Dante_80 wrote: »

Many thanks btw. I do seem to view this as a science project of sorts, with the added benefit of self-improvement in the end. Or at least...that's what I tell myself...

Well, I admit that the science fair aspect of this definitely drew ME in (and at times kept me going!)

Wait till you get sucked into trying to figure out how to make sweet potato or zucchini/carrot brownies using sucralose and unsweetened apple sauce instead of sugar and oil Alternative browni-sh-es and creating lower calorie cookies occupied plenty of my time (and possibly a day or two or three more worth of calories) especially when I was losing weight more rapidly and/or over an extended time period.

As recently as 1984 (now how's THAT for a ) you would have been able to find me somewhere near the intersection of Benaki and Tsimiski

Nowadays... you're more likely for find me logging on Cronometer, or hanging out here!

You really are doing a great job!

Not sure if you noticed but our leader Novus has been missing for some time...no explanation, just basically gone!....we are trying to keep this group going until he comes back, or if he comes back!...we sure miss his posts, leadership and insight...I hope you keep checking in with us...also any suggestions to help us would be appreciated....we really need this group for people that need to lose a substantial amount of weight....

@FitByFifty1970 , I was one of the random likes 🤷🏻‍♂️

You seem to be going fairly fast with large week to week losses on the weeks you get on the scale.

Just edited to change what I wrote since I now read some of your other posts.

I will just gently remind you that there exists no contest and no race. The goal is to improve your health, to put down on automatic the preconditions that will move you into the direction you want to be at till you get there... and then continue to stay there because you're continuing to do most of the same things!

"you do you boo!"👍

The rest are distractions and you're absolutely already doing more than excellent!!! 🤣

PAV8888 wrote: »

Now I don't know if my previous message posted or not.

I thought I saw at least one message from Novus after you told me you had not seen him for a while.

I actually sent him a message via mfp; but it is pretty common for the app to not transmit a message between people who are not linked as friends.

As I've stated before Novus's posts are very well articulated and extremely close to mirroring word for word my own experiences and thoughts. A few nits for me to pick here and there where we might not see eye to eye, sure. But not when discussing the high percentage plays.

And Novus started posting increasingly at a time when rational thought said/says I should reduce the time I spend on mfp. Plus his starting point gives him additional perspective that I lack: sure I started at a morbidly obese level; but only "just". My (then) analogue scale topped at 280. I went well over and stopped weighing but I am fairly sure I never exceeded 300lbs.

Anyway. If he has just cut down on his participation I hope he is well. And if he's facing challenges that he is not yet/ever wanting to discuss (not all challenges pertain to mfp), anyway, I hope he overcomes them, or at least slowly mitigates them into something he can work/live with as the case may be.

PAV8888 wrote: »

Now I don't know if my previous message posted or not.

I thought I saw at least one message from Novus after you told me you had not seen him for a while.

I actually sent him a message via mfp; but it is pretty common for the app to not transmit a message between people who are not linked as friends.

As I've stated before Novus's posts are very well articulated and extremely close to mirroring word for word my own experiences and thoughts. A few nits for me to pick here and there where we might not see eye to eye, sure. But not when discussing the high percentage plays.

And Novus started posting increasingly at a time when rational thought said/says I should reduce the time I spend on mfp. Plus his starting point gives him additional perspective that I lack: sure I started at a morbidly obese level; but only "just". My (then) analogue scale topped at 280. I went well over and stopped weighing but I am fairly sure I never exceeded 300lbs.

Anyway. If he has just cut down on his participation I hope he is well. And if he's facing challenges that he is not yet/ever wanting to discuss (not all challenges pertain to mfp), anyway, I hope he overcomes them, or at least slowly mitigates them into something he can work/live with as the case may be.

PAV8888 wrote: »

Now I don't know if my previous message posted or not.

I thought I saw at least one message from Novus after you told me you had not seen him for a while.

I actually sent him a message via mfp; but it is pretty common for the app to not transmit a message between people who are not linked as friends.

As I've stated before Novus's posts are very well articulated and extremely close to mirroring word for word my own experiences and thoughts. A few nits for me to pick here and there where we might not see eye to eye, sure. But not when discussing the high percentage plays.

And Novus started posting increasingly at a time when rational thought said/says I should reduce the time I spend on mfp. Plus his starting point gives him additional perspective that I lack: sure I started at a morbidly obese level; but only "just". My (then) analogue scale topped at 280. I went well over and stopped weighing but I am fairly sure I never exceeded 300lbs.

Anyway. If he has just cut down on his participation I hope he is well. And if he's facing challenges that he is not yet/ever wanting to discuss (not all challenges pertain to mfp), anyway, I hope he overcomes them, or at least slowly mitigates them into something he can work/live with as the case may be.

He posted one since I messaged you...I hope he is ok!

Dante_80 wrote: »

Little progress this week, at least in the right direction though. I'll take it.

