i’ve lost 20ish lbs through calorie deficit but am starting up my bad habits again. any advice on how to get back on track without restricting like crazy?? i put my goal to lose 0.5lbs a week instead of 1lb a week to give myself some wiggle room, but still having some trouble.
by curiousjdoe
8 Comments
How long have you been in an energy deficit for? Losing 20 pounds is impressive, but you’ve probably accumulated enough diet fatigue to warrant taking a diet break and resetting fatigue and hunger/satiety cues for a little (if you haven’t already).
First things first, breathe. You can and will gain control.
Now, find ways to incorporate what you like into your life in healthy ways. You want a burger? That’s okay, as long as it’s not every day and you account for the calories in the rest of your meals. Order the burger and have a salad with it instead of fries. Want some ice cream? Find a lower calorie version of a flavor you like. Remember that these are treats, not every day things to eat. I find that making them treats in my mind again makes them taste better when I get to indulge every now and then. Look up recipes that are healthy AND yummy (I really like Skinny taste for her recipes, they’re diverse and I haven’t had a bad one yet).
Everyone falls off now and then, but you can and will pick yourself up and dust off this phase. This doesn’t define you or erase all of the progress you’ve made.
What helped for me and my fiancé was giving up the calorie counting for 4 weeks, but and there is a big BUT….
Start learning to cook healthy and delicious things, search for some delicious and healthy breakfast/lunches/dinners, like smoothy bowls, salads, sandwiches, prawn or steak dishes and make something else EVERY DAY!
By cooking something else every day you’ll learn to use products in different ways and how that will change the taste of that product, after a few weeks you probably can create something all by yourself and it still tastes really good.
For us the reason to eat unhealthy was just not knowing what to cook so we would get some fastfood or wanting to eat something really delicious, but when we learned to make all these really delicious recipes the cravings for the delicious bad food went away because the food was delishous everyday.
After that we just made our portions smaller so we eat around 1600-2000 kcal a day.
Edit: also dont worry, you can eat whatever the fuck you want sometimes, dont stress it. The process of losing weight still has to be bearable/fun. You still only ate 2330kcal that day (idk your bodyweight) but theres a big chance that around your daily burn so you didnt gain weight.
I went to an all you can eat last weekend and probably chomped down at least 6.000Kcal worth of food and beer, just dont that too often.
Oh yeah and try to stay moving, that made a bigger difference for me than eating better, i do cardio 3x a week and 2x a week stength training.
The last 2 weeks has been a shit show for me.
2 therapy sessions.
Halloween.
Election blues.
Spiraling has certainly commneced.
I keep telling myself I’ll rebuild. I think my brain just needs a week or two off, no rules.
Next week. 🏳️🌈💙
I get like this after a while, just take a break for a week or two and eat at maintenance. Then go back to deficit, it’ll be much easier.
There is also research to show taking diet breaks has you lose weight at least as fast or faster than when breaks aren’t taken. It seems like it kicks your body out of its power saving mode.
Some inspo might help with motivation. I follow heal.with.becca (high protein diet) and HigherUpWellness (easy fitness hacks) on tiktok and it really helps watching their videos daily. Especially HigherUpWellness.
You really need to find a diet you actually enjoy. I started eating meat, veg, and eggs and I’m addicted. Tiktok just made it look so appetising. I lost 3kg in the first month. The other day I UberEatsed Indian food and it made me feel sick. It was so heavy and greasy. My body just loves wholefoods now. I have a limited grocery list and I cook the same things over and over. It keeps things simple and I never have to think very hard about what I’m going to have for dinner.
Thank you for your honesty. This is the main reason why this time around I’m being waaaaay more flexible with my diet. I know I won’t lose weight as fast as others do but I am not suffering in silence only binge again. I have great weeks and I have weeks where my eating is not as clean. I seem to be losing weight anyways. Maybe not fast enough for some people but I want this change to last for the rest of my life and, in order to do that, I need to concentrate on getting to the root of the problem and not just dealing with the symptoms. I’m doing therapy and EMDR. I’m reparenting myself and making sure the little girl inside of me gets all the nutrients she needs plus the fun. Anyways… you are not alone. We are all here doing hard things together ❤️
Remember in 1 month those two days won’t matter in the slightest!