Ask the guy who lost 200 pounds in 9 months

In My Humble Opinion
181

Of reasonably thin adults I would put the number at 95%+ that put forth a regular effort in maintaining their body. Whether that be food choice, limiting portion size, or exercise. On a weekly basis they are going to make a conscious choice with the goal of maintaining fitness in mind.

You’re point seems to be that one’s body fitness is fatalistic. Thin people are thin because they don’t get hungry as fat people, and this is essentially luck of the draw.

I never said anyone makes special efforts. They are making minor decisions like passing on dessert, eating a salad for lunch because they had a big dinner, or not buying too many snacks at the grocery store. These little choices add up over the course of the years. Two extra 250 calorie cookies a week will leave you 75 pounds overweight after 10 years.

182

People respond to incentives. Arnold Schwarzenegger famously said that when he lifted weights, he got a feeling equivalent or better to having an orgasm. If that were normal, and most people had it, we’d all have a whole lot more people walking around who were bodybuilders.

Some people love vegetables. Some don’t like sweet things. Some feel great after exercise, some feel shitty.

A person with the same character, the same values, the same inner strengths and weaknesses, could get different results based on their incentives. There is physiological variation amongst people on these issues.

So I’m not saying that there aren’t people who very deliberately go against their natural incentives to maintain fitness, or that there aren’t people who lack self control, but for the most part, people take the route that the incentives suggest they do. If your body has an insulin response cycle that crashes your blood sugar faster than average, you’re going to be hungry more, and eat more. If your body responds to exercise with feelings of being uplifted or euphoria, you’re going to exercise more.

Your motive is clear. You think all fat people are fat because they are worse people than you, and they deserve your hatred. And it’s ultimately true that everyone could override their natural tendencies due to the incentives and take control of their weight anyway. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come harder or easier for various people. The assumption that it’s equally hard for everyone is actually quite a ridiculous proposition, ignoring the vast variability we see within human physiology.

Take me for example. A year ago when I exercised I felt like garbage, so I didn’t do it. I don’t know the reason - maybe it was related to health issues. But for whatever reason, that’s changed, and my body responds more positively to exercise, so I’m doing it now. Did I learn some lesson in the last year? Did I become less of a worthless person? Did I build my character? No. I simply have a new set of incentives and I’m following them. If it flipped back, and I started feeling awful with exercise again, I’d probably stop.

Similarly when I’m low carbing I eat the bare minimum I need to stay healthy, more or less. Is it because I’ve somehow corrected my gluttonous fatty ways, and somehow resisted diving into any food anyone puts near me? No, without the blood sugar spikes and crashes, I don’t get a false hunger that causes me to eat more frequently, I’m much more in tune with what my body needs and I get hungry less frequently.

If we all felt like lifting weights was the same an orgasm, we’d all look like Arnold. If we all felt horrible pain every time we did any exercise, we’d all be in horrible shape. That isn’t fatalistic - you can always work counter to the incentives - but it’s foolish to assume that everyone is working under the same set of incentives, and therefore if their behavior differs from yours, then they are simply worse people than you are.

183

And here is the crux of it, which SenorBeef addresses very nicely, althoguh from a slightly different angle.

The critical part is the mistaken belief is that the average-lean-mildly chubby people who make minor decisions like passing on dessert and the obese person who has two servings are starting from roughly the same place in terms of their biological, physical, psychological and emotional experience about making that choice to pass or pigout. Then you (maybe not you, but lots of lots of others!) conclude that the truly significant difference between average-lean-mildly chubby dessert skippers and the obese double-serving scarfers is one of character. That all of them would like to eat two servings, but the people with the better character don’t because of their better character.

No. Wrong. Incorrect.

I dont’ have time to lay it all out, so I just point you to my earlier post with a few links that link to a few other things which describe how good ol’ science has confirmed that the obese really are different. Their hormones (which are critical!), their brains actually operate differently. Their bodies operate differently, respond to nutrients differently. It’s not the same experience to say yes or no for everyone, and it’s absolutely not a matter of character.

