Women, how did you lose the weight if you’ve been overweight most of your life?

28 comments

  1. Change your relationship with food.

    Absolutely no fad diets. Learn to understand portion control, stop using food as a coping mechanism. Balance and everything in moderation.

  2. It’s the same for everyone, basically. If you’re eating a lot of grains and a lot of processed sugar, those are your main culprits. When I want to lose weight, I do the Phil Maffetone Two Week Test, and then I stick to a clean diet 5 days a week (at the least). Do not eat a low calorie diet for too long, you’ll end up ruining your metabolism. If you’re looking for exercise to help, the best things are exercises that build muscle and HIIT.

  3. Talk to your doctor. They can help you see a dietitian and a therapist. You want a dietitian, nutritionists aren’t always legit. Join a gym with a trainers if possible, its more expensive than planet fitness but they’ll make workouts for you and usually charge extra if you miss a class so that usually holds me accountable. Never shop when you’re hungry or without a list.

    As for specific foods, I like to turn things into salads. Like instead of a cheeseburger, I’ll do a mix romaine and leafy lettuce (I prefer spinach, alot of people like arugula), chopped pickles, onion, tomatoes, and chop a burger patty into small bites. And make a mustard dressing from google (googled burger vinaigrette).

    If you think of it someone else has probably already made a recipe.

  5. r/loseit will have lots of great advice for you; you should come and see!

    I lost weight originally using the Body For Life 12 week program… I literally just bought the book and did everything it said, it taught me about fasted cardio, portion control, balanced meals, Whole Foods, weight lifting, supersets….

    Sooooo many things in that book, laid out simply. It’s a great place to start if you need a foundation.

  6. I’m on a weight loss journey right now and let me tell you, it’s a long and winding road.

    I stopped worrying about the scale number for starters and focused on other things like eating quality food at meals. Making sure I get some type of exercise every day. No more sitting down with a bag of Doritos, I put a portion in a bowl (I dont measure it or weigh it) so that I don’t eat the whole bag.

    I’ve lost 60 lbs in 2 years just by doing this. My exercise right now is gardening and playing Beat Saber on the PS4, and weight lifting. My doctor checks my blood twice a year and I’m happy to say my cholesterol is way down, my glucose is good, along with everything else being in the acceptable ranges.

    I don’t worry about getting in X amount of steps, instead I focus on learning to play a song I love. I’ve gotten to the point that my reflexes are fast enough to beat quite a few of the Expert Plus songs on Beat Saber and Synth Rider. I focus on how much weight I can lift instead of how much I’m losing. It’s fun watching those numbers go up, and even more fun when I lift something for a friend and they are like “HOW THE HELL WERE YOU ABLE TO LIFT THAT!!!???” It fuels my need for attention 😂

    My biggest motivators though is I don’t want to be diabetic. It’s genetic in my family and being overweight ups my chances. I’ll sit for hours getting a tattoo but the thought that I would have to inject myself every day with medication honestly scares me. The fear helps. The other is I don’t want to die young and leave my son especially if it was something I could have prevented by just being healthier. Obviously there are factors that could kill me that I cannot control, but I’ve already had cancer once and I’m in no mood to deal with this crap again.

    Sure I could probably lose weight faster if I counted my calories, stuck to a routine, but that just isn’t something I can do. I hate routine and I have ADHD so I forget stuff all the time despite being medicated.

  10. Intermittent fasting, calorie counting, a lot of cardio, and increased water intake. Helped me drop 30 pounds in 2-3 months. I’m no fitness expert though. Not sure if that strategy is considered “healthy” or not, but it worked out well for my body type.

  11. Eating disorder. I don’t recommend…. I’ve lost 75lbs since January. I am losing but I’m malnourished. I wish I had the motivation to go to the gym and workout. I mainly eat things that would fall into the Keto diet. Cutting carbs/sugar/etc. I also portion myself. I have a food scale. I eat once a day and drink one protein shake a day.

  13. Got bariatric surgery a month ago. Down 22 pounds and will likely lose about 70 more.

  15. I tracked calories with MyFitnessPal. The first time I lost weight, I restricted too much. I had heard that 1200 calories is the “starvation limit” and played the “how close can I get to 1200″ game. **Don’t do this!** Taller girls need more calories, especially if working out or working a more active job. I lost the weight, but my mental health was not great and I felt like crap the whole time.

    The next couple of times I wanted to lose some weight, I calculated how much I was supposed to be eating for my height, weight, and activity level (I’m 5’9” and work out multiple times a week). Turns out I’m supposed to be eating 2200 calories! So I cut down to 1900 calories, and adjusted my diet to foods that I still enjoyed that would keep me to 1900 calories a day. Sometimes that means buying “diet foods” like diet soda or low-calorie ice cream, and sometimes that means just eating a lot of fruits and veggies with my protein, or cutting out a bit of carbs (thank you cauliflower rice and lettuce wraps). I keep a curated Pinterest board full of meals and treats I genuinely enjoy that can help me reach my protein and calorie goals.

    [Here](https://tdeecalculator.net/) is the calculator I used to figure out how much to eat, it will also give you an estimate of your BMR, or basal metabolic rate. That’s how many calories your body needs to function, and going lower than your BMR can hurt your metabolism–I wouldn’t eat less calories than that number. My BMR is ~1450, so I imagine that I was doing my body a disservice the first time I dieted.

