765. the best laid plans o' mice and men...

[jupiterlullaby]

Since puberty, I have been fat. The smallest pants size I consciously remember wearing was a size 14 in eighth grade. (It was a pair of cargo khakis. I loved those pants. I also ruined them by sitting on the track at one of my sister's band competitions with a guy I was crushing on at the time-so of course I'd wind up with black spots all over

Comments

[loveitblonde]

I know your struggle. I finally just lost real weight for the first time last year (gained back, long story) but the better eating habits stuck so I know I will get the weight off again soon.

It really does take a shift in how you look at food (in my opinion). I never divd too deep into macros. I just ate what I thought of as real food. Not processed garbage. Fruit, veg, whole grains, meats, fish, lower fat dairy.

Planning meals always made me fail any diet I tried. Instead I'd eat what I was in the mood for (still, real food choices here).

I worked nights then too. Bought a fitbit. Fitbit goes from midnight to midnight, so thats how I tracked calories. Some days depending on meals and how I slept I'd eat 2000 a day, some days more like 600. It still balanced out over the week.

How I avoided calling a day "ruined" and eating whatever was thinking of my weight loss as a bank of calories I had to burn. Say goal was 50 pounds. At 3500 calories to burn off a pound my bank would be to burn 175,000 calories. Now I didn't actually do the math cause weight loss isn't perfectly linear, but knowing that binging wouldnt just ruin today, it'd ruin days of progress and I'd have to burn all those calories off AGAIN, helped me avoid it.

I didn't workout at first, other that going for walks, which burnt more calories than I thought. As i got smaller and my cardio improved then I started the gym but didn't push it.

Omg sorry haha this was a totally long unsolicited response. I just read your post and was thinking "omg I could have written that two years ago exactly".

Anywayyyyy hope you have a great week!

[jupiterlullaby]

No, I actually appreciate all of that! It's helpful to know that others have faced basically exactly the same struggles and overcome them. Your note about having things balance out over time rather than focusing on each individual meal/workout/days' worth of calories banked, burned, or eaten is a good way to look at it, and something I need to work on trying to see. I think keeping that idea of what's banked for me in the long run (or even just week by week) would keep me sane compared to trying to stay on track with every meal/every day.

I hope your week is fantastic as well!