I'm using BMI figures because I'm a short female, at my highest weight I was obese, but for a tall man, that weight is perfectly healthy and potentially a goal weight.
When I left home in 2016 my BMI was about 28. The first few kilos just dropped off from cooking myself and from walking more so i got down to a BMI of 25-26 easily. I did have a health issue which meant I did dropped down to a BMI of 22 in an unhealthy way and then gained it back once it was fixed. For a few years I hovered around a BMI of 25.5-26, but my jobs and activity level kept changing and I had some more health issues, so calorie counting wasn't a priority and my doctor had stopped commenting on my weight/suggesting I lose weight like they did when I was a BMI 28. Then during lockdown my weight rose back up so my BMI was 26.5. I quite like baking and only had one other person to share my baked goods with! For a few weeks we were only allowed to leave the house for certain reasons and for up to an hour unless it was for work/medical reasons. I decided to do something about it before it got any higher.
On sedentary days I've been eating 1200-1300 kcals. I've been eating more when I've been active and on a couple of special occasions during this time. For the first couple of weeks, my weight was dropping by at least 0.1kg a day. But then by the end of July progress slowed. I ended up being half a kilo heavier during the entire last week of August than I was at the start of the month! August was so frustrating, I should've lost a kilo! My daily fluctuations aren't that extreme unless I've eaten rice/pasta and I hadn't plus my fluctuations only last a day or two normally. My Libra graph then showed a slow, downward trend and slightly lower average weight in September than August. But I still hadn't lost as much as I should on the deficit I was averaging. And then this past week, WHOOSH, my body has caught up with my deficit it seems. This entire last week, I've averaged a kilo less than the first half of the month! And today I weighed myself to find I'm now a BMI of 25 exactly. My goal weight range puts me at a BMI of 23.4-24.3. I wanted a range to allow for fluctuations and things like christmas when i'm going to eat extra. If i hit a BMI of 24.4 and I don't think it's just water weight, I'll track and eat lower calories for a week or so to make up for over-indulgence. Depending on the pandemic restrictions we might be spending christmas away with family so I won't be able to track very accurately. But I won't go crazy, just treat myself in sensible portions and go for daily walks.
My TDEE at my goal weight is only about 100kcal a day lower than my highest weight this summer! That makes it sound so annoyingly easy. But my diet is varied and 'little' treats like when someone brings donuts into the office can soon add up. I'm working from home at the moment because of the pandemic. So I'm snacking and being tempted less, but also probably getting less steps in each day, so it's swings and roundabouts I guess. But there's definitely little habits I'm going to change. For example, on the walk between the train station and office is a shortcut for staff only, that literally all staff take. I'm going to only take that if I'm running late and need to or it's raining. Walking the long way round is an extra 5-10 minute walk. so walking an extra 15 mins even 4 days a week, bags me a few extra calories, which make a difference at this height.
I would take a 'healthy' ie low calorie lunch to work, between breakfast and lunch I would take maybe 600kcal with me to, but just end up snacking from the office cookie jar or maybe grabbing something from Tesco express on my way home if I was hangry. I don't strictly track macros, but have learnt that getting more protein in at breakfast and lunch is important. My breakfasts and lunches were quite starchy. So I've swapped to similar items, but with more protein and fibre.
There's certain foods I pretty much cut out because I could live without them for a couple of months and others I've just cut down on. Some of my main meals that I've always cooked, I've carried on cooking and will do because they turned out to be so low calorie and filling, I just got to be careful of the garnishes, oil and side dishes I eat. Some meals we would eat maybe once a fortnight or more, are about 800kcal though, so I've only had one thing in particular, once since being on my diet, after an active day. Most high calorie items/recipes I've managed to find substitutes for or made sure to have low calorie side dishes with them so the meal is under 700kcal and eaten them on active days.
I've also decided that some starchy foods are just bland and not worth the calories. Apart from the occasional nice crispy quesadilla/tortillas pizza, I've cut out tortillas. I still make my boyfriend enchiladas or fajita mix. But I've actually decided that tortillas are definitely not worth 175kcal each. Low calorie, full size tortillas aren't available here. I used to eat two for a main meal, about once a week. I'd much rather have some roasted veggies with more flavour for maybe 50-100kcal instead. BAMM, that's maybe 300kcal saved from that meal.
Also, during the summer it was easy to cut down to just one hot drink a day with sweetener and a splash of milk. Although during the heat wave I was also having 100-200kcal of ice cream in the afternoon! But now it's colder I'm wanting more hot drinks. I have managed to find a coffee I like black at least. But I do like a cup of tea and biscuit (cookie) in the afternoon in the winter to keep me going until dinner. So I'm looking forward to having that back in my diet.
If you got this far, thank you for reading. Hopefully this provided you with some inspiration and hope. Especially for any short women struggling to lose the last few pounds.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/j1vpth/im_now_a_healthy_bmi_heres_my_story_and_some_of/
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