This is so hard, tell me its worth it
all4yum
Posts: 43 Member
I've been dieting for almost 6 months and I've only lost 17 pounds. I have 120 pounds to lose. When I just count calories, and eat 1200 to 1400 a day, I lose about 1.5 pounds a month, the only way I lose more is fasting on 800 calories for 5 days, every 3 weeks. This week I went on holiday, on a tiny boat, and I didnt fast or count calories. It was only 5 days and I figured I would gain maybe 2 pounds as we had to eat out most of the time. I gained 5 pounds. About 6 weeks worth of weight loss regained in 5 days. We also walked 10 to 15k steps a day, once we moored up, so it's not like I was idle. I have health issues, I have hyperthyroidism (yes hyper not hypo) and lupus, and I really need to do this, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life fasting just to maintain weight loss. It doesn't feel worth it to me. I have so much to lose, I should be able to take 5 days off, surely? Last time I lost all the weight, I ended up surviving off less than 500 calories a day just to maintain it. It sucked and I was unhappy. If this is how hard its going to be, is it really worth it? If I just eat a healthy diet, eat mindfully and exercise, I slowly gain weight which I was doing for the last couple of years.
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Replies
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I think that if you focus more on logging correctly (have a moderate but true and consistent calorie deficit) and patience (including monitoring your weight consistently and over time), and less on "healthy eating" and exercise, you will have enough mental energy to stick to that calorie deficit, and then you lose weight.5
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Being fat is hard, losing weight is hard.... choose your hard13
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kommodevaran wrote: »I think that if you focus more on logging correctly (have a moderate but true and consistent calorie deficit) and patience (including monitoring your weight consistently and over time), and less on "healthy eating" and exercise, you will have enough mental energy to stick to that calorie deficit, and then you lose weight.
This what I did for the first 3 months. I focused on logging every single thing I ate, stuck to the mfp calorie deficit and weighed daily, so I could see the pattern of weight loss, and for the first two months I lost 1.5 pounds, the 3rd I lost 0.75 pounds. When you've got 120 pounds to lose, that's not enough. It's not enough to keep motivation when you know it would take nearly 7 years to lose the weight. I know everyone is different but when you see women my size losing weight pretty fast on a moderate deficit, or when my 60 year old mother can lose 4 pounds a week, just cutting out cookies, it's hard to keep saying "sure, let's keep dieting and lose a pound a month". The fasting means I lose 6 to 8 pounds a month. And that keeps me motivated. But I can't live my life knowing I can't even take 5 days off counting every calorie without setting myself back 6 weeks. That's too stressful. I know my thyroid plays a role, but that isn't going to get better as they plan on just removing it, it sucks. Surely there must just be a middle ground where I can enjoy life, eat a normal, healthy diet and still lose a reasonable about of weight. Because I've lived a life where I exercised every day, I ran, I went to the gym, and I still had to have a severe calorie deficit to just maintain my weight loss and no, I don't want to live that life. I'm not a quitter. No matter what new illness my body has thrown at me, I've kept going. But I don't want to live my life obsessed with food and every single calorie. Just to lose a tiny amount of weight. How is that worth it?1 -
But you have to log correctly too. This means weighing everything and using entries with correct nutritional information, and logging the amount you actually ingest. You need to focus on that, if you want to lose weight, and not on how hard it is to to all the things you don't have to do, and still not lose weight. And no cheating. Eating well every day should take away the need to fiddle with the books. Weight management is not magic, it's part simple math/physics, part complex psychology: Your height, weight and activity level dictates whether you lose, gain or maintain weight on a certain calorie intake; you decide what and when to eat, and whether to stick to the appropriate amount of calories.7
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Are you getting too hungry on 1200-1400 calories? Maybe you aren’t eating quite enough and your body is afraid to let go of the weight.
How about water? Have you figured the amount of water you should be drinking (1/2 ounce per pound of body weight) and try to meet that goal?
How about sufficient sleep? I’ve read a lot from different sources lately how lack of sleep can really sabotage your weight loss.
I’m just trying to throw out a few ideas. Eating in a more healthy way and exercising are beneficial in and of themselves, so try not to be discouraged at the rate you’re losing, and maybe focus more on what kinds of food and drink you’re consuming rather than the scale.11 -
And I'll ask the question ... have you been using a food scale?9
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I don’t see any mention of this, if you aren’t using a food scale, you need to do that. Liquids can be measured, everything else goes on the food scale. I was making counting error of 30+% not using a food scale.
Pick a calorie number and stick with it. If you don’t get a downward trend going in a month, cut 10% of your calories. If isn’t enough cut another 10%. Take up walking, or some other moderate exercise routine. Exercise is overrated as a weight loss strategy.
Talk to your Dr. Either your medical issues prevent your body from responding, or you aren’t counting calories correctly. Something is amiss.
We only get one life.120lbs is a lot of excess weight and is putting you at serious risk. I’ve been there. Weight loss is a process. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t require suffering.
