23, 250 lbs, 5 ft. 7, and looking to lose 100 pounds.

[success1]

Hi everybody.


I'm a 23 year old female who is overweight, my entire family is overweight. I usually fluctuate with my weight between 230-255, but have not gone under 230 ever since I reached it. I was on a similar forum a few months ago and was doing great while I was on it, but then fell off.


For a while I ate nothing but a footlong from subway or a chipotle burrito bol (no sour cream/guac) a day. I was losing weight rapidly (also doing about 40 minutes of cardio/exercise a day), but kept reading about 'starvation mode'. And figured I should get my calories up, even though I was conflicted about doing so.


Eventually I just fell off and stopped watching what I ate. It took for me to start crying while watching myself on video tape and seeing a picture of myself from a gathering to realize how ultimately repulsed I am with my weight and looks. It contributes to my low self esteem, my social habits, my activities, and even my relationships with people.


It's hard being big.


I'm here to get back on the right track and here for support and to ask for advice on what has worked for some of you.


I really enjoyed the diet of Chipotle/subway once a day (usually very late at night). Is there such a thing as starvation mode? Also, I don't regularly eat meat. Which also very much effects my dieting, I do eat it personally, but my family members don't and they don't allow it in the house so it can get tricky sometimes.


My goal is to lose over 100 pounds. Of course I want to do it as quick as I can but I know that patience is key. What I need help with is how to consistently keep losing weight.


I look forward to creating bonds with individuals who have lost weight or are seeking to. Any advice would be so appreciated. Nice to meet you all.

 

[Jericho]

Welcome! I'd suggest checking the various diaries and sticked posts for stories and some great advice.

 

[Ponson]

I eat five times a day. Two of those a fruit snacks. I also keep a very detailed food diary on a spreadsheet. I enter all the relevant nutritional info, like grams of fat/protein/carbohydrate. From that it calculates calories, and percentage of calories from each. It also tracks my sodium and fiber intake to help me not get too much of one, and enough of the other.


What I have learned is that getting less than 2000 mg of sodium a day is a real challenge, and can be best accomplished by cooking for yourself, and not eating a lot of highly processed, and fast, food. Getting enough protein is helped by having a non-fat Greek yogurt each day. I eat it plain, as the fruit flavored ones pack way to much carb. from sugar.


"Starvation mode" is something of an urban myth. What I have found works is that it is good to get hungry, but not to be hungry. What I mean by this is that by getting hungry, you are letting your body tell you when it is time to eat. If you do not eat when your body tells you, you will be hungry, and your body will protest is you start working it hard.


As for working out, if you have a lot of excess weight, I find that I do not have to increase my calorie intake very much, as my body has a lot in storage to call from. I take granola bars on long bike rides to snack on if I feel myself running out of gas. I have oatmeal and fruit for breakfast the morning of a long ride.

 

[success1]

Thank you for your response Ponson.


I've always been somebody who likes huge meals opposed to several small meals. I have decided that I'm going to give several small meals a try.


I was restricting my caloric intake to 600 calories a day (or around there) and working out 40 minutes 4 days out of 7 for a month and lost 20 pounds. But I stopped and fell off of that because I was eating either a foot long or chipotle at night and that would be my only meal of the day but then I started eating lunch because I heard about starvation mode and that eating less than 1,200 calories a day would not help me lose weight.


It's confusing.


But I'm going to try to eat until a point where I'm not starving, but eat healthy. And try to eat more meals a day than I was before.


Diet starts today!