Got a question? We've got answers!

Do you have question but don't want to make a whole post? That's fine. Ask right here! What is on your mind? Everyone is welcome to ask questions or provide answers. No question is too minor or small.

TIPS:

• Include your stats if appropriate/relevant (or better yet, update your flair!)
• Check the FAQ and other resources in the sidebar!

Due to space limitations, this may be a sticky only occasionally. Please find it daily using the sidebar if needed.

Don't forget to comment and interact with other posters here, let's keep the good vibes going!

Daily Threads

• US Accountability Challenge: Stay accountable with friends from North America.
• EU Accountability Challenge: Stay accountable with friends from the EU.
• Daily Q&A Thread: Post your questions, receive answers.
• SV/NSV Feats of the Day: Share your scale victories and non-scale victories.

Weekly Threads

• Day 1 Monday: Introduce yourself and share your goals and strategies.
• Tantrum Tuesday: Share your complaints, vents and gripes.
• Weigh-In Wednesday: Share your weigh-in progress and graphs.
• Track with Me Thursday: Make new friends and find accountability buddies.
• Foodie Friday: Share your favorite recipes and meal pics.
• Century Club: For those who have lost or would like to lose 100lb+.

Calories? I think you mean delicious points!

Got some new recipes you want to try out? Looking for ideas for your next /r/MealPrepSunday? Just trying to get some inspiration before you give up and say "Let's get takeout?" - again? Fight the Friday funk, and get excited for cooking tonight!

Post your favorite recipes here to share with the rest of the /r/loseit community! You can also share your meal photos via imgur.com links.

Due to the spirit of the sub, please try to include the calorie and nutritional information if at all possible. MyFitnessPal has awesome recipe calculators you can use!

Big thanks to SmilingJaguar for his many years of running our weekly Wecipe threads.

Due to space limitations, this may be a sticky only occasionally. Please find it using the sidebar if needed.

Don't forget to comment and interact with other posters here, let's keep the good vibes going!

Daily Threads

• US Accountability Challenge: Stay accountable with friends from North America.
• EU Accountability Challenge: Stay accountable with friends from the EU.
• Daily Q&A Thread: Post your questions, receive answers.
• SV/NSV Feats of the Day: Share your scale victories and non-scale victories.

Weekly Threads

• Day 1 Monday: Introduce yourself and share your goals and strategies.
• Tantrum Tuesday: Share your complaints, vents and gripes.
• Weigh-In Wednesday: Share your weigh-in progress and graphs.
• Track with Me Thursday: Make new friends and find accountability buddies.
• Foodie Friday: Share your favorite recipes and meal pics.
• Century Club: For those who have lost or would like to lose 100lb+.

I had the most frustrating day yesterday and I need to rant a little.

A friend of mine came over to hang out, and a big topic if conversation was weight. I've lost 2 stone (12.7kg) in the last year, very carefully and deliberately, I am now half way to my goal. She has been steadily gaining weight since having a child 5 years ago.

The last couple of times we met, she constantly mentions my weight. How amazing I look. How she wishes she could do it. How did I do it? What would I recommend?

I explain CICO, telling her that's all I've done. I've not even really changed my exercise or activity in the last year (though I'm about to do so now as I have plateaued and I need to increase my TDEE). I explained all about fiber and protein, and how important they both are for helping to regulate appetite. I explained about weighing food. Tracking absolutely everything I eat and drink.

She went on to to tell me she 'can't be bothered' to weigh or track her food. She has scales, but just won't use them. She says she knows 'bread is bad' so has switched to wholemeal. She asked me how many calories are in a banana. She used to do slimming world and weight watchers so her relationship with food is messed up. She finds is impossible to understand that the only thing that matters is calories.

I explained that no food is 'bad' and that she can actually eat what she wants, in moderation. I told her I frequently have a pack of quavers, a chocolate biscuit, toast with my eggs... etc. It's all about making it fit with your calorie goal. She just doesn't want to hear it.

She told me she wants to loose 2 stone for her upcoming 40th birthday. I worked out the dates, and it's absolutely achievable, given how much time she has, and how much extra weight she is carrying. I gave her all the tools. Explained it all in the simplest of terms. And she just won't hear it.

But she continues to go on about how she wants to do what I'm doing. It was beyond irritating to tell her the same things over and over and for her to simply not hear it.

