I was hoping to hit my goal weight by New Years day. Instead I sailed right on past it. I am also, according to the BMI chart, no longer overweight. At all. I am a healthy weight. Right before Christmas I went through my closet and all my drawers and got rid of everything that didn't fit. I was holding on to stuff in case I regained weight, but that's done. I'm not going back. Three bags of stuff went to Goodwill.
I'm just so proud of myself. Here's the things I tried that worked and the things that didn't work.
What worked for me:
-Small plates. Eating off of saucer sized plates help me learn what a serving should really look like and be aware of when I was having more than one serving.
-Less calorie dense foods. I shifted my diet to include more vegetables, and avoided anything where I could consume like 1,000 calories in five bites.
-Walking every day. This gave me more energy and helped me enjoy my lighter body.
-No more drinking calories, plus reward system. Banning drinking calories was hard for me. I would not drink soda for weeks and then spend a few weeks drinking like 3-4 sodas a day, gain weight again, and be like "damn it I have to not do this!", and repeat. Eventually I came up with a reward system where I paid myself $2 every time I didn't drink a soda. I put the money into a vacation/splurge fund. Watching all my "didn't buy that soda money" accumulate gave me another reason to kick my soda habit and the extra motivational boost I needed. And now I have like over $1,000 in there and we are going on vacation (seriously, I want to drink a lot of soda).
-Weekly and then monthly weigh ins- Weighing more than once a week made me get disheartened by small fluctuations that didn't mean anything. As progress slowed, I moved to monthly weigh ins, and found that really boosted my motivation.
What didn't work for me:
-Counting calories. It was frustrating, I was bad at it, I got no where with it. I even got a food scale to help me count more accurately, but a combination of being bad at math and an excellent wishful thinker doomed my success. Thinking I needed to count calories in order to lose weight held me back for years.
-Jogging. Too hard on my knees and I just didn't like it, I couldn't stick with it. Then I would do nothing instead. I learned to pick an exercise I could stick with.
-Banning foods. If I ban a food all together I will just end up binging it. For the most part (except my nemesis, soda), I did better by allowing myself all foods in moderation.
I know that maintaining a healthy weight can be even harder than losing, but I think my slow and steady progress and the real life style changes I've made are going to help me succeed. And I know that if I start gaining again, I'll assess the problem and do something about it. I won't just be complacent like I was when I gained the nearly 70lbs the first time.
Thanks to everyone for making this sub great and good luck with your goals!
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/eipvpv/when_i_started_3_years_ago_at_210_lbs_my_goal/
