If you were starting new in your weight loss journey, what would be the first thing you do?

abagailpaigemanton1684 · January 19

Hi, I'm Abagail. I'm 26, I'm 8 months post partum. I'm the heaviest I've ever been weighing in at 83.6kg. I'm hoping to lose about 1kg every month and then maintain when I get to a healthy BMI. If you had to start all over again, what would be the first thing you would do?

Lietchi · January 19

Step 1: log food, no calorie goal, just logging to get a sense of how many calories I'm consuming and where those calories are coming from
Step 2: stick to a calorie goal, choosing a modest rate of loss (1kg per month sounds great!). Having logged fois for a while, you'll see which foods have more or fewer calories and which foods help you feel satiated or more hungry - you can try to find lower calorie substitutions, change portion sizes, explore different foods... experiment, make gradual changes,...
Step 3: work on getting your activity level up. It could just be getting more steps in throughout the day, starting to exercise,... anything you enjoy and make gradual changes

That's what I would recommend 🙂

sollyn23l2 · January 19

Same thing I did. Cut out all snacking (unless it's a fruit or vegetable, no exceptions), and stick to just 3 consistent meals per day. I felt less hungry when my body knew when to expect food.

springlering62 · January 19

At age 62, looking back, the first thing I’d do is forgive myself.

I went from 125 before to 140’s after my first, 160’s after the second.

I didn’t understand how my body had or would continue to change following childbirth. Instead of being awestruck at this new life I was cradling, I felt fat, ugly and undesirable, and proceeded to let myself go as a result. Momma had always said “you’ll get fat after kids, just like me”, so it had to be true, right?

I went from a size 2 to a 13 after the second, and thought it was the end of my world.

Going through old photos, I see that I wasn’t nearly as big as I thought, and now kick myself for not starting from that point, instead of gaining til obese and then working my way back down.

I also stupidly tried to get back to 125. Lemme tell ya, your body changes. At 57 years old, very near 125, I looked like a starvation victim.

Had I forgiven myself earlier and treated loss as a simple “thing” to do for my health, instead of treating weight gain as a MAJOR LIFE CRISISto piss and moan about, I could have avoided years of self flagellation and criticism.

Enjoy your youngster, enjoy your exciting and satisfying new life, and don’t beat yourself up. Just deal with it like you do diapers. Both are *kitten* but easier to clean if you deal with it right then.

kjschnur · January 19

I think I would realize that for me weight goes up with age unless it’s monitored

Corina1143 · January 19

The first thing I did the second time and would do again was walk. A little me time. A time to relax my body. A time to think about me. A time to plan tonight and tomorrow. A time to regroup.

I gained 40 lbs with my first, lost 20. I gained 40 with my second, lost 50 by the time she was about 3-4 months old.

tomcustombuilder · January 19

You want to review your diet. Eliminate as many ultra processed foods as possible, things like cookies, chips, treats white bread etc. don’t drink calories. Eliminate alcohol.
Diet should be predominantly lean protein sources and veggies. Water for beverage.

Learn to count calories however adherence to the above will most likely cause weightloss without counting for the time being.

Theoldguy1 · January 19

Find a really strong "why" you want to lose weight. The "why" should be something that makes you cry. Like being healthily to see the birth of your new baby's children.

Establishing a strong "why" will make the good suggestions above much easier to implement.

Congrats and good luck.

Lietchi · January 19

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

You want to review your diet. Eliminate as many ultra processed foods as possible, things like cookies, chips, treats white bread etc. don’t drink calories. Eliminate alcohol.
Diet should be predominantly lean protein sources and veggies. Water for beverage.

Learn to count calories however adherence to the above will most likely cause weightloss without counting for the time being.

Quite the opposite of what my approach was - calories first and 'rules' about what to eat and what not to eat were secondary. Well, perhaps not even secondary, I didn't give myself any rules. I just naturally reduced certain foods because I noticed how they were taking a big chunk out of my calorie goal for not much satiation (alcohol and cheese mostly).

A way of eating that doesn't make you miserable is the priority. If there are goals related to eating in a more healthy way, I think it's more sustainable to make gradual changes, and to focus on what you can add to your diet to make it healthier (more lean protein, more vegetables) rather than focusing on what you should eliminate (if anything).or reduce.

But then again, that's my view because it was my experience that eating mostly whole foods in no way guaranteed being in a calorie deficit and because restriction in the foods I could eat was a sure fire way to make me quit.

glassyo · January 20

While I like a good rhyme, I disagree on your why needing to make you cry.

I weighed in at 225 lbs at the doctors. He said he wanted to see me at 160. So I did a deep dive on a bunch of diets and picked one that I could live with.