It seems abundantly obvious to me that if it really were a matter of character, then someone would have to come up with a good explanation for why so many people over the last 30 years suddenly don’t have any. It’s nonsensical on its face.

Precisely.

184

So I set a goal for my goal - I wanted to hit 264 by the beginning of June. Well, I’m a month late on that and still not there. I’m still losing, very slowly - I’m at about 277. On the plus side, that’s as light as I’ve been since the mid-2000s. On the negative, the pace of the weight loss is way too slow.

To all of you who think there’s something noble or better about losing it slowly and living a more sustainable lifestyle - you are dead wrong. There is nothing good about this. I’m driven nuts by my lack of progress, yet I’m committed to my original goal so I’m sticking with it. I’m in no way healthier than I was when I lost the weight in a dramatic fashion before. In fact I’m significantly less healthy. I have less muscle mass so if I stop my weight gain will come back on much quicker. I’m not experiencing any sort of attitude or psychological benefit from this. It is just flat out inferior in every way to losing the weight quickly like I did before.

And before you say “well you’ve become accustomed to a lifestyle, and sustained it longer, so you’re better prepared to handle transitioning into lifetime maintenance”, bullshit. The slow pace of the weight loss makes me feel trapped, makes me feel like I’m living a lifestyle for a really small benefit. I want out. Or I want progress. Something. I’m actually less likely now to transition to something healthy when I reach my goal in terms of feeling good about it. The only thing that might keep me going is the idea that it’s going to take a fuckload of time and effort if I ever have to lose weight again.

So I can confidently say, yet again, that you’re all very wrong. Progress is rewarding, and doing it properly it’s not a health risk, and in fact creates much more dramatic health improvement. Nothing about having taken a year and a half to lose 70 pounds has been better than taking 9 months to lose 200. If anything, it makes me want to say “fuck it, stay fat, die in 10 years of a heart attack, this shit takes forever”

I’ve been lax on the exercise part. My torn rotator cuff has effectively stopped me from doing upper body weight lifting, which means I’m confined to much less productive exercises. I was swimming 3-4 times a week for about 2 months, but that barely seemed to speed up my progress, so now I can’t muster up the motivation and I go maybe once a week. I’m getting physical therapy for my shoulder, but I’m starting to think it’s something that needs some sort of surgical intervention that I can’t afford, or maybe it’s just fucked for life.

I’ll hit my goal in another month if I work at it, but at that point I’m not optimistic about continuing this. It sucks. Maybe if the physical therapy works and I can start lifting again, I’ll start seeing more progress and feel better about the whole thing.

185

Uh. Good… luck?

Does it make you feel better to come in here every so often and complain about how bad everything sucks for you and then pre-emptively yell at people for the wrong-headed advice you feel they will respond with? Because it makes for one weird-ass thread, I can tell you that.

186

I thought I’d update the thread every few months. Some people asked for updates.

It’s not pre-emptive. The wrong advice is already in the thread, I’m using my experience to respond to it.

There are people who are well meaning with the advice - they are simply wrong. And there are people who are assholes, who think it’s somehow a cheat if fatties don’t suffer enough, that if you had rapid success (even if due to hard work) you’re not doing it right. I see this attitude all the time and it’s hateful and disgusting, so yes, that’s reflected in my attitude towards them.

187

OK. Again, I wish you the best. I’ve gone from completely sedentary to running half-marathons and lost a bunch of weight in the process, but basically every single piece of advice or support I could give you from my personal experience, you have already ruled out by saying that it is categorically wrong and bullshit.

So, good luck. I should probably just unsubscribe from the thread, huh? :slight_smile:

188

I’ve read your epic weigh loss story and it’s remarkable and in the past when I was younger and in a controlled food environment in college (meals via dining halls hours) I also lost a big chunk of weight quickly for the first time in my life. But the past is the past.

