Sad reality.

I lose less than a pound a week netting 1200 (1200 plus my exercise calories-and I wouldn’t do anything less than that ever). At best I lose 3 pounds a month (it’s usually less).

I started out morbidly obese. I couldn’t walk across the house without needing a break. I had to pull myself up my stairs-and take multiple tests. I could only carry in a single can of vegetables at a time - I was too weak to bring more groceries than that. And on and on and on.

I’m 8 1/2 years into this. I still have some weight to lose. I haven’t tried to lose the whole time, and I gained a bunch back when my parents died. I don’t want you thinking it takes that long.

But I’ve run multiple marathons (and tons of shorter races), I’ve hiked/trekked over 100 miles in the Canadian Rockies then Utah a week later (with 2 Half marathons tossed in), I can carry 20 liters of bottled things (plus a couple bags of random stuff), I can haul 200 pounds off the floor, and run up the stairs (I mean-If I have to). I’ve been skydiving (more than once), done flying trapeze, gone rappelling off cliffs, and on and on and on.

I have long since abandoned any worries about how long it’s going to take (hopefully a very long time-because I’m not doing anything to lose that I won’t continue doing forever to maintain). I’m living a great life now. I can (eventually) do virtually anything I choose to pursue.

And I absolutely refuse to under eat to lose faster - and sacrifice my ability to continue doing all the awesome things I’m doing (because running 10 miles is really hard on not enough food).

Anyway-it’s not sad IMO. It’s just the reality of weight loss for some. I don’t burn as much as a dude; or a taller person; or a heavier person or someone who works an active job or a thousand other situations. But it really doesn’t matter. My reality is my reality and I can eat what I can eat. The awesome part is my life is also my life and I’m going to keep working so I can keep doing awesome stuff. Someday I might hit my goal weight. If not-still awesome.

Wow, listen to what Duck_Puddle says, those are some inspiring words!! Increase your activity where you can, even just a short moderate walk every day will gain you some extra calories to eat. The best chance of losing weight forever is slow and steady so those habits become your life and routine.

NovusDies wrote: »

....try to reframe it as not something you must do but something you get to do.

I really like this!!!!

1200 calories gives me a half lb a week loss since I maintain at 1500. That’s when I’m moderately active.......

Yeah, it is tough.

In a year from now, it will still be a year from now, so rather than focus on where you can't be in that time, focus on where you can be. You're going to "win" either way. So what if it's 1lb per week instead of two? Are you seriously not going to lose weight at all because the rate of loss you hope for is not likely to happen? That's not sound reasoning. Do the work.

joyanna2016 wrote: »

scarlett_k wrote: »

I'm 5'6" and have never had to eat that little to lose 2lb a week when I was 220lb or thereabouts. How are you calculating this? Have you actually tried it or is this all hypothetical? 1200 is very low. I ate 1500 for a while and felt *awful*.

I started noticing I wasnt losing quite as much each week and my "expected weight in 5 wks" was no longer a 10 lb loss at 1200 cals so I looked it up on the calculator mentioned by some on MFP called "fat to fit" after figuring my bmr and tdee it confirmed.

MFP should eliminate that. It has never been accurate. I just ignore it and there have been threads about how ridiculous it is. Honestly, I think 2 lbs per week is just too aggressive for you and not really sustainable.

In a word, you're feeling impatient. It's very understandable. But the languid pace of weight loss is similar to many other things. College gets a little tedious when you're a sophomore but it's still gonna take 4 years. An ambitious assistant manager can dream of being an SVP next month but it's gonna take years. You can start piano lessons now but you're not gonna play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4 next month. And so on.

But here is the great thing about weight loss. There is no guarantee that the ambitious asst manager will ever become an SVP, and if you start piano lessons, the odds are very high you will never be able to play Etude Op. 10 # 4. BUT ... if you plug away at a diet and hit your calorie target regularly, time will pass and you will lose the weight.