Which hasn't changed. I would still find a way of eating I could live with.

Theoldguy1 · January 20

glassyo wrote: »

While I like a good rhyme, I disagree on your why needing to make you cry.

I weighed in at 225 lbs at the doctors. He said he wanted to see me at 160. So I did a deep dive on a bunch of diets and picked one that I could live with.

Which hasn't changed. I would still find a way of eating I could live with.

The purpose of my post wasn't to make a cute rhyme. Go back to your old psychology textbooks. To make change one needs a strong, emotional reason to do so. In some cases that reason could make one cry. Something like imagining your young kids looking at your body, carrying significant extra weight in a casket. Imagining something like that should elicit strong emotions.

Years ago I went to a hospital with a friend to see a mutual friend who was a patient. On the way out we walked through a ward and saw a guy was sitting in the hallway smoking a cig (obviously a while back) through a stoma in his neck. When we got out to the car my friend who was a smoker dumped his cigs in the parking lot and never smoke again. Fear of that happening to him elicited the strong emotion.

ddsb1111 · January 21

To make change one needs a strong, emotional reason to do so.

No, it’s not strictly a fact if it’s not universally necessary. A strong emotional reason can be a powerful motivator, but it’s not an absolute requirement for change. Some people make significant changes simply because of logic, necessity, or even curiosity, without a deep emotional driver.

For example, someone might switch careers because it makes financial sense, not because they feel a passionate pull. Similarly, building small habits, like drinking more water or exercising, can start with practical reasoning and grow into lasting change over time, even without an emotional spark.

So while emotion often helps fuel change, it’s not the only path to success.

OP- The first thing I would do is never go on a diet. I would find my TDEE and use that to reach whatever goal I had in a sustainable way. That would have saved me a very very very very very very very long time.

neanderthin · January 21

tomcustombuilder wrote: »

You want to review your diet. Eliminate as many ultra processed foods as possible, things like cookies, chips, treats white bread etc. don’t drink calories. Eliminate alcohol.
Diet should be predominantly lean protein sources and veggies. Water for beverage.

Learn to count calories however adherence to the above will most likely cause weightloss without counting for the time being.

What's going on Tom, I'm starting to agree with some of your statements lately.

neanderthin · January 21

Anyway, what Tom said and if I could do it over I would have been more invested in the research of Biological Anthropology which would have saved me a couple of years of floundering around before I found a solution that worked for my personal medical conditions which included losing 60lbs and being in maintenance for over a decade and in decent health at 71.

Kiwi2mfp · January 26

Drink at least 64 ounces of water a day while tracking current calories. If you habitually don't drink enough water, you'll likely flush 3-5 pounds just by doing that. Then, stop drinking your calories. If you are tracking everything, you will likely find you drink possibly 100's of your calories daily! Simply stop that for a week or two and you might see another drop! After a couple weeks of figuring yourself out calories wise and getting used to the app, then start a calorie deficit in my fitness pal. Set your goals and stick to them 90 percent of the time. But please give yourself room for the adjustment period in the beginning and a little grace throughout your journey.

totameafox · January 26

Not just count calories. Eating better food actually means I'm eating more food volume but also, surprisingly, my grocery bill has gone down because i'm portioning the food instead of eating it all at once.

elisa123gal · January 29

First thing? Clean out your cupboards...fridge.. really your entire house of all junk and sugar foods. If it isn't there.. you won't eat it..

springlering62 · January 29

Yes yes yes and more yes. I wanted something else after dinner last night. I was too darn lazy to get up and blend the ice cream. So just went without because couldn’t think of anything tempting. No chios, crackers, cookies to fall back on, and all my chocolate was frozen rock solid.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

glassyo · January 29

springlering62 wrote: »

Yes yes yes and more yes. I wanted something else after dinner last night. I was too darn lazy to get up and blend the ice cream. So just went without because couldn’t think of anything tempting. No chios, crackers, cookies to fall back on, and all my chocolate was frozen rock solid.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Frozen chocolate takes longer to eat so that's no excuse. Use an ice pick if you have to!

springlering62 · January 30

glassyo wrote: »

springlering62 wrote: »

Yes yes yes and more yes. I wanted something else after dinner last night. I was too darn lazy to get up and blend the ice cream. So just went without because couldn’t think of anything tempting. No chios, crackers, cookies to fall back on, and all my chocolate was frozen rock solid.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Frozen chocolate takes longer to eat so that's no excuse. Use an ice pick if you have to!

Don’t be encouraging a girl to misbehave now.

It don’t take much. 😂

If you were starting new in your weight loss journey, what would be the first thing you do?

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