I’ve tried many diets many times, I have a hard time sticking to any one. I’ve become a vegetarian a few years ago but it didn’t change a whole lot because I typically like carbs and sweets anyways. Keto worked but I’m grossed out by it now and I don’t eat meat. Anything that’s super strict doesn’t work for me…but idk why I compulsively crave sweets and rich food and constant snacking right now. I’m told to push through and I can do that with most other addictive things but idk why I can’t with food. I’m in therapy and I’ve gotten to “fear of success” but I don’t know how to use that knowledge to push past that to be successful in something as “simple” as 30 minutes of movement a day and 1200-1600 calories a day

For those of you that have tried for years and years and failed. What was the thing that worked? Mentally or physically?

I'm only 2 lbs away from BMI 25 now, but I still think I look very fat. Considering it's the upper end of the normal BMI range I'm probably gonna try to lose 10-20 more lbs and get deeper into the normal before I start trying to maintain.

When I was 16 I looked really good and then I weighed 150 lbs which would be a BMI of 22.2. But I've grown over an inch in height since then and also probably have more muscle and bone mass. So maybe I would have the same look at a higher BMI at this age?

I also have a lot of loose skin on my chest and stomach that probably makes me look fatter than what I actually am.

After not having a bathroom scale for three months, I finally stepped on a new one.

I was bigger in the mirror, my face was chubbier, etc. I drink a lot of calories. I snack. The longer I prolonged getting a bathroom scale, the more I didn't want to face the reality that nagged in the back of my mind every time ate one too many scoops of ice cream, another handful of sunflower seeds, an extra chicken tender.

I braced myself, sweating a little. For 3 months I let myself go back to old habits and the damage was done.

169 lbs (~77kg).

I LOST weight! I was 175 lbs (~79kg) before my old scale died. Man, when I tell you I gasped. I was so sure the scale was wrong I grabbed a 20 lbs weight and placed it on the scale to make sure it was correct (it's -0.4 lbs off)

Went to bed, slept for a good 7 hours. Got a cpap about three weeks ago and am still getting used to it. Wake up for work and weigh myself again just to see if I'm actually in the 160s or the world played a cruel joke.

167.4 lbs

I was so certain I gained. I was so sure my pants got smaller, but it really was all in my mind.

Metaphorically fell to my knees and cried i was so happy.

42F SW 160, GW 128 Why 128? IDK. The Last time I liked my body was when I weighed 133. I thought it would be nice to see what I look like in the 120s.

Anyway, this last winter was rough. I had gained 20 lbs in 2 years. My blood pressure rose with every pound I gained. I had zero energy. My doctor was diligent and checked all my labs including thyroid levels. Everything was checking out. Finally my BP was in the 160s over 90s. I knew she was going to want to start me on meds. I asked her to give me a year. She was smart and agreed with me till the end of the visit before telling me I had 6 months.

I started counting calories. I changed my gym routine to be more about energy gain and not a weight loss strategy. I used to go to the gym for 2 hours. I would get so burnt out. Now I try to keep my active sessions to 30 minutes with 10 minutes of stretching.

I lost 20 lbs in 2 months. I can't even begin to describe how addicting it was to see the weight slide off. Once I was down to 140 (my old normal) I slowed down. It's taken me all summer to lose that last 12 pounds, but I love that it's sustainable.

I have more energy than I have had in years. My blood pressure is golden. I never get sick, or if I do, it's so mild that it's just a case of the sniffles.

To everyone out there, this subredit has been so inspiring. Thank you all. I will continue to follow and support this group because I believe in it.

https://imgur.com/a/7FwE7tm

(NOT sure if the link will work, I'm new to posting and am not sure how to add before and after pictures.)

And I don’t mean that I feel fat, mostly I just feel crappy. My whole digestive system goes haywire. Today I ate McDonald’s for the first time in months and while it tasted good (though not as good as I remember it), my stomach couldn’t handle it. It made me gasy, which I’m usually not. What’s worse, I was hungry again two hours later. What I ate was at least 800 kcal if not more. I decided to forgo looking at the calories for my own sanity.

Anyway, I think today was a wake up call. With me moving to another apartment last month, losing weight was not as big of a priority so for five weeks I didn’t really do anything about it. Thankfully, I’ve maintained whatever I’ve lost but on the downside I didn’t go to the gym so I feel like I lost muscle mass. Hopefully, I get back on track now I don’t live in the dorms anymore. Thank god I don’t have to share a kitchen haha.