I’m 55 now and work out with personal trainer one on one 3x a week. It’s not that expensive at about $ 75 dollars a week. My body is different than when I was in my 20’s and yours is too. Crash diets are just stupid as effective methods of long term weight loss. I’m currently eating about 2,500 calories a day and average losing about 1-1.5 lbs per week over time. Sure it’s slow but 4-6 lbs a month adds up and the consistent exercise is making me harder and stronger than I’ve ever been. My goal is to bench 300 by September. The main key is that regular exercise keeps my metabolism kicked up a notch (and the added muscle) lets me lose faster than if I was relying on a calorie deficit alone.

You keep focusing (almost obsessively) on how much dieting sucks, and you’re right to the extent that in the overall scheme of things it’s not all that much fun to stop eating when you would rather keep eating. But so what? Is that piece of steak, or pie, or burger worth being 100 lbs overweight and looking like a grotesque tub of goo and feeling like shit 24/7? Being significantly overweight sucks hugely. We both know this intimately.

I’ve cycled up and down all my life. I’ve lost weight on my own before, but it’s much easier when you have the consistent exercise plan nailed down. I also tore my rotator cuff last year and immediate intervention form my trainer got me past it, by constantly working and stretching the joint (which I still do).

In the end consistent exercise HAS to be part of the equation, especially as you get older, or success is just not going to happen. There is no amount of food I can shove in my maw that would make it worthwhile, but you seem to be balancing on the precipice as if there is an amount of food that would make being morbidly obese worthwhile. If you do not change that worldview then success is going to be very difficult.

189

FWIW kudos to you for sticking with it despite your insistence on setting unrealistic goals for yourself. You have, by your own design, created a circumstance in which you are doomed to fail to meet your goals and to be frustrated by that failure … even as you succeed by any reasonable goal setting standard, even as you are lighter, likely fitter, and almost certainly healthier than you’ve been in a decade.

Sorry buddy. You are not losing gradually instead of rapidly by design let alone choice; if you could have dropped in all right off you would have. The advice you’ve gotten in this thread has mainly been to not set yourself up for failure by defining “success” idiotically. Your response has been and is to continue to set up those unachievable, and yes, idiotic goals, to then to bemoan how miserable you feel for not meeting them, and use that as some kind of perverse “I told you so, going slow, developing healthy habits, sucks.”

It is somewhat entertaining to see you try so hard to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, to see you resentfully and unhappily plod away whining about your actual success because you still insist on judging against your distant past experience that now resides on Mt Olympus.

You have lost 20% of your previous body weight so far! You have gone from near complete unfitness to a modest degree of fitness and somehow persevered without reverting to unfitness despite injury and your refusal to grant yourself any attaboys. From any reasonable health/medical perspective you have been a star success story that, IF MAINTAINED, would be an exemplar to others. All while throwing every obstacle in your own way you could!

That’s something. Not sure what, but it’s something.

:slight_smile:

190

This is probably true, but either way, the end result is that I end up going with the less dramatic lifestyle adjustment that results in the 1-2 pounds a week that everyone here says is the proper way. So planned or not, I’m effectively living the “proper” way to lose weight. I guess unless you think long term low carbing isn’t viable.

And my point is that it sucks. People seemed to think it would teach me a lesson about sticking with it for the long term, because I was adjusting to something closer to what I’d have to do indefinitely. But it hasn’t. Quite the opposite - I’m going to spend so much time slowly losing weight that by the time I get there, I’m going to be so full of resentment and impatience that I may just give up. Had I been able to lose it more quickly, build more muscle (and hence a higher basal metabolic rate), and then found something less severe for maintenance. I know “well you tried that before but you didn’t” is the next response to that, but the circumstances and motivation are different this time around. It may be that I wouldn’t this time around, but it’s more likely that I would’ve than I actually am going to with this method.

