1 year and 3 months, 146 pounds lost.
Replies
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You should be so proud!!1
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Amazing!! Thank you for sharing! I been thinking food is closer to medicine than what I had previously assumed. You say you eat a lot of canned beans, and I was just wondering how you got past the sodium? Because you did mention the sodium on the popcorn. Thanks!!2
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justanotherloser007 wrote: »Amazing!! Thank you for sharing! I been thinking food is closer to medicine than what I had previously assumed. You say you eat a lot of canned beans, and I was just wondering how you got past the sodium? Because you did mention the sodium on the popcorn. Thanks!!
I get the low sodium beans
. I also rinse them well before eating. I don't worry much about sodium anymore, especially now that my blood pressure is normal. But when I started this, my blood pressure was high, so I had to watch my sodium intake. Instead of canned beans, I'd just make them myself. I still make them myself a lot, but there are times I don't have the time to. 2 -
Seriously, wow. I hope that MFP does a feature on you!1
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Thank you so much for sharing this. I have a long way to go and I seem to relapse every time I hit a 50-pound weight loss. Your story helps.1
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Wow! What an amazing job you have done! You are truly an inspiration! Keep going! You will get to your goal! I just know it!! You are learning to maintain now and that's very important. So tell yourself it's ok to only lose a pound per week, or even less. The main thing is you are still on your way down and getting to be an expert at staying there!!
I can't help thinking about sugar. Did you find you craved sugar at all? When you say you could eat a whole bag of cookies, it makes me think you may have been addicted to sugar too? If so, how did you combat that? To me, sugar is the most evil addiction of all and I am certainly battling with it, much of the time. I have 145 lbs to lose.
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Thank you so much for sharing your story. Only true grit has the resilience to go this distance in such a short amount of time. Hats off to you! I needed this INSPIRATION today! The first few pounds came off easily and now I hear myself rationalizing convenience foods, cheat days, and thinking 'just a little of this or that won't hurt'. What was the motivation that kept you on course even when you wanted to cave?3
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SeaGoddess2 wrote: »Thank you so much for sharing your story. Only true grit has the resilience to go this distance in such a short amount of time. Hats off to you! I needed this INSPIRATION today! The first few pounds came off easily and now I hear myself rationalizing convenience foods, cheat days, and thinking 'just a little of this or that won't hurt'. What was the motivation that kept you on course even when you wanted to cave?
This is like, the HARDEST part about losing weight. And i'm not gonna lie, I did this at the start. "I'll just have a cheat day." And then I could see myself falling backwards. Some people can do them and be fine, but I'm a binge eater, so giving myself just the slightest leeway would completely destroy my progress.
Just hang in there, because it does get A LOT better once your body is no longer craving those cheat days or convenience foods. It's just getting over that hump for the first 3 months that's dreadful.
As far as what kept me motivated... I was afraid of having to start all over again. That's what kept me from giving up. Watching youtube videos of people with the same struggles helped too, believe it or not. Having someone who's relatable and not some beefy athlete telling you how hard it is when they've likely not had to struggle nearly as much in their lives, can really motivate you.
Another thing was just stay focused on your goal. Print it out, and tape it everywhere. If you can, keep to the outer edges of the grocery store and avoid those chip and snack aisles. Whatever you do, don't go to the store on an empty stomach lol. It's a few months, but I'm not gonna lie, they are the LONGEST few months of your life. Get over that hurdle and it starts to get easier. And it just keeps getting easier as the weight comes off, especially when you start actually seeing and feeling results! Then you never want to go back.5 -
Goodgollygee wrote: »Wow! What an amazing job you have done! You are truly an inspiration! Keep going! You will get to your goal! I just know it!! You are learning to maintain now and that's very important. So tell yourself it's ok to only lose a pound per week, or even less. The main thing is you are still on your way down and getting to be an expert at staying there!!
I can't help thinking about sugar. Did you find you craved sugar at all? When you say you could eat a whole bag of cookies, it makes me think you may have been addicted to sugar too? If so, how did you combat that? To me, sugar is the most evil addiction of all and I am certainly battling with it, much of the time. I have 145 lbs to lose.