I have to admit when I started in June '19, I too was a little frustrated with the 2 lbs/week limit. I was 320 lbs and when you're staring at a road that long, moving one small step down the road each week seems ... tiresome. I mean, why can't it be 3 or 4 lbs? But it can't. Anyway, here we are a year later, and the 2 lbs/week limit is a moot point for me, because I didn't even come close to hitting that metric, no thanks to quarantine stress. With my one year anniversary two weeks away, it looks like my weekly weight loss average for the year will end up at 1.4 pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply 1.4 by 52 and that's not chicken change. So that is my point - time is on your side when you're dieting. You just plug away and in time you'll get where you want to be. The most important number isn't the weight loss per week. It's your calorie target. You have to hit it regularly and often to get the right results. If you hit that calorie target, you will lose all the weight you want to lose. Try to focus on that calorie target and ignore the lbs per week stuff; let the weight loss take care of itself.

When I first joined MFP, I lost enough to just get my BMI in to the Normal range and then, for multiple reasons, pretty much stopped tracking. Eight months later and in a new job where there's a seemingly endless supply of goodies available to snack on, I'd put all that weight back on and was also told I was now classed as diabetic. I came back to MFP and, thankfully, I found this forum. The advice I've read from people with way way more experience than me has been invaluable.

It took just over a year to lose 12kg (26.5 lbs). It then took almost another year to lose 5kg (11 lbs) to get to where I am now. On average, over those two years, I lost at a rate of 1.5 lb a month (so not even half a pound a week) and if I'd known at the beginning that I'd "only" lose at that rate, it would have been so tempting to think it's impossible and just give up but, as @igfrie says, if you plug away it'll work. Yes it was slow, but I'm now 17kg lighter than I was two years ago which, for someone who's just over 5ft, is an achievement I can be proud of.

Repeatedly reading feedback and advice given to others on this forum has reinforced the fact that going slow is fine. Don't worry about how long it'll take and concentrate on the fact that you're doing something and you're achieving something.

lgfrie wrote: »

In a word, you're feeling impatient. It's very understandable. But the languid pace of weight loss is similar to many other things. College gets a little tedious when you're a sophomore but it's still gonna take 4 years. An ambitious assistant manager can dream of being an SVP next month but it's gonna take years. You can start piano lessons now but you're not gonna play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4 next month. And so on.

But here is the great thing about weight loss. There is no guarantee that the ambitious asst manager will ever become an SVP, and if you start piano lessons, the odds are very high you will never be able to play Etude Op. 10 # 4. BUT ... if you plug away at a diet and hit your calorie target regularly, time will pass and you will lose the weight.

I have to admit when I started in June '19, I too was a little frustrated with the 2 lbs/week limit. I was 320 lbs and when you're staring at a road that long, moving one small step down the road each week seems ... tiresome. I mean, why can't it be 3 or 4 lbs? But it can't. Anyway, here we are a year later, and the 2 lbs/week limit is a moot point for me, because I didn't even come close to hitting that metric, no thanks to quarantine stress. With my one year anniversary two weeks away, it looks like my weekly weight loss average for the year will end up at 1.4 pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply 1.4 by 52 and that's not chicken change. So that is my point - time is on your side when you're dieting. You just plug away and in time you'll get where you want to be. The most important number isn't the weight loss per week. It's your calorie target. You have to hit it regularly and often to get the right results. If you hit that calorie target, you will lose all the weight you want to lose. Try to focus on that calorie target and ignore the lbs per week stuff; let the weight loss take care of itself.

I've been playing piano for 38 years and I can say I definitely cannot play that - I don't even know what it is lol (my training was with a small town country piano player so I don't have any background in classical).

But your example is spot on. I can remember when I was learning piano that the 2 year mark was the hardest part. I was tired of the lesson books. My teacher started me on some of the wedding music she had, and I think that was the best thing to keep me going. So many people seem to quit piano at about that 2 year mark. Sort of like how folks hit the weight loss effort strong, but eventually tire out and drop out after a few months. It takes determination to master either effort, and that can be very difficult when mental fatigue sets in, or our goals are too ambitious or things aren't working like we thought they would.

bmeadows380 wrote: »

lgfrie wrote: »

In a word, you're feeling impatient. It's very understandable. But the languid pace of weight loss is similar to many other things. College gets a little tedious when you're a sophomore but it's still gonna take 4 years. An ambitious assistant manager can dream of being an SVP next month but it's gonna take years. You can start piano lessons now but you're not gonna play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4 next month. And so on.

