*** Big Fat Weight Loss Thread ***

ic1male said:
So what are people most looking forward to when you reach your goals? For me, it's not getting my kit off at the beach nor fitting into smaller clothes but not having to record and calculate every morsel of food that I put in my stomach. I've been doing it for nearly three years now. This is going to be the last year I put up with it. 2023 I'm going to liberate myself. :D
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Just be careful doing that when you reach your goal as that's exactly what I did years ago, I stopped tracking and started gaining weight very slowly. Never got as bad as I once was but the cycle repeated itself. Hopefully you won't have any issues though. A bit like @AndyCr15, I think I'll always track to some extent but I just won't be as regimented about it.

Regarding goals I'm looking forward to hopefully getting quicker at running as the weight continues to slowly drop off and it'd nice not to be able to full on grab a big old chunk of stomach fat while were at it, I can dream :cry:
 
Bunko said:
Just be careful doing that when you reach your goal as that's exactly what I did years ago, I stopped tracking and started gaining weight very slowly. Never got as bad as I once was but the cycle repeated itself. Hopefully you won't have any issues though. A bit like @AndyCr15, I think I'll always track to some extent but I just won't be as regimented about it.

Regarding goals I'm looking forward to hopefully getting quicker at running as the weight continues to slowly drop off and it'd nice not to be able to full on grab a big old chunk of stomach fat while were at it, I can dream :cry:
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Yeah, I see what you mean. I'll be weighing myself weekly still so hopefully will be able to catch any gains before they get out of hand. I've just not got to let cakes, chocolate bars and biscuits become an everyday item again. Christmas is deadly - I should just allow myself a couple of days to feast and not the whole week and then two more weeks into January. :D

I get annoyed with my belly bouncing about during running. That's one thing I'm hoping will be gone in 2 stones time.
 
ic1male said:
Yeah, I see what you mean. I'll be weighing myself weekly still so hopefully will be able to catch any gains before they get out of hand. I've just not got to let cakes, chocolate bars and biscuits become an everyday item again. Christmas is deadly - I should just allow myself a couple of days to feast and not the whole week and then two more weeks into January. :D

I get annoyed with my belly bouncing about during running. That's one thing I'm hoping will be gone in 2 stones time.
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Good idea, I don't mean to put a dampener on things but I know how easy it is to brush it off and worry about it next week then all of a sudden a year has passed by! I've always said to myself that you should allow yourself things you enjoy else what's the point of it all? Luckily I don't really care for cake :D Moderation is key but it looks like you already know this from what you've said :)

You and me both mate, it's the only negative thing I have right now and it's a right confidence knocker when on the roads in a t-shirt. It does feel like it's shrinking though so I'm just going to continue what I'm doing.
 
ic1male said:
So what are people most looking forward to when you reach your goals? For me, it's not getting my kit off at the beach nor fitting into smaller clothes but not having to record and calculate every morsel of food that I put in my stomach. I've been doing it for nearly three years now. This is going to be the last year I put up with it. 2023 I'm going to liberate myself. :D
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See, I find the tracking really helps me, I actually enjoy it! Bit of a data nerd so I always find numbers interesting.

I am looking forward to eating more. I want to bulk up, first I need to hit my initial goal to get to a true base position before doing so.

From just having my maintenance phase recently I'm going to love eating at that level again, well 200-400 more then that even! I'm pretty sure I was still losing fat during my maintenance phase as the scales didn't move but now I've been back on my cut for only 1 week I've dropped 4lb, which is 2.8% total bw for me. I know this is for sure me burning through glycogen stores etc, interestingly though I didn't see a jump in weight when I went to maintenance which is what i expected. So I can only assume that this is down to continued bodyfat reduction during maintenance.
 
Syla5 said:
See, I find the tracking really helps me, I actually enjoy it! Bit of a data nerd so I always find numbers interesting.
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It definitely helps and I do like seeing the results at the end of the day but weighing out every item in a salad, for example, just to make sure the net carbs are right is really time consuming. It's probably the worst type of meal to do because there are so many things I have on my plate but each one in small quantities. Otherwise, it is pretty much bish bash bosh for two or three things in a typical meal.
 
ic1male said:
It definitely helps and I do like seeing the results at the end of the day but weighing out every item in a salad, for example, just to make sure the net carbs are right is really time consuming. It's probably the worst type of meal to do because there are so many things I have on my plate but each one in small quantities. Otherwise, it is pretty much bish bash bosh for two or three things in a typical meal.
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You're doing keto style aren't you? I suppose that's one of the drawbacks for that style. I don't even consider anything in my bowls full of salad that go alongside my protein/carbs.
 
