Stuck in a rut & the weight is back on...

DogDays88
DogDays88 Posts: 5 Member
edited December 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all :)

I was wondering if I could get some guidance. Over the years I've tried and failed to maintain a supposedly healthy weight of 60kg. I'm currently sitting on 71kg after being stuck in a rut for some time... In the past I've tried soup diets, juice diets, Herbalife, 2 rounds of Michelle Bridge's 12WBT, a couple of other 12 week online weight loss programs, intuitive eating, veganism, multiple 30 day challenges, 10 months of no alcohol, gym memberships and Crossfit (yup, I'm a sucker for fads!).

Anyway, for the last 6 months I've been able to manage weekly yoga, cycling (around 45-60km a week, although some weeks I don't ride at all), and walking. My eating is pretty average, I don't live off raw food or overly processed food, just a sort of middle ground bit-of-both diet. I know my diet needs to improve, I know I eat because I'm bored, I know I tend to be lazy but I just don't know how to address these issues and have a lifestyle that helps me keep the weight off!

Another huge issue is that I have depression and anxiety. Last year I was largely sedentary due to bad withdrawal symptoms from coming off medication (this was despite tapering off with doctor's guidance). I basically ended up with chronic fatigue and a shot immune system. I'm now taking a low dose medication and up until a couple of weeks back was seeing a herbologist/chinese medicine therapist to aid my various symptoms.

One thing going for me is that in about 6 weeks I'm going to be getting a rescue dog (adult English Staffy). This will force me to walk/jog twice a day, everyday - rain, hail or shine! Whilst I don't have any set exercise goals I do like to keep active and will also be signing up for another term of yoga. I like activity that is solitary and low impact on my joints.I have weights at home, just no motivation to lift them!

Any guidance on where to start would be much appreciated (e.g. recommended eating plans, types of exercises, workbooks etc. that might help me). How do I stop being lazy? How can you lose weight and keep it off for life? Do I go back to something I've tried in the past?

Help?! :#

Replies

  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    Set a calorie goal and stick to it. That's all you need to do. No fads, no special diets, no dramatic dietary changes, you don't even need to exercise (but you get to eat more and it ha dither huge benefits mentally and physically).

    Use this app as designed, that's it. It's really that simple.
  • DogDays88
    DogDays88 Posts: 5 Member
    edited May 2016
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    Set a calorie goal and stick to it. That's all you need to do. No fads, no special diets, no dramatic dietary changes, you don't even need to exercise (but you get to eat more and it ha dither huge benefits mentally and physically).

    Use this app as designed, that's it. It's really that simple.

    Thanks :) I use MFP mainly as a food diary. I don't love counting calories (even though this is what the site is designed for), I find it tedious to weigh/measure every morsel. Also, I can't afford to invest in heart monitors and fancy scales that I can carry everywhere... There must be another way that's not counting calories?
  • DogDays88
    DogDays88 Posts: 5 Member
    Maybe MFP is the wrong place to ask?!
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    Calorie counting isn't for everyone but what you've tried isn't working. You are eating too much to lose weight and the easiest way to correct that and understand what a portion looks like is to track calories, even just for a short period.
  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
    Calorie counting isn't my thing either to be honest, but it works.

    I tend to weigh and log strictly for a week to learn what serving sizes should look like. After that I 'eyeball' my portions until I notice that my weight is stalling (or going up again). Then I weigh and log strictly again for a week to get myself back on track with portion sizes. But I always log what I eat. It takes me 5 minutes per day and eventually it just becomes a daily habit you can't really get out of.

    I use it as a tool to learn where calories are hidden and what I can change in the way I eat. Each time I do the week, I find small things I can tweak: less oil when I'm cooking (a teaspoon is really enough if you have a good pan); no liquid calories if I can avoid it; that little (not so little) piece of chocolate is a third of my calorie budget for the day (yikes); Veggies are your friend for the simple fact that they are high volume and low calorie...

    Take it one day at a time. MFP is a tool. Ergo it should do what you want it to do. It might take a few days/weeks to figure out how to work it to suit you best, but in the end it works as long as you follow the general rule of: eat less than your body needs in a day.

    You're not that far off from your calorie goal (10kg isn't all that much to lose, says the girl with 30kg more to lose) meaning it will be harder and the margin of error lower.

    All of this said, had I accurately weighed all my food, I would have lost more than the 11kg I have since the beginning of the year. I'm not willing to do that so I accept that my progress will stall occasionally. Some times my weight will go back up (my graph looks like a progression of camel humps). But I'm not hurting myself or doing something contrary to my nature. I accept that I will underestimate how much I eat and overestimate how much I move. My weight will fluctuate. But when I notice an up trend, I'll pull myself together again, weigh, log and get myself back on the right track.

    best of luck on your journey!
  • DogDays88
    DogDays88 Posts: 5 Member
    Thanks :) Funnily enough this 10kg has been harder to lose than the 8kg I lost years ago to get myself down to 70kg. I aimed to lose 18 to get to 60kg, which is my ideal weight by all charts, but losing and keeping off that last 10 has been an absolute struggle, and it's getting harder and harder each time. I really just want to be healthy. I don't want to be an athlete or a certain size. Just strong enough to lift my own body weight, fit enough to cycle for a couple of hours or hike for half a day, and light enough fit within the healthy range of BMI and height-weight ratio.
  • DogDays88
    DogDays88 Posts: 5 Member
    Do I need to make specific goals to get to that point?
  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
    edited May 2016
    You have very nice, very specific, non scale goals listed up already. :wink:

    I usually set myself short and long term goals for more than just scale related:

    Short term: get under 90kg (that's another 4kg to lose - should take me about 2-3 months)
    Long term: get to 65kg (weight calculated by my doctor and my dietician as being my ideal - should reach that sometimes in 2018...)

    Short term: lose another 1cm off my waist (current, above 90cm)
    Long term: get below 80cm (ideal, according to my research, is around 38-40% of height, but that would be below 70cm for me... let's not exaggerate right out :wink: )

    Short term: finish the 20 minute interval training my coach set up for me (current best: 15 minutes)
    Long term: run a 5K (or jog it, or shuffle it, but do it! - need to lose more weight first to avoid straining my knees)

    So for each of my long term goals, I always define short term increments that I can reach within a month. Once I reach it, I define a new increment. I find it easier to move a mountain one stone at a time than to try and move the entire mountain in one go. :smile:
  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
    ladyreva78 wrote: »
    You have very nice, very specific, non scale goals listed up already. :wink:

    I usually set myself short and long term goals for more than just scale related:

    Short term: get under 90kg (that's another 4kg to lose - should take me about 2-3 months)
    Long term: get to 65kg (weight calculated by my doctor and my dietician as being my ideal - should reach that sometimes in 2018...)

    Short term: lose another 1cm off my waist (current, above 90cm)
    Long term: get below 80cm (ideal, according to my research, is around 38-40% of height, but that would be below 70cm for me... let's not exaggerate right out :wink: )

    Short term: finish the 20 minute interval training my coach set up for me (current best: 15 minutes)
    Long term: run a 5K (or jog it, or shuffle it, but do it! - need to lose more weight first to avoid straining my knees)

    So for each of my long term goals, I always define short term increments that I can reach within a month. Once I reach it, I define a new increment. I find it easier to move a mountain one stone at a time than to try and move the entire mountain in one go. :smile:

    forgot to add:

    Short term: do 10 push ups (current best is 5)
    Long term: do 10 pull ups (current best: 0 I've got a whole lot of weight I need to lift for that. So losing weight and strengthening my body in general will help)
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