I've been losing weight for about a year now. I'm barely 152 cm (5'0") and started at 89 kg (196 lbs). I'm currently 75 kg (165 lbs), so I've lost 14 kg (31 lbs). A healthy weight for my height would be around 46-57 kg (102-126 lbs).

What's frustrating is that when I do things the right way, it works... but it's so slow. Being short means I just don't have many calories to work with. My maintenance calories are only around 1,500 a day. If I make a mistake, have a birthday party, a stressful week, or a couple of bad food choices, my entire deficit basically disappears.

I know I could probably do more. I know I could be more active.

But here come the excuses...

I have a demanding job, three children under 7, and spend 10-20 hours a week helping care for my sick in-laws and my grandmother. Those are also the people who would normally help us out, so there really isn't much support. On top of that, my youngest has medical issues and can't just stay with a regular babysitter.

Despite all that, I do exercise a few times a week and try to do squats and push-ups every other day. A year ago I could barely manage a knee push-up. Now I can do three real push-ups followed by a few knee push-ups. It might not sound impressive, but I'm actually pretty proud of that.

I'm also proud of what I've managed this year. I've consistently lost about 0.2 kg (0.4 lbs) per week for almost a year.

Lately, though, I've been feeling frustrated.

On October 30th, I'm receiving my diploma for a postgraduate university program. Honestly, I have no idea how I managed to finish that over the last two years with everything else going on. Part of me really wanted to look noticeably slimmer in the pictures.

So about a month ago I decided to speed things up and aim for 0.5-1 kg (1-2 lbs) per week instead.

Turns out that was a terrible idea.

I was hungry every evening. I thought about food all the time. I had more slip-ups than usual. Instead of losing faster, I actually gained a bit of weight during October. If I had just kept doing what was already working, I'd probably be around 74-75 kg by now. Instead, I'm bouncing between 75 and 76 kg.

With another 15-20 kg still to lose, I'll probably see you all again in about two years when I finally get to a healthy weight.

I've mostly made peace with that after this little experiment.

The upside is that by the time I get there, this definitely won't be a diet anymore. It'll just be how I live.

But I'd be lying if I said I never get jealous of my 187 cm (6'2") husband casually eating a lunch that contains half of my daily calorie budget while still losing weight.

I've been slightly overweight now for a few years. I've experimented with a couple different diets and calorie tracking methods. My go-to a year ago was Keto, and I saw a bit of success with that, but then I fell off the wagon and started drinking again. I blew up to about 180lbs a month ago. I quit drinking and started to prioritize fiber intake for two reasons:

1) I learned quite a bit more about the effects of short chained fatty acids, and other gut bacterial byproducts, that really help optimize your digestion and metabolism, and provide a ton of other benefits.

2) I wanted to really limit my calories to about a 800/day deficit and I didn't want to feel really hungry all the time doing it.

So I've started to track fiber in take in the same way I used to really prioritize tracking protein intake. I aim for about 30g/1000 calories, which is about double the USDA recommendation. So this really entices more consumption of legumes, whole grains, etc - I eat lots of lentils, split peas, vegetables, red river cereal, berries, etc.

It's been exactly 1 month today and I went from 180lbs to ~170lbs. Plus or minus 2-3 lbs for both owing to hydration, time of day, etc - that's pretty decent progress. By my estimation that's averaging around 1.5lbs to 2lbs a week when you exclude all the potential noise represented on the scale. AND it has saved me quite a bit of money because although I still eat meat, the consumption of it has decreased because I just feel really full after I eat my fiber source. I never really feel hungry, I usually feel pretty satiated. The first week I felt pretty hungry, but then I got used to the diet and now I feel good.

I won't lie, it can potentially take the enjoyment out of food because 30g/1000 calories kind of necessitates quite a bit of really high fiber foods like beans, lentils, split peas, quinoa, etc. But I've also picked up some crafty ways to make those things more flavorful.

So to conclude, I feel like aiming for fiber has been an excellent weight loss tactic for me. It may be worth a shot if you're feeling stubbornly hungry, or want to mix strategies up.