But here is the great thing about weight loss. There is no guarantee that the ambitious asst manager will ever become an SVP, and if you start piano lessons, the odds are very high you will never be able to play Etude Op. 10 # 4. BUT ... if you plug away at a diet and hit your calorie target regularly, time will pass and you will lose the weight.

I have to admit when I started in June '19, I too was a little frustrated with the 2 lbs/week limit. I was 320 lbs and when you're staring at a road that long, moving one small step down the road each week seems ... tiresome. I mean, why can't it be 3 or 4 lbs? But it can't. Anyway, here we are a year later, and the 2 lbs/week limit is a moot point for me, because I didn't even come close to hitting that metric, no thanks to quarantine stress. With my one year anniversary two weeks away, it looks like my weekly weight loss average for the year will end up at 1.4 pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but multiply 1.4 by 52 and that's not chicken change. So that is my point - time is on your side when you're dieting. You just plug away and in time you'll get where you want to be. The most important number isn't the weight loss per week. It's your calorie target. You have to hit it regularly and often to get the right results. If you hit that calorie target, you will lose all the weight you want to lose. Try to focus on that calorie target and ignore the lbs per week stuff; let the weight loss take care of itself.

I've been playing piano for 38 years and I can say I definitely cannot play that - I don't even know what it is lol (my training was with a small town country piano player so I don't have any background in classical).

But your example is spot on. I can remember when I was learning piano that the 2 year mark was the hardest part. I was tired of the lesson books. My teacher started me on some of the wedding music she had, and I think that was the best thing to keep me going. So many people seem to quit piano at about that 2 year mark. Sort of like how folks hit the weight loss effort strong, but eventually tire out and drop out after a few months. It takes determination to master either effort, and that can be very difficult when mental fatigue sets in, or our goals are too ambitious or things aren't working like we thought they would.

haha LOL

I started playing piano when I was 6. There was a stretch in high school when I was pretty sure that's what I wanted to do with my life. Then one day I was down in the music wing and heard some child prodigy type visiting from another school sit down and play Chopin's Etude Op. 10 # 4. At that moment I realized I needed a better career plan.

My diet stalled a bit after 6-ish months and 50 lbs. Then one day I read an article about the "50 pound stall". Turns out, a lot of people kind of hit a wall after around 50 pounds, and the reasons it offered up, and why it happens at 50 pounds and/or 6 months, were exactly what I was going through. Your analogy to piano lessons after two years is spot on! In fact I think that article I read, which talked about how 50 lbs is normally when the rebellion and regain start, is what made me get refocused and dig in harder. There does come a point where it's like "This is not new and exciting anymore; this is a slog, and I look and feel pretty good, and I'd really like to just take some time off from dieting". Reading about how it's so commonly the beginning of the end for people at 50 pounds got me back in the game, although I don't think I'll ever be as diligent again as I was the first few months. There was a 40 day stretch where I wasn't a single calorie over, once. My streaks are now like 2 or 3 days LOL

springlering62 wrote: »

Igfrie, I’ve followed your story and posts with interest, but I gotta disagree with you for a moment.

I’m afraid the moment I start to consider it a “slog”, I’ll take the wrong fork in the road.

You have to think of it as a permanent change, and be willing to open yourself up to other opportunities and more creativity. You have to make sure you have options that you enjoy and that you’re flexible enough with it to make the most of them.

I’m not good at explaining this, but for example, I just started a new batch of beef jerky and automatically put the last of the old batch in today’s diary. I also have a slice of going-stale kefir cake left that needs to be eaten up.

I realized I’m way over on protein per today’s (pre-filled) diary, but low on carbs like usual, so I pulled the jerky, replaces it with the bit of leftover cake, along with a squirt of cream and 3 grams of shredded coconut. Fairly close to an even swap for the jerky, which will wait.

I will probably sub something else later in the day so I can have a cucumber and a couple tablespoons of homemade lebnah that are calling my name.

