Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackBarbieKiss125
2 months ago I was 222, now I weight myself and I was 238.
The kicker is, I have been dieting, stopped drinking soda, eating salad one meal a day, exercising etc.
I know the body works weird and I remember one time I was working out 4 days a week and watching what I eat and losing EXACTLY 1 lb a month. I started crying after 4 months.
So please help encourage me, I know this is a long up/down road and I need to keep going.
When I started weight loss "this time" I also only was losing 1 lb a month, and when I complained about my slow loss and how I "should be able to lose at least 2 lbs a week like a normal person," my doctor read me the riot act. He said that "normal" wasn't losing 2 lbs a week. Normal was losing nothing at all. Normal was maybe losing for a few weeks and then gaining it all back and then some. So that even my one pound a week (even at nearly 400 lbs) wasn't normal, it was extraordinary. He argued that weight loss fails largely because while we're succeeding, we see it as failure because we don't know what normal weight loss really is, so when we see it, we label it failure.
Weight loss is like a marathon - we see the 5,000 people ahead of us and conclude we must be nearly in last place, only because we don't see the 20,000 people behind us (or all the people on the sidelines who didn't even get into the race at all).
As to your gaining, I would also recommend a food counting method, whether it be "straight" calorie counting or something like Weight Watchers points or a food exchange system (Personally, I love exchange plans because they help insure a balanced diet and control and count both carbs and calories. I follow a low-carb exchange plan based on one I found on frugalabundance.com)
If you don't use a counting method, it is very easy to think and feel as though you're eating much less, when you're actually eating more. Just as an example, many salads are actually higher in calorie than a Big Mac and fries, and some very healthy foods are very easy to overeat (for me fruit and grains are a perfect example. I have to be very careful with both, because I can eat several hundred calories as a snack or meal and still feel hungry).
I also would recommend getting a check up with bloodwork to diagnose or rule out health issues such as metabolic issues. I have including insulin resistance/borderline diabetes and mild thyroid issues. My thyroid hormone levels are low enough for my doctor to say I have low thyroid levels, but not low enough for him to feel comfortable prescribing medication. I also have autoimmune issues that require periodic courses of prednisone, which makes weight loss harder because the prednisone not only causes water retention and slows metabolism, it also triggers severe hunger (which I call "rabid hunger").
None of this prevents me from losing weight and getting healthier, but it does tend to slow down the process. My weight loss has increased to about 2 to 3 lbs per month, but my overall average is still only a little more than 1 lb a month, and I still managed to lose 105 lbs (though it's taken me about seven years to do so).
In the past I always gave up because I watched the clock, and was always disappointed with my "time." I felt like a failure if I couldn't lose at least 2 lbs a week every week. I cringe when I think of how many times I gave up when the weight loss slowed to less than 2 lbs a week, but faster than I'm losing now. If I had just realized that I was succeeding wildly, not failing miserably I wouldn't have given up so easily.
We've been taught to expect what most people can't and don't acheive, and yet we see it as failure, because we've been taught that "normal" is losing more than 1 lb a month, when even losing 5 lbs a year is an acheivement that most people who try to do it, will not accomplish. So who really is the success story, the person who loses 1 lb a month and keeps at it, or the person who loses up to 10 lbs a week, but quits and gains it all back when the weight loss slows to less than 2 lbs a week?
We need to start recognizing success when we see it, and we need to not be so hard on ourselves for making mistakes.
You will find what works for you, just by "staying in the game" and continuing to experiment.