Hit my goal! It was a small goal, but so worth it. A few tips for the 10-15 lbs crew.

This is small potatoes compared with what some of you amazing people have pulled off or are in the process of doing, but after 3 moths of CICO at the lowest possible restriction, I have hit my goal. I am a 30 year old woman and this is the leanest I have been in 7 years or so: 5'11' SW 159 => CW 145. Frankly I am not sure how or when it happened. Once I got into the habit of using loseit, it kind of melted into the background along with the pounds.

What I learned in the process, which may be useful to someone else who is at an average weight but would like to lose 10-15 lbs:

1. Sometimes after a successful weight loss streak of a ten days or so, I got unreasonably hungry. If that happens to you too, rather than let that sabotage your weight loss, switch to maintenance and ride it out for a few days. If the scale starts to tip upwards significantly again, that is okay, just try to get back on track. I find that riding it out at maintenance helps tremendously with recalibrating whatever hormone makes me ravenously hungry and I can resume my efforts after a few days. Just be mindful.

2. Some days will be in the red, and that is absolutely fine. My only advice would be to avoid binging above maintenance for more than 1 day. In my case it stretches both my stomach and my appetite and that makes it harder to get back into deficit mode.

3. People don't get calorie counting unless they have tried to lose weight with it themselves. Most of the reactions I got when asked about my "secret" and said that it's just math and a little app were akin to an exorcism. Better not say anything.

4. Entering a rough guess / approximation of your meal is just fine, especially after a month of being strict/measuring most of your food and getting the hang of things. No need to get obsessive. I tend to err on the side of caution so I always enter the slightly higher entry.

5. I got a steamer for my "lame" meals, usually lunch, and it turned out not to be lame at all. Veggies come out lovely with a drizzle of lemon, tbs of oil and a herb mix. If you want to eat more filling veggies and have not learned to fully incorporate them in your meals, just get a steamer and have them as a side to almost everything.

6. I am Mediterranean. The amount of olive oil we use can be obscene because we have always been told it is healthy. It is healthy compared to other fats, sure, but keep an eye on it because your deficit may lie in those 3 tbs of olive oil that your dish could do without.

7. If you don't exercise regularly, the scale will always go up the day after a workout. Just water.

Finally, no matter how much or how little weight you are in the process of losing, it is important to keep in mind it is your choice. You are doing it for yourself. If you are completely miserable doing it, take a moment to feel out what it is that is making it so. It shouldn't feel like punishment, even if you love food, which - let's be honest - most of us do. There are gentle, slow ways of doing it. There is practical and mental support available.

You can do it!

submitted by /u/someblueberry
[link] [comments]

source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/ls2jkc/hit_my_goal_it_was_a_small_goal_but_so_worth_it_a/