LoseIt: Lose the Fat

I have been overweight since childhood and after college I put on about 2kg per year on average. In between I managed to diet off some kg but quickly gained them back every time.

This time I am combining my past dieting experiences with professional help from a registered dietician and a personal trainer (I am an emotional eater and hope to be able to use sport for mental stability as well as physical health).

I am trying to stay <2000kcal on most days of the week and in any case under the estimated daily calories of my apple watch.

I’ve been struggling my whole life and finally went to my doctor and said I need medical help. At this point I’m 43 and any side affects from medication would be outweighed by the health detriment posed by staying overweight. I realized this year I have binge eating disorder stemming from childhood trauma, I eat to disengage and be numb.

I’ve been working hard on the trauma. Doctor put me on Vyvanse, an add drug, because it is showing success as off label help for bing eating. It’s been two weeks and it’s amazing.

The meds help stem my appetite so it’s easy to eat what I need calorically and then stop. My calorie goal is around 2,300 but most days I don’t hit 2,000. I make sure by body isn’t starving but I’m finding it easy to maintain a calorie level that lets me lose weight at a nice speed.

For me, if I don’t eat a lot I lose weight. I have to wayyy over eat to stay fat.

Long story short, I’ve been taking Vyvanse and dieting since July 18 and have lots 8 pounds.

I’m on my 87th day straight of doing CICO. I have been doing ok and have managed to drop about 10 lbs. although the number isn’t that impressive I find that what is is that I’ve tracked for 3 months straight without skipping a single day. I have so many days tracked where I failed miserably but I haven’t given up even though I’ve had so many bad days.

Kinda in the middle of it! Started out at around 95 kg, at the same time as I started climbing. Went down to about 80 kg, but when I moved to a new city in combination with vacation it kinda got lost, and I'm currently at about 84 kg, but want to get more into losing some more weight as well as improving at climbing. Goal is to keep it between 70 and 75 kg!

I guess I'm what you could call a long-term maintainer. Health pressed me to lose a lot of weight (115lbs) and I've kept it off with little variation for 22 years this summer. Though I did pick up a few lbs over the pandemic while caring for my mother in her final months.

I pretty much know what I have to do personally to keep my weight and health in line. I suspect this is a little different for everyone. For me promoting satiety is a big deal. I like to read about what works for others. Before I hit the wall and resolved to break my problem into manageable pieces I floundered for years losing a bit and often gaining more. I've found sustaining a healthy weight for me requires a daily mindfulness of what is at stake.

I'm considering making some media about my experiences. For the longest time I wasn't sure I had anything original to say about it. So much clueless crowing about weight loss, leaning on survivorship bias, etc. But I feel like I've got a bit of insight into the sustainable side of things. Happy to share with anyone who might find it helpful.

I'm M, age 60, 5'10.5'' From 298-lb to 171-lb (179cm, 135-kg to 77.5-kg)

My first day of logging -- exactly a year ago -- was rather... incomplete. I only logged breakfast. But, the next day was better; and the next day was too.

It didn't start pretty: I didn't hit the calorie goal, I didn't watch my macros, I didn't make my walking goal right away, I was certain a gram of carbohydrates had 9 calories^wrong!^ but fat only had 4 calories ^wrong^-- that's why carbohydrates were bad^wrong^. Starvation mode was true^wrong^, and so were Set Points^sorta-wrong^, and my genes would never going to let me lose weight^wrong^. I was logging to appease my doctor and get through his training, this was not expected to actually work.

For those that don't know my story, I have been fighting against and coping with my fat all of my life. It affected my career and my self esteem. I've tried fad diets, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Low-Carb -- they all worked until they all eventually failed. I got diabetes and I was having trouble managing the three insulin shots and five pills a day. The diabetes was rapidly affecting my eyesight and I also had peripheral neuropathy. I needed to do something.

I was going through the process of getting weight-loss surgery. (I didn't have the surgery.) My surgeon's process included training -- part of my post-surgery recovery and maintenance would be logging my food and light walking. I was assigned pre-surgery homework: log my current food for 3 weeks and walk 3 times per week for 30 minutes. Do it before so I'll know how to do it afterward. They recommended MyFitnessPal as one of the ways to track my food. So I logged and I walked -- and I lost almost 20 pounds in 3 weeks. The calorie goal wasn't my goal -- my goal was the logging, but there was the goal and sometimes I was even hitting the goal!