I realize I come off as really bitter and hostile and I’m sorry for that, it wasn’t my intent for the thread. But pages of people telling me how I was doing it wrong, and knowing they were wrong ahead of time, and then experiencing it and further knowing they were wrong and not having them care even a bit about it can be annoying.

My goals weren’t idiotic though, given that I’d actually achieved much better results than I intended in the past. I don’t think just being 31 rules out, say, being able to achieve half the progress I did before. If I were able to attack it with anywhere near the same vigor, I probably could’ve gotten reasonable results.

I do wonder if I could’ve had better, more dramatic results if I cared more. It seems to me - and I only have anecdotal evidence behind this one - that the degree of how extreme the low carbing is matters. Before I’d eat less than 25g per day, almost carb free. Now I eat around 50-60 a day. It makes the eating significantly less of a hassle and has more variety, so it’s more sustainable, but my ketogenic rate is much lower (as measured by testing strips) and I don’t feel nearly as much as a dramatic biological general change for the better as I do with strict low carbing. But maybe I should try a super strict diet and see what the results are.

Similarly, I could’ve exercised a lot more. Yeah, my injury is really limiting, but I could’ve worked around it. It was discouraging that in my 2 months of fairly hard exercise my weight loss didn’t really pick up, but the reality is that I probably had a sudden surge of muscle building and water retention in the muscles that masked some of the actual fat loss.

In fact, to continue after meeting the current goal I’m going to have to go one way or the other. Either I try a more extreme diet and workout regimen, like I did before, and see faster progress, or I come up with something less restrictive and less of a hassle and somehow manage to keep slowly losing weight, because the current ratio of restriction and effort isn’t worth the results.

191

It’s been a long thread but I don’t think too many have been expecting you to learn a lesson about about sticking with it for the long term. With your unrealistic goals we were expecting you to fail Mr. Bond.

The perversity is that you have actually been successful. You just won’t let yourself realize that being as invested as you are in beating yourself up.

You aren’t asking but 20% off is fantastic. I’d go with something less restrictive and aim more on increasing your fitness from here than on the scale. Don’t worry. I am sure that you’ll be abe to increase your fitness and still declare yourself a failure. (Not lifting as much as you did in the past, so on.)

192

I know it may sound that way, but I’m not really beating myself up. If anything, I’d be beating myself up by not putting enough effort into it - I’d have been able to lose at least another 20 pounds by now if I was exercising a few times a week for the whole duration of this thing.

I committed to a goal, reaching that goal has had a poorer effort/time to results ratio than I anticipated, and I’m unhappy with that. Had I known this would be the ratio, I probably wouldn’t have done it in the first place. But because I committed to that goal, I’m trapped despite my dissatisfaction with the progress. But in another 13 pounds, I’m no longer trapped. Then what do I do? I guess the answer is to come up with something else, or get fat again.

I don’t really feel as though it’s an accomplishment. Yes, objectively it is, but I respond abnormally to these incentives. I don’t base any part of my self esteem on my weight. I don’t need it to feel good about myself, and in fact I don’t feel any better about myself. The loss has been so slow and gradual that there’s no sense that I feel better now. I probably do, but the memory of what it might’ve been like before is too faded to contrast it. 264 isn’t enough to be in good shape, so it hasn’t dramatically increased the things I’m physically capable of doing. I’m not able to make big lifestyle changes because of it.

I respond counterproductively in other ways. Any increased positive social attention I receive on account of the loss actually fuels resentment and unhappiness.

I really need to find some sort of motivation other than self improvement or positive social attention. Those are really weak motivators for me or even an anti-motivator in the latter case. I need to somehow tie this in to a stronger emotion. Love, hate, revenge, something along those lines would give me the will to attack it with the intensity that it needs. If I could somehow tie it to one of those, I’d be a lot better off, but I haven’t been able to figure out a way.