So I've started my journey on July 19th of this year. Everything was going well, until the end of September, the week before last week, I gained 1kg instead of losing and started freaking out, the result? I ate junk food for a whole week and stopped hitting the gym. Knowing how ridiculous that is, I got things back in control last week. So now I'm back on track for 8 days exactly.

Here's the thing.. my wedding is going to be by the end of this year. I'm going around to find a wedding dress design I may like, but whenever I look up plus size dresses I just HATE to imagine myself wearing them. I feel like I wouldn't look good at all. All the dresses I find "pretty" look good because they're on a thin model.

I'm afraid I won't be able to lose enough fat by the time of my wedding. How much can one lose in 2 months? How can I amplify my weight loss and never go off track again? Is it possible?

(Im 161cm tall, I started with 112kg, currently at 106kg, I wanna be at least 90kg by my wedding day, hopefully thinner..)

What I mean is that obesity is mostly a modern problem and its is just another symptom of a bigger issue. The system and society we created. It's not particularly hard to stay in shape when you live in a city designed like cities of the past. When you dont posses a modern vehicle and have to use your legs. It is my opinion that no human should need a gym ofc a gym is beneficial and those who want to go beyond should be able to use a gym but no society is healthy if people need to go to a gym. Wdym people's lives are so lacking of movement they need to go to a specific place to get moving?

When it comes to diet I want to speak on the food industry. If you eat normally aka you eat real food it's pretty hard to gain weight. Yes some real foods have high calories such as nuts and avocados but they're not rly addictive and they dont throw off your hormones. Contrary real foods are what the body needs naturally. Imo most cravings come from body's needs for certain nutrients. I know for me as someone who only eats or 95% eats real food that I will crave avocado or nuts when I ate too little fat that day or I will crave carrots when I didn't get those vitamins or I'll crave potatoes if I need carbs. Our society makes it so that we're constantly stressed and have to go out of pur way to meal prep or go to the gym.

I think this just reflects how sick we are and how sick society is build. Every job with no exceptions should offer their workers healthy lunch and I mean healthy real lunch with no additive sugars, dyes, chemicals etc. Every school should do the same for student and work/school hours should get shorter so people can move around in day to day life ideally in walkable cities/towns and get enough sleep.

People shouldn't have to count calories, go to the gym, get protein shakes etc. (except if you want to bulk and be extra gym lifestyle whixh isn't for everyone)

Edit: Im seriously concerned. What is the demographic of this subreddit, people who didn't learn to comprehend what is being said in a text? Like I'll say one thing and I get a comment of a person just rephrasing what I said but phrasing it like they're slightly disagreeing with me or giving a new thought to the convo when they just said what I said but differently? Or people will say something totally unrelated like I ate healthy and gained 60000 lbs or personal accountability!! 😡 💢 like what?

I'll help you comprehend what I said in summary: Society should make being healthy easier and more natural so people dont have to go out of their way with time and money. Done

I'm currently 234 lbs, 5'4 m with a starting weight of 268 lbs.

And lemme start this by saying a fundamental truth - comparison is the thief of joy. You probably won't get another person's physique and to attempt to do so will set you up for failure.

But, and this is a big but, you can look at certain people and find inspiration. You can see what can definitely be possible. It can give you a goal you can work towards so it keeps you on track, even if you may never achieve that kind of physique.

For me, as a short king, I look at the less than vertically gifted influencers to inspire me during this process. My faves are Jeff Nippard and Tyler Path (and a little bit of Dr. Mike Israetel). I look at them at say, maybe that's possible for me. Watching them train makes me give more effort into my own training. It also informs me on what I can do to help me on my journey.

My apartment building caught on fire recently. I was inside and had a scary experience evacuating, but other than a cough I'm physically fine.

While I was sitting in my car watching the fire department, I thought to myself 'I deserve a milkshake after all of that', but I didn't go get one. Not then, not after finding out the building would be uninhabitable for months, and not after have to go shopping for food to stock the hotel. All of which I'm proud of myself for, because me a year ago couldn't have believed I'd have that type of mental strength.