I was a binge eater, and oh yeah I was very addicted to sugar. The only thing I could do was keep it out of my house. If I kept it out of the house, the temptation to eat it goes away when you need to put in the effort to get it. If I wanted something sweet, I'd either have to drive to the store or a fast food place. I had the pandemic to thank for the help in that as well. It just added an extra layer of "do I want to go out just to get something that will make me sick?"
As I mentioned above, it took me about 3 months to get it out of my system to where I wasn't craving it all the time. If you can get past that, it starts to get easier. Of course everyone's body and mind are different. It could take you less time or longer, but the less your body gets of it, the less it craves.6 -
Isn't that the greatest thing in the world, going to the doctors and really not having much to discuss. For several years my yearly physical was non eventful. I had an opposite reaction during my 18 months of stay-at-home! Recently returned to work and I am feeling those things I used to take for granted -walking all the way to work, not just to the bus stop, going to the gym after work - now I don't even have the energy to cook dinner. I know this will all change with dedication and examples like you
Congrats!!!2 -
Congratulations, you are an inspiration. Your story is so relatable. However I feel myself tearing up because food is truly an addiction and I feel I am losing the battle.
I struggle with binge eating and I can’t seem to get it under control. I have been diabetic for 10 years, And I have an auto immune disease, and other health issues. I take 10 pills a day to try to control these issues but it is not seeming to help.
I want to change. I am around 50 pounds down from my highest weight but I have at least 60 more pounds to go to get to the overweight category. recently I have been on a big binge and have gained about 10 pounds back in the last couple of weeks.
Your story has inspired me to get back up, start small, set reasonable goals, and do what will work for me and what will be sustainable.
Thanks for sharing!!!4 -
amazing ! congratulations..sorry if this has been answered (I didn't see it) but how tall are you?
do you have an estimate of the calories you were eating when you started...say the first handful of months until you got below 300? how long did it take to get below 300? thanks 11 -
JcFan3 wrote: "I struggle with binge eating and I can’t seem to get it under control. I have been diabetic for 10 years, And I have an auto immune disease, and other health issues. I take 10 pills a day to try to control these issues but it is not seeming to help.
I want to change. I am around 50 pounds down from my highest weight but I have at least 60 more pounds to go to get to the overweight category. recently I have been on a big binge and have gained about 10 pounds back in the last couple of weeks."
You are doing some really good things right because you are down 50 pounds!!! And you are here reading, learning, being inspired, trying to focus and wanting to change. Those are all very good things. Keep going!
I used to binge too. The thing that helped me most was to make my mind up about things. I decided that I wasn't going to binge on garbage any more. Sounds so simple eh? But honestly, I really think my brain belongs to me and I can decide what I want. So I don't want to binge and I decided I just wouldn't do it any more.
Now don't get me wrong. There was no magical instant success. I had to keep deciding, if I slipped up, but..... I kept making the same decision, over and over.
I was a terrible binger for years. I want to think of myself as an ex-binger now, but I really don't know if that is a thing and I always worry that I will start again. All I know is I haven't binged in the past maybe 3+? years. It's not like it happened over night either. Stalking the fridge/pantry with healthy food definitely helped me. Also.... I'd be driving along... and this still happens to this day... and I'd see fast food places or think of them... and really, really want fast food.....
And then I started telling myself: I can have it next time. It's poison. I can have my favorite x food, when get home (usually berries or a pita pizza or doctored down nachos- with low fat cheese and a serving of unsalted tortilla chips or something far less calories, fat and salt -than fast food). Sometimes I gave in but more often this began to work.
Or I'd tell myself: You don't want to gain back the weight you've lost. You will be hungry again, not very long after you eat that crap. Go home. Eat something delicious and healthy.... and I'd start mentally planning the meal that I would eat when I got home. It would be a healthy meal and I would tell myself how much better I will feel if I just get myself home and skip the junk.