​

Hello, To give you some context, here’s a quick summary: I’m a 32-year-old male. Over the last two and a half years, I’ve gone from 120 kg to 88 kg, while also building muscle through three strength training sessions and one HIIT session per week.

I’ve been tracking my calories for over a year, so I know my data is reliable. My maintenance level is around 2,750 kcal, with a macro breakdown of 1.8g of protein and 0.8g of fat per kg of body weight, a low-glycemic-index diet, etc.

For the past three weeks, my weight has been steadily climbing, even though I’ve been lowering my caloric intake—I’m up about 1.5 kg.

I started by dropping to 2,600 kcal, then 2,500, and now I’m at 2,400 kcal—yet every morning, the scale shows a higher number. Meanwhile, my performance in the gym has remained stable or even improved slightly.

Honestly, I’m discouraged; I feel like throwing in the towel and ending up regaining all the weight I’ve lost. My goal is to reach 86 kg, but right now, the whole process just feels exhausting.

Edit : Thanks you everyone, I'm still motivated and I will continue 2 more week at 2400 and I will see if I need to cut to 2200

To clarify, I was at 2750 few weeks ago, at 89kg, and my weight was stable during 6 weeks

The only change i made is taking PPI for GERD, I know that this can change bacteria floria

I’ve lost and regained weight several times over the years but this is the first time it’s like “oh shit I get it” and… it’s actually clicking this time

Things like “it’s a lifestyle change not a diet” and “you can’t outrun a bad diet” or “follow your hunger cues” kinda felt like bland platitudes before?

Like not offensive; I’ve always understood CICO just fine, but also ultimately kind of pointless.

I’d more or less grimly diet my way down to a goal weight and then it’d creep back up when something didn’t go my way.

One thing I realized is that all my previous weight loss attempts have been largely about what other people wanted/expected. Some dumb fucking man, a lot of the time, tbh lol

But this time it’s about what I want and idk, it’s surprisingly easy this time. I’ve lost 30 lbs since May and this is the first time I’ve even talked about it to anyone at all.

anyway, idk if that helps anyone. If I had to suggest anything to my past self, it’d be to really imagine what it would feel like to be at my ideal weight. Not whether someone would be impressed or if I’d look good in those pants or if I’d be less embarrassed to be seen at the pool in July. (And certainly don’t try to be motivated by some sense of duty to extend my lifespan bc sometimes, that sounds like a curse lmao)

But imagine purely the physical experience of it. How would it feel to be in that body? Lighter, freer, more comfortable in motion?

At some point I realized I don’t care as much about how I look as I do about how I feel, and I simply feel physically better as I lose. How did I not really internalize this before lol

Hi all. Hope you don't mind me sharing a separate update to that my original loose skin advice post. Quick recap: I [45m] was preparing to tell the woman I'm dating [37F] about my loose skin and was seeking advice from the sub on the best way to do it and just generally how to handle it. I've lost 80kg in a year and my lower abdomen and pubic area has a lot of loose skin.

I received overwhelmingly positive feedback from everyone which made me feel a lot better and more confident heading into our date. She was coming over to my house and we planned a long afternoon and evening together. It really was fantastic in every sense. I wanted to introduce her to my dog (my dog is an anxious little guy and a proper introduction will make the world of difference long term on anyone I bring into the house) and then have a nice dinner and relax into the night. Not to sidetrack too much but she arrived carrying a giant bag of top of the line dog treats, which showed how serious she was about winning over my dog immediately, and she succeeded so much that he was all over her all night.

After the dinner we were relaxing on the couch when I just brought it up the loose skin as something that's been on my mind. I tried not to treat it like a confessional or some dirty secret because it really isn't. But I just told her I wanted her to know because it's something I'm self conscious about. Her response was about as perfect as anyone's could be. Firstly she was pretty much saying she figured already. She might not know the full extent of it but she said she knows people who have lost a lot of weight and knows the loose skin can be an issue for them and something they might be self conscious about. When I told her before I lost a lot of weight she assumed I would have loose skin.