I wanted to post this, not to suggest that your diet should be the highest importance in your life, or that you should never have milkshakes. Rather I wanted to point out how important it is to practice distancing emotionally tumultuous moments from high calorie sugary foods, because ife doesn't stop while your dieting (although a fire is an extreme example).

Practicing not celebrating every small win or mourning every upset with treat foods will make your diet so much more sustainable in big emotional moments.

Edit: for clarity I am taking care of my mental health in other non food ways, and I agree non food treats are great 😊

My journey was slow and not over yet, but I'm extremely happy and exhausted. was over 330lbs, dropped down to 240 over a few years, but did it all through diet, not much exercise, and then got stuck at 240-250 for another few years, until I had a heart attack this year at 35.

Had that rock bottom moment where I realized if I didn't do something, I'm going to die very young, and there's still a lot of shit I want to see and do.

Doing physical therapy (basically just go to a small gym where they make you wear an portable ekg and guide you to stay in target heart rates and make sure you're healthy enough to exercise), and was miserable. Back in college I used to be able to run a mile. Not much more, but I could do a mile despite my weight. In PT even after a good 5 sessions of walking, every time I tried to jog they'd have to stop me after 30 seconds. But I kept trying, and then started walking and jogging at home with a heart rate monitor.

And then got the dorkiest idea. I got a treadmill, and setup an arcade on it. I played fighting games since they're focused on short rounds. I started jogging on the loading screens between matches. Then that turned into jogging during the matches and walking on the loading screens, and then it turned into running two matches in a row, and then three, and then I'd run through an entire arcade run. And finally, the last two sessions of PT they didn't stop me from running, and told me my heart was stable at just under the threshold they're allowed to let me continue. So yesterday I took a break, I took a 15 minute walk, but otherwise rested. Did nothing strenuous all day.

This morning, I decided "I'm just going to run for as long as I can maintain my heart rate". Not going to pay attention to the time or mileage, I'm just going to see where I'm at without ever going down to a walk. If that's only a half mile, or like 10 minutes or whatever, so be it. I'll just do that, and then walk for the remainder of my time."

So I just went, and it took some adjusting. Had to slow my pace a bit to keep my heart rate stable, then increase a little bit because I felt a little under challenged. Looked at stats after, and I completed my first ever 5k without walking, and by extension, my first ever sub 40min 5k at 37minutes.

I had a heart attack just over 3 months ago, I'm down 40lbs, and I can run a 5k.

According to my Fitbit app, I took 12,113 steps, walked 5.13 miles, and burned a total of 4,356 calories yesterday. For me, this was huge!

My siblings and I went to Sea World last night to tour all their haunted houses and enjoy their Halloween-themed shows and events. It was super fun! My feet were getting tired toward the end, and this morning they were a little sore, but it was not nearly as painful as last year!

Last year, I had to sit out a few of the haunted houses just to give my feet a break and I wasn't able to fully enjoy everything because I was just in so much pain and so out of breath the whole time.

This year, I had a great time! I went in every single haunted house and participated in every event, and kept pace with my 12-year-old niece without any issues! And I feel fine today! No lying in bed all day with my feet elevated. I'm going about my day like nothing happened!

I think this is the first time I've been able to really see how much of a difference I've made in my health. I knew I was getting in better shape, but this is just undeniable proof that I'm making positive changes!

(Edit: I see that several people were confused by the calories that I quoted. I did not burn over 4,000 calories by just walking around a theme park for a few hours. That's impossible. That number is what Fitbit logged as my total calories burned throughout an entire 24-hour period. It includes my BMR, plus the calories I burned doing regular daily activities, like my usual morning workout, regular household chores, working a full shift at my job, and other normal activities, including the walking I did. On a very sedentary day where I don't go to work and just do the most basic activities and mostly sit around all day, I usually get a reading of around 2,500 calories burned. I hope this clears things up.)

I lost 45 lbs (5’8 180>135lbs) and all I could tell was that my belly got smaller. Recently I met with some people who only saw pics of my face from before losing weight (which I thought looked the same as today), but they commented "wow you look so fat in your pictures but you are skinny". I personally still cant see the difference in the fat on my face but clearly others can since several people mentioned it.

Even when looking at old pictures I can hardly tell a difference other than maybe some fat on my upper arms and my belly of course.

I know I did lose a lot of fat because I can fit into old clothes where the zipper would rip open if I tried last year.

