@Caroline_slowandsteady

Some options to consider as you track carefully & observe how myopic feel this month:

1. You could always lose your final 10lbs over the next 5 years by decreasing your daily calories by 20 cals (or increasing your exercise…by 20 cals per day)

Or in 2 years, 47 calories a day…

2. You could redefine “delicious foods” over time. Then everything gets much easier.
And I want it to be as easy as possible to maintain. Treats really aren’t a treat, I sadly had to realize. Now, 6 years later, a treat for me are a) raw pecans with cinnamon decaf tea & a pink lady apple. Peanut only PB with no palm oils or salt on a slice of while wheat toast. Homemade roasted sliced potatoes with 1T olive oil for the whole recipe/pan some garlic powder rosemary. Delicious blueberries. I’m Not being goody two shoes here. If you told me 6 years ago I’d feel this way, I would have laughed. But as I put self kindness & my health first, I gradually shifted from “delicious treats & restaurant foods” to foods that truly energize my body.
Self Kindness. There were stumbles…I learned from them.

3. Many folks who have maintained for awhile do eventually shift enough to get leaner. It’s not a race (as you known.)

4. Work on resistance exercise to build your muscle mass and/or not lose it in the future as quickly. You will burn more calories & look slimmer - even at the same weight as you are today.

5. Ask your doctor what he/she suggests. That’s what I did. He told me not to go lower than 150 (22.8 BMI) without checking with him first. My other Dr was the one who said anything under 24.9 BMI. She’s going off research.

Just thoughts to mull over lightly…

Congratulations on decreasing your weight & becoming healthier❣️

@donna25trinity I have a realistic range (48 – 51 kg) which I try to keep within and it does require constant attention. Do you use a weight tracking app? I use Libra (for Android phones) and it helps to smooth out the spikes. This time last year (when my son was dying) I lost weight and got too skinny, down below 48 kg for a few weeks (my BMI was still a healthy 20). Once the funeral was over and I started getting back to my usual routines – and going on a few short holiday breaks – my weight came up to a 49/50 kg. But by the end of the summer – and more holidays – it was over 51 kg (with a couple of spikes at 52). November was quiet, as was December until Christmas Day so I slowly eased back to 50 kg. I’m now just under 49 and happy with that. I have a short break planned later in March which will be 4 nights of dinner, bed and breakfast so will probably creep up closer to 50 kg again.

@daciasil21 If your clothes fit looser I wouldn´t call it a true plateau, but I understand your frustration of the scale not moving. Depending on what your health issues are, I would look at the glycemic index and insulin. Am I mixing you up with someone else or am I remembering correctly that you are on a medication that affects insulin? In most circumstances when insulin is going too low it is related to insulin being unstable, spiking and then going too low to compensate. During the peaks of high insulin it is making your body store fat. Although you don´t want your insulin to dip to really low levels, having not high levels for as many hours as possible allows you body to burn off more fat. Vegans usually have to have quite a few carbs to get their protein, but being mindful of the ¨slow¨¨ or ¨complex¨ carbs might help. Being in China I would imagine there are a lot of people around you eating white rice, but even brown rice is pretty high on the glycemic index.

@daciasil21

A few months ago I began exercising, and while the scale didn't move at all, my clothes began to fit looser. The suggested calorie restriction from mfp didn't really work out for me. Due to medication issues I need to eat a bit more than that to be ok. What do you all suggest I do to kick start losing weight again?

It is very difficult to comment without really understanding why you have to eat more with medication. DO you have to eat more calories? The trick is the balance. You will continue to maintain unless you use more calories (NEAT and Direct exercise) or consume less. So sadly perhaps until your health issues stabilize you need to continue to maintain. Keep monitoring tho because I think you are probably either losing very very slowly or gaining very very slowly. None of us stay static completely. As for the clothes fitting better. That's a good sign. As long as they aren't a pair of jeans you have been wearing for several weeks. LOL. Those tend to stretch and fool us into thinking they fit better,

@daciasil21 My internet or MyFitnessPal must not have been working right when I wrote you about the glycemic index and insulin. I tried to edit my post because most of the places that I wrote ¨insulin¨ I really meant ¨blood sugar.¨ We can track our blood sugar easy enough but don´t know exactly what our insulin itself is doing- how much insulin is being put out to get those levels of blood sugar.