She said whatever my loose skin situation is wouldn't be something she would have a problem with as long as I was healthy and happy she will work with me on whatever happens. She told me all of my positive qualities she likes, that I make her feel safe, and I know how to love, and I treat her well, I'm handsome and she sees all of me, not just my stomach. She loves every second of being with me and misses me when I'm not around. That I'm worrying about one body part when she sees the full package of who I am and she wants to be with that whole person.

She had her hand under my shirt while she was saying it and was stroking my stomach in a very gentle way.

It was, I'm pretty sure, the best possible outcome of all the outcomes in my head. Even writing it now I'm amazed it even happened at all and I'm not imagining it in some delusional post-shame breakdown where I've rewritten history to save my ego.

The one caveat is that we didn't actually get fully intimate. We cuddled on the couch and just enjoyed being with each other. But that was totally ok. She might not have seen the full extent of my loose skin but I'm more confident now that when that moment happens she will be as gentle and loving about it as she was tonight.

I think I've hit the jackpot. The added bonus is we played video games most of the night so she is literally my dream woman.

I want to post this because when I was looking for success stories I mostly only found them in comments not as actual posts and they were harder to find. Hoping other people can get the confidence from my experience that they need to not let loose skin stand in the way of finding happiness and love. (It's early days yet for me so I'm trying not to get too carried away but I'll float on this cloud for a long time!)

after the what seemed like the world’s longest and most annoying plateau, i’m finally under 200lbs! i haven’t seen the number on the scale start with a 1 since early 2025.

i started my glp-1 this winter after essentially a lifetime of struggling with my weight and eating habits. in college my weight bounced around so much due to disordered eating. at my worst i went from 200 to 160 to 220 in a span of about 9 months, i think that was in 2023.

i lost a decent amount of weight around a year later, but it was due to going through the worst period of my life where my other mental health issues trumped my binge eating. i couldn’t eat/keep food down which of course lead to a pretty fast weight loss (220 to 170 in around 3-4 months).

once i got better i gained back the weight super fast. my hunger cues were so messed up and i had ridiculous food noise issues. i felt like i could eat and eat and still be hungry even when i was sooo physically full. i then reached my highest weight of 242lbs in december 2025.

enter glp-1. anyways fast forward to now, 199lbs! still have a long way to go but hey progress at least right? just wanted to share with people that might get it :)

Hi everyone,
I’m a 31-year-old woman from India, 5’1” (155 cm) tall, currently weighing 104 kg. My BMI is approximately 43.3, and I urgently need to lose weight for my health.
I’ve been struggling with persistent pain in my lower back, knees, neck and other parts of my body. My recent MRI reports show multiple spinal changes, including mild disc bulges at D10-D11, D11-D12, L4-L5 and L5-S1, as well as early degenerative changes and disc bulges in my cervical spine.
My doctor has strongly advised me to lose at least 40 kg, explaining that weight loss is an important part of managing my pain. However, my biggest challenge is that I’m currently unable to exercise because of the pain.
Here are my current limitations:
No 10,000-step goals or long walks because I struggle to move that much.
No gym workouts or heavy lifting.
No swimming, as advised by my doctor.
No forward bending or exercises that could aggravate my back.
I can still manage my normal daily routine, commute and go to the office, but I am not doing any dedicated physical exercise.
I’m a vegetarian living in India, so I would particularly appreciate advice based on Indian vegetarian food. I want to lose weight primarily through diet, without relying on exercise that I cannot currently do.
I’d really appreciate advice on the following:
Diet: Has anyone successfully lost a significant amount of weight through diet alone, with little or no exercise? What did your daily meals look like?
Indian vegetarian protein: How can I get enough protein from foods such as paneer, tofu, soya chunks, dal, curd, Greek yogurt or other vegetarian options while maintaining a calorie deficit?
Dietitian recommendations: Can anyone recommend a qualified dietitian or clinical nutritionist in India who has experience working with people with obesity and mobility limitations?
Realistic weight-loss timeline: How long might it realistically take to go from 104 kg to around 64 kg through dietary changes alone?
Medical weight management: Has anyone discussed medically supervised weight-loss treatments with their doctor when pain or mobility issues made exercise difficult? I’d appreciate hearing about your experiences, including the pros, cons and costs in India.
Practical tips: What helped you stay consistent with your diet while working a full-time job and dealing with chronic pain?
I’m not looking for crash diets, starvation, detoxes or miracle cures. I want a sustainable plan that helps me lose weight without worsening my existing health problems.
I understand that exercise can be beneficial, but at the moment, my priority is finding a realistic way to lose weight despite my physical limitations.
If you’ve been through something similar, or if you’re a qualified dietitian or nutrition professional who works with such cases, I’d be very grateful for your guidance.
Thank you!

Hi everyone! I’m just beating myself up right now, and I really need to get back into a healthy routine. In July 2025, I decided I was tired of not loving my body and started exercising regularly and making more conscious choices about what I ate. I went from 178 pounds to 149 and started feeling really good about my progress and my newfound body that I hadn’t seen in years.

I took a trip to Colorado with my partner in late April and decided I wasn’t going to worry about what I ate because I was on vacation, and we were getting 20k+ steps a day with all the hiking we were doing. I figured I’d enjoy myself and get back into my routine when I got home.

Unfortunately, that’s where things started going downhill. When I got back to Kansas, my job became increasingly toxic, and the thought of packing everything up and moving to Colorado was on my mind more and more. Unfortunately, I don’t make enough to afford a similar-sized home there compared to where I live now, so for the time being, I’ve had to accept that I’m probably stuck in Kansas unless we can find somewhere with a similar cost of living.

I’m someone who comfort eats when I don’t know how to process my feelings, and fast-forward six months later, I’m now sitting at 180 pounds. All that hard work, the exercise, learning to manage my hunger, and finally feeling good about myself… I just can’t believe I let myself fall back into these habits. I know life happens, and I know I was dealing with a lot emotionally, but I’m still so frustrated with myself for not maintaining the progress I worked so hard for. It’s especially hard knowing I was so close to 140 and now I’m right back where I started.

Luckily, I recently started a new job that I absolutely love, and pretty much every other aspect of my life is going well! I’m really grateful for that, but I still feel so disappointed in myself when it comes to my weight. I’m ready to make a change and get back into a healthy routine, but it’s discouraging knowing I have to start over. I also feel like the older I get, the harder it is to lose weight, and that thought makes the whole process feel even more overwhelming.

For those of you who have lost a significant amount of weight and gained it back, how did you find the motivation to start again? How did you stop beating yourself up over it? I KNOW I can do it because I’ve done it before, but right now, I’m having a hard time getting past the disappointment I feel in myself. I could really use some words of encouragement or hear from anyone who has been in a similar situation. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this. ❤️

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Bbgh26gaWVG5-15fX1999R1uPb_HhTdCoJjLPat8kM/edit?usp=sharing

As I said I originally wrote this paper just for myself as I was obsessed with reading every credible book in the last ~10-15 years on topics of biochemistry, metabolism, exercise, wellness/health, and much more. I started to see a kinda of "flow" which to me explained how we got into this situation of a obesity/metabolic disease pandemic over the course of just a few decades.

I found that reading these topics were very motivational for me during my initial phase of weight loss in which I lost 200lbs in about a year, going from 485 to 275lbs (currently 285 and starting "phase 2" to go to sub 200lbs).

Im not a scientist or doctor, and I definitely think there is room for improvement across this paper. Ill probabyl keep working on it, updating and expanding it until its fully book length. But right now at ~40 pages I think tis about the limit of what I could possibly ask someone to read somewhat casually haha, so Im posting it here now.

Id love to hear thoughts, questions, things you expected it toc over which it didnt, etc.

Without calling anyone out by name, I've been noticing more and more the insidious fetish undertones in WIEIAD and 'healthy eating' videos. I see it all the time now. A conventionally attractive, thin, young woman announces this is the low call, high protein version of a decadent food that helped her lose XXlbs. She then leans right into the camera and takes a huge bite of the food, making sure to crunch and slurp as loudly as possible, all while moaning and rolling her eyes into the back of her head. She does it two or three times, making sure to get food on her face and/or hands. Then, she'll go on to give you a totally normal and helpful recipe, or modification to a fast food item, while taking about her 'weight loss journey'; normal, relatable things. She'll wrap it all up with one more loud, sloppy, way too big bite of food while staring right into the camera.

This has to be fetish content, right? I mean, it's so blatant. When she makes food in her car, she always pours more sauce on her fingers than she does on her food. She makes sure to capture every loud, aggressive crunch. She takes bites so large her cheeks bulge while she chews and smacks. And she's not the only one just the worst of them that I've seen. So many creators do this, but they didn't start off like that. I wonder at what point do they realise they get a boost of creeper views when they covertly play into the feeder fetish content.

I guess my point is just that it's weird how pervasive the trend is. Plus, I have severe misophonia and I'm sick to death of people crunching loudly directly into microphones. When did people stop closing their mouths when they chew?

47m/5'9/436. Lately i just cant find anything that works. I am currently not able to workout as i have a knee injury that prevents me from going more than 10-15 minutes at a time walking. So i know that is part of it. I doing a high protein lower carb diet for the most part. Most days I eat anywhere between 1.5k-2k calories. I was over 600lbs in 2018, got down to 340 by about 2023 and then broke an ankle and have slowly ballooned back up. Nothing I have done seems to work anymore. Before my knee injury it was just work out more. Diet went from one thing to another and i just kept gaining. Look I know at my size and age im a heart attack waiting to happen but ffs im just tired of CONSTANTLY fighting my weight. Came across this sub randomly for the first time in a long time and juts wanted to post. Not sure if i am looking for help, encouragement, tell me ima fat ass and just fning do it, i know im just tired. Thats all I got. Thanks.

I'm about a month into my diet. Its the first diet I've ever done so i'm trying to learn as I go not really knowing what I'm doing other then eat less calories and eat healthy food that will keep me full longer.

An issue I have been having lately is that I don't reallt know how to space out my calories. I have not been eating very much during the day and leaving a lot of it for the last few hours before bed so I know I can eat a larger meal and not go to bed hungry.

The problem with that is that I end up saving way too many calories, so then I end up with like 800 calories under my defecit. I usually feel fine and can probably skip this meal but I'd rather not undereat that much. I'd rather space it out a bit better throughout the day.

I figured this is the best sub to ask….

I’ve lost a lot of weight and recently discovered that it hurts to sit, especially on hard surfaces, but even some padded ones.

It is not my tailbone (coccyx). It’s definitely my sit bones or “sitz” bones.

I’ve done a few months of glute exercises and I’ve seen some noticeable growth. Other things have improved and I’m happy with that. But I don’t seem to have created any additional padding where I actually need it.

What do y’all suggest for this? Other than cushions. I’m already doing that. lol Am I not hitting the right muscles? I looked it up and found that the gluteus maximus covers those bones when standing, but not when sitting. 😭

(25f, 5’6, 190lbs)

How do you guys deal with the nausea that comes with hunger while in a calorie deficit?

I have always had this problem, even as a kid. I always have saltines and protein bars with me to calm it down, but now that I’m really trying to lose weight, that’s not going to work anymore lol.

if no one relates to this, it may just be due to my anxiety disorder LOL but it drives me nuts. I can deal with hunger, but the queasy, gross, lightheaded feeling I get when I’ve been hungry for too long drives me fucking crazy.

It’s not like I’m under eating or starving myself either. My calorie goal is 1300 and I always get there easily.

Tl;dr - vegan content creators who focus on protein without mentioning any other macros because they think that tracking kcal is a sign of disordered eating are a bane of my 5’1 existence, because their “30g protein” recipes are also 800-1000kcal per serving, which is like 70% of my daily limit.