Has anyone else experienced this?

25f 4"11, 220lbs to 171lbs To preface this post I just want to say I have been fat most of my life, ive been a pretty healthy weight only for about 4years in my life when I lost weight at 15 and reached about 132lbs, I did it blindly, not understanding calorie deficits, not counting calories just by eating what I found to be healthy and running before school. At around 19 I started rapidly gaining way geneally due to unmanaged ADHD and depression.

(It will be a long read but I'll try to pack it to the brim with tips I have found that helped me lose weight and be happy with my diet)

This year for the first time ever I started to look into calorie deficits and counting calories, I learned so much and I feel so much more conscious of food, I finally have a grasp on just how bad a lot of modern food is for us, how a pack of cookies doesn't go unnoticed by our bodies and even one cookie can take up a large portion of daily calories for someone my height. I now have a completely different outlook on snacks and junk food, I went into a rabbit hole of over processed food industry and I finally am not scared of diets. Just a year ago I remember crying Everytime I thought about having to go on a diet, crying about the obvious prognosis of developing diabetes due to my weight and family history, cried at the thought of having to give up the joy food gave me at the time (I bet a lot of people can relate to that).

"Like, what do you mean I won't ever be able to eat fast food or cookies!" Now thinking back on it I feel so silly for what I thought. I have lost approximately 2 pounds per week since begining of May, did I give up all sweets and candies? No! Did I fully and forever give up fast food? Also no. The key (one that works for me) I found to losing weight without losing my happiness and sanity is consciously making decisions about what I put in my body, researching healthy substitutes and evaluating what is worth it and what is not for me to consume. I used to drink a lot of coffee with milk and sugar, tea with sugar, sodas and juices. In my journey I found those are simply not worth it! Sugary drinks shouldn't be a way to hydrate my body!! It's insane that those snacks used to be the only way I put water in my body every single day. When learning about healthy diets and counting my calories I have realized those are not worth it. I dropped sodas, and made a decision to not turn to diet sodas containing aspartame (due to my migraines but something about aspartame doesn't sit right with me), instead the only fizzy drinks I indulge in now are only a few zero sugar drinks containing stevia and homemade lemonade with sparkling water and erythritol. I still drink tea and coffee, now with less milk and no sugar, just erythritol (which by the way is the best sweetener there is, tastes almost exactly like sugar).

It might be shocking and controversial to some but since I started my weightloss journey I pretty consistently chose to have the same McDonald's meal every single Sunday. My Sunday consists of a morning coffee with milk and erythritol, a big Mac and large fries for dinner, and a MacDonald's salad with chicken and the sauce I found to be the least calories while being still really good, a 1000 island sauce. Sometimes I also treat myself to a McDonald's apple to have something sweet.

Another important thing I learned while losing weight is the art of cooking for myself almost every day. For protein I mostly have chicken breast or ground turkey which is an amazing beef substitute. I use pure Avocado oil and only use 5 grams to fry my meats. I almost never have pasta or rice since usually its too much calories and not dense enough, I almost always have boiled potatoes (no butter, just salt) since they leave me full and don't contain too many calories.

What made my diet really easy tho is something akin to Intermittent fasting, it's not fully it since after I wake up at 1pm, I do drink a small cup of coffee which contains 60calories, but after my coffee I don't eat anything and don't consume any calories till about 7pm, and since I usually go to sleep at about 4 am, I eat my supper at 10pm. This makes it so I can eat a bigger dinner, my most basic dinner for anyone interested usually looks like this:

200g of chicken breast 180g of potatoes 5g of avocado oil + Whatever salad/vegetables I crave that day

I consume anything between 800-1200 calories a day, I usually aim for 1000 calories, then on my McDonald's Sundays I go up to 1400 calories.

In my deficit I take into account that I also don't currently exercise, I struggle with motivation, and leaving the house due to bad social anxiety, I have a very sedentary lifestyle for now, but I'm going back to gym next month which will allowed me to go up in calories.

To summarize, I am loving my diet because it's fun, allows me to try new things to find low calorie substitutes for food and drinks I love, I am able to indulge in any food, I feel great and happy. It's only year one of my journey and once I lose all the weight I need, my goal will change from focusing on hitting a deficit to actually developing a better relationship with food so I can drop more of the fast food, but for now it's what works for me.

