutritionist" and did lose the weight, but the way she wanted me to do it wasn't sustainable. It was a crazy way to eat, and all it did was line her pockets, so I quit and of course it all came back. At that point I said screw this and got a referral from my doc to work with a registered dietician. Best money I've ever spent on myself.
Long story short, I finally shoved all the excuses aside and accepted that I alone am responsible for my weight and my health. I can't point to how I was raised, or who else lives in my house and how they want to eat, or my work schedule, or my chronic lung disease, or otherwise place the blame on anything or anyone but me. And I can't lose the weight and go back to my old ways. This is a permanent change in lifestyle. I've come to the realization that this is how I will have to eat for the rest of my life, and I will have to track for the rest of my life. I can't have a glass of wine with dinner every night, or a handful of peanuts because the jar is sitting out, or a dish of ice cream just because I feel like it. Hubby and I can't sit down with a block of cheese and a box of crackers like we used to. I can't even keep Tostitos or Honey Nut Cheerios in the house, because I can't stop at a small portion of either one. I have to watch portion size, I have to weigh and measure, I have to plan my meals in advance, I have to be aware of what is (or might be) in dishes I haven't prepared myself.
Having said that, it wasn't a big change for me like it may be for a lot of people, so it really wasn't that hard to lose the weight. The first week to de-carb was honestly the hardest. Cravings no longer exist, and they certainly don't control me the way they used to. I still eat foods I love, just a lot less of it and HOLY COW less frequently than I used to (example: frozen yogurt is maybe twice a month and a half-cup serving, not a cereal bowl full), and knowing that no food is off limits helps me stay sane and eat healthy. And truly, this is the healthiest I've ever been in my adult life. I've never felt better, and I've certainly never worn a size 8 before!0 -
It took me 2 years to put on 46lbs [mainly due to alcohol] following the death of my Mother. I then lost it all over a period of 9 months and kept it off for about 5 years. The next 4 years was another traumatic time in my life and on it went again. I'm now halfway to getting back to my goal weight. This time when I hit goal I will not just say that's it and try to 'wing it' - I will be weighing and logging forever.
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Over the past 4 years and lots of diets/exercise and ups and downs, I am now at my biggest- with a total weight gain of 65 pounds. I have always usually been able to keep it under 200, but then that came and went- and now I am finally at my breaking point to where I need to get healthy. I have had 2 very unexpected deaths in my family within a year and a half and I just stopped caring. I ate what I wanted and never exercised. I need to do this for myself, my son, and my husband. We would like to have another child sometime in the near future and there is no way on this earth I would think of getting pregnant right now with the weight I am at.0
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I have gained and lost probably 200 pounds, if not more. If I had never started dieting, I am convinced I would not now be 100 pounds overweight. It was the same old story, go on this rigid diet where I couldn't eat what I wanted, so I'm unsatisfied. Would lose 10, 20, 30 pounds and then get off the diet and, what! weight is back!! Of course, now that I'm off the diet, I can eat, right? That's how I gained. At 5'9" I was not overweight at 150 something. After electing not to have gastric sleeve surgery and talking with the nutritionist at the gastric doc's office, I got to MFP. For the first time in my dieting life I don't feel like I'm on a diet - I'm on an eating sensibly plan. Eat less, exercise more, weight comes off. There are really no restrictions. But I can now eat a piece of pie, not half the pie and not every day. When I first signed up and logged what I was really eating versus what I thought I was eating, it was astounding at the amount of calories I was consuming. I had lost 43 pounds since January and then screwed it up Thanksgiving-Christmas and quickly - very quickly - gained 9 pounds. Overeating, eating too many carbs, lots of sweets and in general too much of everything. But it's under control again now, fewer carbs and sweets, not so much on my plate, eat pretty much what I feel like but keep the calories down and now I'm down a couple of pounds since Christmas. This year I will be working on getting the Thanksgiving-Christmas gaining under control and maintain so I don't have to once again START OVER! I'm 68 years old today. I plan on being 78 one day and being in good health when I get there.0
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Happy Birthday Anniepi66
from a 67 year old who wants to be a healthy 77 year old lol 0 -
This is my theory based on my own experience and observing friends over a period of decades. With dieting, there is fat and muscle loss, and until relatively recently the idea of muscle preservation with added protein and weight training wasn't really on the general radar for women. Once off the "diet" and now in a slow-gain mode, for many people, there is more of that additional weight represented in fat than muscle (which is why you notice a decade later you may be at the "same" weight but your body is bigger - fat takes up more room, pound for pound, than muscle). Over time with repeated cycles, the fat to muscle ratio increases, fewer calories are needed to maintain, much less increase weight, and if the person gets more and more restrictive during the "diet" cycles, more and more muscle mass is lost.0
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Thank you all for the replies. Anniepi66 Happy birthday and many happy returns!0
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It took me about 10 years to put on the 100lb I finally needed to lose. A combination of "dieting doesn't work" and "I'm fat, ugly, lazy and not worth it so what's the point"* meant that I never put the breaks on earlier. My spouse finally read me the riot act (lose the weight or put up and shut up - but in a nice way) and I found my way to MFP. This finally proved that yes, dieting can work (if you look at it the right way) and I've lost 70 of those 100lb I needed to. I've taken a few falls on the way, but I'm still here and still heading downwards.
* Yeah, still working on the self-confidence / self-esteem there!0 -
I once gained 40+ pounds in 6 weeks (~3500 calorie a day surplus!), thanks to a medication that made my brain yell that it was ravenously hungry no matter how much I ate.