——

I’m vegetarian with mild lactose intolerance so I end up eating a lot of vegan food. I follow a lot of vegan content creators for meal ideas. But I am getting exhausted by the current trend of "protein maxxing" paired with a hostility toward calorie counting.

My tested resting metabolic rate is around 1350 kcal. My dietician has advised me to stay in a 1200-1400 kcal range, and this is not easy because I’m used to eating closer to 1800-2000 kcal. Hence why I’ve been tracking meticulously because I can’t eat “intuitively”. I also want to prioritise protein to stay full longer, which has been hard because I’m Indian and our vegetarian diet is very carb-heavy. And I want this to be sustainable because most “healthy” recipes don’t taste that good to me and I can’t keep eating that for the rest of my life.

But so many content creators (that aren’t health or diet recipes focused) push the narrative that any calorie tracking is a one-way ticket to developing a disorder, they completely omit calorie estimates from their recipes while focusing solely on the protein number. And when you actually audit some of these "30g protein per serving" vegan recipes, they are wild! Multiple cans of coconut milk, beans, several tablespoons of nut butters, “generous” drizzles of olive oil etc. All incredibly calorie-dense foods. One creator recently posted a video about meals with “over 30g of protein”, but one of the meals she made was over 1000 kcal per serving (39g protein).

For someone my size (5’1), eating meals like that means blowing most of entire day's limit in one go. I can easily get 25 to 30g of protein from a scoop of vegan pea protein powder for under 200-250 kcal. Hitting that via calorie-dense whole-food fats and legumes alone requires an insane portion size that I simply cannot do on a deficit without resorting to OMAD or similar. It’s more sustainable for me to just add a scoop of protein powder to my dal.

To top it off, when these content creators get comments about this, the response usually is that food is fuel and people should be moving enough to sustain eating these meals 3x a day. Look, I WANT to be active, but I also have a full-time demanding job, and an hour at the gym burns maybe 500 kcal at best. I can't live in the gym, and this rhetoric completely erases people with disabilities or mobility limitations who literally cannot just "move more" to offset a 3000kcal day. This is why I track in the first place!

I'm a great cook, but weighing and logging every single ingredient gets tedious. The whole point of using someone else's pre-built protein-forward recipe is to outsource the mental load so I can just relax. Instead, because so many of them refuse to include calorie breakdowns I have to log every single gram of the ingredients just to make sure I won't blow my entire daily limit on a single lunch, which totally defeats the purpose of using a recipe in the first place.

I'm vegetarian, so I do have the luxury of using Greek yogurt, eggs, and whey to bridge the gap. Which makes it even harder to understand how strict vegans manage this without eating massive surpluses or using supplements. Why is it so bad to just include calorie totals alongside a healthy disclaimer, or suggest adding a clean protein supplement instead of burying 30g of protein inside a 800-1000 kcal bomb?

With this logic I could label a pepperoni pizza a great “high-protein meal” because it contains like 40g+ of protein.

Either include all nutrition info + macros, or don’t include anything.

I was doing very good i lost 18 kg in last months went from 118 to almost 99kg but since i started working in a job where i sell food hot dogs fast food snacks and shit i started eating way over my deficit in the last week or even more i cant stop myself i have it right in front of me for hours and i end up regreting it all every day. Does someone know how to make myself hold back better cause eating small portions of chocolate to fit in the deficit doesnt work for me cause i wnd up eating 10 times more later

Hello Y'all,

I am just shy of 1 year since hitting my weight loss journey head-on, and have worked my way down from 594lb to 369lb (-225). This is ~0.93% of my starting weight per week, accounting for the scale going down over time. I couldn't be more happy for the progress, but I've hit my first prolonged slump where motivation just hasn't been there and my diet hasn't been up to my standard over the last ~10 days. I'm back into the swing of things, but am looking for advice on ways others have looked at long weight-loss journeys. It feels like I have swam up from Marianas Trench and found myself at the foot of Everest.. I've shown myself that I can David-Goggins this and show self-discipline, but I'm a year in and still have a long road ahead. The scale doesn't move as fast as it once did, and milestones are less frequent.

