TL;DR: Finally committed to making a permanent lifestyle change, after many poor attempts, afraid that weighing myself would crush my spirits.
Long time lurker, first time poster. I love reading everyone's success stories on here, and hope I can use this subreddit to gain some more accountability for myself.
2.5 years ago a buddy of mine first told me that he was doing CICO to lose weight, and it just made sense to me. It's not "spend 3 weeks eating nothing but cabbage smoothies" or a super vague "eat a salad once in a while". It's just math! It's like it completely clicked for me in that instant! So I started tracking myself and in the span of just over 3 months with a healthy deficit and including exercise, I went from 113kg to 98kg. I didn't have major cravings or felt like I was starving myself, I was absolutely ecstatic and overjoyed!
Then I had to go abroad for 3 weeks due to work, decided to stop counting to try out the foreign cuisine and it all came crashing down. I went back to binge eating, and I never found that sweet spot again, the point where it just clicked and became natural. Whenever I'd start tracking my calories, I'd never go for more than 2-3 weeks before the cravings came back and my mental fortitude disappeared. But I've identified a ton of mistakes over these 2 years:
- cheat days don't work for me, at least not for now. If I give in once, I will give the next day as well, and it'll take me forever to find my rhythm again
- I cannot allow myself to have chips or bags of sweets around the house, since I can't control my urges when I open a bag
- I can only cook as much as I will eat in one sitting. If I cook 2 portions, then I will eat 2 portions, so I have to cut myself off at 1.
- starvation mode doesn't work, a 1200 kcal plan is not sustainable for me
- slow change on the scale terrifies me, I mustn't weigh too often
These are some of the many reasons that led me to quitting my ~10 or so attempts to lose weight over these past 2 years. Giving in to these urges will lead to failure, but what I can do is prevent these situations from happening! But they're all overshadowed by the possibly biggest factor of all:
- I can't think of it as a diet, it's a lifestyle change
This is something I've known for a long time, but no matter how much I told it to myself, it didn't stick.
About 6-7 weeks ago, I got up one morning, heartburn from overeating as usual, had too much breakfast, followed by too much lunch and picked up my laundry basket to go to the laundromat, literally 100m around the corner from my apartment. By the time I got there I was sweating, puffing and my back was killing me. I weighed myself the next morning, at 140kg. The highest I'd ever seen on the scale before was 125kg, I thought that was what I was maintaining. I was shocked, and terrified of myself, and then in that moment ... it just clicked again. At that moment I fully understood that I had to make a permanent lifestyle change or food would kill me one day.
Since then I've been fully committed like I've only been once in my life, those 2.5 years ago the first time I tried it. My motivation hasn't dipped for even a single day. I'm feeling great. I'm living on a 1600 kcal plan which seems to be a good fit for me. I've found that I don't need breakfast at all, so I can make two satisfying 800kcal meals a day. I haven't gone over my limit once these 6 weeks. I haven't craved chips or sweets even once. I'm back to exercising on the weekend (cycling the countryside for 4h+ at a time). My back pains and heartburn were gone within a week.
So first of all thank you if you've been reading all the way to this point, but here's the one thing I'm still not so sure about. I'm terrified of the scale. I haven't weighed myself once since I saw those 140kg, and I fear that seeing only a slow change on the scale could set me back mentally again. But without measuring my weight I can't make sure it's working, right? Do you have any advice for that?
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