I posted 2 weeks ago and didn’t expect to see the scale move again so much so soon, but today I hit 8kg lost (~18lbs) or 8% of my body weight.
3 months ago my starting weight was a little over 100kg, I’m 173cm and in my late 30s. My interim goal was 90kg by the end of September (I’m going on holiday!) and I feel pretty confident in achieving it.
My partner and family said you could see my weight loss once I reached 4kg but I couldn’t really. Now I definitely can! My face looks less puffy and I’ve dropped at least one dress size. It’s been so hard, especially as my doctors doubled my steroid dosage recently, so I’m really proud of myself.
I’m still eating about 1400 calories a day but I’ve mixed it up a bit now. I have a couple of low cal (1200) days, a couple of 1400 and a couple of 1600. I have one or two 2000 days a month. Although my overall calorie intake is roughly the same, my body seems to respond better to the variation.
I’m not going to adjust my 90kg-by-October target, I’m just going to continue and see where I end up. Once I’m home from holiday I’ll reset and aim to lose another 10% by next spring.
Good job! That’s amazing.
Keep up the hard work, it WILL pay off.
I’m also someone who found that varying calories per day works out best, as long as the week is the same
Interesting – works best as in, is most practical? I’ve been doing same calories per day for a year now, but I’m basically a hermit and do have issues when I do eat socially (I’m not the type of person to want to bother to interrupt convos and flows by trying to measure food while at a restaurant)-- perhaps varying calories helps with this?
It’s more flexible, is largely the reason. It leads to less stress, and potential for disordered eating too. At least for me.
It lets me eat a little more, or a little less healthy on the weekends. I ate half a pizza for dinner tonight. lol. Not ideal, but it was planned into my weeks calories, so it’s totally ok.
I have days where I have to force myself to even hit 1200 calories, and days where I could easily eat 2500 calories, without thinking. So, it helps balance that out too.
I also discovered if I eat 2 bigger meals, rather than 3 meals, I feel much better. I’m less likely to snack too.
Interesting. I’m close to sold! If you don’t mind me asking, why do you think it’s hard for you to reach 1200 calories on some days?
Mental health issues are most of it
Well done!!!
Thank you! I appreciate how boring this text post about losing 2kg more is! But I was just bursting to share because it’s been such a struggle, and even your loved ones don’t understand unless they’ve actively tried to lose weight before.
Thank you so much for the encouragement!
When I was finding success at this, I was so excited I felt like somebody who had captured lightning in a jar! Go ahead, feel excited!
Well done.
1400 is tough! How do you schedule the days with higher intake? With LoseIt? That was the one thing definitively better about that app than MFP when I trialed both in parallel, although ultimately the comparatively small food library made MFP win out.
I use lose it (i think I paid £15 for the year!) but I don’t schedule my days in advance.
I’ve always been a bit all or nothing with my eating - I go through phases of having to force my self to eat and then (more commonly) wanting to eat non stop. I’ve been like that since I was a child. I really dislike the feeling of being deprived of something I want and I respond so much better to successes rather than failures. I’ve learnt just to roll with it as opposed to forcing myself to stick to conventional dieting rules. I want this to be a life long change rather than a diet, so the only rule I have is that each month I eat less than I burn off.
My daily intake is set as 1700 on lose it (that was auto generated based on my starting weight, goal, movement). 90% of the time I’m under that target so I get a nice green tick that makes me feel better about my self. I’m below my weekly target by 2000-3000 calories 75% of the time so I know I have leeway when I want it. I tend to focus on my weekly/monthly intake rather than my daily, which is something I really like about lose it.
Here’s a 8 week period when I recorded everything every single day. It’s pretty representative:
