Weight loss support thread

[Wujime]

I'm sure you are all aware of food tracker apps but I've restarted using one to track every goddamn thing I put in my mouth. Just being conscious of recording it already limits my snacking. Plus I get a little autistic satisfaction out of maintaining my own food database, which probably sounds like a chore for most people. The app has a nifty barcode scanning functionality and 95% of the foods I eat with a barcode have all the nutrition info already entered.

I tried some of them and, tbh, I prefer to just keep an excel spreadsheet. First because I hate touchscreen shit my fingers seem to not work well with them, second because I hate all the cloud stuff and bloat they force on you. But the best advantage to me is that it lets me easily plan ahead so I can fill columns with what I think I will eat and stuff like that.

 

[Overly Serious]

What are ways to help endure the constant hunger pains that come with caloric deficit?
My body is constantly hungry and it's unbearable. Water doesn't dull it, is there something else I can do without adding too many unnecessary calories?

In addition to @Kurmudgeon 's advice I'll add a little more.

1. If you tend to get your food from carb-heavy or sugar-rich meals then even if the total caloric intake is a deficit you'll be prone to strong hunger pangs because they produce heavy up swings in blood glucose, followed by the inevitable crash. It actually takes several days for the body to properly even out once you cut out sugar / heavy carbs. So this can be a factor - eating more fibre, fat and protein at meals will help you end the roller coaster and hunger tends to go from a horrible cramping pain back to a signal light that turns on.

2. Try to get your body used to eating at regular times. Intermittent fasting of the noon to 8pm style can be a good way to do this for example. As does cutting out snacks and focusing only on full meals. As the body learns that there are times it gets fed and times it does not - and it will learn this if you stick to it - then it starts to work with you rather than against you, activating food readiness only around the usual times.

It might also be that you're simply restricting too much. Around a 15% caloric reduction below maintenance is honestly plenty. And the best way to get a good idea of your maintenance is tracking every calorie for a couple of weeks and seeing how much weight you're gaining or losing. Doing an average of your weight for a week is the most accurate as it can fluctuate naturally from day to day independent of how much you eat.

 

[cactus]

View attachment 8738922View attachment 8738922
Put a packet of this in iced tea or water and it makes them a lot more palatable. imo

I'm down a touch to 123 so I'm at least dropping slightly or holding steady in spite of eating Kirkland ice cream bars several times a week (because granny likes her evening sweets and I don't say no to one either). I've reduced my tirzepatide to 5 to 6.25 mg/week. I can adjust my dose since I have compounded tirzepatide in vials that I draw into needles myself and not Zepbound pens that hold set amounts.

My side effects are very minor now, some food aversion, some mild nausea. I am very careful to take up to 20 fiber capsules a day, eat a lot of raw fruit and veg, and drink a lot of water. It 's the exercise that I'm slacking off on - so many aches and pains it's hard to move but I need to make it a priority. We're planning a vacation in early summer that will mean a lot of walking so I'm trying to walk every day.

The little lemon and lime juices are good. They're better for controlling how much you change the taste of water. But if you drink tea ice cold, I find I don't need to change the flavor.

 

[awoo]

I tried some of them and, tbh, I prefer to just keep an excel spreadsheet. First because I hate touchscreen shit my fingers seem to not work well with them, second because I hate all the cloud stuff and bloat they force on you. But the best advantage to me is that it lets me easily plan ahead so I can fill columns with what I think I will eat and stuff like that.

For the autists out there, I use a FOSS app called Waistline. No cloud storage and bloat! No social media nonsense! Makes me feel a lot better about contributing to the Open Food Facts nutrition database, which is the data source and sponsored by some European nonprofits. But if the spreadsheet works for you, keep doing it. The planning ahead in detail is not something I do.

Doing an average of your weight for a week is the most accurate as it can fluctuate naturally from day to day independent of how much you eat.

I've noticed weighing in the morning can be up to 5 pounds lighter than at night, which is a pretty big difference. I think it is losing water overnight.

 

[Kurmudgeon]

tend to get your food from carb-heavy or sugar-rich meals then even if the total caloric intake is a deficit you'll be prone to strong hunger pangs because they produce heavy up swings in blood glucose

That's a great callout and something that should probably be mentioned a lot more for people who are changing their diet. I used to eat tons of carbs, and for a few weeks I was really hungry, but then everything sort of evened out.

I've noticed weighing in the morning can be up to 5 pounds lighter than at night, which is a pretty big difference. I think it is losing water overnight.

It's gotta be, I also tend to weigh less after I go for a run. Hard to believe I sweat out a pound or two of water when I go for a run, but the scale doesn't lie.

 

[Wujime]

I use a FOSS app called Waistline. No cloud storage and bloat! No social media nonsense! Makes me feel a lot better about contributing to the Open Food Facts nutrition database, which is the data source and sponsored by some European nonprofits. But if the spreadsheet works for you, keep doing it. The planning ahead in detail is not something I do.

I checked it and it seems good. I'll try it for a while in conjunction with the spreadsheet and see how I like it

 

[BunningsSnag]

Haven't updated in a while. I moved house the other year. I've actually gotten into a solid place in life now. I'm studying, I have a gym membership and see a personal trainer every fortnight now. Trying to figure out somewhere in my busy schedule to go to gym more often.
I'm feeling a lot more healthier despite the scale not showing much difference due to my gym going and walking much more due to my studies I'm gaining equal amounts of muscle as I am losing fat so there's visible signs I've lost weight but the scale so far isn't reflecting that.
I am glad that my fitness has improved and some parts fat was has gotten smaller though, and I can carry bags and stuff a lot easier and I have much more energy and feel much more better and capable of doing things.
I'm very optimistic of where things are going for me, and I hope everyone else's journeys are going well!

 

[Banana Hammock]

Get enough sleep. I was surprised at how big of a difference it made. Going from five hours of sleep per night to seven or eight basically supercharged my metabolism.

 

[ratduckowlgymnastics]

I'm having problems because I've relapsed into being a Soda Nigger. Had my beloved Baja Blast today and it wasn't even sweet to me. Horrible sign. Should I do the fake sugar route or quit outright?

 

[Sawamura Simp]

Started strict keto (20g carb/day maximum) exactly 121 days ago,
and followed that "30grams of protein within the first 30 minutes of waking up" stuff,
launching with an intermittent breakfast the day prior
(which helped to rein in the initial cravings).

No alcohol, no flours, no sugar on anything, no cheat days.
Meat protein, chicken protein, fish protein, eggs, greens,
high-quality hard cheese and salami, mayo, repeat.
Tomatoes, onions and garlic most of the time, measured because carbs.
Drank lots of water, implemented magnesium and kept my salts in check
to get out of the keto flu.

Weighted myself once a week, always the same day
to avoid overfixation and disappointment.

Went from 100+ to 79kg, my natural weight, bare minimum exercise (bike, walking).
The biggest weight loss went around days 90-100.
My stomach felt already smaller by day 10.

Entering ketosis to burn fat is key.
A macro calculator is also handy.-

 

[GemstoneEddie88]

I have reached the end of my 14 week calorie deficit. I weighed in this morning at 191.8 pounds! I decided to end the deficit on what is going to be a 45 hour water fast.

The plan right now is to enter a maintenance/“main-gaining” mode for a minimum of 2 weeks to kind of let my body reset. Obviously, this deficit was not easy. My daily caloric intake ranged anywhere from 1600-1810 calories. I aimed for around 2/2.5 pounds lost a week. More or less, I ended up right on target. I started at the end of December at either lower 220’s/higher 210’s.

I feel fantastic right now. This might be the best I’ve felt in my adult life. I’ve been skinnier in my adult life (177 pounds), but I don’t think I’ve looked this good so far. I feel more confident wearing sleeveless shirts, and my gut is noticeably less pronounced. I still have a lot of work to do. I want to get my body fat percentage down a little bit more.

After my maintenance period, I’m gonna limit my next deficit to 10 weeks and also give myself a little more grace with the calories. It’s not abject misery dieting, but you do have to be disciplined with yourself. Emotionally, I was handling everything pretty well up until about week 10~. I didn’t turn into a nutcase or anything, but I was certainly more irritable and had slightly less energy.

Good luck to everyone else out there on similar journeys.

 

[GemstoneEddie88]

"30grams of protein within the first 30 minutes of waking up" stuff,

What’s the thought process or idea behind this? I am curious. Sometimes I’ll make up a protein shake in the morning but I never really felt a difference on the days where I start fasted.

 

[Lip Glossary]

I'm seeing a lot of great weight loss in the past couple months but I've got to say, zepbound is scary as shit because it never feels like the needle went in and you never see enough blood for it to seem like it injected.
I realize that it's a very thin needle and it's specifically designed for you not to feel it, but with how expensive the medication is it always worries me when I don't see blood coming out or even worse, it seems like a very small amount of the medication is at the injection site.
I looked it up and the instruction booklet that comes with the shots said this is normal, but it's still scary.
Not as scary as my stupid xiphoid process that sticks out of my chest now that will probably never go back into place, but hey at least it's not painful and I'll always have a reminder not to let myself go again.

