If you have a look at my stats at the bottom of my post, it took me from July to January to lose 13 pounds. It's taken me over a year to lose 42 pounds. I still have a lot left to lose, too, so I should still be rolling along nicely.
Working out at the gym for the last few weeks. Lost a pants size, down to a 14 now. Scale jumped UP around 6 pounds and won't go down no matter what.
I'm happy with what I'm eating, I'm not willing to cut calories anymore since I'm asking my body to do things I've never asked it to do before. It needs sustenance to complete those workouts, and to heal and strengthen those muscles.
I'm not going to throw out my scales just because of some stupid number that nobody but me and my doctor even knows.
I'm happy with my pants size, I'm happy with my food, I'm happy with my lifestyle, so what am I complaining about so much?
Well, if we're going to make this a reverse competition, I guess I've got you beat. It's taken me 6 years to lose 88 lbs. So that comes to just under 1.25 lb per month. My speed has ranged from 1/2 pound per month to 2 lbs per month.
My best success "this time" has been worse than any previous failure (the point at which I would abandon a diet because I was losing too slow to feel successful).
Kaplods, I have devoured every post of yours I come across. Your attitude that maintaining even a half-pound loss is better than gaining, or God forbid, giving up is what I'm trying to adopt!
The tantrum-throwing two year old inside me wants to stomp my feet and complain about how "not fair" it is to see so little results from what feels like such hard work.
The mature 37 year old me says suck it up, quit whining, and go move your butt. Life will pass me by whether I'm dieting or indulging, fat or thin, happy or sad. Time for me to make a choice.
Guess I just wanted to post this in response to a lot of posts I've seen lately from people who aren't losing as quickly as they'd like. There is another viewpoint.
PS Hey, Ruth, we used to hang out in LC together. Looks like I haven't had great luck with it, huh? I'm glad to see you're still around!
Believe it or not, I'm an antique PCOS lady! I'm 72 and way back when I was 18, I had what we now know was PCOS. I think it hadn't been invented yet! All the usual stuff and not able to get preggers. Times have changed. By the way I weighed 125 back then and have been "dieting" for over 50 years!
I look at this thread and see not slow loss, but long-term success stories. Slow and steady DOES seem to win the race, if these posts are any indication.
Gives me hope for my relatively paltry weekly weight loss versus the "I'm only losing two pounds a week, wah!" mentality that I used to have when I yo-yoed a lot. I'd rather lose slowly and sustainably than quickly and miserably.
It feels so freakin' good to be able to say that now. What a relief not to have to punish myself! Thank you, folks, for your long-term success stories; they make a huge difference in others' lives.
Gosh I hope not. I absolutely love this thread and want to hear more. I want to hear from every last one of the "slow losers" out there, because this is a perspective, we rarely have access to.
I strongly suspect that the slow-losers vastly outnumber the steady or rapid losers, but we're accustomed to keeping our mouths shut so as not to be criticised for our lack of effort, motivation and commitment.
Everyone thinks losing 2 lbs a week is "normal," but we almost never hear from the people who are losing less. Weight loss success statistics are fairly dismal, and one of the main reasons (I suspect) is that we're taught that less than 1-2 lbs per week is failure, so people give up if they can't pull better numbers than that. Instead of saying "I can only lose 1/4 of a pound per week, so I'll be satisfied with that," we say "I can only lose 1/4 lb. That's lousy, hardly better than losing nothing. Heck hardly better than gaining. If losing 1/4 lb is just as much a failure as gaining, why am I putting so much effort into failure. I might as well stop trying, because at this rate I'll never succeed. If I'm going to be a failure anyway, If I give up dieting, at least I'll get to eat what I want while failing."
What makes it so God-awful worse, is that we're setting a definition of success that almost no one is meeting. We think the 1-2 lbs is being acheived by everyone BUT us, not realizing we're the ones in the majority.
It's like coming in 1000th place in the Boston Marathon. Gee that sucks, (except that the race averages over 20,000 participants every year (and in 1996, there were 38,000). So if you come in 1000th place, you've beat at least 19,000 other people).
It's just really sad that while we're doing better than most people do (because most people give up), we've been taught to see ourselves as failing - to the point that many of us do quit while we're ahead (we just have no idea that we're ahead of anybody, we only see all of the butts of the people in front of us, not realizing how many people are watching our butts saying "I wish that could be me").
I am envious of 1 lb per week, because I'm not acheiving that. When I do, I'll probalby be envious of everyone who loses 2 lbs a week. It's just so much easier to look ahead and see butts than to look backwards and see all the thousands and thousands (heck millions) of people who can't keep up with us!
We need to see how successful we really are.
It's why I love my TOPS group. Every meeting the leader reads the total losses and gains during the week (and at the beginning of each month and year, does the same for the previous month/year). We also go around the room and share whether we've lost/gained/stayed the same. It's not to shame anyone (most of us don't even remember anyone's loss/gain but our own), but it does keep us all very aware of how normal it is to not see a steady, rapid weight loss. My group has about 30 members. And a couple weeks ago we had a 16 lb net loss for the club. It may not have been a record-breaker, but it was pretty unusual, so we all were so excited, and celebrating it when I realized that isn't even an average of 1/2 lb per person. And it dawned on me that most months we came pretty close to even. Any net loss for the month (more wieght lost than gained by the whole group) was actually uncommon enough that we always cheer when there's any loss at all. That means that a lot of people are losing nothing or even gaining.
Normally we don't get to see everyone else's losses, and we naturally assume everyone is doing better than we are, but the fact is that if we're losing anything at all, we're ahead of the pack, not trailing behind. We really are all potential tortoises. There are tons of hares that will give up when their weight loss slows. Sure some hares will make it to the finish line, but many will quit (so will a lot of tortoises). We win not by our speed, but by persistance.
Why so? I think you'll find many of us slow losers have since been maintainers for many years!!!
One great thing about losing slow is that if you have to do it again (like me, when I had my baby), you have realistic expectations and the knowledge & tools to do it right ... again
If I had to brag that it took me 14 months to lose 30lbs, nobody would want to hear what I have to say - unfortunately, my methods do work long-term! They do however, gawk at my before & after photos! But the dates don't impress.
I don't have PCOS. Yet it took me three years to lose 30 pounds on an average intake of 1500 calories a day, while working a very physical job and exercising daily. My average weight loss was an eighth of a pound a month. The loss was followed by a two year stall. Starting last November I dropped my calories to between 800 and 1000 a day. I still work the same job and still exercise daily. I have lost two more pounds, bringing my total to 32 pounds lost in six years.
It took me all of 2009 to lose 9.5 lbs. I was thrilled with that result because it meant I was reversing my march towards 300 lbs.
In 2010, I lost 55 lbs. I got used to steady 1-2 lbs per week losses. So now that my weight loss has slowed to 4.5 lbs for the last 3 months, I'm feeling like I want to throw a temper tantrum. How crazy is that?
This is why I come here. You wonderful folks provide me with a sanity check. I've adopted Kaplods' mantra, " Maybe I can lose one more pound ". If I never lose another pound, I'm still a success.
Who's the slowest loser on 3FC?
Kaplods, I have devoured every post of yours I come across. Your attitude that maintaining even a half-pound loss is better than gaining, or God forbid, giving up is what I'm trying to adopt!