Instead of try to completely re-write it now, just know my suggestion is to be mindful of eating the more complex, slower to digest carbs that are lower on the glycemic index if you need to level out the roller coaster of blood sugar. Those spikes and dips of blood sugar make us hungrier and those points of too much insulin tell your body to grow and store fat, instead of burn fat.

LazyBlondeChef wrote: »

@donna25trinity It's pretty normal to fluctuate within a few lbs (or a kg or or two). I think it's just something we have to accept. Unless you eat exactly the same food every day and do the exact same exercise everyday it is logical that it will happen. That's why we need to have a maintenance range. If I ever get past my current plateau I will have a 5lb range (110-115) striving to stay at 112 on average.

U r so right @LazyBlondeChef , it's def an acceptance thing isn't it! I hve given myself 3 months at a deficit and that will come to an end on 23rd of March at that point I am going to not keep pushing to get lower and instead i will switch to maintaince, be kind to myself learn to accept and hve a maintaince range as u mentioned. Thanks for your reply Xo

SummerSkier wrote: »

@donna25trinity I think over time you will find what works best for you. The scale drove me crazy so I actually stopped weighing a few years ago. How my clothes fit, tracking my food and how I felt became more important than a random # on the scale. Maintenance will never be static either so what works for several months may need to change. And going back to a small deficit for a few weeks is sometimes required. Changing exercise or macros or supplements can also effect the #. It's sort of why I just picked a # for my TDEE and stick to it. And not to say I never weigh myself but last time I was in the Drs offices (endo and primary) it had been 2 years and they both were astonished my weight was almost exactly the same over the pandemic. To me that was a big win because in my past they might have said the same thing but they did not know that I might have had to work like crazy for several weeks before the visit to get back to that #. Whereas last year I was just normal ongoing maintenance.

Thats really awesome that u did that @summerskier glad I am not the only 1 that feels llike throwing the scale out. He he! I hve recently started taking measuements and trying to focus on those numbers more so than the scale because I am feeling really good in my clothes so I probably need to not allow the number on the scale to mess with my head as much as it does! Lol! I also take pics of my body and altho I am similar in weight the pics of my body looks so different, I am def more slimmer and toned looking in my recent pics. The Drs visit these days for u are def a huge win u must feel so free not doing all the stressing u once did only to get the same results. That's so amazing! Well done! Thanks for your reply good to know this is all part of the process. Xo

@makattack220 I listened to some more episodes of the podcast and then because of that read a bit of the obesity code. It has me really thinking about how much of my hunger is just the experience of dipping from "storage mode" into "fat burning mode" which is maybe a bit unpleasant but actually good for me? That feeling triggers a bit of a panic because when I was pregnant getting there would lead to vomiting that was very difficult to stop. But that was many years ago and I did think I was over it, but I think that shaky feeling is still hard for me to deal with and think I will survive.

I am not yet ready to give up sugar and grain or to fast ... but thinking more seriously about those things than I have before. Also thinking about maybe snacking less or stopping my bedtime treat...

TerriRichardson112 wrote: »

Monitoring my weight daily showed up the daily fluctuations, and allowed me to stop stressing over them.

I usethe Happy Scale app. It was very comforting to see the downward trend over time. These days I have been practically flatlining on it. 😝

Now that I’m in maintenance, I have an upper weight range, and the weight fluctuations are almost irrelevant. If I edge towards my upper limit I know exactly what to do to alleviate it.

@TerriRichardson112
This! ALL of it!

And, I can predict what the scale will do now. I bet you can, too! It gives me a sense of control I haven’t had before.