Weight loss: My partner of 9 years says I'm too big for him to be sexually attracted to me |
- My partner of 9 years says I'm too big for him to be sexually attracted to me
- As of today, I've officially lost 40 pounds & it feels unreal.
- What I learned in one year on r/loseit
- Surprising news from my doctor
- Obese!
- I sold my 3x clothing
- I couldn’t enjoy my night out and I just felt fat
- I’m scared to weigh myself
- If you're feeling stuck, please read.
- I Changed the Hours I Count Calories
- Use laziness to your advantage
- Starting my weight loss journey. I want to lose 100 pounds in 12 months. [Post 1]
- I literally ate one 5 layer burrito and stopped at one!
- What food item do you refuse to compromise on, or replace with a lower calorie alternative?
- [Challenge] European Accountability Challenge: July 7th, 2021
- 24-Hour Pledge - Wednesday, 07 July 2021 - The Plan for Today!
- Week 1 of my 12 week challenge
- 6’4” 331lbs 30 Year Old Male
- 17 days into my caloric deficit/daily exercise journey
- I want to stage an "intervention" for my dad. Any advice?
- My parents keep telling me that the way I’m losing weight is going to hurt me. I’m new to this, any advice here?
- The scale finally dropped
- Trying to start my weight loss journey
- Progressive overload and going until failure
- Tired of being overweight. Advice?
| My partner of 9 years says I'm too big for him to be sexually attracted to me Posted: 06 Jul 2021 11:55 AM PDT I know I've gained weight. I've been working really hard to get it off (so far without luck) so I've already been so down on myself. What's made it harder? My boyfriend hasn't slept with me in over 5 months, saying how im not what I used to look like, his type, and he can't help he's just not turned on by me. Today im really down thinking about it. I can't blame him for what he is/isn't attracted to, but it still really sucks. I feel huge and unwanted. I guess I wanted to talk here in a safe and understanding community, I hope this isn't breaking any subreddit rules! FWIW im 28, 5'5 and 175 pounds (25 lbs more than when we first meant and I did gain 20 pounds this last year). I burn between 800-1300 active calories everyday, and eat between 1600-2000 calories depending on the day. It's been two months of me intensely working out but haven't lost a single pound. (I walk 6-8 miles everyday, always on my feet at work as a teacher, and take a 40 min hiit or strength training class 5 days a week) Everything I eat now I feel guilty about, like every bite of food is worth more than my relationship and I know it's not and that's not the case but im struggling. Edit to add: my boyfriend is incredibly fit, looks like an athlete. He also was gentle in how he approached the conversation, and we have an incredibly loving relationship- just obviously not physically romantic now Edit #2: thank you to everyone for being supportive and just sending kind words. However getting messages and comments blaming me being the downfall of our relationship, being selfish by gaining weight, and/or the messages and accusations that there's more wrong with my relationship than what I named is just incredibly disheartening. I took a risk trying to finally talk about something that's bothering me, something incredibly embarrassing, and this outcome just sucks. Putting my phone away for now Edit #3: yes I already was a bit overweight before I gained this 25 pounds, so the 25 does look differently on me. On top of that my boyfriend is genuinely concerned with my health (covid side effects are lasting a long time with me). He hasn't like "cut me off" from sex but when we had a thorough talk a few months ago ahout why we haven't been as intimate this is the main reason why, and (very gently) explained that my body doesn't feel the same, since then I've expressed like how I miss it and he said we can still be together but now I'm also in my own head that he doesn't find me sexy and I'm self conscious. That's not his doing, it just sucks. He's apologized for saying anything but honestly thank god he did- I love and appreciate the open communication we have. The first 4 1/2 year of our relationship I really was quite fit, so he's not wrong that I look and feel differently. And he's not wrong to be concerned with my health.. I sure am! I am near obese now so I'm working on my weight for me first and foremost. Just miss getting laid in the interim 😂 I know he's not cheating, and we're not married yet bc weddings are expensive AF and we're saving up for a nice one for when we turn 30. Edit #4/ final update! Mods banned me so I can't reply anymore. (They said my "participation in this thread was unacceptable" so I apologize to anyone if I was overly sassy) But thank you again to everyone's suggestions, thoughtfulness and concerns. I appreciated it a lot and if allowed in 30 days will post any updates around my weight loss, mental health, bloodwork results and the effects on us. Appreciate you all! [link] [comments] |
| As of today, I've officially lost 40 pounds & it feels unreal. Posted: 06 Jul 2021 12:28 PM PDT I honestly can't believe I even made it at all. I've always tried to lose weight and the fact that this time, it was different. I stuck to my routine since January 29th and I honestly feel amazing. Most times I don't even believe that I've lost weight until I try on clothes from 2019 and they're all lose or when my family randomly reminds me of how they're proud of me but that I may need to stop soon cuz I'm getting skinny. (They've been saying that since the first week i started but it's still the highlight of my day tbh :3). I still have 26 more pounds to go but I'm going to enjoy shedding each and every one. [link] [comments] |
| What I learned in one year on r/loseit Posted: 06 Jul 2021 03:17 AM PDT Hello my fellow redditors! Today marks exactly one year after I started my journey to a long and healthy life here on r/loseit. To celebrate the anniversary I'd like to share the most important lessons that I learned on my journey with all of you here today. Maybe they'll shift some perspectives or help someone out who just started such a journey of their own. That being said please remember that these are based on my personal experiences. But first I'd happily like to pay the progress picture tax. I prepared two collages for you guys. Feel free to check them out: SFW: https://i.imgur.com/2TBOrlB.jpg NSFW-Progress: https://i.imgur.com/ftMKmHw.jpg . Now that the pictures are out of the way let's get down to business. My most important lessons from my weight loss journeyBe patient with yourself When most of us start this journey we are so focused on the goal weight and can't seem to get there fast enough. We are willing to change so many things all at once and are super disappointed if we cannot adhere to the new set of rules we've established for ourselves. Please remember that you are human and it took in some cases years to reach your starting point which consisted of building bad habits. You are not going to change who you are as a person within a couple of weeks. This is going to take years and that is absolutely fine. So please give yourself the time to grow