After the homework was over, I continued to track calories and walk. I was hitting the goal more regularly and the doctor wanted me lighter for the surgery, anyway -- and this was working.

Two weeks more (around week 5) of logging, and I became hypoglycemic: my blood sugar was too low. This was a bit of an emergency, I needed sugar right away. Ultimately, to get it back into a safe range, I had to stop all of the insulin and four of the five pills. Neither my doctor or I was saying it at the time, but we both were thinking the same thing: there will be no surgery. This is working. Let's see if it keeps working.

But dieting has worked before -- this was all too familiar. What makes it work and then fail? Set points again? I thought back to all those other times -- all those other food logs -- hey -- maybe logging makes it work! Maybe logging made all those other diets work and, at some point, when I reached some confidence and repetition with them, I would quit the logging part. I would continue to diet and try to mentally keep track, but I would stop physically logging. In each effort, shortly after the logging stopped, the effort stopped.

Two more weeks and that last pill was stopped again, just to get my blood sugar back up to normal. I was going to continue logging, walking, losing, but this time, the last thing I'll give up is the logging. If the going gets tough, I'll log through it -- I may have to give up something else, but I'm not giving up on tracking my food.

Those of you who have followed, know this part ...

I posted a 60 day update. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1433376/60-days-of-logging-turns-into-motivation-and-changes and every 30 days after that, I posted an update

• Day 90: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10001058/day-90-still-going-strong
• Day 120: https://redd.it/2lo4ff ... the honeymoon is over, but still losing at a nice rate
• Day 150: https://redd.it/2on6oi ... seems to be a series of short plateaus now
• Day 180: https://redd.it/2rmizv ... no longer in the obese range! Haven't been this weight since 1983!
• Day 210: https://redd.it/2uzbvk ... it's hard to walk with all this damned snow!
• Day 240: https://redd.it/2ybzk1 ... I didn't gain weight during my vacation, receiving TOPS award!
• Day 270: https://redd.it/31q9k5 ... Triple digits! Lost over 100 lbs total! Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now!
• Day 300: https://redd.it/355op9 ... New lowest diabetes tests, first day of maintenance...

The support on Reddit's /r/loseit subreddit has been awesome and I have a circle of friends on /r/loseit and MyFitnessPal that was with me all of the way. I also meet weekly with a support group called TOPS that provided some accountability. I enjoy the "give and get" from both and it all has helped me. My spouse has been a wonderful cheerleader and he has lost 45 lbs. with me! My family and friends have also cheered me on. It's terrific!

As you can see, it started with the logging and tracking and just some light walking. And that's the plan for maintenance. I'll never stop logging. I'll keep walking and participating in online forums and in TOPS.

And now I've been maintaining for the last 8 years. In TOPS, I'm a KOPS (Keeping Off Pounds Sensibly) and still going to meetings and getting weighed and encouraged to maintain my program each week. No more shots or pills - my BP is 116/66 -- my blood sugar is normal.

I'm still active here and all this keeps me grounded -- making better well-ingrained habits and precepts out of these new skills and information.

• Album: http://imgur.com/a/cPA6J

TL;DR: Seriously diabetic guy figures it out after decades of failing, big health gains after only 60 days; loses and starts to maintain loss of over 125 lbs.! Says after one year: Don't stop logging! Still logging 8 years later!

Been doing intermittent fasting 13-23 hours every day for 11 months so far and am in the final rounds. Started slow and increased the fasting time gradually. Lost 100 pounds so far. Only fasting, without any fitness program. “Just” behavioral modification. But the key for me is the why and then a commit. There has to be an emotionally loaded strong enough real reason to become healthier, or I wouldn’t have been able to do it so consistently. So I started with the why, gave it a lot of thought. Decided on a health and weight goal, wrote it down along with the reasoning, and then committed. The things I’ve been doing and that have become habit (and thus easy) are:

• I eat a normal healthy dinner, preferably with vegetables and not too much fat, every day, around the same time. One plate. Make sure to get all the vitamins needed, supplement if needed. I only supplement C.
• I start the fast right after dinner. I use an app called Zero to register start and stop times and keep track, it’s free. It’s been a great help.
• No snacking during fasting, no energy intake.
• I drink lots of water, coffee (no sugar), and diet cola.
• I fast as long as I can, 13 hours minimum. Eventually got up to about 23 hours / one meal a day.
• I weigh in and log every morning. I use a smart scale. It’s motivating when you start to see the progress.
• I have a cheat day once a week where I eat a bit of snacks after dinner. That’s what has been working great for me.