Advice and hopefully support

timberwulff
timberwulff Posts: 2 Member
edited December 2024 in Motivation and Support
Hi there,

When I started my weight loss I was almost 400 pounds. Today I am at 266.6, my lowest was 262.8 but after getting sick to the point of passing out I plateaued, and have slipped a little bit. I thought things were okay but the past few days I have been snacking, with it culminating in me eating half a jar of salted caramel, leftover from a baking contest I had entered. I am seriously freaking out over this and I can't figure out where my willpower went. I have been hoping to hit 215-200 lbs before I focus on maintaining and am terrified of gaining back all I lost. Anyone have any suggestions for getting things back in order?

Replies

  • AliNouveau
    AliNouveau Posts: 36,287 Member
    Track it all. Maybe seeing it in numbers will trigger your brain to remember what it's been doing? I know seeing the numbers for me really makes me cut back. Busy yourself at the times you snack? Get rid of any snack foods? Tell yourself if you want that salted caramel you have to jog on the spot for as long as it would take you to eat it? Or go for a walk?

    Btw what did you make for the baking contest and how did you do
  • ellie117
    ellie117 Posts: 293 Member
    Hello there!

    I am sure you will find many people on here who have fallen down the same road, myself included. I lost 70lbs and then gained back 20 before I kicked myself back into gear.

    If you find yourself slipping, just know that you can always pick yourself up. This is not an "end game" with a due date or expiration date. If you slip a day, start over tomorrow. If you slip a month, start over next month. If you slip for a year, get back up and refresh the next.

    You already lost 100lbs, that is amazing! Keep that in mind when you see an increase of 5 or 10lbs here and there. Know that even with the gain, you are still better off than when you started. You know you were able to create the healthy habits before, and you can do it again! If you're finding it hard to get things back in order, start small. Make small adjustments every week or few weeks until you build those habits back.

    You got this!
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    timberwulff wrote: »
    Hi there,

    When I started my weight loss I was almost 400 pounds. Today I am at 266.6, my lowest was 262.8 but after getting sick to the point of passing out I plateaued, and have slipped a little bit. I thought things were okay but the past few days I have been snacking, with it culminating in me eating half a jar of salted caramel, leftover from a baking contest I had entered. I am seriously freaking out over this and I can't figure out where my willpower went. I have been hoping to hit 215-200 lbs before I focus on maintaining and am terrified of gaining back all I lost. Anyone have any suggestions for getting things back in order?

    Tell yourself it is okay. Take the drama out of the situation. You are intending on weight management being your life going forward, right? Well... life is messy. It is full of sickness and bad days. I decided that everything I do, good or bad, is part of my plan. I am human and my plan has to survive my humanness.

    Willpower is a stop gap measure. It is too exhausting to make it your primary means for staying inside your calorie goal. If you are trying to use willpower to get back in line... stop. If your will to eat more than you want is stronger than your will to control you will lose anyway. That is another reason why using willpower sucks... you are fighting with yourself.

    No permanent damage has been done. Even if you gained a little back you can lose it again. Stressing over it won't help and likely keep you tilted.

    I believe 1 of 2 things is happening right now:

    1) You are experiencing diet fatigue. Instead of giving yourself a break you are allowing your stress and fear keep you from relaxing which is not allowing you to get over it.

    2) What you do to lose weight needs changing. Something about it is too hard. Maybe you have not slowed down your weight loss enough since starting and you are buckling under the stress of it being too aggressive now. Maybe you deprived yourself a little too much. Maybe you have been trying to be perfect. Is there something that you can do to make it easier for you to maintain a deficit and be happy-ish doing it?

    I started heavier than you and I have currently lost more than you. In my 20 months of doing this I have had my low periods because life doesn't stop just because you decide to lose weight. When I am feeling low I steer into the curve. When I felt myself get fatigued this last Spring I very intentionally went away on a trip and ate way too much food. I logged it all and it was a crazy amount over my maintenance. When I got back though I was ready to get back to my deficit days. What little regain I had was soon gone and I have lost more than 50 pounds since then.

    You might benefit from joining the MFP Larger Losers group:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/133315-larger-losers

    It is for people who started originally or are starting with 75 or more pounds to lose who want to lose their weight in a sensible and sustainable fashion.
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
    The anxiety is really hard, I can empathize with you on that. I second the suggestion to still log it. A pound is approxmately 3,500 calories of intake, so you would have had to consume that amount over maintenance, not just over your daily goal, to even gain a pound. Chances are the amount you ate put you quite a bit less than that.

    It can seem like a lot because the anxiety makes us think that one "mess up" is the beginning of the end, almost like an omen. Fortunately, in weight loss, it's not like that. The only time you truly mess up is if you give up. All the chips that you made to get where you are now haven't been lost. You lost 140 chips and today have gained... 1/4 of a chip, if even that. Barely even a hiccup, so give yourself permission to move on from it. That's the important part.
  • AliNouveau
    AliNouveau Posts: 36,287 Member
    timberwulff wrote: »
    AliNouveau wrote: »
    Track it all. Maybe seeing it in numbers will trigger your brain to remember what it's been doing? I know seeing the numbers for me really makes me cut back. Busy yourself at the times you snack? Get rid of any snack foods? Tell yourself if you want that salted caramel you have to jog on the spot for as long as it would take you to eat it? Or go for a walk?

    Btw what did you make for the baking contest and how did you do

    Butterbeer cupcakes and won second place

    Oh that's fun and congrats
    I love baking.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories