[NSV] I fit back into my late mother's wedding ring after losing 65 pounds!
Whoa, this is longer than expected. Also, apologies for formatting, I'm on mobile.
TLDR: Lost my mother. Didn't deal well. Gained 60 pounds and could no longer wear the ring I inherited from her. Got my mental health in check and did a lot of work to learn healthy habits and unlearn bad ones. Lost 65 pounds during the span of about a year and a half. Lower weight than I was in high school and fitting back in my mom's ring! Advice as well.
I always a healthy weight growing up. When I was 13 my Mom was diagnosed with stage four Breast Cancer that had metastasized to her bones. I'll spare all the details but the summary of it is that she fought it the best she could like a badass up until I turned 16. At that time, although her mind was still strong, her body wasn't and she passed away. She was honestly my best friend and I guess all I can really say about her death is that it wrecked me. I was a complete mess for a long time. I had promised her that in dealing with the stress of having a mother with Cancer and later losing her to it, I would never turn to drugs or alcohol. Thankfully I can say I kept my word when it comes to that but I ended up finding solace in food. Food was at first a comfort thing for me and then turned into a mixture of being comforting and my worst enemy. I'm sure many of you understand so I won't get much into it. The end result of this cycle was that I had gained 60 pounds. At one point my finger had gotten too big to wear my mother's wedding ring which I'd been wearing since her death. I wish I could say it was a wakeup call but sadly it was not. I continued eating ridiculous amounts of junk food until I stumbled across this subreddit and calculated my BMI. I was shocked to find out I was obese. I was so scared I would develop cancer or diabetes. It was enough to get me to start trying to lose weight. I tried Weight Watchers but I didn't always stick to it and even when I did I felt like I wasn't losing very quickly. I'd see you guys post about CICO and was too stubborn to switch over to it. Finally I got impatient enough with Weight Watchers that I made the switch and I've been logging every day since. I'm down a total of 65 pounds with 5(?) more to lose. It took me probably about a year and a half, a year of that being serious work.
Things I do and have done that have made me successful: -CICO (of course). Started out with a loss of two pounds a week which started at 1290 a day and ended up at 1200 as I lost. I used Myfitnesspal. It gets the job done. -Weighing my food religiously. If I'm going to dinner at a family or friends house I bring a scale to make sure. Without it I will overestimate! -Something I think that's also allowed me to be successful is that I eat what I want as long as I'm within my 1200. I am very VERY picky (working on this) and I am a big fan of foods that are unhealthy. I know this is something I need to change and I need to start expanding my palette but I'm focused on one thing at a time :) So for now, I eat all the junk food I've always eaten, just less. For example, for lunch I will have a corn dog or uncrustable with chips. Sometimes I'll have a Rice Krispie Treat as 'lunch dessert'. Some nights for dinner I have Eggos or a personal pizza and French fries cooked in the air fryer. I regularly eat ice cream, Oreos, nachos, or chocolate for dessert. Think unsupervised child at a birthday party, that is the sort of things I eat. Just now it's within reason. If someone brings donuts into work, I'll check to see if I can incorporate into my day. I'll ask myself if I'd prefer that to having dessert. Sometimes the answer is no and sometimes it's yes. I don't deny myself the donut in the times where it's yes. -Intermittent Fasting. Even when I ate whatever I wanted I never really felt like eating breakfast so I just don't. I go from about 8:00PM to 12:00PM the next day without eating. Then I have lunch. It makes me successful because I'm always hungriest in the evenings. Typically what I'll do is eat a lunch that's about 310-350 calories. Dinner will be from 500-600 and I use the rest for dessert. -I do one cheat MEAL a week. Not a whole day except for rare occasions. For me, it gives me a chance to eat foods I've been craving and it keeps me happy and dedicated. Usually I end eating at maintenance for cheat meals since I still log but if I go over a bit I don't worry about it. Because of cheat meals I feel my progress was a bit slowed but to me it's been worth it. I think as far as cheat meals go you have to do what works best for you, it's a personal choice. I know sometimes for people it makes it harder and they continue eating poorly but for me it's kept me sane. -This will seem totally obvious but I'm saying what I'm about to say because I didn't realize how MUCH what I was doing impeded me. On Friday nights, I always go out to dinner with my dad and husband. My dad and I used to go out with my mom and so it's a tradition we've kept going. I used to not track or eat according to my 'diet' those nights justifying it plus a cheat meal a few days later by thinking 'well