mentally and don't beat yourself up about not being perfect or having bad days occasionally. Be kind to yourself. Take baby steps This is so important. I remember when I first attempted to change my life to a way healthier lifestyle in 2017 I was so motivated that I thought that quitting smoking, drinking, going on a super restrictive diet and starting to workout like a mad man at the same time was a good idea. Spoiler alert: It wasn't. The attempt lasted two weeks and ended with me gaining another 20 pounds. Every new thing in your life needs to be made a habit and this takes time. This is absolutely fine. We all want a sustainably healthier life and body. Making too many changes at once will simply overwhelm you because you cannot provide every change the attention it requires to make it a habit. It's said to take 28 days to build a habit and I'd personally even give it 6 weeks but take this timeframe to adapt and commit to one change until it's a habit. For me personally that meant first quitting tobacco. For a whole year I just focused on not having any nicotine and it worked. Exactly one year later I started to implement changes to my diet. At this point I wasn't focused on losing weight, just eating healthier. Eating freshly cooked meals and more fruits, greens and vegetables improved my life quality so much by itself already. Still I gave it another 5 months until eating this way was a habit. Then I started to go to the gym. For the first month I just focused on going there regularly to make it my routine. Only after this month I started with a caloric deficit. Overall I think the 'baby step'-approach is one of the most important things to do while changing your life because it will help you to live better a lot more sustainably. Make this your personal journey How do I say this? Just because something works for me it doesn't need to work for you necessarily. Don't just blindly follow some fad diet. Inhale all the information and create your own story. You want to have pizza on your diet? Find a way to implement it. You want to eat vegan/vegetarian for ethical reasons but still want to have meat occasionally? Sure, that's fine. It's absolutely no problem to eat vegan five days a week and have meat on the other two. This way your meat consumption will reduce, and you are contributing to your ethical believes. If this is how you feel comfortable that's cool. To lose weight the only important thing is a caloric deficit. If you want, you can lose weight on junk food only. It's very hard but not impossible. Figure out how to make this your own custom diet with foods that you love and that you can enjoy for a very long time. I personally eat 80% vegetarian with fish once per month and meat maybe 5 or 6 times a year. If you need information on fat loss nutrition/weight loss check out Renaissance Periodization or Jeff Nippard on YouTube. For the ladies I recommend checking out the TED Talk 'A perspective on fat loss' by James Smith on Youtube. Consistency is key If you do something (for example dieting or working out) on a regular absis for a longer period, you will see results. If you are not fully committed, you cannot expect to reach your goals. What counts is adhering to your plan over weeks and months. You are in this by yourself… … and nobody unfortunately is going to care as much as you do. This is a sad yet very empowering revelation. We do have our supporters of course that'll cheer us on and say nice things. But in the end, it's just you. You need to put in the work, you need to be disciplined. I personally talked so much about my weight loss that my friends and especially my SO are probably very sick of hearing about it. Don't expect anybody to notice or comment on your weight loss. They will do it if they decide that the moment is the right one. Most of the time you are in this by yourself though. Connect with the community Because we are in this by ourselves, we need to find people who have the same struggles, who can share the joy over the small victories we'll have on our journey. The r/loseit community is such a great place to find likeminded people and accountability. When I joined this subreddit, I started to attend the European Accountability threads every day and found awesome people to exchange thoughts and talk about our experiences, fears, and troubles. I appreciate this community so much and I recommend to every single on of you to actively participate in the conversations in the accountability threads (both ofc). Writing a nice comment there can really make another person's day and help them out big time. If you do this consistently, you'll find a circle of people that will make this weight loss journey much more enjoyable. Celebrate your victories There are so many small victories apart from hitting weight milestones ofc. Make sure to properly celebrate them because they mean that you are slowly regaining your quality of life which (most likely) lost before and didn't even notice. These celebrations will fuel your motivation and carry you further than you even thought that you'd be able to go. My favorite NSV's were fitting into a dress shirt size L for the first time ever in my life (when I grew up I went straight from M to XXL because it was the time of baggy pants and large shirts lol) being able to run 5k, 10k, a half marathon and being able to do chin-ups and neutral grip pull ups.. Question your process once in a while Never touch a running system is what they say right? Just because something works that doesn't mean there is no room for improvement. Feel free to experiment a little bit on your journey to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. Personally I tried out IF because I was not very hungry in the mornings and evenings but I decided not to continue doing it because it put so much pressure to eat at least 2000 kcals in essentially 4 hours (overall feeding window was 8 but I was commuting 1 hour and 2 hours were spent in the gym, which also implied that I couldn't eat an hour before the gym). The stress caused by the need to eat wasn't good for me mentally and I could see it leading to me developing an eating disorder down the road. Keep your expectations low Don't expect to look a certain way once the weight is gone. Especially if lose the weight without working out you might be disappointed at the way you look after reaching your goal weight. Especially if you are like me and never have been lean or skinny in your life before there is no way to know how you will look with 100 lbs less. If you are in the beginning of your journey, please don't worry about having loose skin in the future. Personally, I'd take three times the amount of my current loose skin over being obese again. Thanks for reading this wall of text. If you want, we can have a civil discussion in the comments. I'd like to thank this subreddit for existing. Shoutouts go out to my European gang in the accountability threads. EDIT: Wow this blew up - thanks for the awards! :) [link] [comments] |
| Surprising news from my doctor Posted: 06 Jul 2021 08:21 PM PDT Today I went for a yearly physical and to get an updated blood panel. Two years ago I was prediabetic so ever since then it's been a priority of mine to get that under control. I switched doctors this past September because I had moved and my previous doctor was just too far away. So when I signed on as a new patient they took my weight but I didn't make note of it at the time. That visit was more so to get acquainted with my new doctor. Today I go in for a yearly physical since I do that every July and I got some unexpected news. I always thought my starting weight was around 250. Nope… 261, according to my chart from September. When I went for my visit I weighed in at 241. All this time I thought I was down 10 pounds when I had in fact lost 20 in that span of time. I don't feel 20 pounds lighter. I went down 2 pant sizes so that's encouraging indeed. But now I feel like a fire has been lit in me. This was just the boost I needed. I would like to lose 90 more pounds but I have no time frame on that. I'm going to break that down into more manageable goals. Please hang in there, no matter where you are on your weight loss journey. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2021 06:19 PM PDT 39 / M - This seems weird to say but I was pumped to learn today that I am no longer morbidly obese. I started this journey just over a year ago when I was returning to work after an exciting Covid-19 furlough. At that time I was over 330 lbs. I decided that my three month work hiatus was a good time to eat ALL the food and drink ALL the booze. Today before going to the gym I weighed in at 265.2 lbs. with my bmi reading a few points under 40. I still have a long way to go but this a journey worth undertaking. Thank you all for your posts. They have been wonderful motivation for me. Take care. Now that I have read community guidelines I will now give you insight on how I have done it. Work out and stop eating everything in sight. ; ) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2021 03:08 PM PDT I gained a lot of weight rapidly during the pandemic, but I was obese long before that. I hit a 3x, or a women's 20-22 and had to buy new, bigger clothes multiple times before I hit my highest weight. Well, now I'm down 20 lbs and I've maintained that weight for a few months. At first I didn't want to get rid of those larger clothes because every other time I've lost weight I've gained it all back and then some. I'm still scared of regaining, but I really don't think I'll ever let myself get that big again. I've worked hard on changing things on a deeper level. I've worked on binge eating in therapy. I've found ways to make healthy eating an easy part of my life. I'm doing everything in moderation now instead of falling for black and white thinking and quitting as soon as I "mess up." I was ashamed I let myself get so big, and it feels good to be able to get rid of those clothes. No looking back now! [link] [comments] |
| I couldn’t enjoy my night out and I just felt fat Posted: 06 Jul 2021 12:04 PM PDT I was with a group of friends last night and we went to take a group photo. I saw the photo and I'm almost double the size of all of the other girls. I've been losing weight and thought I looked somewhat okay. I've lost around 18lbs since February (though April and May I was more maintaining because of social events), and thought I finally looked okay-ish. I just felt like crying and I couldn't enjoy the night after seeing the photo, and I couldn't enjoy the rest of the night. I kept thinking about the calories in my drink and how much I'd already had to eat and that I'd have to skip dinner to craw back the calories. My starting weight was 179.7lbs and I'm currently 161.1, and my goal weight is 121 (I'm 5 foot 2 inches) and it just feels impossible. Sorry for the rant, I just feel like shit. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2021 09:35 PM PDT I'm an older person. I have some health issues. Due to my upbringing, I have always felt shame abt my body. I can't weigh myself bc somehow the number validates what a loser I am. I have been reading this subreddit for abt 5 months. I try and fail counting calories. I have been walking more. Last year I bought a pair of pants I could just zip up. I tried them on and, they fit, not perfect but they zip up with ease. So, I think I have lost a little weight. I will continue to read this sub and think abt my eating habits. I will continue to remember to pick the apples not the ice cream. I don't know if I will ever be confident enough to get on a scale. I want to send good vibes to everyone on this sub. Being healthy can be such an emotional battle. [link] [comments] |
| If you're feeling stuck, please read. Posted: 06 Jul 2021 11:47 PM PDT I posted here not all that long ago in the same boat as everyone else, looking for some hope and comraderie, maybe I'd even luck onto some new information that would help on my journey. Got the first two things in spades, and though I didn't find the third here, it did actually happen so I'm back to share with anyone else that's feeling trapped and has some time to read. I'm going to preface this with a few things:
As for my health background (37F, 5'8", SW 286, CW 234, GW 175), I was a relatively normal child and my weight issues started when I was 20. I had my first manic episode, got my bipolar diagnosis, and there was about half a year of medication switches until we found a good fit for my brain but they wreaked some major havoc on my body. I've been fighting with my weight ever since and always got feedback from the docs that other than my thyroid being screwed from one particular med (and replacement hormones should be mitigating that), my blood work is great, everything's fine, there's no reason for me to be heavy... I must be eating too much/not moving enough despite a ton of effort on my part for that not to be the case. I never gave up on trying to treat my body right, but was frustrated that none of the stuff that's supposed to work (cutting calories, whole/healthy foods, exercise) seemed to make a difference. Add in some other setbacks in more recent years (broke my foot with months of recovery, grief and depression around my sister's death, other life things), I topped out at 286 pounds. Sobering, frustrating, it didn't matter that on paper by other measurable metrics I was still considered healthy, my body hurt and was having a hard time keeping up with all the things my head wanted to do. Lots of water, not drinking my calories, getting my fitbit steps/active minutes in, and no snacking after dinner, I had a little success and managed to get back down to 256 but have been stalled there for a long time. Then this spring I had to get a new primary care doctor and he gave me a referral to a nutritionist. I've met with a couple before and always got the same spiel to do the things I've been doing for years ("Just do them harder, calories in and out are basic thermodynamics, it'll work if you're dedicated enough and not cheating!"), so I didn't have a ton of hope for a different outcome but whatever, I'm still in the game, still want to be able to keep up with my kids. Going over my health history with this gal, we discussed my bipolar stuff and she made the connection that a particular set of meds I was temporarily on probably caused a triple whammy of hormone disruption, mitochondrial disregulation, and killed off a big portion of my gut biome. Didn't matter that I haven't been on them for over a decade and a half, the damage done at the time knocked out my ability to process nutrients properly long enough that I was likely fast- tracked into insulin resistance, chronically boned even while doing the right things. She told me to eat less and exercise more while we waited for the blood tests to confirm, and then we'd have a follow up about a month later to set up a more specific plan based on the results (this was late May). Got the labs and confirmation back a few days later that yes, this is the issue. Cool, after years of feeling stuck not knowing what was wrong, I finally have an answer even if I don't know what to do about it. My youngest is around 8 months old and still nursing like crazy, so I used the enforced down time during his feeding sessions to research my ass off. Here's a primer... At its root, insulin resistance is an energy storage issue. Whenever blood glucose goes up, the body pumps out some insulin to get it back down to normal levels, pushing the sugar into cells to be used or converted into fat for storage. Over time, as excess dietary energy gets stored, the fat cells get bigger and their insulin receptors get distorted...the cell can only hold so much, this is a mechanism telling insulin it doesn't fit, time to try another cell that has more room. Problem is, if that fat isn't getting burned (a lot more on that later), all the cells eventually run out of room so the body has to pump more insulin to force the receptors to activate because incoming glucose still has to go somewhere. Eventually there's chronically too much insulin in the blood (hyperinsulinemia) because the body really can't handle being hyperglycemic and the pancreas is pushing hard to keep it under control. The cells are forced bigger and get even more misshapen/resistant and it compounds over time until the body and cells finally say screw it, we can't store any more, blood glucose is out of control, that person's diabetic. It's super common and usually the onset isn't so dramatic, more of a slow burn with a lot of compounding diet/stress/other hormonal disregulation factors, but most doctors don't test for fasting insulin levels, they just watch blood glucose so until a person is already pre-diabetic and having other issues, they're really unlikely to know. Without big changes the insulin resistance eventually turns into type 2 diabetes. Medication and weight-loss can slow down or stabilize the process, but at that point it's about damage control and losing weight when the body is already locked into this hardcore storage mode is so difficult. Going low carb (controlling sugars/starches to minimize glucose spikes, which in turn reduces the need for so much insulin) can bring back some insulin sensitivity and put a person in remission but going back to carbs dumps them right back where they started or worse, so good luck there. I still figured it was better than doing nothing though, so I dropped all my bread/rice/pasta/high glycemic foods as a starting point and kept digging for more info. Here's where it starts getting interesting. While searching for low carb science that wasn't gimmicky or awful long term, I found some lectures by a Dr. Naiman whose big talking points are the protein/energy ratio and protein dilution. Summed up, a person has to eat a lot of toast to get the same amount of protein they'd find in an egg and the body won't be satisfied until it has the protein it needs to maintain lean mass, making it really easy to overeat energy calories from foods with lower protein content if those needs haven't been met yet. It was my first lightbulb moment. I've been tracking everything in Myfitnesspal and using a Fitbit for months (with pregnancy/breastfeeding I've been mostly eating to hunger but wanted to keep the accountability and habits), so I checked it out. Whether I had a low or high calorie day, I always stopped around 120-150 grams of protein, and my protein amounts tracked more consistently with my activity levels from the previous day than my total calories did with anything activity related. Neat. Next day, I started putting protein first. Eggs for breakfast, jerky whenever I wanted a snack, cottage cheese with lunch, legumes and more meat at dinner. Not pushing for extra protein per se (gram for gram, it's the same amount as before), but making it the priority macro in the foods I choose. BAM! Went from feeling hungry all day and fighting my nighttime cut off to completely satisfied by the end of dinner. My urge to snack disappeared, my moods were more stable, and my average daily calories immediately dropped from 2700+ (I just figured I was starving due to breastfeeding) to consistently feeling done eating for the day around 1900 calories with no drop in my supply or energy indicating I was at a crazy deficit or anything. The change was nuts. But why stop there? Sleepless baby nights are perfect for following rabbit trails so I looked into more of Dr. Naiman's stuff and found a great lecture he did specifically on insulin resistance. That taught me that as long as insulin is elevated, the body can't access fat storage. Metabolically, the body won't store and burn fat at the same time (gotta save it for when we need it!) and while fat storage is basically unlimited, glucose has to be kept on a tight leash for homeostasis. So when glucose is present, insulin has to shuttle it somewhere to be used or converted and the fat we eat gets put straight into storage to be dealt with later, but as long as we're constantly keeping our blood sugar up and our insulin elevated, it all keeps getting packed away, later never happens, and our mitochondria get shoehorned into this glucose dependent metabolic pathway. They eventually lose the flexibility to easily swap back and forth between the two fuel sources. Insulin also takes longer to drop than blood glucose, so by the time a person starts feeling all hypoglycemic and miserably hungry, a lot of that insulin's still there preventing access to the fat and it bounces up even higher again when you have that snack to deal with feeling crappy. No wonder it's so freaking hard to lose weight, and it can take a few weeks of being low carb for some epigenetic switches to flip and enough cellular turnover to happen for the mitochondria to re-adapt to the fat burning process (keto flu, anyone?). That's where I figured out my goal with all this, I want to be metabolically flexible. I want my baseline eating habits to be such that they're healthy, don't take over my life with macro/calorie tracking, and leave me feeling good without having to worry about a huge blowback if I occassionally step outside of some basic parameters. The Youtube algorithm recommended another lecture from the same symposium, and this presenter (Dr. Bickman) went deeper into how insulin and its antagonistic hormone glucagon work to store and release fat, but the big focus was on how protein ingestion effects each. I always figured protein was relatively inert where insulin was concerned but was wrong on that count. Turns out it totally depends on the underlying glycemic state. If blood sugar is up, protien spikes insulin and glucagon plummets, but when you're at a fasted level it doesnt do a thing to insulin and gives glucagon a big push to burn and convert fat to stabilize blood sugar that way. Sweet, another lighbulb. Protein is already my priority nutrient, but lets add another layer to that. I'm a mom, the little is teething and crawling and some days I don't get breakfast until lunch and sucking down water and lukewarm coffee is the best I can do for the first few hours I'm up anyway. In my coffee I'd already traded out my milk for a splash of half n half to avoid the sugar from lactose and I'd been adding inulin powder to it for a while (it's a soluble fiber, feeds the gut biome, helps stabilize blood sugar, no insulin effect, no real flavor or texture to it, good stuff), but if I can step it up with some protein to get a little extra fat burn in until I have a chance to eat, why not? I tracked down some unflavored collagen (I'm not into flavors or the other extras in protein shake stuff, any sugar would ruin the effect) and started adding a scoop to my morning coffee. Lemme tell ya, it's been a magical combination for me. A little fat, a little fiber, a little metabolic boost from the protein and I'm not even hungry until lunch unless I did something really physical the day before. At this point (a few weeks in to playing with these changes) I have my follow up with the nutritionist and I'm already 14 lbs down from our meeting the month before. Her body scanner showed that 10 of that was from fat, the rest water and none of the muscle wasting everyone worries about, only a 0.2 lb drop in muscle mass. She's thrilled with what I'm doing for now, we talk shop, everything's perfect to keep on keeping on and we'll follow up again in a few months. Pretty soon after, I noticed I'd inadvertently fallen into a pattern not all that dissimilar to 16:8 intermittent fasting. I wake up early with the kids, have a bunch of water, eventually get around to making my one doctored up cup of coffee, lunch around 1ish, dinner around 6 or 7, I'm feeling really good all day. Not hangry, deprived, or craving anything...just easy to read hunger cues, smooth sailing (well, physiologically speaking, the house and kids are still chaos), and I'm pretty dang thrilled with how things are going. Decided to start reading up on fasting, not with the intent to change anything else but because if following my hunger cues at this point is putting me on that kind of schedule, I want to know more about it. I ended up at the conclusion that one of the big benefits of fasting is it's another angle on pumping the brakes on the insulin cycle...instead of low to no carbs all the time and ending up metabolically inflexible the other direction, you're blocking out a big consecutive chunk of time to not eat, those insulin levels eventually drop during the fast and you temporarily switch metabolic pathways until you eat again. Cool. While following this train of thought, I ended up listening to a podcast interview with Dr. Fung (he seems to be a big deal in the fasting community) and had my last big lightbulb moment when he talked about eating frequency being as big of a part of the equation as the what and how much. He was describing his disdain for counting calories, explaining that it isn't that they don't mean anything but if you're snacking on carrot sticks all day it doesn't matter that you skipped all your meals and only ate 300 total calories, your insulin response was kept active the whole time so you were still locked out of fat burning just as effectively as if you'd been eating something way better. Even worse, you have the added negative of your body down-regulating your metabolism (you're cold, lethargic, feel like garbage, the body's scavenging muscle mass) because it only has access to those 300 calories you put in and has to prioritize where that tiny bit of energy will most likely keep you alive. You really are starving and the worst part is you can still gain fat at a severe caloric deficit with this hormonal dynamic if the incoming glucose exceeds what your body can use in that given moment and you're still eating the fat your body is incapable of metabolizing, insulin is that efficient at putting it away and preventing fat burn. Damn. That's some bullshit early 20's me would have loved to have been in on and exactly my experience with cutting calories. Mind blown. No more revelations, but one more thing before I hop into how it's all come together for me. I feel like it sounds like I'm giving insulin a bad rap, but it's doing exactly what it's supposed to (a famine could be right around the corner as far as our bodies are concerned) and part of my goal to be healthy and metabolically flexible includes respecting that insulin has other important roles in the body and it would be unhinged and unsafe to avoid insulinemic foods at all costs. I don't want the take away here to be "insulin bad" because it isn't...in my case, I just needed to rope my eating habits in with the right knowledge. That said, I do think dropping a lot of carbs out of my diet on my initial diagnosis (no sugar/flour/high glycemic index foods) jump-started the cellular processes needed to regain the ability to metabolize fat and got me off the hyper/hypoglycemic snack carousel, and that felt like a huge leg up on the rest of the process. As always, water is life and I drink a lot of it all day. Giving protein the highest priority in every food situation totally recalibrated my hunger response and somehow auto-regulated my caloric intake to within a couple hundred of where the nutritionist calculated my BMR. The frequency thing comes in with me staying super low carb until dinner so I only have one insulin event a day, getting the flexibility and fat burning benefits without fasting past hunger or getting trapped in low carb land. I'm still my baby's primary food source so I'm not willing to push into uncomfortable territory or do anything that might drop my milk supply and these changes haven't affected it one bit. I've dropped 22 lbs in a bit over a month, weird chronic skin issues are starting to clear up, my extremities aren't always cold anymore, I get a lot more done during the day a lot less grumpily... Honestly, this is going so strangely well after so many years of being miserable and fighting for every lost pound I'm in a bit of shock. I still track calories out of habit and curiosity, they flex between 1700-2100 on any given day without me working at it. No need to track my macros, I always eat my protein first, get enough fiber and carbs at the end of the day, and the fat comes naturally with my animal based proteins and the normal bit of olive oil I cook with so it's not something I really pay attention to...it doesn't impact insulin, no need to add extra, basically a non-issue. It all feels right and intuitive in a way eating never has for me. What this looks like on the daily is most mornings I treat like a fast, sticking with water