Yeah for salads and veg i just stick an arbitrary weight value on, not individual items etc. My key focus with all my tracking is hitting my protein target then my daily cals.
 
tom_e said:
You're doing keto style aren't you? I suppose that's one of the drawbacks for that style. I don't even consider anything in my bowls full of salad that go alongside my protein/carbs.
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Yeah, I was planning on sticking with it til September but I think I'll be back to just calorie counting in a month. I'm enjoying it as I rarely feel hungry but I really miss my veggies! It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't got bags of Huel to use up still as that takes up a big percentage of the day's carbs. But at least I'm getting some kind of nutrition from it. A lot of folk doing keto seem to have bacon with everything which surely can't be good for you (dirty keto).
 
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Another week down and this morning elicits a "GRRRR!"

Nothing's changed from the three weeks previously, still in ketosis, still eating around 1900kcals but the weight loss has almost been non-existant. When I first stepped on the scales, I went UP by 0.2kg. I wasn't having any of that so reset them and got on again and down 0.3kg. And repeated. Same 0.3kg. Oh, well. It's still a loss. But not as excited as being 79.9kg would be as it was 80.1kg.

I know you can get obsessed with the scales and you should just look at other body measurements but still. :) I'll be weighing-in again on Wednesday for the start of the month so maybe I can eek that 0.2kg out in two days. :D
 
Syla5 said:
See, I find the tracking really helps me, I actually enjoy it! Bit of a data nerd so I always find numbers interesting.

I am looking forward to eating more. I want to bulk up, first I need to hit my initial goal to get to a true base position before doing so.

From just having my maintenance phase recently I'm going to love eating at that level again, well 200-400 more then that even! I'm pretty sure I was still losing fat during my maintenance phase as the scales didn't move but now I've been back on my cut for only 1 week I've dropped 4lb, which is 2.8% total bw for me. I know this is for sure me burning through glycogen stores etc, interestingly though I didn't see a jump in weight when I went to maintenance which is what i expected. So I can only assume that this is down to continued bodyfat reduction during maintenance.
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I have so much respect for people that do this. I've never logged / tracked food - I tried to a while back and it was so time consuming that I just stopped doing it. Now I'm sure it's easier to do it than back then. I did it just out of interest rather than wanting to lose weight. My weight has always been relatively stable, but I'm also a sucker for it. I find it hard to be "small" i.e. under 90kg which is a weird mental / body dysmorphia thing.

I'm either lucky that I seem to have a stable diet or my goals / achievements are being hit, or I just don't have particular ambitious goals. I think I just don't want to be a typical 40 something dad bod.

It's nice to see so many people succeeding, but it is such a minefield, and it's a moving feast. As your body gets leaner your metabolism changes, as does your body's reaction to food - so you need to constantly tweak tings as you go. I love seeing people achieve their goals, it makes me happy - even those of you i don't know, it is just nice to see people taking their health and fitness and well being so seriously. :)
 
Syla5 said:
@ic1male i assume you are weighing yourself at the same time of day in the same circumstances?
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Yup, although after my rant above, I may have gone over my carb budget ever so slightly yesterday. Which might have resulted in some water weight and could explain why I felt absolutely incredible during my run this morning. I could have run for an hour but had to stop because I hadn’t the time. :D
 
Freefaller said:
I've never logged / tracked food - I tried to a while back and it was so time consuming that I just stopped doing it.
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I think the only thing I do that could be considered time-consuming is weigh my Huel still, but even that probably doesn't add more than 20 seconds. I wouldn't imagine I spend more than 10 to 20 seconds logging any meal. I set a few items up as meals in MyFP, so my evening routine of two apples, a protein bar and a bowl of cereal with almond milk is set up as one item. After a few months of weighing different things, you get a lot better at judging things too, so I don't weigh much now, even the Huel I can generally guess within 2 grams how much is in the scoop.
 