 

[GemstoneEddie88]

Blood at injection sites with the gauge needle youre using (I assume 26-31) should be somewhat rare with sub-iq injections.

 

[Tinidril]

Weighed 145 this a.m. Finally broke 10 lb mark (10.6, actually). When I got dressed for Easter Vigil Mass Saturday evening, I put on a typical outfit: stretchy leggings and a soft, tunic-length sweater. It was the first time in years I could look down at my body and not feel enormous and hideous..

So my weight loss is slow and steady, around 1.2 lbs/week, and I'll be be going up to the next dose of tirzepatide (7.5 mg). At this rate I'll be at the high end of my goal weight by the end of the summer. I've got a lot more energy, I'm moving around more easily, and overall very pleased.

 

[GemstoneEddie88]

Nice, curious to know what the main side effects you guys experience off Reta and Tirzepatide are. Is it similar to Ozempic where you can experience gut paralysis if you take the dosages too high?

 

[Tinidril]

curious to know what the main side effects you guys experience off Reta and Tirzepatide

My main side effects I guess are nausea, but not vomiting, and it's transient. Goes away very quickly but it's funny that it will often occur when I'm just *thinking* about food. I was tired at first but that seems to have leveled off.

I was very concerned about potential bowel issues because part of how these medications work is by slowing stomach emptying, which can lead to all sorts of problems ranging from inconvenient to life-threatening. So right from the beginning I worked myself up to 5 fiber capsules 3x/day, but not really getting any results. Per my prescriber, I added 2 senna/docusate tablets twice a day....that was entirely *too* effective, so I pulled back and am now on the 2 senna/docusate tablets twice a day, and 5 fiber capsules once a day. I feel like I could add a second dose of fiber, but I'm a bit wary of unexpected events while out and about, if you catch my drift.

So I think I'm safe, or at least aware, with regard to bad bowel happenings. Plus I'm a notorious hypochondriac and would definitely be complaining to a doctor if I thought anything was up LOL!

I'm watching the reports about bone issues with semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) with interest, because I'm diagnosed with osteopenia with many years, and have been taking calcium+D3 for as long as I've had the diagnosis. The reports around tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) aren't clear; but I'm gonna mention these issues to my PCP next visit. It probably wouldn't hurt anyone on these types of meds to do some strength training, light weights, etc. My health insurance includes free gym membership, so I should take advantage.

 

[Accept Only Substitutes]

Nice, curious to know what the main side effects you guys experience off Reta and Tirzepatide are. Is it similar to Ozempic where you can experience gut paralysis if you take the dosages too high?

Mainly nausea, less thirsty feeling, and mild constipation (only at first). I have to remind myself to get enough liquid. The nausea is worse the first couple days after my injection, but it’s very mild now, unless I eat the wrong foods or too much.

I have had to really cut down on spicy and greasy foods, even mild levels of spice can trigger nausea that gets worse with movement, for an hour or two after I eat. Same thing if I don’t really listen to my hunger cues while eating, because eating too much can trigger the body into feeling nausea instead of just discomfort. If you find yourself asking if those last few bites are going to be too much, the answer is always yes. Always.

I’ve also found that the longer I’m on it, the more my cravings are changing. I used to start seriously craving sweets after just seeing an ad for Krispy Kreme, now my friend sends me those TikTok’s of super sweet ice cream/cookie/candy/five pounds of sugar desserts and they even look way too sweet and kind of gross. I’d rather have a few strawberries or some watermelon. I can’t get enough beans. I had a dream the other night where a plain, raw carrot even tasted good! A simple blt was the best sandwich I’d had in ages.

Don’t get me wrong, I still can’t be trusted around potato chips or pizza, but I find myself wanting them less. Overall, the side effects are annoying, but finally finally feeling like a normal person around food far outweighs the worst of the side effects.

 

[Wujime]

Forgive me thread, for I have sinned and indulged in this pleasure of the flesh during the holy week.
I shall reprimand by doing better in the days ahead, progressively scaling down my calorie intake week by week.
For I am surrounded by tempters in the form of friends, family and marketing demons but they shalt not win this war despite the battles they wage.
Amen.

 

[GemstoneEddie88]

That’s all very interesting. I appreciate the anecdotes. Can you get those senna/docusate tablets over the counter?