and waiting til I get a few stomach grumbles before turning it into a 'dirty' fast with my coffee spiked with half n half, collagen, and inulin powder (none of which will stimulate an insulin response in a fasting state, that's the big thing). Grumbles go away until lunch time and my energy is smooth all day. Sometimes I wake up hungry if I did something strenuous like yardwork the day before, then I'll scramble a couple eggs to go with my coffee, no shame in listening to my body. Lunch I keep following the low carb/high protein theme but with something solid. Eggs if I didn't have them for breakfast, just the meat part if I have dinner leftovers, maybe some cottage cheese or a cheese stick on the side. If I feel like I need something more substantial I put it over something super fibrous like a couple handfuls of bagged kale mix stir fried in some spices and a bit of olive oil (helps the texture and mitigates the need for dressing). If I get hungry as I'm prepping dinner, I'll eat a little jerky or smoked salmon to take the edge off, and then dinner is just a regular dinner. I'm still leaving out breads and pasta (mostly because they don't sound good yet), but everything else is fair game. If I didn't have kale at lunch I'll have a green salad at dinner (or some other fresh veg like a pile of snap peas and cherry tomatos if I did), a pile of some kind of whole food complex carb (roasted root vegetables/squash or legumes done up in the instant pot are my go-to's), and some kind of meat prepped however I feel. Sometimes it's more of an all-in-one kind of thing like chicken curry over lentils or meatloaf with a lot of veg and oatmeal as the binder...really, dinner's just dinner about the same as I used to cook it, with well balanced whole foods. I might end with a little fruit if it sounds good, if it were a birthday or something special I wouldn't be afraid of a little cake, dinner time is carb time and I'm already satisfied from all the protein all day so it doesn't take a lot to feel done. Once dinner's over, I stop eating for the night, I get that nappy blood sugar dip right around bedtime, fall asleep easier and reset overnight. So strangely easy peezy. I still have a long way to go, years of damage to undo and another 60ish pounds to lose, but it isn't this daunting, impossible mountain to climb anymore. I physically feel so much better already and am way more optimistic about my health than I have been in years. If you made it this far, you rock. I believe you'll find what works for you, you'll make the changes you want, and things will get better. [link] [comments] |
| I Changed the Hours I Count Calories Posted: 06 Jul 2021 01:33 PM PDT My problem is I binge eat after dinner. Ice cream, cinnamon toast, cookies, chocolate milk, etc. I would go to bed hating myself for doing it and start over in the morning. My willpower and control is great all day long, then after dinner I ruin myself again. One night it came to me. Why don't I end my calorie counting after dinner? Who says it has to start with breakfast? So now I start fresh with my binge eating. Eat 900 calories worth of ice cream? I only get 700 calories to eat from when I wake till after dinner. Now instead of eating 800-1500 in crap after dinner I have been toning it down because I am sick of starving all day saving my calories for dinner. What's the difference? I'm not really sure but I always had a hard time controlling my binge eating after dinner because there was no consequences, I just went to bed feeling like shit and started fresh in the morning and hosed my calories over and over again every night to the point where I always gave up on counting them. Now if I go overboard in my binge time I feel the damage the next day when I am in control. I haven't been doing this for a long time but so far the results are looking good. The first day I did it I had 700 calories till after dinner. Today I have 1200 calories till after dinner and that was with eating a bunch of carrots and a granola bar for lunch. I feel silly because my weight isn't that high, if I lost 30lbs I would be normal and not overweight, I would love to lose 40lbs. I don't think it matters though if it is 40lbs or 140lbs the struggle is real for all of us. [link] [comments] |
| Use laziness to your advantage Posted: 06 Jul 2021 09:53 AM PDT Humans are lazy. we just are. we don't have a huge amount of willpower at all times, especially late in the evening. Use this to your advantage. Construct your environment to make healthy eating easier and quicker than eating junk. Don't keep junk around. Make it hard to access junk. Do keep healthy options around. Make it easy to access healthy options. I have a bowl of fruit on the table. I have microwave popcorn ready to go (300 calories per 8 cups of popcorn!). I have fat free greek yogurt and berries in the fridge. I almost always have healthy food prepped and ready for the microwave. Bagged salad makes it easier for me to pick a salad; so i have lots of bagged salad on hand (with low calorie dressing). If I want junk food I have to leave the house to go and get it. I don't have any food delivery apps, i don't have the numbers of any restaurants saved on my phone. if i want to order food i have to use google, i have to download apps, i have to make phone calls. small barriers; but for me it helps enough to save some calories. i even have a friend who puts all the junk-food on top of the fridge where she cant reach it without a chair (she's short), and for her this makes enough of a difference to save some calories Willpower is great. but it will eventually fail. So shape your environment to make dieting easy and low effort. Keep junkfood out of sight, ideally out of the house. And work on building good habits too, so its second nature to you to make healthy choices. How else can you use laziness to your advantage when dieting? [link] [comments] |
| Starting my weight loss journey. I want to lose 100 pounds in 12 months. [Post 1] Posted: 06 Jul 2021 10:08 PM PDT Hoping to post here to keep me on track. At some point I may post progress pics.. we'll see. I am a 30 year old male, 6"1'. My basic weight backstory is I weighed 320 in highschool. From ages 18-20 I got highly active and ate better and got down to 180 pounds. Then I hovered between 195-220 from 20-28. Over the last 15 months, I let COVID + relationship stress + work stress be an excuse to stop exercising, and start drinking tons of beer + eating takeout. I went from 220 to 282. I broke things off with my long time GF a month ago as we were both making ourselves miserable. I bought a scale, I expected to see 240, maybe 250 worst case. When I saw the 282 I was shocked. Holy crap - I am fat again. I instantly knew I had to make a change. So far it is 1 month in, I have ate salads for 90% of meals, drink 0-1 night a week only, and am 268 pounds. It's going to be a hell of a journey, but I am committed to get it done. Target weight 185 pounds by next June. [link] [comments] |