Hey @Freefaller some very kind words there <3. I wouldn't say you are lucky or not, I think it just comes down to general size. Being a manlet, while being able to eat like someone who's 6'0+ is a really unfortunate combination for me, so tracking is critical. Also the fact I seem to need to come out on the low side when it comes to the calcs as well, means my margins are pretty tight.

I'm hoping that during this process I might have rebalanced my metabolism and I might end up having the capacity for more food all over.

Interestingly enough in this second phase of my cut, the weight is moving quicker then it was in the first phase, even though I'm at the same cals level, so this might be a sign already that I can start to up my numbers even to hit my cut goals.

@ic1male Don't forget as well that increased exercise could easily result in weight on the scale not moving much, as the body will hold more water in muscles etc.

As a reference when i first started my cut in the first month i dropped 1lb, I suspect this was because i had started exercise again and there was extra water retention and muscle gain countering the fat loss in terms of what the scales show weight wise.

This time around I've dropped 5-6lb in 1.5 weeks, I suspect a big part of this again was that i was actually still dropping weight during my maintenance phase but the scales didn't show this, and now I'm cutting again, I've quickly burned through my glycogen stores and so the drop is not true fat loss.
 
AndyCr15 said:
I think the only thing I do that could be considered time-consuming is weigh my Huel still, but even that probably doesn't add more than 20 seconds. I wouldn't imagine I spend more than 10 to 20 seconds logging any meal. I set a few items up as meals in MyFP, so my evening routine of two apples, a protein bar and a bowl of cereal with almond milk is set up as one item. After a few months of weighing different things, you get a lot better at judging things too, so I don't weigh much now, even the Huel I can generally guess within 2 grams how much is in the scoop.
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that's a good point, you can start spotting nutritional density after a while. I used to be happy with the same meals day in day out, in fact, when I used to play rugby and was trying to maintain my 100kg physique, and renting a flat in london on a low wage, and pay back silly debts I had clocked up, bulk cooking was my saviour. For a good 2 years or so I basically ate the same thing (more or less). I just used spices and herbs to change it up. I'm not exaggerating. It was mainly pasta, broccoli, chicken, rice, peas, carrots, fish, oats, eggs, protein powders. However I knew how much I was taking in after a while you just get into the habit of it. Not a fun way to exist really - but I had little choice.

You guys have got me thinking now, perhaps I should do a month's worth of logging and see just how much I do eat now (I should be around 3kcals for maintenance). I like a bit of a science experiment - in fact I've just had my 6 monthly blood test, so it might be interesting to do to see how it affects it. Presumably my fitness pal is still the app people use?
 
Definitely noticing with the carnivore diet that my gut is way more chilled out. Thinking I must have been eating something I was intolerant of, no idea what in particular tho.

Also sleeping better and dreaming most days. Waking up after dreaming feels better than waking up after not dreaming for sure. (previously I hardly ever had dreams ever since I was a kid)
 
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I still mostly log food but there are days I know I don't need to bother (when I'm eating set meals I've made before using the same weights of food), as I know I'm within macros.
 
I get so frustrated with my fitness pal though, it just seems to get more sluggish & buggier with every update that comes. Just now I added a food and it had duplicated it the next time I opened the app. I have got a pretty old phone though so that could be contributing to it.

My calories started creeping up again towards the end of last week (ended on 3900 & 3400 calories Friday & Saturday) yet I just continued to track and eat lol. Completely wipes out any weekly progress. Time to stop making excuses and cut out biscuits/chocolates/crisps and hopefully have a bit of a reset. It's scary how fast the calories mount up with those items. One trip has been made to the shops for the week ahead, if it's not in the house I can't eat it :)
 
Bunko said:
My calories started creeping up again towards the end of last week (ended on 3900 & 3400 calories Friday & Saturday) yet I just continued to track and eat lol. Completely wipes out any weekly progress. Time to stop making excuses and cut out biscuits/chocolates/crisps and hopefully have a bit of a reset. It's scary how fast the calories mount up with those items. One trip has been made to the shops for the week ahead, if it's not in the house I can't eat it :)
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That's what concerns me as well. I'm finishing up keto tomorrow and will start adding extra carbs. But that will mean more calories eaten because the way things are right now, I don't want to swap fat for carbs (protein will stay the same). I love being able to have double cream in my coffee, putting butter on my vegetables and eating high fat yogurt. I'd have to swap all that out if I wanted a chip butty or something. LOL.
 
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