Any fatties want to join me getting slim

[LimeJ]

Oh dear, I'm so tubby. I can't hide it any longer. I need help and support from other fatties who will understand 😭

Starting tomorrow, no more excuses. Please join me.

84.1 kg

So plus 0.8 kg! Reverse of FatCatThinCat!
Now I have to do it all over again!

It's not such a huge gain. The most important thing is that you can figure out why you've gained and put it right for next week.

Thanks a lot FatCatThinCat! I am ready to face work and weight loss after the Great Holiday in the sofa!

Week 23

Start weight: 276.8lbs [gulp]
Current weight: 231.7lbs
Weight lost this week: 1.1bs
Total weight lost: 45.1lb

Not a massive loss, but ok and I am glad I have fallen back into the lower calories again easily after my higher fortnight. Plus, I can see my body fat % creeping down too so I think any losses are mostly fat and not muscle etc. When is good.

@MushMonster sometimes a good rest is just what you need, so you've done yourself good even with the small gain. A chance to recharge before getting back on it.

Well done WobbleWhenIRun you're doing really well. Your starting in weight is where I am now and your current weight is where I'm desperate to be, out of the high risk for covid zone. So in my weak moments over the dark winter, I keep you in mind as proof it can be done.

Hi All,

SW- 13.25 st/ 84.2 kgs (BMI 27.4)
(wk 1)- 13.149 st/83.5 kgs (BMI 27.2)
Wk 2 - 12.94st/ 82.2 kgs (BMI 26.7)
Wk 3- 12.84st/81.6kg (BMI 26.6)
Overweight

@FatCatThinCat that's great.. your doing very well..

@MushMonster that's not a big gain.. i would have gained much more of i give myself a break.

@WobbleWhenIRun congrats to your weight loss.. your consistency n determination is very inspiring.

@ShopoholicIn - congratulations to you too, on your week. Looks like you are settling into a good groove, there.

Thanks @FatCatThinCat and @ShopoholicIn for your kind words. I keep repeating to myself that consistency is better than perfection. It's ok for me to fail, so long as I keep picking myself up and carrying on.

Great results @FatCatThinCat, @ShopoholicIn and @WobbleWhenIRun. I love reading about people's progress, it's very encouraging.

@MushMonster that's not much of a gain for a holiday week, and you might find that some/most of it is bloat if your carb intake went up. And that's a lovely NSV with your new dress fitting - congratulations!

I'm resolutely staying away from the scales until my end-of-month weigh-in. It's getting nearer now, so I'm determined to stay on plan this week. Doing well since the end of maintenance fortnight, and it'll be interesting to see what the impact is on my weight loss (or not!).

We seem to have lost @Grimmauldface and I miss her. Grimmauldface if you're still reading this thread and you feel like stopping by with an update it would be lovely to see you - no pressure, no judgement, just hoping you're OK.

Thanks for your kind words @WobbleWhenIRun and @morningtoncrescent62 ..Its so great to be a part of this group. Feels like we are all in this together..

'Consistency is better than perfection' thanks for this @WobbleWhenIRun my new mantra

That’s definitely not a big gain @MushMonster hopefully it will come off in no time!

@WobbleWhenIRun that’s such an inspirational total weight loss you’ve got there. Starting to realise that slow and steady really does win the race.

Great loss @ShopoholicIn

Not long until your end of month weigh in! @morningtoncrescent62

I’m going to weigh in today too. Will see how it goes but I had a small gain last week and do feel old bad habits slowly creeping back in. Will keep your all posted

Thanks @notevenamum1

Something that is standing out stronger in my mind all the time is how important it is not to make this process too hard for yourself.

Something that really spoke to me is the theory that you could:
a) calculate the calories requires to maintain your goal weight
b) just eat them now, even at a higher weight
c) and eventually your weight should stablise at that goal weight, because you would be eating at a deficit for your bigger body. That deficit would slowly decrease until balance between weight and calories was achieved - which should be at goal.

That stands out so much to me as one way in which you would never really be on a diet, you would just be eating maintenance for your goal weight, never having to transition from a diet to mainintaining.

It's not what I am doing but I try to keep the idea in mind that a slower, easier journey is more likely to be succesful than a quicker, harder one.

I am helped in that because I do a lot of dog walking and am quite tall. That means my current TDEE (calories requires to maintain my current weight) is around 2650. So, I only need to eat less than that to lose.

The reason I mention it, is because I wonder if you are trying to stick to too hard a path? I wonder if there is a slower but easier route you could take? It make take longer but if you are more likely to enjoy it and find it easier to stick with it, ultimately it's going to be the more succesful?

I don't know and only you can decide. We all need to find out own way and what works for one, might not work for another. I just thought I'd share...

@WobbleWhenIRun I love that idea of eating at maintenance for your goal weight!!!

I actually don’t think that I’m being too strict at all. Like you I am also tall and walk a lot so my tdee is fairly high. I try to be extra good mon-thurs “saving” around 300 cals a day to use fri-sun. I just need to remember to switch back every Monday.

I have slowed to consistent weight loss of 4lbs a month which I’m absolutely fine with but I guess it’s just keeping the motivation and the consistency up that can be hard when normal life gets in the way.

1.5lbs lost this week after a 0.5lbs gain last week.

I have two weeks of annual leave to take in mid November so my goal is to lose 2.2lb (1kg) by then to take my total weight loss to 10kg which was one of my mini goals.

