What nobody tells you about losing weight

BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »

The main one is that hunger never goes away. It stays. I have to learn to live with hunger. I have found ways to make it more tolerable, I no longer get pains, nausea and dry-spill vomiting, but the hunger stays. Since hunger is what made me fat in the first place, I have to find ways to live with it and while it gets less difficult, it does not become pleasant. It looks as if the discomfort is there to stay until I snuff it. It is a different discomfort than the one I had when being fat, but it is a discomfort nevertheless and it is unpleasant.

My bones hurt more than before. I hate my exercise bike even more now than in the beginning, almost 60 kg ago. It just hurts. Even walking hurts more now as there is less padding on the bottom of my feet.

Sleeping is more difficult. Pillows don't help. Cushions don't do anything. Winnie the Pooh helped for a while, but no longer.

I can now really feel my xiphoid and my tailbone. The first one doesn't really bother me, the second one makes it difficult to work without being distracted because it hurts. Since I still have some way to go, I expect it to become even harder and that is not a pleasant perspective. I can also feel my collar bones. In the past, I only realised I had those from studying anatomy. Fortunately, that doesn't bother me.

My shoes are bigger now. I need slightly smaller ones. My glasses fit better than in the past. Masks now hurt more quickly since there is less padding around my ears.

Also: my fingers are significantly thinner. They used to look œdemic. No longer.

BartB, you're one of few who talks about hunger after a major weight loss. I think, it's one of the reasons that many eat it all back. It might take 2-5 years, but the hunger games sneak up on a person. Some blame the hunger hormone ghrelin. I call it ghrelin blowback, that old hormonal swing that fights against you.

You can throw everything up against the wall, do what you've always done for the love of CICO, rein it back in, dial it down and hunger may come roaring back. Few talk about it, but you do.

I've read your posts. You eat many foods that don't appeal to the masses, I could not do what you do. I wish you long lasting success. No one has all of the answers. I believe eliminating everything that gives us some level of satiety eventually backfires. In the midnight hour, conscious or unconscious, foods that cry out to us....find their way back home. Again and again and again.

It can take 2 or 3 times before we find our pathway to maintenance. It's usually pain that brings us to our senses. Pain is the precursor to long lasting change. Achy joints, backs, knees, hearts or lungs. The pain of losing yourself to a lifetime filled with regret, I'm not going out like that.

Pain will leave you once it has finished teaching you. Our pain becomes our power. We are determined not to return to those old habits that brought us here in the first place. Pain demands to be felt.

Weight loss is complex. It's a matter of the mind and body. The body never gives up on us. We can't give up on our bodies. We have to fight through the dichotomies in our mind. We may want weight loss and HAES weight acceptance at the same time, the mind doesn't know what to do with that. It will leave you spinning in your wheels.

Some may find long lasting weight stability the first time out of the chute. For others, it might take 2 or 3 times. It's a judgment free zone. Good luck with the hunger games, Bart. I've been there, too.