193

Let me just emphasize: 1 to 2 pounds a week over along haul is not “the proper way” - it is the best that happens for almost anyone. Even very low calorie protein sparing fast liquid diets end up with loss of less than 2 pounds a week after 24 weeks (faster in the first 12 but quickly leveling off after that). Why you were able to do more than that once and gain muscle mass in the process in the past is a mystery but that was a freak occurrence and not a standard that was at all realistic to expect to be repeated.

194

This is one benefit to losing weight slowly. You have put in so much work already, you don’t want it to go to waist :slight_smile:

You’re pushing a rock up a hill. It’s hard and takes a long time. But unlike Sisyphus, you will get to the top and it will get easier. If you stop now, that rock will roll all the way down the hill and all your hard work will be gone.

It’s one of the reasons I think exercise is beneficial for weight management. When you really know what 200 calories of effort feels like, you look at food differently. A cookie isn’t just yummy carbs and fat. It’s 20 minutes on the treadmill. It makes it easier to make good food choices.

You might want to look into spin classes at your gym. It’s a great way to burn lots of calories while your shoulder heals.

195

I saw what you did there.

196

Your attitude (Fuck you, idiots!) makes it hard to root for you, but you have accomplished a lot. I would never recommend anyone take your approach, but it appears to be working for you.

Keep proving us wrong and write a book about it.

197

You’re right. I went back and re-read the thread to refresh myself on what people had actually said, and my level of hostility is completely unjustified. Only one person in the thread was being obviously hostile - other people were well meaning even when I thought they were wrong. They don’t deserve a hostile attitude like that and I’m sorry.

After I lost the weight, way back when I was in good shape, there were a lot of people who felt the need to go out of their way to shit on it. They’d tell me you did it all wrong, what you did was unhealthy, now your body is ruined. That what I did wasn’t legitimate because it was too fast, I didn’t suffer enough, I didn’t do it the right way. I was supposed to be miserable for longer, to ride the edge of failure at all times, to realize what a bad person I was for being fat in the first place and do penance in the form of more suffering.

I suspect a lot of you won’t believe that, and you’ll think I’m exaggerating, but a whole lot of people have an often unvoiced disgust/hatred towards fat people, and looked at becoming unfat at such a rapid pace to be somehow cheating, that I didn’t suffer enough.

Since I hadn’t read this thread in a long time, I conflated some of that attitude with people who were more legitimately concerned with whether I’d end up sticking with something manageable. But for the most part, everything said in this thread was well meaning and I shouldn’t be so hostile. Really, I’m sorry.

That said, there were still people who thought it’d be beneficial for me to do a diet closer to something that would be maintainable in the long term, that losing weight one way and then maintaining it another way wouldn’t work, that I should be happy with something slow and steady and sustainable. And that’s clearly not the case.

If I could do something more drastic, sustain even half the pace that I was on before, I think I’d lose all the way down to 200. But at the current pace it’s really difficult to maintain my interest. I’m pretty miserable. Which means I’m going to have to either do something more extreme to generate faster results (and I’m not even sure that’s possible, given when I was swimming 8-10 hours a week I wasn’t losing any faster) or something with slow results that isn’t as restrictive.

198

I hadn’t seen this thread before and just spent quite a lot of time reading it. **DSeid, **you’ve written some amazing, insightful and informative posts. THANK YOU. I hope you’ll continue to do so as they’ve been so inspiring.

Senor Beef, I’m sorry you’re frustrated and discouraged, I’ve been there. It took me a long, long, long time to figure out what works for me regarding losing weight and maintaining it. It’s what you called “bullshit” several times in this thread :D: low-fat calorie-counting. I’ve also taken three nutrition classes and have immersed myself in learning about carbs, protein, fats, amino acids, ad nauseum. I’m now darn near a vegetarian. I’m not wild about vegetables, but they’re such a big nutrient bang for my calorie buck that I gag them down. I’ve maintained a 75-pound weight loss for five years, and I can really see myself sustaining how I’m eating for many years to come. Of course I cheat, but either work it off or eat a little less the next few days. I feel GREAT.