Then, other times, when I was just feeling the urge to binge, at home, I would tell myself: Wait 10 min. Drink water. Go do something else. Take a nap. and ask myself: What am I really hungry for? (meaning emotionally... and if I could figure it out... I would deal with it, usually by meditation - though I call it relaxation and visualization). Sometime by crying. I probably should have been journaling. I bet that would have helped. Sometimes I didn't discover anything but I kept my mind occupied long enough for the binge urge to pass.
Sometimes.... I would just make a big bowl of popcorn and eat the whole thing. I still do this occasionally. I put a limited amount of butter on it and a bit of salt. I enjoy eating it and I tell myself that there is food value and much less sodium and fat in this bowl of popcorn than in eg. chips etc. So maybe I'm still a binger? Cuz I will eat that popcorn and usually... that would be my meal (popcorn for supper instead of whatever I had planned). But it doesn't usually cause me to retain water or gain weight, so I can live with being that kind of binger.
For sweet cravings I freeze fat free pudding. It is something I can eat slowly, for a reasonable amount of calories and by the time I finish, I feel satisfied and that ends the urge to binge. Or sometimes...I will have dark chocolate... but a measured, specific, reasonable amount and I will let it melt in my mouth and take a long time to consume it. All the while, I'm telling myself how delicious it is, how much healthier it is, etc. than whatever much worse thing I would have eaten a whole bag of.
Then after all of this, I mentally praise myself. Good for me for not stopping for fast food. For eating a healthy meal. For making an intelligent, healthy choice. For not eating a bag of cookies (which I no longer have in my house and no longer crave or enjoy... believe it or not.... they're too sweet!). I tell myself I can do this.
For me, 3/4s of it is an argument in my head. If I can just talk myself into something reasonable, I can adjust my thinking after that. I understand that I won't die if I don't give in. But it's an ongoing struggle that I may never beat. I don't know.
Don't get me wrong. I still have a lot of weight to lose but at least, for the most part, I've stopped binging.
Dear Wallingdusk: I am so sorry to have high-jacked your thread. I did it for JcFan3's sake. I realize my food choices are not as you described but it is what worked for me, in the binge department and I know I asked about how you dealt with sweet cravings (thankyou for answering) and my way is much different.
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amazing Great job and motivation1
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A few of you mentioned brain over binge book, but there are 2 books w that title.
which one please...
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brain+over+binge&ref=nb_sb_noss_20 -
This is absolutely incredible, well done mate. What a gift to give to yourself.0
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CONGRATULATIONS!!! AWESOME STORY....Didn't get through the comments yet..........I hope everyone picked up on this statement
"because if I have to cheat, then I'm not eating a diet is sustainable" ---awesome statement1 -
Very inspiring and sensible advice! I have done low carb for a long time and lost over 100 pounds in 2017. Have kept about 60 off but found the other 40!! I'm back on track but I have been doing some real soul search is low carb is the way to go and higher protein may not be for me. Thank you for sharing your journey. You gave me a lot to consider.0
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Congratulations, you are an inspiration. Your story is so relatable. However I feel myself tearing up because food is truly an addiction and I feel I am losing the battle.
I struggle with binge eating and I can’t seem to get it under control. I have been diabetic for 10 years, And I have an auto immune disease, and other health issues. I take 10 pills a day to try to control these issues but it is not seeming to help.
I want to change. I am around 50 pounds down from my highest weight but I have at least 60 more pounds to go to get to the overweight category. recently I have been on a big binge and have gained about 10 pounds back in the last couple of weeks.
Your story has inspired me to get back up, start small, set reasonable goals, and do what will work for me and what will be sustainable.
Thanks for sharing!!!
Man this really hit me, because I know this struggle very well. People are addicted to all sorts of things, many of them we can live without. A smoker doesn't have to smoke to live. An alcoholic doesn't have to drink alcohole to live. A person with a food addiction still has to eat to live. Not only that, we're inundated with ads for junk food, fast food, holidays are all about food. Get-togethers with friends always include food. Food is everywhere. We have more Golden Arches on every street corner than gas stations it seems.
