I would say that I started this journey a few months ago, but that's not really true. It's really been an on-going effort for about 8+ years. I'm 5'3 or so, and male. If you're my height, you know how it doesn't take much for the excess weight and fat to show up. I was about 15% and maybe 118 lbs. But for the past few years, I started to creep up slowly. 123, 125, 127.
I started to feel that maybe everything I was doing wasn't right. I've been seeing nutritionists and doctors and they said, "Eat 6 small meals a day. Never forget to eat breakfast. Get lots of grains, breads, whole wheat. Let's drop your fat to 30%, increase your carbohydrates to 60%. But you need to drop your calories to about 1800 based on your height and weight".
I got up to 131 lbs and nearly 21% body fat as of the 16th of September. I knew that I was going in the wrong direction. What was worse is that I was a long time advocate of counting calories, tracking macros to be nice and tight, jogging, and doing weight lifting. I would get my BMR tested through a calorimeter to see where I was actually idling at, as opposed a general formula for people similar to my height and weight. I was very unhappy about all of this.
What finally turned the tide is when I came across a video from a nephrologist who was reframing how I thought about food. I learned that eating 6 small meals a day was running counter to my goal. How consuming processed carbohydrates (foods made from flour) was pushing me off center. How dropping my calories was the opposite of what I needed to do. How abstaining from fats is actually poor advice. How the consumption of sugar is very fattening as far as how it is physiologically received by the body.
So with that in mind, I changed it up. I slowly reduced as much I could with sugar, starting with my morning coffee, which wasn't that high anyways. 12 grams for a 16 fl. Oz with half N half. I now have it black and it's very tasty. I cut out the trips to the Vending machine for chips. Even though they're only 160 calories, it's processed carbs. Garbage, really.
I reduced my eating occurrences to 2-3 times a day, as defined by consuming anything but water and black coffee. I adapted an eating style that contained lots of dietary fat such as Avocado, nuts, cheese. I made sure not to drop my calories to create a calorie deficit. Also because CICO is a grossly oversimplified and misrepresented way to present it. And finally, I started to follow a 16:8 method of eating for 8 hours, and not eating for 16. Just amounts to skipping breakfast, really.
The end result? I'm 115 lbs again, and 15% body fat, and edging towards 14%. I am so glad that I did it this way, but my goal is to get to 12%, which is the next big goal.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/rrnbd2/weightfat_loss_success/
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