If you can lose 1.5 lbs per month, you have a place to start. Work from both sides. Try to make your life more livable. Try to get a bit more of a loss. When your brain starts pumping out numbers about how long it will take to get from X lbs to Y lbs tell your brain to shut up.
If it takes 7 yrs to lose all the weight, trust me, 7 years from now you’ll be glad you did it. I’ve lost over 100lbs and been maintaining for years. In the end, I spent about as much time losing as I did gaining. Best thing I ever did aside from my kids. Good luck.11 -
It took me 5 years to loose 80 lbs. I was like you at first this is too hard. I want to live my life. Truth was I wasn’t weighing things and I was drinking a lot of calories. But I did loose weight just slowly. Be honest with yourself and track correctly. End result even though it took five years, I lost the weight and feel great.7
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I'll also have to ask, are you using a digital food scale. What we think is a serving is often not the case. In addition, packaging lies on serving sizes as well. The only way to KNOW for 100% what you are consuming is to weigh your food.0
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You do not have to fast at all let alone the rest of your life. But you do need to learn portion control and how to manage intake for the rest of your life.. You've seen how easy it is to regain, after you reach goal weight you can't revert to old eating habits that made you overweight. You have to develop a way of eating that allows you to enjoy f ood without eating too much of it. Whether it's worth it depends on how miserable you are now. I lost 150 and have maintained for about 20 months. Was it worth it? YES! At 63, I am in the best fitness shape of my life and can have fun in ways I never could before. My health is improving rather than declining. I have no desire to go back where I was. I encourage you to pop over to Success Stories forum and read what's there.10
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Pain is the precursor to change. With every passing year the ground grows colder. A decade from now this will not be any easier. It's possible that you may be knocking up against insulin resistance. If so, you are in for the fight of your life but it can be done. It takes true grit. No one can tell you this is worth it. Our words are meaningless when you're faced with fixing your meals and tracking your food. You're going to have to muster UP by an act of your will to care about your body. Not willpower, willpower runs out. Pull on that unction, a strong desire for lasting change. Start thinking waaaay down the road, not months or even 2 years from now. When the pain increases in your joints, knees, feet, back, shoulders you will want change. Do it now while you're young. Why don't you sit down with someone outside of your family, face-to-face. Not a quack but someone who can look you directly in the eyes and lay it all on the line. You've got to fight for your overall health and well being. We all do.4
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kommodevaran wrote: »I think that if you focus more on logging correctly (have a moderate but true and consistent calorie deficit) and patience (including monitoring your weight consistently and over time), and less on "healthy eating" and exercise, you will have enough mental energy to stick to that calorie deficit, and then you lose weight.
This what I did for the first 3 months. I focused on logging every single thing I ate, stuck to the mfp calorie deficit and weighed daily, so I could see the pattern of weight loss, and for the first two months I lost 1.5 pounds, the 3rd I lost 0.75 pounds. When you've got 120 pounds to lose, that's not enough. It's not enough to keep motivation when you know it would take nearly 7 years to lose the weight. I know everyone is different but when you see women my size losing weight pretty fast on a moderate deficit, or when my 60 year old mother can lose 4 pounds a week, just cutting out cookies, it's hard to keep saying "sure, let's keep dieting and lose a pound a month". The fasting means I lose 6 to 8 pounds a month. And that keeps me motivated. But I can't live my life knowing I can't even take 5 days off counting every calorie without setting myself back 6 weeks. That's too stressful. I know my thyroid plays a role, but that isn't going to get better as they plan on just removing it, it sucks. Surely there must just be a middle ground where I can enjoy life, eat a normal, healthy diet and still lose a reasonable about of weight. Because I've lived a life where I exercised every day, I ran, I went to the gym, and I still had to have a severe calorie deficit to just maintain my weight loss and no, I don't want to live that life. I'm not a quitter. No matter what new illness my body has thrown at me, I've kept going. But I don't want to live my life obsessed with food and every single calorie. Just to lose a tiny amount of weight. How is that worth it?
Are you on medications to compensate for your thyroid? Having that under control will make a difference. Any other medical conditions? Certain conditions such as PCOS and insulin resistance may respond better to low carb. This isn't universally true, but many women find it to be helpful. I will also echo the use of a food scale as well as ensuring that the entries you use are correct. The database is full of inaccuracies. Food packages are allowed to be off by up to 20%, so an individually packaged item could contain quite a few more calories than you realize.0 -
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Well, hyPERthyroid should have you eating ravenously and losing quickly.
So, if you are logging everything, using a food scale, vetting your database choices, eating 1200-1400 daily and still not losing - then you have some other major medical issue. So get to a doctor.
I tried looking back through your FOOD diary, but even on the erratic days you do log - there are so few calories I find it hard to believe you aren't eating more or aren't keeling over with fatigue. I suppose you do feel really bad...this type of eating that is in your FOOD diary is not good at all for lupus.
