Weight loss accountability/support 2022 edition

A negative attitude is probably not the best long term way of keeping the weight off, but can be used for motivation. Daily self hatred isn’t very healthy, even if what you’re eating is!

I would have thought that a large proportion of weight loss journeys begin with a negative attitude though. Less - ‘I’m striving to be the best and leanest version of myself’, more - ‘I’m a fat fuck and i need to stop eating crap’

Got rid of that extra kilo and a half. Now I’ve got to push it down onto the 90s.

19/06/22: 103kg
22/06/22: 100.2
28/06/22: 100.0
13/07/22: 100.8
19/07/22: 100.5
27/07/22: 101.5
05/08/22: 100.0

Opposite end of the spectrum to others, maybe. Lost a bit too much weight last year that I didn’t really have on me to lose, due to 2021 reasons. Put 3kg back on during November and December but obviously it’s gone back on as gut fat. Keen to keep a bit of it as reserves but also convert a bit back to leg bulk.

This was me on January 1st. It's been a bit of an up and down year. Initially I made good progress: I got my fitness back, shifted the gut and managed to maintain a low maintenance-level of exercise which kept everything in equilibrium. I lost about 3-4kg towards the end of the first quarter of the year due to general fatigue looking after the family etc. Then I went on some tablets which cooked my mind and made me put on about 7kg. When I came off those I ended up with a virus that left me fatigued for weeks and I lost a load of weight again. This time both the gut and all my strength...

The last few weeks I've finally had the energy to get back on my bike and commute. No idea what I weigh now, but I'm looking better and feeling stronger. I've got about 6-8 weeks until I have to start driving to work again (when the kids start school and nursery), so I'm going to maximise that time on the bike and then think about switching to running of a lunchtime.

Missed a week. No change.

20/07 - 85.5
27/07 - 85.2
03/08 - ??.?
10/08 - 85.2

Hit 87kg ! Down 10kg since January . What’s working for me is skip breakfast, high protein , low carb salad for lunch and regular dinner with the family. Trying to hit at least 6000 steps a day and gym x3 times a week.

Well done!
Theres certainly merit in skipping a meal for quick shedding.
However, maybe skip the lunch and start with a breakfast. It will be more uncomfortable but a huge boost to your metabolism and accessing fat stores.

Now,whats a good breakfast?!

That goes against the relatively common practice of intermittent fasting, with lunch and dinner being within a shorter time window.

Surely you access fat stores better in an aerobic but fasted state, rather than if you had eaten carbs (for example) at breakfast?

Also not sure that eating provides a big boost to your metabolism.
A lot of the ‘eat breakfast to lose weight’ comes from the tendency to make bad food choices because you’re more hungry at lunch, or eat biscuits/snacks at work.
The metabolic boost you get from digesting breakfast would unlikely last all day, and wouldn’t be much different from the same boost from eating lunch.

Good job, finding a routine that keeps calorie intake lower, and is easy to follow and sustainable for you is key.

My wife wanted to get on the weight loss train recently, and we have worked out an eating plan that seems to work for her, though wouldn’t work at all for me.

Definitely not optimal, but basically it’s:

Breakfast:

200 calories of chocolate huel ready made for breakfast or 3 medium egg scrambled eggs (250 calories)

400 calorie lunch

500 calorie dinner

Snacks:
Glass of wine ( 160 calories)
Mini magnum / mini cornetto (143 calories)

About 1400 calories per day.

She enjoys the taste of the huel chocolate ready mixed bottle over the powdered stuff, so although it’s more expensive, prefers to have half a bottle when she’s in a rush to go to work.
Scrambled eggs with butter when working from home.

About 4-500 calories for lunch and dinner

The snacks:
Wine - winding down in the evening, and wine isn’t that bad for you
Mini magnum - a sweet treat to look forward to in the evening after dieting during the day.

If I had a mini magnum, I would feel the need to eat all the magnums left in the freezer.

Thanks, it works for me because I’m never hungry in the morning and can easily last till lunch on just coffee.

You start metabolising earlier in the day.
You have boosted youre metabolism by eating/drinking something.
Fasting only really works if youre hungry, surely? Between meals isnt a fast. Sleeping isnt a fast.

Regular fasting, in my experience, slows your metabolism. When I lived off bread and doritos for a few months nothing changed. I couldnt afford anything. One loaf per week lol it was terrible. I maintained,terrible food yes but still.

The body stores as much as it can, it doesnt know when it will be refueled. Hence why skipping breakfast makes you less hungry in the morning. Eat early. Force yourself to be hungry at lunch, skip it and youve done a fast.

Carbs and sugar (cereal,breads,fruits) arent a good breakfast really either, but its usually our go to.

The "trick" is to shock your body.
Do the opposite of what you "feel" and re-train youre metabolism.

But of course, Im no Dietician and everyones different. :)

There are a couple of assumptions there which I don’t think stack up.

Being hungry doesn’t mean you’re in a fasted state.
If it did, there wouldn’t be anyone overweight as everyone would just be eating what they need and that’s it.
I’m hungry 1 hour after a large dominoes pizza, despite eating more calories than I probably need in 2 days.

