Weightloss tips

[Newbie96]

Hey all,

So I will jump straight to it, I haven't been happy with my weight for some time now, I am 25 and female.

At the moment I am around a size 12-14 in clothes and around 13stone on the scales, which I know is not overweight but I just don't feel comfortable or confident at all in my own skin and the comments around me telling me I've gained a bit don't help either, I used to be a size 8-10.

I was in a controlling /abusive relationship for 4 years in which my partner didn't approve of me doing anything for myself which quickly led to me becoming very depressed, very lazy (not doing any physical activity) and a binge eater. Now I am single and have been for a while, I feel as though I'm in a place to really try my best to improve myself, for me but the issue is I just don't know where to start.

I have my fitness pal on my phone so I track my calories daily and go on walks often but I just feel as though nothing is changing and it's starting to affect my mental health quite a bit. My confidence is at an all-time low and that paired with my anxiety means I'm going in a vicious cycle with myself.

Any advice would help!
Thank you.

Ah it can be really demoralising sometimes can't it?

What kind of food are you eating and how much? Have you worked out your TDEE?

You should be aiming to eat the right amount of calories and its really easy to under or over-estimate. I measured everything including olive oil, butter etc.

You also need to start doing some strength exercises too to build up muscles if you haven't (and over time make sure you're measuring inches as well as weight) - I essentially craah dieted and lost a lot of weight including muscle mass at first which was a mistake.

It can also help to join some of the groups here to keep you motivated!

I absolutely second strenght exercises. They help your posture too so your body will look and feel different.

Don't get discouraged! This feeling will go and you will be really happy you didn't give up. It's hard to start changing things.

The only way I can lose weight is my tracking EVERYTHING on MFP. And overestimating: so if I'm spooning some yogurt into a glass, I will add a few extra grams to what I record, to allow for the yogurt left on the spoon and that I licked clean! It's almost more a matter of discipline than anything else: if you are a little sloppy with the tracking, you will likely not think much of the extra broccoli you add to your plate to finish them off rather than leaving a few bits in the pot. And on it goes. I found that tracking meticulously suddenly showed a different picture to the one I had. And that's when I started losing weight.

I absolutely hate calorie counting and it just doesn’t work for me. I just end up up getting obsessed with everything I’m eating which doesn’t give me a healthy relationship with food. It works for others though. It depends on what works for you.

Instead, I focus on eating well most of the time and not beating myself when I have a rare take away. That’s basically loads of veg, lean protein and less processed, fatty food. I measure some carbs (pasta, rice, cous cous) so I’m not accidentally eating too big portions. Lots of exercise (hiit and weights) has made a massive difference to how I look.

There isn’t one way to lose weight well. The key thing is to be realistic about how you want to eat, what’s going to fit with your lifestyle and what’s going to be maintainable.