If indeed you are eating so little - again - get to a doctor. You seem to be able to defy the physical laws of Nature, and I'm sure they would like to observe you.
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TavistockToad wrote: »Being fat is hard, losing weight is hard.... choose your hard
Yep... kitten that woo.1 -
OP: It is hard. It is harder for some than for others. And many people find some times during the diet easier and harder even though they didn’t change their eating habits or exercise.
But please don’t give up.
But IT IS ABSOLUTELY worth it. The health benefits, the pain mitigation and prevention. The energy. The mood enhancing etc.
I’m surprised among the earlier responses (which have some good advice, if a bit unsympathetically presented) no one mentions that you may not have gained back 5 pounds. The scale can be very misleading, especially if we go on a break where we eat foods that we were not eating (saltier or carb heavy might cause water retention) - and water weight fluctuations of over 5 pounds for females (especially around TOM) are common.
As for the hard - there are many different approaches to calorie restriction that may be easier or harder for you. Me, I was the most unhappy, hangriest person on a steady day in day out 1200 calories a day. When I switched how and what I ate ( to Intermittent fasting (5:2 and 16:8) and ate a starchy potato most days) with the same WEEKLY calories it was so much easier - for me. Other people find restricting carbs make it easier to stick to their calorie goal. Etc...
So besides the good advice above on being accurate with your calories, You might try different approaches and see if any help. Again, it is different for everyone and took me months to find an approach that was relatively easy for me. in case it helps: My personal big breakthrough was realizing that eating breakfast left me hungry all day long, but postponing my first meal til noon helped me feel more satisfied the rest of the day AND saved me the breakfast calories for a bigger meal later.
I wish you good luck and just want to reiterate: it is worth it!4 -
ChelleDee07 wrote: »I'll also have to ask, are you using a digital food scale. What we think is a serving is often not the case. In addition, packaging lies on serving sizes as well. The only way to KNOW for 100% what you are consuming is to weigh your food.
Speaking to this a little bit, I was just in the store getting ice cream. I checked the nutrition info for the same flavor but two different brands - both had the serving size as 1/2 cup, but one was 150 calories while the other was 290 calories. I was about to get the one with less calories, thinking it was a difference in recipes, but when I re-checked the labels, the “150 calorie per half-cup serving” ice cream listed 66 grams as a half cup as compared to one-hundred-and-something grams in the “290 calories per half-cup serving” brand. They worked out to be roughly the same if you pay attention to the grams rather than the 1/2 cup measurement. Those sneaks!2 -
Please hold on. I have lupus and fibromyalgia. All this talk about weighing food and counting calories just didn’t work for me. I use this app as a way to keep me accountable but I don’t live and die by it. Lupus has it’s own special challenges and limitations. Just breathe and stay balanced and calm.
My suggestions are to look up “Full Plate Living” it is a way of eating that becomes a lifestyle. It has helped me tremendously! The fiber in the fruits and veggies encourages your body to lower inflammation, which is the #1 enemy of a connective tissue disease. This way of eating is also sustainable and cheaper. I find recipes using the list of fiber rich foods and make easy and sometimes even junk food copycat recipes that are healthy. This, and drinking lots of water, staying away from “diet” drinks and foods (which have ingredients that make lupus worse), moving as much as I can, and adding unfiltered apple cider vinegar to my tea every day (which also helps lower inflammation) has helped me get SO much better!!!
The Full Plate Living website and book used to be called the “Full Plate Diet” because you can enjoy eating all these foods without worrying about counting calories. It also allows you to eat well so your body doesn’t do without and has to work harder to feel better. Which, with lupus, we DON’T need!
I hope this helps. I know the pain and nausea and just plain sicknesses that lupus causes. I know too that I am doing better thanks to this lifestyle change. I can’t be perfectly healthy but any amount of better is good in my book. 😊0 -
Oh...and an added benefit, because I am not stressing about “losing weight” my weight is lowering on it’s own. My body is getting the proper nutrition so the lupus is also more under control. Win, win.0
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I might be mistaken, but I think @tomteboda has lupus - if she's still around, maybe she can comment on what worked for her?
I'd agree with those who say it IS worth it, no matter how long it takes. But it shouldn't be as difficult as it seems to be for you, so something's not right somewhere. I'd definitely suggest getting a food scale and weighing and logging everything you eat and drink as accurately as possible. No "cheat days" where you don't log, no forgetting about the oils, condiments and sauces, no pretending that the foods you're embarrassed to log didn't actually get eaten. (Not saying that you ARE doing any of these things, but they're common reasons why people don't get an accurate calorie count.)
Please don't be offended by the suggestions to weigh your food for accuracy. Some people feel it's rude for others to comment that they must be eating more than they think, as if the suggestion is actually that the person struggling is just plain greedy. That's not what anyone means at all - it's just that most of us are pretty poor at estimating portion sizes (there's a couple of good videos kicking around somewhere), and getting a food scale is both an eye-opening experience and a kick start to success for many. Please give it a try!2
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