| I literally ate one 5 layer burrito and stopped at one! Posted: 06 Jul 2021 09:17 PM PDT I have suffered from binge eating ever since I was a child. I didn't even think about changing my body and being healthier until June of 2018, my senior year of highschool. I remember stepping on the scale for the first time in AGES. And I knew then, that I had to do something about it. I was 210lbs (F20 5'7), the highest I ever was (and ever will be). I started out really progressing from the get-go. I entered my freshman year of college, I had a good scale, I was all ready to go. So I did it. I went down from 210lbs to 156lbs. It was great! But then....I stopped. I told myself "I'm done, I've reached my goal weight". It wasn't until much much later that I realized it was far from over. I steadily gained back 40lbs and stood at 191lbs. Then I had to do it all over again. And...I did it, again. This time, I surpassed my goal by 20lbs! I stood at 139lbs. But then, chaos occurred. I had to take a Medical Leave of Absence after having a mental breakdown at college. I was back at home, got a boyfriend, and got way too comfortable. I gained 53lbs. Yes, 53. I was 193lbs. And I felt so ashamed. I wanted to just cry forever and never do anything with anyone again. I then tried to lose the weight again. But that time, it didn't stick. I couldn't continue it, not because of a healthy problem, but because I simply wanted to eat more than I wanted to lose weight. So I inched closer and closer to 200lbs. I never did reach it, but damn was I close. I stood there at 198.9lbs. And then it struck me. I refuse to keep gaining weight. I want the feeling of losing weight more than I want the feeling of eating food. Now I am on a weight loss journey again. But what has changed? My will of fire (anyone get the Naruto ref?) I know what to do to lose weight. But I still have to learn how to keep it off. And that is the result of the journey this time. By the end of this, I will have learned how to effectively lose weight and keep it off. The day will come soon enough. I just finished eating a 5 layer burrito from taco bell. Had it doordashed to me and everything. I told myself I'd have one, and I got one. I ate it, loved it, and moved on. I didn't say "fuck it", I'll eat another one. Or: I'll order some more taco bell. No, I stood my ground against my biggest enabler: myself. And I'm proud. Thank you for reading. Stats: F20 5"7' SW:210lbs CW:195.8lbs GW:130lbs [link] [comments] |
| What food item do you refuse to compromise on, or replace with a lower calorie alternative? Posted: 07 Jul 2021 12:34 AM PDT Whether it is a single ingredient or a fully cooked recipe, what have you tried to cut out of your diet or replace with low-cal alternatives, but ended up switching back to the original? Mine is real butter. I love toast with butter, its a comfort thing for me. Ive tried the low-cal butter spreads but hate the way they sink into the toast and give it a weird texture and i don't enjoy it. I grew up with real creamy Irish lightly salted butter. I used to slather on the butter and have it dripping down my chin. Since successfully sticking to a healthier, calorie tracked diet (after first of all going crazy low fat, low cal and failing at that), I have learnt that i can have a sensible measured portion of real butter on my toast or melting over my vegetables and fit it into my daily allowance, while actually enjoying it. So whats your food vice? [link] [comments] |
| [Challenge] European Accountability Challenge: July 7th, 2021 Posted: 06 Jul 2021 11:05 PM PDT Hi team Euro accountability, I hope you're all well! For anyone new who wants to join today, this is a daily post where you can track your goals, keep yourself accountable, get support and have a chat with friendly people at times that are convenient for European time zones. Check-in daily, weekly, or whatever works best for you. It's never the wrong time to join! Anyone and everyone are welcome! Tell us about yourself and let's continue supporting each other. Let us know how your day is going, or, if you're checking in early, how your yesterday went! Share your victories, rants, problems, NSVs, SVs, we are here! I want to shortly also mention — this thread lives and breathes by people supporting each other :) so if you have some time, comment on the other posts! Show support, offer advice and share experiences :) [link] [comments] |
| 24-Hour Pledge - Wednesday, 07 July 2021 - The Plan for Today! Posted: 06 Jul 2021 10:01 PM PDT Wake up with determination; go to bed with satisfaction! This is our daily check-in, to help keep us accountable over the long haul. Feel free to post whatever goals will help keep you on track. Here's the regular text on behalf of this thread's originator, kingoftheeyesores, taken with his blessing
Thanks to /u/nofollowthrough who made the 24-Hour Pledge an ongoing /r/loseit institution. Due to space limitations, this may be a sticky only occasionally. Please find it daily using the sidebar or top message. --- On reddit, your *vote* means, *"I found this interesting"* (...read more about [**voting on reddit**](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/voting)) --- [link] [comments] |
| Week 1 of my 12 week challenge Posted: 07 Jul 2021 12:33 AM PDT Hey gang, i was in a really good place earlier this year, having ran my first ultra marathon (look through my post history) but a back injury has seen me not running, eating cake and drinking beers. Work started a weight loss challenge with our weigh in last Thursday where i weighed 88.6kg. That was a bit of a shock. Weekly weigh ins are held every Wednesday, and today, being Wednesday i weighed in. I made sure i was not snacking. I wasnt eating large dinners. I shifted my lunch time to 10am and had a small snack at 1pm. This way i was hungry come dinner time. Dinner has been about half what i normally eat, and ive been on a couple of small runs again. The result is a solid 1.3kg ! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2021 06:13 PM PDT Since November my stomach has felt pretty nauseous. It got so bad that I dropped down to 314lbs, because I absolutely couldn't hardly eat for a week and a half. I went to the doctor and they said it was GERD, and they gave me pills, in January. I put the weight back on, but the nausea never completely left. I went back in June and they told me I had elevated liver enzymes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. They changed my heart burn medication and tried to put me on blood pressure medicine. That's when I decided that I needed to take control of my life! Right now, it's been 3 weeks since I was at the Doctors… I'm down 15 lbs, to 315 and my blood pressure has been normal for a week and half, without me being on medication. I'm walking a mile and a half a day and making sure I get in 6,000 steps. Although the nausea hasn't gone away, it seems to be getting better little by little! I have a long way to go, but I'm getting there! [link] [comments] |
