Weight loss support thread

[It's HK-47]

In that sort of weight range for your height and gender? It's the binges, hands-down. You already have an incredibly low BMR (I'd assume around 1200) so every time you binge out, you're putting basically every calorie of that straight into excess, and your body really, really wants to do that. Eating sub-1000 calories isn't a permanent solution and you can't maintain it, that's why it's failing. Just bring your calories up to a more reasonable range (1400-1800, say) that doesn't leave you starving to the point where food-shoveling becomes an irresistible urge.

I'm really not keen at all on anorexia-style eating habits, especially since you're significantly underweight to begin with, but I'd rather that you left here with some advice rather than none at all. Stability and longevity is the key to this sort of thing, and what you're doing isn't sustainable, especially if you're as active as you're saying, which is why your body keeps freaking out and throwing the "Literally eat fucking everything" lever, and why you probably end up taking a lot of naps after work.

It may not sound intuitive to someone who's flirting with anorexia, but just eat a bit more and prioritize stuff that's high in fiber and protein, like chicken, broccoli, spinach, etc. It'll help you feel full for longer, and won't cause you to go apeshit and eat an entire pantry.

 

[clusterfuckk]

New to this thread and glad I found it!

Spoiler: Spoiler

I was quite overweight last year. I am 5'8 and weighed 375lbs at my heaviest. I have lost 90 pounds since January doing the 5 bite diet for the first 6 weeks then intermittent fasting with a calorie limit of 1200-1500 daily. I am sedentary for work (office job) but walk 3km every day after work and go to the gym a few times a week.
I also never every drink my calories, which has helped a lot. I am stuck at a plateau now and its getting frustrating.
I currently weigh 280lbs and my goal weight is between 180 & 190. ( I have quite a bit of muscle as I was a athlete back in the day before death fat status ).

Anyway now that I am done Powerleveling; does anyone know if maybe I need to be eating more/less to get over this plateau? Other than calorie counting, not eating absolute garbage and IF; I don't really follow any particular diet.

 

[Strawberry Pocky]

In that sort of weight range for your height and gender? It's the binges, hands-down.

I was 99% sure already that this was the case, but getting some outside perspective is for sure appreciated. Thanks a lot.

I've been in a pretty consistent cycle of recovery-remission-relapse as far as the ED and Anorexia are concerned for many many years now (treatment, clinics/hospitals, and professionals are involved and once again out of respect to not Powerlevel my ass off that's all I'll say)

So to pretty much summarize your advice and observations...just to make sure I'm understanding you and am fully on the same page... my normal everyday life is what's keeping me at my current weight, but the rare/sporadic binges that I still cannot control are what's keeping me stuck in this endless weight plateau and preventing me from losing that last chunk of LBs and achieving my GW?

 

[It's HK-47]

I was 99% sure already that this was the case, but getting some outside perspective is for sure appreciated. Thanks a lot.

I've been in a pretty consistent cycle of recovery-remission-relapse as far as the ED and Anorexia are concerned for many many years now (treatment, clinics/hospitals, and professionals are involved and once again out of respect to not Powerlevel my ass off that's all I'll say)

So to pretty much summarize your advice and observations...just to make sure I'm understanding you and am fully on the same page... my normal everyday life is what's keeping me at my current weight, but the rare/sporadic binges that I still cannot control are what's keeping me stuck in this endless weight plateau and preventing me from losing that last chunk of LBs and achieving my GW?

It's probably the only thing even keeping you outside of a severely anorexic weight range to begin with, given how low your body fat must already be. You don't have many fat stores to begin with to even draw from, and your body needs to get energy from somewhere, and most of that energy's coming from those binges and what they can manage to store up before the next one comes.

If nothing else: Just try eating more for awhile to level out your caloric intake and see if that makes your binge eating either go away or become much easier to resist. If it doesn't work, you'll just be back to where you started in the first place.

 

[Strawberry Pocky]

Thanks very much, again, for the input and advice.

Considering the Russian Roulette of sorts that my body has been through, I would assume the just jumping up from 700cals or so every day strait to 1300 or 1400 (as a start) overnight might not be the best idea? Would slowly increasing by a little bit over a period of time be a better idea, do you think?

 

[It's HK-47]

I'd just go ahead and move straight into the full range, rather than try to slowly dial it up. There's no sense in holding it back since with those binges you're essentially already in or above that range anyways, so there wouldn't be any benefit to doing that slowly. You're not in a terrifyingly low weight range and you've actually been eating, so you're not in any danger of refeeding syndrome unless one of the medical professionals you're dealing with has a reason to believe so. Maybe check with them first, if you're uncomfortable with the idea.

I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to anorexia, mind you. Ideally I wouldn't even want you to eat in the range as low as I'd recommended because I still don't think that 90lbs is necessarily a healthy weight for you, but I'd much rather see you pulling a stable ~1400 with fiber and protein-dense foods than a 700 with periodic binges on what I'll assume aren't exactly health foods.

I also know that you've probably heard it a thousand times, but I always think it merits repeating that obsessing over a number on the scale is a bit pointless. If you move your focus to just routine exercise and eating normal meals with normal portions that aren't comprised of crap foods, then you'll be much better off than if you sat there obsessing over two or three digits on a rectangle. You can be skinny as Hell and still be a disasterously unhealthy mess because all you eat is pizza and fast food, or you can be a fat guy who's as healthy as a horse because he jogs and lifts religiously, but he loves pigging out on health food. That fat guy's gonna' beat the skinny guy in a race 100% of the time.

The number really doesn't matter, it's the health you want to strive for

 

[SmileyTimeDayCare]

New to this thread and glad I found it!

Spoiler: Spoiler

I was quite overweight last year. I am 5'8 and weighed 375lbs at my heaviest. I have lost 90 pounds since January doing the 5 bite diet for the first 6 weeks then intermittent fasting with a calorie limit of 1200-1500 daily. I am sedentary for work (office job) but walk 3km every day after work and go to the gym a few times a week.
I also never every drink my calories, which has helped a lot. I am stuck at a plateau now and its getting frustrating.
I currently weigh 280lbs and my goal weight is between 180 & 190. ( I have quite a bit of muscle as I was a athlete back in the day before death fat status ).

Anyway now that I am done Powerleveling; does anyone know if maybe I need to be eating more/less to get over this plateau? Other than calorie counting, not eating absolute garbage and IF; I don't really follow any particular diet.

It sounds like you are doing great to lose 90lbs in a few months!

My questions to you straight away would be: What are you doing at the gym and what are you eating?

 

[clusterfuckk]

It sounds like you are doing great to lose 90lbs in a few months!

My questions to you straight away would be: What are you doing at the gym and what are you eating?

As far as exercise goes; I am only using the treadmill to walk for 30 min and then I do weights, mostly for the arms because that’s where the majority of my fat was stored. I have fucked up knees from being overweight and old.
Eating I try to limit carbs and do not eat breakfast. I have a black coffee in the morning, usually a salad or veggie sandwich for lunch and I eat a regular dinner but limit carbs. I try to stay under 1500 calories a day.
I find the 5 bite diet really helps you realize you don’t need as much food as you think you do. It’s mostly just mindless eating.

 

[SmileyTimeDayCare]

As far as exercise goes; I am only using the treadmill to walk for 30 min and then I do weights, mostly for the arms because that’s where the majority of my fat was stored. I have fucked up knees from being overweight and old.
Eating I try to limit carbs and do not eat breakfast. I have a black coffee in the morning, usually a salad or veggie sandwich for lunch and I eat a regular dinner but limit carbs. I try to stay under 1500 calories a day.
I find the 5 bite diet really helps you realize you don’t need as much food as you think you do. It’s mostly just mindless eating.

Talk to me about your protein intake. Also when you say your knees are fucked and you are old are we talking 55+ and have you seen anyone about your knees?

 

[It's HK-47]

As far as exercise goes; I am only using the treadmill to walk for 30 min and then I do weights, mostly for the arms because that’s where the majority of my fat was stored. I have fucked up knees from being overweight and old.
Eating I try to limit carbs and do not eat breakfast. I have a black coffee in the morning, usually a salad or veggie sandwich for lunch and I eat a regular dinner but limit carbs. I try to stay under 1500 calories a day.
I find the 5 bite diet really helps you realize you don’t need as much food as you think you do. It’s mostly just mindless eating.

Fat doesn't burn locally, so by focusing heavily on arm exercises you're not burning fat in your arms exclusively, you're just beefing up your arm muscles. I mean once the fat all burns away you'll have some rocking guns, but that's really all it's going to accomplish, it's not targeting arm fat specifically. The rate that you're losing weight is pretty normal, though. Every now and then you'll hit a block and it'll seem like the weight won't budge, but if you keep sticking at it and you know you're not eating too many calories, it'll start to move again in a week or two.

That sort of thing happened to me a lot. I hovered at 200lbs for what felt like weeks, but I didn't change a thing in my routine, and eventually it started to go back down again. Do keep in mind that it's also going to come off slower as you shed more weight, because the body will require fewer and fewer calories to maintain the diminishing fat stores. Obese people will always notice that they lose weight incredibly fast at the start, and then as they go lower on the scale, the numbers roll back slower.

That's perfectly normal, and be mindful of the fact that if you're doing weight training, you're also adding on muscle weight, so that can make it seem like nothing's moving when in actuality you're subtracting fat, but replacing it with muscle, which weighs more.

 

[clusterfuckk]

Talk to me about your protein intake. Also when you say your knees are fucked and you are old are we talking 55+ and have you seen anyone about your knees?

I don’t measure protein per se; I just make sure I have one source of protein with each meal. I am 40 and my knees can’t handle the impact of running. I have arthritis in the knees

 

[SmileyTimeDayCare]

I don’t measure protein per se; I just make sure I have one source of protein with each meal. I am 40 and my knees can’t handle the impact of running. I have arthritis in the knees

Grab Loseit on your phone. It is a pretty unobtrusive app and it has pretty much all the foods nutritional info. No cost, not a lot of notifications, you can put exercise in and while it probably stalks you...what doesn't.

It is kind of important to know what you are eating daily.

40 isn't old...it is halfway to old.

RE: your knees is it diagnosed? Are you taking anything for it?

The reason I ask about your knees isn't a question of running it is more of expanding what you do in the gym. As HK said you can't target fat and compound movements can have greater benefits that isolating muscle groups.

 

[It's HK-47]

Running and jogging is largely overrated for cardio, anyways. It's a pretty solid cardio, don't get me wrong, but it's not the be-all and end-all of cardio, and if you've got bum knees then it becomes essentially fucking worthless. If you clock in to the gym periodically and you're already a fan of arm exercises, check around to see if they have any battle ropes. Otherwise, there's plenty of other options. Swimming, biking, brisk walking, stair-climbing, etc. Cardio doesn't need to begin and end at jogging, but you can thank the 1980's for getting everyone obsessed with thinking it's the only/best available option.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

Best cardio is binge-watching a TV show on a mobile device while using a low impact cardio machine of your choosing (elliptical, recumbent stationary bike).

 

[Strawberry Pocky]

I don’t measure protein per se; I just make sure I have one source of protein with each meal.

Hi hello. I missed your first post in the thread because I was already deep in conversation myself, but I REALLY wanted to make sure that I said congratulations on losing 90 god damn pounds.

Spoiler

One entire elbee more than 89! You've beaten a certain ~Queen of Moderation~ gorl raw and I'm sure her massive shelf ass is chapped and salty about it. Haha.
The 5-Bite diet is something I'm super familiar with too so big big fucking heaps of praise for soldiering through what I know is a brutal regimen. That takes serious willpower so way to go.

Protein is probably the most important Macronutrient out of the "Big 3" so you're already on the ball by making sure you have it at least once with every meal. If you aren't specifically measuring it out though, are you at least making sure it is the BIGGEST or most significant part of your dish?
Like, for example....if you are having fish, rice, and veggies for dinner. Half of your plate is tilapia/salmon/whatever, a third is veggies, and the rest is rice. I'm no badass expert, but its just what I've always been taught by the professionals and Nutritionists & Dietitians I've worked with.

Spoiler

(Real ones. Not...you know. Ones from Instagram. lol)

 

[clusterfuckk]

Thank you everyone.
I have been diagnosed with arthritis in my legs since I was 18. Mother has OA so doctor thinks I may end up being diagnosed as well but nothing yet thankfully.
I will check out the battle ropes suggestion. I have used the elliptical at times and the stationary bike.
I do make sure protein is the largest part of every meal.
Thanks again for all the advise/support!

 

[Shibaru]

Put back that bottle of Dr Pepper Dark Berry, it's addicting and it will make you lose your commitment.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

My favorite "weight loss" plan is intermittent fasting because

1.) There are no restrictions on the types of food you can eat.
2.) It really helps train you to distinguish true hunger from the desire for mouth pleasure.

However I add the scare quotes because it's still possible to fuck up and gain a ton of weight doing IF (read all those Muslim forum posts complaining about gaining weight during Ramadan). What I find is that once I have made the discipline of restricting when I eat, I eventually "want" to give up junk food as well.

 

[Strawberry Pocky]

It's still possible to fuck up and gain a ton of weight doing IF

Yeah dude, I'm glad you said this because I was going to point it out myself as well.
You say that with IF there aren't any restrictions with the types of food that you eat....? Well, sure. If you go ahead and decide for yourself "I'm going to eat literally anything that I want, as long as it is within this pre-set 8 hour window" then you are Intermittently Fasting. But you absolutely, can totally still gain weight - if you still eat more calories than you burn then it doesn't matter.

IF is great and has tons of health benefits and is a very useful tool, but that's all it is. It's a TOOL. The ultimate and ONLY factor as to your weight loss is going to be Calories-in-VS-Calories-out.....so if you overeat your calories and/or eat a shitheaping pile of junkfood garbage during your IF windows then you could easily gain.

Glad to hear that you know that it's not a magic wand and is still possible to fuck up. Increasing discipline and not wanting/craving junk food any more is awesome too.

 

[Fatcat]

I'd like to add that the IF is not just skipping breakfast it just reduces the eating window so you'll still need to eat the right amount of calories, I downloaded this app called Zero that keep track of your fasting and offers different type (24h, 16:8, custom etc) it's nice