Unless you’ve eaten loads or late, everyone is in a fasted state in the morning. All food in stomach digested, and body largely running off your fat/glycogen reserves.
This is why some weightlifters and body builders wake up during the night to eat, and also fit in more protein digestion in 24 hours.
Also why if you’ve had a small early dinner, you often wake up ravenous, because you’re in a fasted state.

Also we’re not talking multiple days of fasting, just lengthening the time where your body might use it’s fat reserves, maybe complemented with some low intensity fasted cardio.

One of the biggest battles of weight loss is trying to reducing calories while minimising the feeling of hunger (increased low calorie volume like more veg or foods with more satiety), finding something to mitigate its effects (healthy low calorie snacks), or habit forming to ignore it or push it back slightly (intermittent fasting, skipping breakfast, 5:2, meal replacement shakes)

Dieticians are great, but I’m not sure they would approve of a lot of what people are following on this thread!

The Oppo ice cream lollies and balls are excellent low calorie treats. Can recommend

I’m at 75kg.
At the same time I benched 100 kg this week, 145DL and 120 back squat (I know this isn’t the strength thread!) - which are all around where I was when I was trying to get strong a few years back but weighed more like 85kg.
I’m also much improved in my running which was one of the main goals of losing weight.

2022 was 1st year of fatherhood and having started a new role managing 120 person org in April. So having some goals to focus on has really helped this thread included!

Outstanding job!

Decent numbers, especially with a new kid!

I’ve got a new job where instead of commuting 3x week for a total of 6hours junk miles, but then eating loads and being hungry all day, I’ll be working at home more and driving locally.
I’m hoping this means I can reign my eating in during the day, I used to eat loads from the riding and a fear of bonking riding home!
Currently 92kg
Would love to be 85kg which I haven’t been since probably age 28 (now 40) but I’d settle for consistently under 90kg.
Once we’re back from holidays I’ll start weekly weigh ins and meal planning a bit.

What snacks do people like in the day for work time distraction but still weight loss? I used to do pots of veg sticks, small amount of nuts or boiled eggs.

My go to is Skyr yoghurt with protein shake and various extras (banana, oats or quinoa, blueberries, peanut butter, weetabix)
rice cakes (sad but true)
Carrot sticks, apple sticks and some nut/seeds/nut butter
A protein bar
Tin of tuna with boiled egg and gherkins
Boiled eggs on a slice of sourdough (not really a snack but lunch)

Lots of veg sticks (carrot, cucumber, red peppers) with some homemade gochujang sauce.

Tin of sardines/mackerel in chilli sauce

Protein bar / protein shake

09/05 - 114kg
16/05 - 111.2kg
23/05 - 109.5kg
30/05 - 108.9kg
06/06 - 108.6kg
13/06 - 108.1kg
20/06 - 107.4kg
27/06 - 106.7kg
04/07 - 106.8kg
11/07 - 107.8kg
18/07 - 105.5kg
25/07 - 105kg
01/08 - 104.8kg
08/08 - 104.2kg
15/08 - 104kg

Yay, dropped below 100kg!

Been out in the kayak this week, been strict on the wine consumption and my wife has been strict on the food.

19/06/22: 103kg
22/06/22: 100.2
28/06/22: 100.0
13/07/22: 100.8
19/07/22: 100.5
27/07/22: 101.5
05/08/22: 100.0
16/08/22: 99.4

Great job all

This week has been mostly beer, pizza, bread and ice-cream. Starting a new job on Monday. New daily routine, new me? We'll see...

20/07 - 85.5
27/07 - 85.2
03/08 - ??.?
10/08 - 85.2
17/08 - 87.0

01/01: 80.8kg
29/1: 76.5kg
05/02: 75.5kg
12/02: 75.2kg
19/2: 74.9kg
01/03: 75.9kg
08/03: 74.0kg
13/03: 73.2kg
31/03: 73.5kg
07/04: 73.4kg
15/04: 72.9kg
24/04: 73.8kg (after 1 week in France)
04/05: 72.1kg
09/05: 71.3kg
01/06: 71.2kg
22/06: 70.2kg
29/06: 69.7kg
17/07: 72.7kg (post bbq)
30/07: 70kg
12/08: 68.6kg
17/08: 71kg

Consistently below 70kg now, in touching distance of 68kg.

Traveled from France to London on the weekend for a wedding, where huge quantities of delicious booze and food was consumed. Expecting a gradual reduction in bloat this week.

Used the hotel gym body comp analyser which was quite interesting.

Measured weight of 69.9kg
Skeletal muscle mass of 35.3kg
Body fat mass of 8.5kg
Body fat percentage 12.1%
BMI - 26.3 and overweight (I know BMI doesn’t reflect my build)

Better than I thought!

I have some renewed motivation to try and hit 10% body fat, but the jump from 12 to 10 seems pretty huge.

Only 6.7kg of body fat at a weight of 67kg seems really low, but maybe aiming to lose 250g of fat a week for 8 weeks?

Gotta admire the honesty here

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