How do I put my recent successes in the rear mirror and focus on the next week, next month, next year?

Edit: To give context, I am 23m/6'4 with a very rough goal of 240lb

​

I'm a 27-year-old woman, 161 cm tall, and I started my weight-loss journey at around 86 kg. Over time, I've managed to get down to 57.85 kg at my lowest, although my weight has fluctuated since then.

I'm proud of how far I've come, but I honestly feel like the journey has been a lot more complicated than I expected.

My weight-loss journey

I started at around 86 kg and gradually worked my way down through the 60s. Earlier this year, I was around 63 kg, and eventually I started seeing numbers in the 59 kg range. At one point, I reached 57.85 kg. Now I'm back around 63.

For most of my weight loss, I tried to stay in a calorie deficit, tracked my food, prioritised protein, went to the gym around 3–4 times a week, and aimed for roughly 8,000–12,000 steps a day. My calorie intake varied, but I generally aimed for around 1,650–1,750 calories, with some days dropping to 1,350–1,500.

I work a desk-based job, so I tried to compensate for sitting throughout the day by being active outside work.

The physical and mental struggles

One of my biggest struggles has been the scale. Even after losing so much weight, fluctuations still affect me more than I'd like. Travel, holidays, celebrations, changes in routine and eating more than usual can all cause the number to go up, and it's difficult not to overthink it.

I travelled recently, and my eating routine, sleep, activity and daily schedule all changed. I ate more normally, enjoyed snacks and wasn't following my usual routine. Seeing my weight fluctuate around travel has made me question how much of the change is actual fat gain versus water weight and other normal fluctuations.

I've also experienced strong cravings for sweets, sometimes even when I'm not particularly hungry. There have been times when I've felt tired of dieting and tracking everything.

Another thing I've noticed is that I feel colder than I used to. I also experienced my first delayed period during this journey, which worried me because I'd been dieting and exercising consistently. I was eating less on some days, and it made me wonder whether I'd been pushing myself too hard. I sought medical advice about the delayed period.

Where I am now

The confusing part is that I know I've made significant progress. I've lost a substantial amount of weight, my measurements have changed, and I've become more active.

But somewhere along the way, my goalposts started moving. First, I wanted to reach 59 kg. Then I wanted to see 57 kg, and eventually I started considering 55 kg.

I'm trying to understand whether I genuinely want to lose more weight or whether I've become so accustomed to pursuing a lower number that maintaining my weight feels like I'm no longer making progress.

I don't want to undo all the work I've done, but I also don't want to spend the rest of my life worrying about every calorie, every fluctuation and every time I eat more than planned.

My questions for anyone who has been through something similar:

1. After losing a significant amount of weight, how did you know when to stop losing and start maintaining?

2. Did you struggle with wanting to keep losing weight even after reaching your original goal?

3. How did you deal with weight fluctuations after holidays, travelling or eating more than usual?

4. Has anyone experienced feeling colder or changes to their menstrual cycle while dieting? How did you approach recovery and maintenance?

5. How did you transition out of a calorie deficit without feeling like you were losing control of your progress?

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have been through a similar journey, particularly those who have lost a substantial amount of weight and struggled with the mental side of it afterwards.

Also, say if I wanted to lose only fat again, is like say doing an incline treadmill for one hour, eating like around 1300-1400 kcal per day, and getting around 125 grams of protein, is this way sustainable?

Hi team Euro accountability, I hope you’re all well! For anyone new who wants to join today, this is a daily post where you can track your goals, keep yourself accountable, get support and have a chat with friendly people at times that are convenient for European time zones.

Check-in daily, weekly, or whatever works best for you. It’s never the wrong time to join! Anyone and everyone are welcome! Tell us about yourself and let's continue supporting each other. Let us know how your day is going, or, if you're checking in early, how your yesterday went! Share your victories, rants, problems, NSVs, SVs, we are here!

I want to shortly also mention — this thread lives and breathes by people supporting each other :) so if you have some time, comment on the other posts! Show support, offer advice and share experiences!