  16. Registered Dietitian here! Figure out where some of your problems may be and try to find a way to alter them. Do you eat out often? Eat sugary snacks? Drink sodas? Don’t feel like you need to completely cut things out of your diet but try to limit outside food or added sugars. Make sure you’re getting enough protein and fiber in your diet. These foods will fill you up. Cook with and incorporate healthy fats into your diet. Incorporate more whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables into your diet. ADD these things into your diet instead of removing foods. Drink plenty of water and try to get some exercise a few times/week!

    If you can, consult with a Registered Dietitian who is in your area.

  17. Honestly, keto diet with intermittent fasting. Didn’t count calories and in a year and a half I dropped 25kg.

    It’s a lifestyle change you gotta make though. Going on a diet and then reverting back to eating like before won’t do anything.
    I’ve stopped eating sugar and most carbs. Rarely have cake, bread or sweet deserts.
    It’s unfair that I have to keep doing this to maintain the weight but it’s the way it is

  18. Portion control was a huge game changer for me. I’ve always been that woman that will down a bowl of pasta the size of my face without even thinking. So I made some big changes with that. Other things like having a scoop of my ice cream in a bowl versus just going to town on the pint I bought helped.

  20. The duodenal switch helped me to lose and maintain a 130 pound weight loss.

  21. I was overweight from about age 16-26. At 27 I joined a Weight Watchers group at my company.

    I followed the plan diligently and I went to in-person meetings every week. I lost 30lbs in 1yr and I have kept it off for 12 years.

    My BMI went from the high end of overweight to the high end of healthy and my body fat percentage dropped from the mid-range of overweight to the low end of normal (almost in to the “fit” range!). I encourage you to track more than just your weight — body fat percentage is important too. Whenever I feel myself slipping into old habits, I go back to tracking on either the WW app or a free dupe app if I’m feeling cheap LOL.

    For that first year, the meetings were just as important to me as the tracking/plan — having accountability and support each week so that I didn’t just give up after a bad week (a huge component of binging is “giving up” then binging then promising yourself you won’t do it again, which of course you do). It was helpful to see the progress of other people and to have my progress seen and acknowledge as well. One women in our group started off at 300lbs, sounding like she was struggling to breathe with every breath. In that 1yr she lost 80lbs and her entire voice changed — from a gravelly whisper to normal and energetic. Watching that happen in real time was really inspiring and I hope my loss was inspiring to someone else too.

    **tl;dr Find support and accountability in whatever plan you choose. It’s just as important as diet and lifestyle changes.**

  27. i got my meds for PCOS, started strength training 5 days a week, and counted calories. im blessed to have never fallen into an ED. it worked for me, but i have to constantly put in effort to maintain it and probably will for the rest of my life. (once i dropped cardio and started lifting the weight fell off and i gained muscles. cardio did nothing for me.)

  28. I’ve been overweight since puberty due to lipedema. In trying to treat the puberty weight gain, not recognizing the lipedema, I was put on a low fat diet, which caused rapid weight gain and insulin resistance throughout my teen years.

    In my early 20’s I discovered powerlifting, then ketogenic eating, which counteracted the insulin resistance and was able to eliminate the metabolically active fat and get back down to the weight I was when I was 13. But the lipedema has continue to progress. For the past 13 years, I’ve stayed considerably slimmer than I was in high school, but still slowly growing adipose tumors in my arms and legs.

    ​

    I think it’s very frustrating in that the people who talk about weight loss on the internet are not predominantly people who have been overweight for most of their lives. There’s a lot of things they don’t get.

    What’s important to understand is that if you have been overweight for most of your life, there is something significant about your body or your fundamental approach to food that is keeping you that way. It isn’t going to be a little simple fix. It’s not just about having willpower. It’s not about one or two tips that you didn’t know before and now you do.

    Either you were raised with a world-view about food that is fundamentally different from the way your body needs to eat to stay healthy, or you have a body that interacts with your food environment in a way that other people’s bodies don’t. If you have an issue with binge eating, if you don’t know how to cook healthy meals, if you regularly eat enormous portions, you know that about yourself, and you need to get help with those things with support and compassion. But if you feel like you eat healthy and have always eaten healthy, but you keep getting fatter, don’t believe the people who say things like “Well sure there are rare problems that can cause you to process calories differently, but those things are rare. For the vast majority of people it doesn’t work that way.” You might not be the vast majority of people. If you were fat since childhood doing the same things as the lean people around you, there’s a pretty good chance you’re one of those minority of people with some kind of metabolic issue making it harder to maintain a healthy bodyweight.

    ​

    That’s not to say that it’s impossible. But it’s to say that it will be harder for you than it will be for other people. It’s ok to struggle. It’s ok to pat yourself on the back for working harder than normal people will ever have to work. Find out if you have a thyroid condition or PCOS. Find out if you have lipedema. Find out if you have insulin resistance. Find out if you have an eating disorder. And if you have any of those issues, stop trying to treat your weight like a healthy person who gained 40lbs when they got a desk job and started eating takeout every day. Treat your specific health problems, follow the best nutrition you can in a way that targets your specific body, and forgive your body for responding to that treatment the best it can.

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