By giving myself constant opportunity to change, I’m trying to replace the “slog” aspect of it with the “hey, that sounds tasty and is still acceptable”.

It’s a mind game, a puzzle, a challenge, a reward system all rolled into one.

I know that’s how a lot of folks do it here, but simply replacing the word “slog”, drudgery, boredom or similar with “opportunity” keeps it fresh for me. Word have meaning, even if we only say them in our heads.

You keep on doing what works for you, though. You’ve done wonderfully and are a sincerely great and encouraging asset to this group!

I do know what you're saying, and in a (significant) way I agree with it. If a diet is just a "slog" that you have to struggle through the muck every day, it's only a matter of time before it implodes. So the challenge is to "bake in" new habits that are comfortable forever, and also to be creative so the diet fare doesn't get tedious, sowing the seeds of rebellion. I do agree 100 % with that. I've also mostly done that, in one very important way - I realized early on in the game that I was just not going to be one of the "I used to eat processed crap but now I love kale more than m&m's!" people. I'm just not, and staring into the mirror and realizing that I need hyperpalatable junky food not for 5 % of my diet as treats but like 30 % as a core element of my daily fare helped me reorganize things early on so that I could stay committed to it for weight loss and later. And I'm pretty comfortable with my routine and the foods I eat - I feel like I could drive this the remaining 50 pounds and then into maintenance.

But ...

What I mean by "slog" is: Friends call up and want to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Early in my diet, I would check the calories online, realize that any worthwhile entree there was my entire day's allotment of calories, and suggest an alternative. Then I would scour the menu at the alternative place in advance online, nail down exactly what I could eat, try to move things around between appetizer and entree so I could squeeze in one glass of wine, basically starve myself all day to free up the calories, and then go out and rigorously stick to plan, while other people were gorging on the things I really wanted.

When I hit around 50, 55, or thereabouts pounds, I don't know, someone would say, "Hey, let's go to Cheesecake Factory..." and I'd be like "OK". Tired of scouring menus for the lowest calorie options, I would skip that step and just go eat. I would have the three glasses of wine I really wanted, not one. And then I'd come home and log it and it'd be 3,000 cals, totaling 4,000 for the day, and I'd be like, you know, I've lost 50 pounds and I really don't care if I just gave 1/2 of a pound back, because it was GOOD to be out with friends gulping down wine like Vikings (if Vikings drank wine) and eating all the crap I really wanted all along.

What changed? Good question. I think at around 50-60 pounds I kind of felt good. I could actually fit into a booth at Cheesecake, for one thing LOL And I was wearing better clothes, a couple sizes down. I no longer felt (or was) morbidly obese, though still "obese", but more as a technical BMI definition than in how I actually felt. And so I didn't feel like denying myself.

Of course this slowed the weight loss rate - and yet I still had 50 or 60 pounds to lose! So I entered a new struggle phase, where some days I would nail that calorie target like a true fanatical warrior, and other days I'd be like "meh, I can handle getting to Goal a week later..." This delicate balancing act between short term pleasure and long-term goal attainment did not exist earlier in my project.

Then I stumbled onto that article somewhere on the web, and it was almost like it was written while observing me under a magnifying glass!! The whole thesis was that something happens to people after around 50 lbs or 6 months or thereabouts - they get bored with it, they start fudging, then it falls apart. So I really recommitted, and it's kinda worked, but I don't think I'll ever get back that honeymoon phase wherein I could just nail the number day after day after day.

But I totally agree that dieting in a way which is difficult or overrestrictive and just praying to get to Goal so that one can ditch it is a heinously terrible plan. It's really important to be creative about the foods and make it rewarding in a way that can be repeated perpetually, perhaps with a few hundred calories added back in. Today I made a whole new invention for lunch: two Ore-Ida hash brown patties, serving as the "bread" for a sandwich which had an egg, American cheese and bacon. 477 calories! LOL Probably the best breakfast I've ever had. Truly stunning. I'm very happy to be able to fit that in & that's the kind of thing that keeps me going, but ... I still want and need more time-outs than I did in the first few months.