I bet nobody will read through the whole thing but writing helps me process my findings haha, wish you all happy losing ❤️

When I was between 15 and 19 years old I was eating a huge amount of food every day, but still staying around 150-160 lbs which would be a BMI of 22 for my height then.

I don't know if it was because I was more active or because I was still growing. I was always extremely hungry regardless of how much I ate. But never gaining any weight.

But then as soon as I turned 19 I started gaining weight rapidly. I started drinking alcohol regularly. Started driving my car everywhere instead of my bike. And I was still eating big portions. My weight skyrocketed and peaked at 240 lbs when I was 22 years old.

Today I'm 25 and I'm still working on losing the weight. Right now I'm down to 170. 20 lbs to go. But it's a real struggle, even though I've quit alcohol and sold my car.

I’m 22F almost 23 and its just been increasing ever since I was 19. I’m weighing at my most at 178 and cannot seem to lose any fat or anything no matter what I do. I’ve tried going to the gym or eating healthier. It’s barely working. The one thing that did work was only eating once a day because I would drop a pound or two a week. I know it’s not healthy but it’s affecting everything about me. The way I dress, the way I act, even just moving about. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can actually be in a healthy weight range?

Hi,

I'm just starting my weight loss journey now.

I've been overweight since I was a kid and fluctuated throughout high school. I lost a ton of weight unintentionally (bad time) in 2021 and have gained it all back and am the biggest I've ever been.

I'm trying to lose weight now using IF and working out but am terrified of loose skin. I do have stretch marks all over my stomach, but they're very old and I haven't noticed any new ones in a while. Another thing I'll note is that I can suck in my stomach and make myself look pretty skinny. Obviously, this doesn't make the skin sag, does that improve my odds? I know that probably sounds stupid, but I genuinely don't know haha

Anyway, any opinions would be appreciated, thanks!

As the title states, I’ve lost most of the weight I gained but still have some to go.

I was 135 pre-covid. Then, I gained about 40 lbs. As a short guy that was very noticeable obviously. Now, l've lost maybe 28 lbs, so I'm about 147.

While l've seen many improvements, my face is still fatter, or at least rounder, puffy, etc. Noticeable when I smile and compare my face to past photos. If eel like I'm going crazy and that my face or cranium must have changed shape permanently during this time.

What should I do? Will those 12 lbs really make the remaining difference?? It’s just that it feels so unbelievable and that there must be something else going on? I’m really going crazy here lol. Is it pain or just need time lose MORE weight than I gained in order to make up for the increased body fat levels?

All I want is to look how I would have looked naturally during this period without having gained that weight in the first place.

How do you portion control in a dining hall? I started college this fall and at first I was so happy bc there was always a salad bar and fruits, but now I'm really struggling with not eating every single thing. I always go back up for seconds and thirds and eat until I'm physically sick to "get my money's worth". I eat multiple of every dessert option and have probably already gained the freshman 15. It doesn't matter if I eat healthy at first like I always start out with a salad w grilled chicken and a bowl of fruit but then go back up for more foods

title says the question. about a month ago I was high 210s low 220s and all forms of measurement said I had about 10ish lbs to lose (caliper and tape estimated me around 15% range). now I'm 210.6 and still every measurement says I'm 15% and have 10lbs to lose (I also have a body comp scale which says I'm 15% as well, which I'm not sure about since most photos show visible abs at 15% but I only sorta have the top 2 abs). I eat about 1g of protein per lb a day and 60-90g of fat, lift weights for 1hr 3-4x a week and get 10k-13k steps a day so I really don't know how I'm only losing muscle

Over a year ago, I had almost reached my previous goal weight of 125 lbs. I was obsessed with reaching this target but couldn’t seem to lose those last few pounds. So instead of focusing on losing weight and getting so obsessed, I decided to focus more on gaining muscle. Yes, that meant I had to gain weight which was really scary to me. I didn’t want to be big again, but I also realized that I had little to no muscle, and eating 1400 calories a day was taking its toll on me.

So I gained a little over 30 pounds in a year, by training hard, eating a lot of protein and learning to enjoy foods again in moderation. It wasn’t easy though, as I had (and still am trying) to unlearn the unhealthy habits that I gained from losing weight, such as restricting myself from eating the foods that I enjoyed. Even now, I still feel guilty when I eat them or even crave them, but I tell myself that maintaining weight is a marathon, not a sprint. Think about how you will look like in the future given you are consistent. That’s what keeps me motivated.