It's hard to avoid something that 1) you can't actually survive without and 2) it's perfectly legal to advertise junk food to children despite it being just as deadly as any other drug. Seeing pictures of what this kind of food did to me, seeing that blood test, remembering how miserable I felt despite that temporary high I got from delicious food, it keeps me centered. All I have to do is remember what I felt like when I could barely get out of bed, to now where I just feel physically good most of the time.
Getting to this point is the hard part, but once you do it, and you're off a lot of your meds and feel energetic, you'll see junk food in a totally different way. You'll see it as the poison it really is and you just won't want to eat it, no matter how much you crave it. I'm at that point now.1 -
jeffreyeliot wrote: »amazing ! congratulations..sorry if this has been answered (I didn't see it) but how tall are you?
do you have an estimate of the calories you were eating when you started...say the first handful of months until you got below 300? how long did it take to get below 300? thanks 1
I am 5'11. I started at 372 pounds (I may have weighed more at one point, but I didn't have a scale that went up that high when I started).
I started by eating around 2000-2300 calories a day. When I started eating more plant-based, it was easier to get full with less calories. I think that's what helped me stay on track. I was eating around 4,000 or more calories a day before that and just steadily gaining weight. Once I cut it down to around the 2,000 calorie mark at 372, the weight REALLY came off fast. It takes A LOT of energy to maintain that weight, and when you cut your calorie consumption in half, your BMR is still going to be around 3500 or so calories JUST to live (sitting still, doing nothing else). Add on any additional exercise, even just walking for 5-10 minutes is going to be absolutely huge.
That's why people who are morbidly obese can lose so much weight at the start, but it will start to slow down as your BMR comes down. Then you have to do more adjustments to your calorie intake and exercise.
And here's the thing, you don't even have to go as extreme as I did. Finding your BMR and cutting out 1/4 of the calories you consume a day will still cause you to lose 1-2 pounds a week depending on how overweight you are. A lot of people think they have to start big to lose weight, when really, even the smallest changes will have big effects, and it will allow you to make those larger changes later on when you can handle them.4 -
Goodgollygee wrote: »JcFan3 wrote:
Sometimes.... I would just make a big bowl of popcorn and eat the whole thing. I still do this occasionally. I put a limited amount of butter on it and a bit of salt. I enjoy eating it and I tell myself that there is food value and much less sodium and fat in this bowl of popcorn than in eg. chips etc. So maybe I'm still a binger? Cuz I will eat that popcorn and usually... that would be my meal (popcorn for supper instead of whatever I had planned). But it doesn't usually cause me to retain water or gain weight, so I can live with being that kind of binger.
This is actually what I do. Popcorn is AMAZING, and it's recommended by dieticians and body builders alike because it's so filling and high in fiber. When I want something savory, I just make airpopped popcorn, spray a bit of avocado oil on it and salt it up. I tend to stay away from microwavable popcorn. Though there are microwavable popcorn bags out there that don't have quite as much stuff in them.
If it comes down to chips or popcorn, I'll pick popcorn every time.0 -
Today was the day I threw out all my old clothing, but I saved some shorts and the ugly traffic cone shirt I wore in the 372 pound picture.
I still can't believe it. It's just one of those things that you don't see in the mirror, but I was going through and trying on all the clothes I used to wear, and it just felt surreal. Like... is this for real? lol
I think posting a picture of me wearing the same clothes now and then seeing that old picture will put things in better perspective.
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Your story is truly inspirational. Keep up the great work because it surely is working for you.0
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Inspirational Sir! I relate to the dress sizes bit you wrote about. 5 months ago, I started at 98.7 kgs and am down to 82.9 kgs now (er, 217 to 182 lbs). I am a frugal person and have good quality size 34" trousers from 20 years ago still with me. However, the last 3 -4 years, I have been living on 3 x 38" trousers as nothing less would fit me and my ego wouldn't allow me to buy more 38" trousers. Yesterday, I trepidatiously pulled out my 34" and each one of them fitted me! It is a heavenly feeling, so much so that I treated myself to a brownie today!0
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CONGRATS on your determination to lose and the BIG loss you have had....Great decision to take better care of yourself and you did it. Keep it up......0
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