| 17 days into my caloric deficit/daily exercise journey Posted: 06 Jul 2021 01:13 PM PDT It's been 17 days since I started running. I started on June 14th and have done it everyday except for Saturday's and Sunday's. Same w calorie deficit but I usually let myself eat at a maintenance a day of the weekend. I haven't tried any exercise except for running. I run at a park and the track there is about .60 of a mile. So to complete a full mile, I have to run more than a full lap. I've only recently (2 days ago) achieved running a full mile! Let me tell you, running used to be HARD. I'm 5'2, a woman, and over 200 lbs. I'm so happy I can finally run 1 mile and not be dying because of it. I feel lighter when I run, I don't get tired as fast, when I do get tired, it's not like my hearts beating out of my chest. I just last longer in general! The point of this post is to record my progress. SW: 209 CW: 205 Goal: 150 Btw, it takes me from 13-14 minutes on average to run a full mile. I've never been this motivated in my life. [link] [comments] |
| I want to stage an "intervention" for my dad. Any advice? Posted: 07 Jul 2021 02:08 AM PDT I've been apart of this community a long time, and it's helped me tremendously. But right now I don't want to focus on me. I apologize if this post is inappropriate for this sub. My family has always been overweight/obese. My grandfather was morbidly obese and died at the age of 56 due to his poor health. Next week is my father's 50th birthday. He is about the same size as my grandfather. If I had to guess, he's 5'6 and no less than 300lbs. Doctors have told him for years to lose weight. He has tried multiple times and failed each time. With my dad getting close to my grandpa's age, I don't want to sit back anymore. I want to sit my dad down and explain my worries. I want to get him healthy. Here's what I have in mind so far: - Explain my concerns about his health, especially the longevity of his life - Empathize with the weight loss struggles - Suggest new ways to approach this (CICO, gym buddy, support group/therapy, consult a doctor) - Emphasize that we all want to support him (imo, this will only work if my entire house changes the diet of multiple fast food outings a week, etc.) - Remind him that I love him, and that I'm doing this out of love Anything I should add or get rid of? Any advice on how to approach this? Advice to give him? Or, you know, should I even bother? I know it's not my business, but I just don't want to lose him in the next decade. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 06 Jul 2021 09:10 AM PDT Hey, so I'm a 22 year old male who's 5'10 and my starting weight 2 weeks ago was around 227-230 I've been on a calorie deficit diet staying between 1200-1700 calories a day and today I weighed myself and it said I was 215.4lbs. Ever since then my parents have been constantly saying how I'm doing this the wrong way, how I'm losing weight is going to destroy my organs and that I'm going to get really sick. Both my parents are kinda out of shape and never stuck to a diet before. I don't know anyone who's in decent shape or has a very healthy diet so I'm kinda confused on who to believe. I see hundreds of thousands of people on Reddit who do the 1200 or 1500 calorie diet and they are just fine. Any advice here? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2021 01:55 AM PDT Stats Age: 17 Height: 6ft (183cm) SW: 107kg (235lbs) CW: 99.8kg (220lbs) GW: 83kg (182lbs) I was always sceptical when the scale wasn't moving as i thougbt i was doing all the things right, calories, exercise, nutrition. But now i'm over the moon. A month ago i lost only 4kg (8lbs) of weight which was probably water weight and that brought me down to 103kg (227lbs) then to 101kg (222lbs) and i didn't go any lower. I was hovering between 101kg (222lbs) and 102.1kg (225lbs) for the longest time which was really frustrating. But, I just weighed myself this morning and i'm down to 99.8kg (220lbs) I think my calorie intake of 1800 paired with workouts and stuff are somewhat working. I signed up to the gym last week and have be telling myself to hit the gym and weight train at least 3x a week minimum which i've accomplished. Now once UK college has finished for the year, i will be upping my frequency to hit the gym 4x a week doing an Upper/Lower Split. I'm really proud of myself, now i have to keep focus and discipline to get to my goal weight of 83kg (182lbs). All of this is for my overall health and because i play football (soccer), having an athletic or lean physique can greatly improve my cardiovascular endurance and physical prowess/game. My long-term goals are:
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| Trying to start my weight loss journey Posted: 07 Jul 2021 12:05 AM PDT So I'm 22, 6 foot 2, and 312 pounds. I've always been on the bigger side (I played on the OLine in HS football), but somewhere along the way my weight got away from me. I would like to get to roughly 210 pounds, as I'm bigger than most other people my height. I don't eat very healthily at the moment as I'm in college, and I don't exercise much, both of which I'm going to change soon. I started on MyFitnessPal and taking a before picture was shocking enough to make me realize this is a real problem. I guess I'm just looking for guidance on what the best exercise routines I should start doing and what meal plans I should follow. I can cook and I've worked out before, but the hardest part for me has been starting the process. Any and all advice is welcome as I'm pretty much starting from scratch. [link] [comments] |
| Progressive overload and going until failure Posted: 06 Jul 2021 11:48 PM PDT Hello everybody, I'm just wondering if anybody can offer me any advice for which of these is better? I'm trying to lose weight while also maintain or build muscle by using resistance bands. Basically, I started doing 8 reps per exercise and increased by 1 or 2 each week. Now I'm at about 15 reps per exercise and I'm planning on going to heavier resistance and restarting with 8 reps from it and repeat this until I'm done cutting or for however long I can. But, I asked somebody and they told me that I shouldnt be counting reps if I am using bands because the volume may be too low even if the reps are higher, meaning I wont get alot of stimulus. They told me to just go until failure right now and even when I use heavier resistance. And others have said it is better to count reps and increase by 1 or 2 reps each week so that I know how much I'm progressing by. Now I'm just sort of confused on what would be better option. I appreciate if anybody can help. [link] [comments] |
| Tired of being overweight. Advice? Posted: 06 Jul 2021 07:05 PM PDT Hi everyone. I'm 17F, 5'4" and around 160-170lbs. I've been big for what feels like my whole life. I've never felt confident with the way I looked and wished I was thinner. I recently tried to start a weight loss journey by just taking a walk everyday and it was going good. I tried to do IF and at home workouts and it didn't work out as well as I hoped it would. I've broken my healthy eating habits almost every day. I just feel so frustrated with my weight and it feels nearly impossible. I hate the way my body looks and I want to change it, but it's so hard to resist junk food and my cultural foods that aren't as healthy. If anyone has any advice on how to go about this, it's greatly appreciated. [link] [comments] |
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