My weight loss has been an utter disaster of a roller coaster. Currently at 225 pounds, my heaviest was almost 250, and the lowest I've gotten since actively trying to lose weight was around 210. Ultimate goal is to get below 200 (190-180). The problem is a combination of not consistently working out enough (walk on the treadmill for an hour or so then do a minimum of 50-100 pushups and crunches on the daily) and the biggest issue, not eating right.
My diet plan is all about limiting carbs as much as possible, so things like sugars, breads, pastas, all of that needs to either be eliminated or substituted for low carb variations, and I know it works because my weight goes down fairly quickly since my metabolism takes care of itself when given the chance.
But the problem is every month or so there's a family event of some kind or another where the house (or wherever we go to) is flooded with overly rich food of all kinds and I drop my guard with the excuse of "It's a special occasion" and eat all sorts of junk and it throws my whole resolve out the window in a never-ending cycle.
I'm still trying and not giving up though. Right now I'm fasting for at least a day to clear out my system and start over with the right choices and smaller meal portions. I've done it several times before with no issues and it's a good kickstart to getting my body on the right track again to burn the excess fat instead of storing it. The most I've fasted is almost 2 days and I can burn a few pounds just by doing that, but my stomach would sooner an hero itself than fast much longer than that so I'd never be in danger of outright starving myself like an anorexic.
Yeah, an unrestricted diet will bite you in the ass and ostensibly murder any of the progress you'd otherwise make with exercise. That's why I always tout the #1 rule to be "Clean up your calories" before worrying about anything else. You can be an absolute
beast in the gym who sprints for 1 hour on the treadmill and spends the next three hours bench-pressing cars in the parking lot, but if you go home and eat 5,000 calories you're gonna' wind up fat.
What you eat doesn't matter nearly as much as how much of it you eat, though. If you took one guy eating nothing but chicken and broccoli to the tune of 4,000 calories a day and another guy who ate nothing but junk food but only ate 1,500 calories, the chicken guy would get
way fatter than the junk food guy, who would actually be losing weight even though he's eating trash.
Don't punish yourself with fasting and eating flavourless foods like plain oatmeal and boiled chicken, just get a better handle on your portion sizes and keeping track of your calories and you can (reasonably) eat whatever you'd like. To be fair it
is a lot easier to keep your calories lower with rice and vegetables than it is with Big Macs, but if you hate the food you eat then you're going to "fall off the wagon" because it's not sustainable.
In order to achieve weight loss and maintain yourself in the range that you want, you need to make permanent changes. Essentially no one alive can permanently eat things that they hate for the rest of their lives, hence why so many people fail. Find foods that you like and that you can easily space throughout the day to eat beneath your TDEE and you'll be golden, no fasting or crazy exercise routines required.
For what it's worth, and purely to mention it though: After two or three days of fasting your stomach "shuts up." By day three or four it just decides to give up and put you in ketosis for awhile. The hunger pangs usually come back in about a week, and when they
that is when you should eat, instead of trying to push through it and into 'another' fast.
I just feel stuck.