Then I lost all of it and then some, not nearly that fast but pretty fast (800-900 cal/day deficit). Then I regained all I'd lost (but not more) on a surplus of 120 calories a day over 5-6 years. Now I am losing at an intentionally much slower rate (~300 cal/day deficit), because it's easy for me to lose and hard for me to maintain, and I'm hoping to get better at maintaining.
But yeah, logging forever.0 -
I'd say my weight gain was similar to yours. I do hope that I don't have to log forever. Instead, either by weighing myself every now and then, or noticing that a pair of pants is getting tight will restart my logging when necessary. I do fear that once I stop, it may be hard to restart.0
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I'd say my weight gain was similar to yours. I do hope that I don't have to log forever. Instead, either by weighing myself every now and then, or noticing that a pair of pants is getting tight will restart my logging when necessary. I do fear that once I stop, it may be hard to restart.
I don't think logging forever has to be done the exact same way for everyone and has to be done daily. I know one great lady on here who lost 130 lbs I think, and has maintained it by logging weekdays, but takes weekends off. I know some people keep an eye on the scale and log when they see it going to the top of their maintenance range, until it goes down again.
For me, I lost 20 of those lbs last eyar and then entered a very stressful period of my life again. But this time instead of gaining slowly, I kept it off. I kept an eye on the scale and wasn't always logging but when it went up by more than 3-4 lbs, I tightened the logging and weighing, so you can say I have been logging for a year, even if it hasn't been continuous. I am losing again for however long I can sustain it this year, so logging tightly every day. But some form of continual logging is definitely in my lifestyle from now on, losing or not.0 -
8 months / 40 lbs
I stopped running, didn't compensate by reducing how much I was eating, and probably ate more/binged more often. So the old adage that it takes a while to lose because you didn't gain the weight fast is false in my case.0 -
Well, I was a runner. First thing every morning... EVERY morning, I'd be up before five and out on the road running miles. Get home; shower; get to work before eight. Then I stepped into a very long and narrow hole in the road. The foot went in but did not come out. (Sort of like the 'Roach Motel" of pavement!) Tore up my knee, my ankle, my hip, my back - not to mention the skin scrapes all over! Then, while my son and running partner ran back to the house to get the car, I decided it would be a good idea to try to start hobbling in that direction (Despite his command to "STAY RIGHT THERE!" (And he ran faster than I've ever seen him - before or since!)).
I was flat on my back for two months and I still feel those joints!
That was about three and a half years ago. Two years ago, I was substantially more than 100# overweight. Then, late in October of 2014, I started changing my diet, cycling, and walking. Not running, just walking. Gradually, I worked my way back to a very slow jog or, as a friend calls it, a slog! I am now back to an easy paced 5k almost every morning. And, yes, I wear braces on both knees when I run. But I've also lost 85# in that span of time. No. I'm not finished yet and, as WiseandCurious noted, I'll probably be doing this forever! Just knowing that I am being held accountable, even if only to myself, makes me try harder and keeps me more attentive to my diet.0 -
I gained about 30 lbs over about 6-7 years. But it wasn't a steady gain. Gain some, lose some, for a net gain.
I plan to lose it by moving more than I did while gaining (hence my username) since the weekly surplus was a number that is easily burned through exercise. I plan to keep it off by not getting lazy again, though I do expect that I'll be back in the gain some, lose some, cycle.
Edit: I don't plan to log forever. I rarely log now.0 -
I gained around 25 pounds in a year. I had lost 35 pounds 3 years ago, but was overly restrictive which lead to a binge/restrict/repeat cycle that started to control my life. I took a year off for mental health, reintegrated treats, regained some of the weight. I now know that I can inch my way downward with a much lower caloric deficit so as not to cause starvation mode. The best part is I haven't had the urge to binge in almost a year and eating out/the holidays are no longer a stress causing event.0
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I gained ~10lb/year since the last time I lost weight (4 years prior to my peak weight). The last 10lb happened over a 3-month window (or a pace of 40lb/year if I continued it) of eating 2 donuts/day and a table full of chocolates.
It took 7 months to not only eliminate 4 years of overeating, but to actually get to 10lb lighter than before.
Will I log forever? Who knows. I don't need to log forever, but I do need to weigh daily and have goals I can work towards. If I get complacent again I will eventually get back up over 200lb and it won't be muscle.0 -
Both my pregnancies I gained 60 pounds in 9 months. I plan on logging forever as well.0
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I put on 50ish Lbs over 8 years when I graduated college and took a desk job, bought a car, and started a family. Basically I went from being pretty active in general and commuting by bike or foot to sitting behind a desk most of the day and commuting by car.
I've been in maintenance going on 3 years this spring and I don't log. I maintain a healthy lifestyle to include eating well and regular exercise. I monitor my weight trends and if I see a consistent uptick in the trend I take a step back and look at what I'm doing differently and adjust accordingly.
I plan on living for another 40-50 years so I don't think keeping a diary for all of that time is particularly realistic for me. I've had little problem maintaining my weight without a diary. While I don't log, I am very mindful of what I'm eating and how much. I eat primarily whole foods and meals prepared from scratch, whole ingredients or minimally processed foods. "Junk" food is a treat, not an every day occurrence. It's easy to over do it when eating out a lot, so my family eats out only occasionally which has had the added benefit of being easier on the pocket book as well. I don't mindlessly eat...I basically have flexibly scheduled eating times...3 meals per day and 2 snacks...I rarely divert from this. Because I don't log, I probably have a few more "rules" than someone who did...but logging took its toll on my mental health and became extremely obsessed with things to the point that I wasn't really all that fun to hang out with (this according to my wife and friends)...I'm much more relaxed about things doing what I do now, and like I said...no issues maintaining my weight.0
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