this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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LoseIt: Lose the Fat
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I'm M, age 60, 5'10.5'' From 298-lb to 171-lb (179cm, 135-kg to 77.5-kg)
My first day of logging -- exactly a year ago -- was rather... incomplete. I only logged breakfast. But, the next day was better; and the next day was too.
It didn't start pretty: I didn't hit the calorie goal, I didn't watch my macros, I didn't make my walking goal right away, I was certain a gram of carbohydrates had 9 calories^wrong!^ but fat only had 4 calories ^wrong^-- that's why carbohydrates were bad^wrong^. Starvation mode was true^wrong^, and so were Set Points^sorta-wrong^, and my genes would never going to let me lose weight^wrong^. I was logging to appease my doctor and get through his training, this was not expected to actually work.
For those that don't know my story, I have been fighting against and coping with my fat all of my life. It affected my career and my self esteem. I've tried fad diets, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Low-Carb -- they all worked until they all eventually failed. I got diabetes and I was having trouble managing the three insulin shots and five pills a day. The diabetes was rapidly affecting my eyesight and I also had peripheral neuropathy. I needed to do something.
I was going through the process of getting weight-loss surgery. (I didn't have the surgery.) My surgeon's process included training -- part of my post-surgery recovery and maintenance would be logging my food and light walking. I was assigned pre-surgery homework: log my current food for 3 weeks and walk 3 times per week for 30 minutes. Do it before so I'll know how to do it afterward. They recommended MyFitnessPal as one of the ways to track my food. So I logged and I walked -- and I lost almost 20 pounds in 3 weeks. The calorie goal wasn't my goal -- my goal was the logging, but there was the goal and sometimes I was even hitting the goal!
After the homework was over, I continued to track calories and walk. I was hitting the goal more regularly and the doctor wanted me lighter for the surgery, anyway -- and this was working.
Two weeks more (around week 5) of logging, and I became hypoglycemic: my blood sugar was too low. This was a bit of an emergency, I needed sugar right away. Ultimately, to get it back into a safe range, I had to stop all of the insulin and four of the five pills. Neither my doctor or I was saying it at the time, but we both were thinking the same thing: there will be no surgery. This is working. Let's see if it keeps working.
But dieting has worked before -- this was all too familiar. What makes it work and then fail? Set points again? I thought back to all those other times -- all those other food logs -- hey -- maybe logging makes it work! Maybe logging made all those other diets work and, at some point, when I reached some confidence and repetition with them, I would quit the logging part. I would continue to diet and try to mentally keep track, but I would stop physically logging. In each effort, shortly after the logging stopped, the effort stopped.
Two more weeks and that last pill was stopped again, just to get my blood sugar back up to normal. I was going to continue logging, walking, losing, but this time, the last thing I'll give up is the logging. If the going gets tough, I'll log through it -- I may have to give up something else, but I'm not giving up on tracking my food.
Those of you who have followed, know this part ...
I posted a 60 day update. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1433376/60-days-of-logging-turns-into-motivation-and-changes and every 30 days after that, I posted an update
The support on Reddit's /r/loseit subreddit has been awesome and I have a circle of friends on /r/loseit and MyFitnessPal that was with me all of the way. I also meet weekly with a support group called TOPS that provided some accountability. I enjoy the "give and get" from both and it all has helped me. My spouse has been a wonderful cheerleader and he has lost 45 lbs. with me! My family and friends have also cheered me on. It's terrific!
As you can see, it started with the logging and tracking and just some light walking. And that's the plan for maintenance. I'll never stop logging. I'll keep walking and participating in online forums and in TOPS.
And now I've been maintaining for the last 8 years. In TOPS, I'm a KOPS (Keeping Off Pounds Sensibly) and still going to meetings and getting weighed and encouraged to maintain my program each week. No more shots or pills - my BP is 116/66 -- my blood sugar is normal.
I'm still active here and all this keeps me grounded -- making better well-ingrained habits and precepts out of these new skills and information.
TL;DR: Seriously diabetic guy figures it out after decades of failing, big health gains after only 60 days; loses and starts to maintain loss of over 125 lbs.! Says after one year: Don't stop logging! Still logging 8 years later!