What Im Doing To Release Weight #2016

By the way I like how you said 'release weight'. Losing weight means you might be sorry for losing something, but releasing means setting it free

I'm trying to eat to live not live to eat!

malibu927 wrote: »

I'm doing what I did when I started. Eating in a deficit (currently at 1380 calories), exercising as I can, which will increase at the end of the month. Focus on nutrition-especially protein-and leave room for ice cream. I find no need to "cheat", as this is how I plan to eat for the rest of my life.

This I like!

Eat all foods with moderation and add a little exercise. This is my life long plan. Life's too short not to eat ice cream. So many flavors not enough time.

queenliz99 wrote: »

Eat all foods with moderation and add a little exercise. This is my life long plan. Life's too short not to eat ice cream. So many flavors not enough time.

Perfect.

I do this as well. Stressing about what to eat and what not to eat is a thing of the past. Sticking to my calories and keeping my deficit is my goal, as it was before as is exercising for health. No stress over so-called 'clean eating' or being obsessive over exercise... I want to enjoy my life-long journey, not make it so hard that it would be easy to give up and slip into old ways.

elphie754 wrote: »

1200 is really low for your weight (not trying to be rude). I'd increase you calories so you don't crash and burn.

I agree. Starting higher and lowering it as you go might be easier to maintain. Either way, good luck!

First 32 days of counting calories:

Start weight: 210.2 pounds
End weight: 202.0 pounds

Shot for 1 pound/week loss
Shot for 1600 calories/day, +/- 100 calories
Average: 1828

Exercise:
Cleaned snow off vehicle x 2 (~1 hour total)
Went grocery shopping x 2 (~1 hour walking per trip)

What I ate:
What I always do. I eliminated nothing. I did not avoid any food or group of foods. I did not change any of my holiday traditions like making and eating posole plus Texas flour tortilla Christmas Eve and NYE, queso and corn tortilla chips on NYD, or cheddar Lit'l smokies in blankets for Christmas Day breakfast.

I always have eaten supper. I started eating breakfast every day. I eat 1-3 other times during the day that are more snack-like than a meal, usually something around mid-day and something in the late evening/before bedtime.

The only real change I made was I started purposely drinking hot water (because I won't drink as much if it's cold these days is the only reason why hot) instead of hot tea with a tablespoon of heavy cream for every drink beyond the first mug of tea in the morning.

I don't engage in "cheat days".

malibu927 wrote: »

I'm doing what I did when I started. Eating in a deficit (currently at 1380 calories), exercising as I can, which will increase at the end of the month. Focus on nutrition-especially protein-and leave room for ice cream. I find no need to "cheat", as this is how I plan to eat for the rest of my life.

This^
(Except I save room for dark chocolate).

The problem with temporary changes, or elimination diets is they don't really give you the tools needed to maintain the weight you lost.

1200 is a product of "I want to lose xx pounds per week." It's the lowest minimum default. Many women "get" this limit because weekly weight loss goals are too high. 1200 is more appropriate for older or very petite women (who don't burn as much).

amoracherise2 wrote: »

Hey Everyone,
Just thought I'd put this out there for whoever is curious about what I am doing for my first month in my journey.
Highest Weight: 350
Starting Weight: 344.6
Goal Weight: 200
Meal Plan:
Intermittent Fasting 16:8
1200 Calories
2 Meal Replacement Shakes
1 Balanced Meal with Veggie Meat
Lots of Water
1 Cheat Day Every 14 days
Exercise Plan
20 minutes any Exercise/ 3 x a Week
Please Feel free to add me and Share what you guys are doing as well!!!

Sounds like a very professionally prepared plan, and I certainly would not discourage anyone from implementing a plan that they have arrived at after weighting all the pros and cons of the various options.

Knowing what I do now, if I were advising a 340lb friend on how to get to 200lbs I would say the following:

Eating 80% of their Total Daily Energy expenditure (i.e. a 20% deficit) is as fast as most people should go. While still medically obese, increasing that to a 25% deficit would probably be ok.

For most people a loss of 0.75% of their body weight per week is as fast as they should go. While morbidly obese a loss rate of up to 1% or 1.5% may be acceptable.

However, these maximum loss rates are often needlessly hard on people and result in discouragement, burn out, and waking up one day cursing the whole process.

Why don't you figure out what your caloric needs would be as a sedentary person at your goal weight of 200lbs?
At 340lbs you will still see excellent results if you eat that amount of food.

As you get closer to 200lbs your rate of loss will slow down; but, by then, you will also be physically able to boost your activity and exercise levels to increase your deficit.

And figuring out how to remain satisfied eating day in and day out (and forever) the amount of food you will be eating to maintain your weight at 200lbs is an invaluable exercise in and of itself. Much more valuable than hitting the shakes. Honestly: eat your calories, drink water. much more filling. Eat a bunch of apples that are worth the same calories as your shake plus a couple of cups of water and tell me which keeps you full longer.

And, while there are great arguments that exist for a re-feed day if you are doing a very low calorie diet (and a 1200 Cal diet IS very low calories for a 340lb person) , cheat days have connotations that are not very good, and introduce planned binges, which are also not very good.

Life will happen. Friends will show up. You will go to a movie. A relative will have a birthday. A business lunch or dinner engagement will have to be navigated.

At some point of time you will have a large meal and your day will end up with your calories being above where you expected them to be.

You do need to plan to keep these occurrences to a dull roar; I doubt you need to plan to go out looking for them every 14 days

Carb cycling, intermittent fasting, a lot of tricks exist to improve on your results and to make advances at the margins. However, between 340lbs and 200lbs you are not at the margins. The basics will work absolutely fine in this range. Your biggest danger is burn-out and non-compliance as opposed to your body not cooperating in the shedding of the lbs.

As for exercise I would definitely look to increasing activity as opposed to looking for "exercise". WALKING not jogging should be your focus for the next 50+lbs, or even more. Swimming. In general activities that are easy on the joints and in particular the knees.

And to be very honest and based on personal experience I would start with increasing my walking activity. Walk in the house. Walk while talking on the phone. *kitten*-can the TV and in particular *kitten*-can eating in front of the TV. Walk to the store. For that matter walk anywhere you can. Adopt an imaginary dog and take him for a walk twice a day. When it gets easy... then it is time to increase the intensity!

And you may want to consider than the 150-160g of protein you should probably be eating to protect your existing lean mass are going to be very hard to swing on a 1200 Cal diet.

So yeah. You are embarking on a multi-year healthier living journey with, hopefully, no end for many years to come.

Even this very first phase of your journey, the big weight loss, is a 2+ year endeavour.

Make it easy on yourself. You don't need to starve in order to get to maintenance (the longest part of your journey) a few months sooner.

But you do need to spend this time implementing permanent changes to your relationship between food, activity level/movement, and exercise.

Best of luck!