Hosted by u/Gatita_Gordita.

I should be sleeping right now, but I couldn’t get this thought out of my head. I’ve always understood that Covid really messed with my life, but I had usually thought about it fairly practically. Tonight, I’m just feeling anger and frustration.

Up until senior year of college, I’d always been significantly overweight. I had never learned to build a healthy relationship with food or exercise. But in October of my senior year in 2018, I decided enough was enough. By graduation in May 2019 I’d lost about 80lbs. Not only that, but I’d landed a huge job opportunity with a six figure paycheck. I moved to a new city and put in a lot of effort to make new friends, establishing a friend group after 6 months. I was dating and having some fun too, which was mostly new to me. And I was continuing to lose weight at a more sustainable pace. I had a pretty healthy relationship with both food and exercise. I had put in a massive amount of effort to set up what should have been an amazing decade. Truly a new me.

And then March 2020 came along. Confinement to my apartment with only a still-new friend group who was not close enough yet to meet regularly on lockdown. I’m a social guy, and this quickly fucked with my mental state. I had a panic attack for the first time in my life and some serious depressive moments. The habits I’d built up slowly slipped away. And it just. Kept. Going. Years. My friends from that friend group moved away. My habits were completely destroyed. My job was the only thing that was still working well, so I turned all of my attention to it.

After 2 years of this, I was unrecognizable compared to the 2019 version of myself I’d put so much effort into setting up.

It was my first full professional job and that was the relationship I now had with work, life, food, and exercise. All of it out of balance and unhealthy. And it was a cycle. I worked a ton of hours, so I didn’t have time to meet people. Not meeting people kept me unhappy. Being unhappy made it hard to care about myself and reestablish those habits.

It took until a month ago, 6.5 years later, after getting out of working 80 hours/week for 4 months straight and turning 30 years old to begin to break the cycle. I’ve been pretty optimistic for the last month being on this new journey and continue to be optimistic that I’ll get back to where I want to be. But tonight I’m feeling sad and angry about losing out on what could have been an incredible 20’s. I feel like I permanently lost my young adult experience and I can never get that back.

I understand that many people loved their 30’s and I intend to make the most of it as well, but time is the only truly finite resource we have and so I suppose I’m mourning my loss right now.

I weigh 94kg. I estimate visually that I comprise 39% bodyfat. I estimate therefore that I am carrying 37kg of fat right now.

Therefore: if all fat was stripped from my body, I would weigh 58kg.

Therefore: if I get down to a healthy 20% bodyfat, I would weigh 72.5kg.

Therefore: at 20% fat by bodyweight, I would have 14.5kg fat on me.

Therefore, at the present time, I have an excess of 37-14.5 = 22.5kg of fat to lose.

To conveniently visualise this, using fat volume at 900kg/m^3, I calculate the following critical figures:

I need to lose:

1. A cube of fat with sides = 29.2cm

or, alternatively

1. A sphere of fat with diameter = 35.9cm

What's your cube?

Hi all!

Sorry for the strange post; I've been doing great with the last 13 weeks of training and dieting, thanks to everyone here!

So for background, I'm 29, M, 170cm, 105.8kg. My BMR is 1986, so I've been eating at 1700 calories so it's not an unsustainable bit of weight loss.

However, I work out 5 days a week (strength and weight training, so I'm generally repping 50+kg per set depending on the exercise) and I do a dedicated cardio session 1 day a week with a rest day slotted in.

According to a few calculators, my TDEE would be close to 3000 calories, which I feel is way too much for me, since I'm trying to cut down at the same time.

My question is, then, do I use my BMR for weight loss or my TDEE? I've started getting more fatigue at the gym, despite increasing the amount of rest I'm getting, and I'm also now getting ravenously hungry more and more often. Google (sadly the AI) suggests that I should be using my TDEE and bring my calories up to 2100-2300 for 2 weeks to reset myself before moving back down.

Just looking for some help as to what number I should be looking at as it's all a little confusing haha! Thank you for your help!