some people have whole cheat days so this is not that bad!' I decided I wanted to speed up the process so I started checking calories of my meals and making sure I stayed within 1200. Lots of eating kids meals. Doing this doubled my weight loss per week. I think most of it was that I wasn't retaining as much water from the salt but some of it was that it was actually eating too much into my weekly deficit. Anyways, it was sort of a surprise for me so I say it in case there are others are out there who are not aware of the difference scaling back cheats can make. -Just recently I incorporated exercise. For the first 60 pounds I lost I did not exercise beyond trying to get 10,000 steps a day. I wanted to begin toning up my legs and arms. I do the elliptical for 30 minutes in the morning and the treadmill for 30 minutes in the afternoon. I usually burn about 500 calories between both and I normally don't eat back the calories. I'm mostly doing this for my physical health and not so much for weight loss. That's just a bonus! I want to start adding in more weight lifting but I'll get there. Also, I used to try and exercise when I was heavier. Oh my god it was so much harder and I hated it. Consider waiting until you've lost some weight before incorporating exercise. -When I'm wanting to eat I'll check to see if I'm actually hungry. I had to really get used to the fact that full doesn't mean 'about to barf' it means content. I'll ask myself if I would be willing to eat something like an apple or watermelon. If the answer is no, I'm not actually hungry. I've found that as time has gone on I'm more used to smaller portions. The hunger does go away for some people! It was scary at first to order a kids meal or less food at McDonald's but I got past it and found less food actually got me just as full. -Lots of water. Helps to keep me from feeling hungry. -Happy Scale. I love this app! It really helps keep me motivated. It breaks up your goal weight into milestones so it's not as daunting. -Good support system. My husband has always been a positive influence in my life and he's been great at helping me to make healthy choices and stay on track. He's lost forty pounds! It's helped tons for us to do it together. -The last point and a huge part of my success has been mental health. I had depression and anxiety from the time my mom was diagnosed when I was 13 to the age of 24. It had severely worsened when she passed away. I had tried SO many different medications. Like so so many. Saw a psychiatrist. The medications he prescribed me had no effect. Like no side effects, no differences even past 8 weeks. I could stop taking the medications and have no withdrawal symptoms. It felt like I just didn't absorb them in any way. Stopped going to my psychiatrist because depression made even keeping appointments difficult. Continued therapy from the age of 16 to presently. Regular therapy got me to the point where I decided I'd find the right medication no matter what it took. Got married and new insurance and went to my new doctor. She was great and worked with me to try a new medication. It's one that I think has only been prescribed to people for the last few years. I started taking it and it made me feel nauseous which wasn't fun but it was encouraging because I felt like my body was finally responding to a medication. Long story short, it ended up working great! Through continued therapy and multiple attempts at finding the right medication for the last decade I can finally say I feel my depression has been managed. I feel at peace with my mother's death and like a whole person again. I think this has had the biggest impact on my success. If you are struggling with mental illness, please do everything you have the energy to to try and make it better. Break it up into small steps if you have to. Help and improved mental health are possible, I promise. I thought I was a lost cause after struggling so much for so long but if I can do it so can you!
All in all, a day has not gone by where I've not been glad to have lost the weight. It's hard at first because it seemed like such a monumental undertaking. I remembering panicking about wanting to lose 70 pounds. I broke it up into chunks. My first goal was to get to an overweight category and then my next was to get to 'normal', at least as far as my BMI goes. Definitely not normal in general, ha! My next goal is to make it to 135 pounds and see where I'm at. I may decide to lose more. I just say this to remind you all that you will make it to the point where suddenly you start noticing the loss. Then other people start noticing. Then you start noticing your clothes are baggy. You notice you sleep better. You are down a whole size and then you're down two! You are in single digit pant sizes! That can all happen and I promise it will be so worth it. It feels great! You all have what it takes and we're all rooting for you here at Loseit!
This subreddit has been a great resource and I'm happy to be able to contribute some advice in a small way. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Good luck to everyone!
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