New stats:

Starting weight: 14st 2lbs
Starting bmi: 30 (obese)
Current weight: 12st 10.2lbs
Current bmi: 26.9 (overweight)

Total loss: 19.8lbs

One thing that has helped me is to also reserve 500kcals a week.

So, I aim for 1750 Mon-Thu, 2000 Fri-Sun. But I also have a "rule" that if I hit certain goals Mon-Sat then I earn 500kcals which I can keep in reserve for up to a week before they expire.

So, for me the criteria is:

• avg daily steps of 10,000 or higher
• eating within 100kcals of daily target (to stop any temptation to binge then restrict) AND eaten less than total target for Mon-Sat
• do 3 x runs

If I do all that each Mon-Sat, then I get 500kcals that can only be eaten on one day (i.e. I cannot eek them out in tiny increments because they are meant to represent a singificant treat) and expire if I don't use them before I earn the next lot.

This allows me to have a day where if I really want to eats something I can do so within those constraints and still feel like I am 'on plan'. I just call on these 500kcals to cover it.

It won't be for everyone and I suspect some people won't like the concept of using food as a reward but, for me, it gives me the psychological means by which I can have a difficult day but just keep going the next day. I also love a bit of excel so enjoy recording when I've had a good week and keeping track of rewards.

It makes my overall daily kcal average around 1950 - which is still less than my current TDEE (2650) or my goal weight TDEE (2250), so feels ok.

1.5lbs lost this week after a 0.5lbs gain last week.

Cross posted with this. Awesome!

Well done, @notevenamum1 on your weight loss and progress towards your next goal. Great stuff!

I mentioned a few pages back that I was considering eating TDEE for my goal weight and losing weight slowly towards it. It didn't get a positive response! But I'm quite glad that the alternative suggestion of maintenance fortnights emerged from the subsequent discussion, because I quite like knowing that I'm 'rehearsing' how to maintain and trying out different ways of doing it, knowing that I'll be going back onto plan after the end of each fortnight. I know how to diet, and I certainly know how to massively overeat. I have no successful experience of maintaining a sensible weight since my first diet aged 9 (I'm in my late 50s) and I think the conversation about maintenance fortnights, and my first experience of trying one, has made me realise that I need to learn to do that with a bit of a safety net.

I'm a shorty, and I do envy the TDEE amounts of people who are tall. Also I imagine you carry your excess weight a lot better than I do.

@WobbleWhenIRun I've been thinking a lot about what rules I want to try for my November maintenance fortnight, and the rules I think I'm settling on aren't dissimilar to yours with 'saving up' extra calories. Here's what I'm planning:

Monday-Friday TDEE -200 calories. It's going to look pretty similar to how I eat currently, with just two rule relaxations. I'm going to allow myself to eat pasta so long as it's within the calorie amount, and also any kind of fruit - when I'm on diet plan I don't have high-sugar fruit like bananas or grapes. Those are the only two changes, plus portion sizes can increase a bit. No empty calories of any kind, though.

Saturday & Sunday TDD + 500 calories which can come from larger portions, snacks, takeaways, breakfast fry-ups, or a few drinks in the pub (obviously not all on the same day!). I know that looks like a lot of choice, and choice is something that has derailed me many times in the past. But if this is going to be sustainable for the rest of my life, I need to be able to have those things in moderation, occasionally, and in the context of an overall healthy, balanced and calorie-appropriate diet. So I'll give it a go. If it all goes horribly wrong it's only for a fortnight after all.

To make things easier I'm going to have a shopping rule. I'm not allowed to buy any cakes, packets of chocolate biscuits, multipacks of sweets, chocolates or crisps, or tubs of ice cream. I know that I can't eat these things in moderation - once opened I can't stop and the whole thing is gone. So if I want a Mars bar for a snack, I can buy a single one, not a four pack. If I want cake it has to be in a cafe where I can order a slice and eat a slice. Hopefully this will stop me going into full-blown uncontrolled addictive eating the moment I have choices to make.

Being tall is an advantage here - unfairly for others. It has had its downsides, such as always feeling like the massive girl in class, even when I was a healthy weight as a child. Set me up for a lifetime of feeling bigger than lots of other women. But when it comes to TDEE, I am grateful for it.

Still, when I worked out my TDEE it did cause me to think "bloody hell! HOW much was I eating to gain weight despite burning (as was) around 3000 kcals a day!"

End-of-month weigh-in this morning, and I've lost an unexpected 7lb. I was expecting much less of a loss, as the first half of October was maintenance fortnight. Maybe I've miscalculated my TDEE, or I'm at a low point in a cycle or something. But I'll take the win! I'm only 10lb away from the healthy weight range for my height and I've lost 54lb since the start of lockdown. I'm feeling good about where I am - I'm probably eating more healthily than at any time in my life and I don't feel as though I'm locked in an iron battle of wills. I'm still working from home so that probably helps, as I'm not constantly tempted by walking past cafes, supermarkets and cake shops!

I'm going to do another maintenance fortnight, but I'll wait until Wednesday to start it, so that I don't go straight in with weekend rules.

Wow @morningtoncrescent62 7lbs is amazing!!! Wonder if it was your body relaxing for the maintenance for tonight?

1.3 kg gain this week which is depressing as I've stuck to the plan.

Sorry @FatCatThinCat I hate it when that happens. As disheartening as it is, stick to it and hopefully you’ll see a big loss next week