Age: 40
Height: 167cm - 5'6''
SW: 177.8 kg - 392 lb - 63,8 ΒΜΙ (May 2020)
GW: 69 kg - 153 lb - 24,9 ΒΜΙ

LW: 119.0 kg - 262.3 lb - 42,7 ΒΜΙ
CW: 118.7 kg - 261.7 lb - 42,6 ΒΜΙ
Variance: -0.3 kg / -0.7 lb / -0.25% TBW

OL: 59.1 kg - 130.3 lb - 21.2BMI

Weight remaining for:
Obese class II: 7.4 kg - 16.4 lb
Obese class I: 21.4 kg - 47.1 lb
Overweight: 35.3 kg - 77.8 lb
Normal: 49.3 kg - 108.6 lb

Progress is progress and I don't know if you use straight scale weight or weight trend via app such as trendweigh/Libra/happy scale or spreadsheet moving averages. If the first it is extremely likely that your have some water weight noise, especially if you're walking on affected legs!

Dante_80 wrote: »

PAV8888 wrote: »

Progress is progress and I don't know if you use straight scale weight or weight trend via app such as trendweigh/Libra/happy scale or spreadsheet moving averages. If the first it is extremely likely that your have some water weight noise, especially if you're walking on affected legs!

Straight scale. A very big change in exercise combined with a different weighing day (and menu in the day before) should account for most of the changes here. Will know next week, although I don't really pay too much attention to scale weight itself (I do a DEXA every two months for data to re-calibrate my choices if needed).

Irregardless of progress though, It's cool to pass the "130lb overall loss" mark this week - although I'm a metric person myself

Dexa too! Someone is quite high-tech and has access to toys!

Played with that while losing too. Was quite interesting to see how my loss ratio was almost more than 10:1 fat to lean mass while obese (even when going at 2lbs a week) and into high overweight and then how it rapidly changed to more and more lean mass being lost as the weight continued to come down at about the mid overweight level (let's call it bmi 27-28).

I am sure you realize it; but in case someone else reading it doesn't, some / most of the lean mass in question is perfectly normal to be lost and by lean mass we are NOT just referring to muscle...

But even when it comes to muscle the amount of, for example, calf muscle you need to walk as an obese person vs the amount of calf muscle on a normal weight person is not the same.

Having said that, watching the ratio was also a wake up call for me to change the size of deficits and to significantly slow down and tapper the deficits... which was, in my retrospective opinion, an incredibly good and fortuitous decision.

Call out for Peter at bodycomp imaging for anyone who is in Vancouver, BC... he certainly did a good job and was reasonably priced for the service he was providing up to the last time I scanned there late August 2017. He was also getting a new machine and software at that point though he seems to have stayed with hologic units!

If you know of a reasonably priced DEXA scan place in Athens... let me know... I might convince someone I know to visit!

Thank you!
We'll see if CCCGG will decide to give it a try!
(cute & cuddly crazy greek girl...)

conniewilkins56 wrote: »

Jan 27 I weighed 247.5 and today I weighed 248.5 so I think it is time to lose some more weight!...at least I maintained for 8 weeks and I have never done that before...I either gain or lose but never maintain!...maybe this is a victory of some kind?...I dunno....I have had a rough couple of weeks mentally and emotionally with some family issues getting my sister in law into an assisted living facility....it’s been rough....but the worst is over and I feel like I can get back on track!...self care is just as important as taking care of others...SO....I am planning on a hair cut/ trim and a mani and pedi plus some shopping the next few weeks!....stay strong everyone!

You go girl! Maybe you should share a pic of the polished up shiny new you!

PAV8888 wrote: »

Hey you've done good under "interesting" circumstances Connie! Woohoo!

We have had a lot of extra drama in our lives lately and my coping technique has always been to overeat...I will be the first to admit that I have been struggling a lot the last few months ....I have been binging a lot more the past six weeks....but when I look how far I have come in almost two years, I am still averaging over 1 lb a week in lost weight....at my age that is still good!....I will get myself completely back on track again soon...all advice is welcome and listened to!

conniewilkins56 wrote: »

I have been binging a lot more the past six weeks....but when I look how far I have come in almost two years, I am still averaging over 1 lb a week in lost weight....at my age that is still good!....I will get myself completely back on track again soon...all advice is welcome and listened to!

Considered is all that one would ask. In the end individual circumstances are... individual!

If you're AVERAGING 1lb this means that you're cutting 500 Cal a day on average IN SPITE of the multiple (by your description) over-eating episodes.

While FULLY acknowledging and understanding the propensity to eat when upset I would like to draw your attention to the fact that people with a smaller deficit tend to binge less.

So yes, you want progress. But the best progress for you both now and in the future will be achieved by getting increasingly better handle on your emotional over-eating... as if you didn't already know this!