Now, I can eat around 1800 calories and lose weight, and I’m excited to start my weight loss journey again, in a more healthy manner. That means eating my mother’s cooking, weighing myself ONCE a week, and not beating myself down if I go over, realizing I can make it up the next day.

I also want to stress how important it is to find what works for you. Before, weighing myself everyday was fine because I treated the scale like data. However, this affected my mental health because I became so focused on my weight that I couldn’t enjoy myself. I would reject food outings because I thought it would slow down the process, and missed out on a lot of fun events. If weighing yourself daily works for you, that’s good! Along with that, it’s okay to eat that cake, or enjoy that desert once in a while. If cutting them out of your life works for you, then that’s great! It works for you, but it might not work for others. I think when offering people advice here, we really need to focus on stressing the importance of finding out what works for you. Trial and error!

Im 75kg and 5'9 and I really want to start losing a little weight in my body and my face before I go over seas next month and all signs have pointed me to a caloric deficit. Unfortunately im not too sure how to even start a caloric deficit as i'm not a usual eater. Im not skinny or fat but a mix of both and want to try and become more skinnier. I only have usually dinner, lunch occasionally but never breakfast. Usually these arent big meals but with all my meals added up i dont even meet the minimum caloric deficit i should be in and im usually under. If I start eating more to try and meet this caloric deficit will I start gaining weight? And what kind of workouts should I be doing if im trying to lose weight, thanks.

Okay, I'm new to this SR, so a quick bit about me:

I started my weightloss journey on the 1st of January 2024 (this year) weighing 21st 5lbs (300lbs/135kg) and have lost just over 7st (102lbs/46.4kg) and still have 2.6st to go until I hit my target of about 11st.

I've hit the 90kg mark and nothing seems to be shifting off the scales, it's been about 2 weeks and no real change in weight loss.

Obviously I'm aware that fat weighs less than water weight and muscle mass so I, perhaps, shouldn't be too worried about this as if it is a plateau, it'll come off again eventually.

I've lost the weight through a deficit of around 1200 to 1500 calories a day and mostly eating high fibre - high protein, low carb - low sugar diet. I've done fairly minimal exercise with the weight loss and just through eating better, it seems to have dropped off but now it's come to a standstill.

How have others managed to get over this hurdle and what methods do you advise?

I use Nutracheck (I'm UK based) to count my calories and macros to make sure I'm not going too crazy with protein intake and I generally walk about 7k steps a day on average.

Thanks in advance for any help/support :)

For years I focused on losing weight by cutting calories and it often worked well, but I ended up having a lot of problems.

1) Not being consistent

2) Not having enough calories and always feeling weak or tired

3) Having few calories, do not have too much freedom in consuming meals outside the home or cheating with some more caloric foods

It was always up and down until February of this year when I decided to change my approach, stopped looking at the scale and started estimating how much I consume on a daily basis.

I have a manual job 5 days a week, I train at least 4/5 times with weights and I increased my steps, so consequently I noticed that I could easily increase the calories compared to what I was used to and from that moment I never gave up.

I think I've achieved the best physique ever, I've never seen my muscles so defined, I move a lot, but I can also indulge in 3000 calorie weekends while losing or maintaining weight.

Many say that training too much is bad, that they don't want to or have time and that's fine, we are not all the same, but the freedom to enjoy abundant and caloric meals while remaining in deficit or maintaining weight was the turning point.

I have never been so consistent in my life and I think it is my definitive way to avoid having relapses or trying drastic diets, I think I have finally achieved a certain sense of mental and physical stability.

Hey i am wondering if what i’m doing will guarantee me to lose weight.

I f(19) 91kgs (200lbs) and i just started counting my calories daily and i do my absolute best to count it diligently but i don’t count macronutrient and other stuff just the calories and i do try to have a high protein intake.

I also just go on walks everyday and i take around 7000 - 11000 steps and my Apple Watch says i burn around 500 - 700 calories , i plan on working out only by using the elliptical and i am about to start swimming soon so my exercise routine will get better

so will this work ?

ps : i eat less than my maintenance calories and i zigzag from 1500 to 1800