I'm great at losing weight, but terrible at keeping it off. I've been as low as 150 and as high as about 205 before, but I truly feel like I've changed my relationship with food this time around. I've lost 10 pounds in about 2 months doing the following:
- Eating 1650-1700 calories/day during non-exercise days and 1900 calories/day on heavy exercise days to target a smaller deficit of 300-500 calories/day.
- Weighing food before I eat it and logging it immediately.
- Walking 1-6 miles 3-5 times/week before or after work. (During my vacation I made it a point to move a lot and walked about 5 miles/day).
- Keeping a "safety net" of frozen meals, canned soups, and easy-to-prepare items for when I get home and I feel ravenous. I also keep a ton of pickled things at the house that I allow myself to eat without counting calories.
- Going on vacation and adopting a "Good, better, best" mindset rather than a "I might as well eat it all because I can't count the calories" mindset. This included things like eating a ton of fresh pico de gallo instead of loading up on guacamole, leaving off cheese from my entrees, getting dressing on the side, and not snacking just because everyone else wanted to. I actually lost half a pound, on vacation, while unable to count calories.
- Changing my mindset around messing up. If I overeat at one meal or on one day, I refuse to fall into the trap of believing that the whole day is shot, or the whole week is "ruined" in some way.
I think it would be interesting to share my previous mindset:
- Eat 1200-1500 calories/day, period. No cheat days. Fast results are necessary.
- Weigh some food before you eat it. When you go back for seconds, guesstimate that if you're too hungry to weigh it.
- Get up and go to the gym at 5 am 1-2 days/week and do a brutal workout. Be exhausted, sleep in the other 5-6 days. Feel guilty. Exercise and the gym must be for Other People.
- Order UberEATS at work and drive home while it's on its way. You're too hungry to think ahead, and there's nothing quick in the refrigerator. Don't log it, because it's impossible to log takeout accurately. And if it's not 100% accurate, there's no point.
- Vacation = fuck it mode. It's not that calories don't count, but you're 100% "on vacation" which means on vacation from losing weight. It can't be done and it would take away from your vacation if you can't eat whatever you want.
- Screw ups ruin the entire meal. If you're over on your calories for the day, the day is ruined. Say "fuck it" and eat more without logging it. But since the day is ruined, your weekly average calories are also ruined, so eat more.
I've always been a perfectionist, but never planned ahead and made this a priority, and I had some binge-eating tendencies which have now been addressed. For me, letting go of perfectionism has been a process, but I'm much more at peace and have let go of the guilt I felt from implementing an arbitrary, unrealistic plan and then not being able to stick to it.
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