And that MIGHT be accomplished by a smaller deficit... or at the very least helped by that. (I would maybe consider trying for -500 to -750 Cal on a daily basis instead of 1000++ which you must be doing to continue on a -500 path while over-eating several times a week)

Blatantly stealing this from a post in the main forums because it is very close to what I've often articulated.

The one difference being some specific recommendations though I would note that Lyle McDonald has also got several books with recommendations and a lot of these recommendations become more important (and the diet break and refeed periods become more important) after long periods of loss and/OR when you have less energy reserves available to lose.

in other words the hormonal tanking is less and the ability to create larger deficits is more available early on in the process and the more weight you have available to lose... then, as things progress, side effects ramp up the furthest away from that initial starting point you get to. If one looks at other studies by 6 months you definitely have SOME side effects.

OH... and the blatant plagiarism of what @steveko89 wrote:

As far as loss rate is concerned, the maximum recommended amount is often referenced at 1% of total body weight. However, I've personally found that aiming for closer to 0.5% is far more tolerable. However, it's worth noting that I'm at a stage where I'm closer to optimal weight for my height and trying to improve body composition. Though this approach of a more moderately aggressive target loss rate has shown to lead to more successful completed diets by the crew over at Renaissance Periodization and their user base (they have a paid diet app that functions like MFP but has a little more a coaching/prescriptive approach). They also found that limiting diet phases to 6-9 weeks is best for maximizing adherence and achieving overall loss goals. They're also proponents of undergoing maintenance phases lasting at least half as long as the dieting or massing phase before starting the next phase to minimize adverse hormonal and psychological impacts dieting for long periods of time can have. It's common to see folks able to maintain an aggressive loss phase for well beyond that but rebound hard. A better approach could be to string a number of these moderately aggressive loss phases together interspersed with diet breaks if it means a more sustainable and maintainable weight loss in the big picture. It often provides the benefit of practicing maintenance prior to getting to one's final weight loss goal which eliminates some of the mystery of how to adapt to life after losing weight.

Again: I note that the frequency duration etc of the breaks is dependent a bit on the expected manipulation of hormonal levels you are trying to manipulate.

So something to consider.

When I lost most of my weight I "injected" breaks without planning. The longest I went on a continuous deficit without a maintenance break was 8 months because there were always interruptions related to travel or holidays that would force a maintenance period in there. Sometimes luck helps!

Of course by the tail end of weight loss i was anticipating the propensity to rebound so I tapered off over essentially one year of very slow loss (11.1lbs in 2016) and one year of maintaining while trying to lose a tiny bit (actually that 2.7lbs lost in 2017... are still relevant as they are the upper end of my desired maintenance!)

Thank you @PAV8888 I'm going to draw on what you have posted here!.

@conniewilkins56 - I too have moved back into BED behaviour. Maybe we can all learn from each other.

I really don't want to lose what I've lost - and my body is fighting so hard right now that I can't just keep ignoring it stubbornly - which is my usual approach

I'm pondering a period of no tracking. Just trying to eat intelligently ... not sure about that word "intuitively" but something along those lines.

I was reading about our body's response to massive weight loss and how hormonal levels change and leave us "hungry" all the time as our body moves into survival mode. One suggestion to battle this is to eat fewer, large meals. So you are physically full. I might just try that.

- Snacks lately have gotten out of control really quick and just leave me craving until the next meal - so I'm going to eliminate those.

- My morning fruit only "break fast" works well - so I'll keep that.

- And then two more meals. Good meals. Nutritious food that fills my tummy without a ridiculous amount of calories. I know what that means after this year of track macros and nutrients.

The weather is improving, so I'll be able to ramp up my walking, and I'll keep drinking lots of water. I figure I'll allow myself some dessert now and again after one of these good meals (no sweets between meals - just as dessert).

And maybe, follow your lead Connie and weigh myself less often?

That is my plan. I am always keen to read your approach.

amart4224 wrote: »

... 4 days in and I'm feeling better and it's getting easier to tell the real hunger from either emotional "hunger" or a junk food craving "hunger."

Fantastic if you are feeling it coming a bit more under control. Are you still eating at a deficit? How much of a deficit?

Don't laugh - but I swear it feels a new hunger has been added. I feel those "emotional" and "craving" hungers at the appropriate times. But lately it is just like I'm starving. One night I couldn't stop eating spoonfuls of peanut butter. Another time a few bananas. Another plain boiled potatoes. Not necessarily eating "bad" things. Or eating to calm myself. Just plain old hungry.

Hope it eases up.

I definitely think I'm going to avoid any kind of significant deficit for awhile.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking but sometimes when you are craving a specific food, I think it is the way your body is telling you that you are not getting enough of that nutrient in your diet....of course sugar and candy are not nutrients!...I really enjoy the Fiber One products...I don’t care what they use to make them....they taste good!....chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie or the brownies!

dcshima wrote: »

Think it was in this post looking for onederland compatible for breaking into 200s, how about twotopia!

I love it!!!! Great wordsmithing, @dcshima !