I hope you won’t call this method “bullshit” any more. :slight_smile: You yourself have said that different things work for different people.

BUT, my intention isn’t to lecture you! I totally accept what works for you and how you want to eat long-term. I wonder if I might have some insight into why you’re feeling so negative. I tried Atkins in the early 90’s when I was in my thirties. I lost weight pretty quickly and felt it was a sustainable way of eating for me. However, I was terribly depressed and angry. I was losing weight without deprivation, why wasn’t I happy??

The details escape me now, but back then I hit on the knowledge that carbs clear a lot of waste products from our bloodstreams. I had a build-up of them that was causing my depression and anger. Once I started eating carbs again, that all went away. Do you think this might be what’s happening with you? Low-carb obviously works for a lot of people, but my physiology simply couldn’t handle it. I was so bummed when I learned that. I know you could do it at 17, but maybe your physiology has changed, too.

What kind of carbs are you eating when you do eat them? That makes a huge difference. You want complex carbs from whole grains, fruit and vegetables. I haven’t eaten white bread in ages, but I ran out of my whole grain bread one day and used my boyfriend’s for toast. OMG! I was shaky, light-headed and thought I was going to pass out. So if you’ve been eating refined foods for even some of your carbs, that’s probably why you feel like shit.

I also wonder if why you felt like shit when you went back to Vegas is due to nutrient loss from sweating. Your body loses more than just fluid when it’s working to cool itself like sodium and potassium. Are you taking any supplements, even just a basic multi-vitamin? Do you drink enough water?

I hope I gave you one or two things to think about. The fact is that losing weight SUCKS HAIRY DONKEY BALLS and it’s not FAIR that it seems other people don’t have to put in any effort to stay thin. It surprised me to learn that many people DO put in effort when I thought they didn’t. Of course then I thought it wasn’t fair that it’s easier for them to put in the effort! :smiley:

I know the slow going is frustrating, but the fact is that there are no quick fixes. Your body isn’t 17 any more. One to two pounds lost a week is GREAT, particularly when you think of how many people struggle to find what works for them and continue to gain weight. You and I are so very lucky to have found that. Now you have to do what I did and celebrate that you’re going in the right direction, with maybe some tweaking to what you’re doing.

I don’t buy that you’d rather give up and die early. You would’ve done that already if that’s how you really think. You’re a fighter. You get pissed off, but you come back. Please don’t give up! Keep fighting to find your motivation. The very best of luck!

199

What I called bullshit wasn’t the notion that you can be healthy doing whatever it is you’re doing. There’s an argument up thread that basically amounts to:

Don’t bother to do some sort of drastic diet which helps you lose weight, and then transition over to something more maintainable to keep the weight off. Because you won’t be successful, you won’t have learned the skills to do that. You should only lose weight the same way you’re going to keep it off, so that you transition naturally into it.

That logic is the bullshit. Sure, it can work, but the idea that it’s the only practical or most practical way is bullshit.

If they think that I can enact a certain sort of slow, steady weight loss now, yet somehow at some point in the future after I’ve lost weight and it’s actually easier to implement such a plan because I’m in better shape I won’t be able to do the same thing, that’s illogical. If they assume that I can’t do such a plan in the future, when it’s easier, then it’s illogical to tell me to start doing it now, when I would obviously fail.

The reality is that if you could somehow wave a wand and lose 100 pounds and gain muscle mass and generally be fit, and then change your lifestyle to maintain that, that would be ideal. But some people seem to think it would somehow be less desirable than losing weight slowly and painfully via the same lifestyle changes you’d later implement.

200

Admittedly I did not read the entire post, my eyes could not have handled it.

But from what I have read it appears that you have not struck a balance between your weight and the life you would like to lead. That losing weight is a tiresome event for you, so much so the experience has you angry, uncomfortable and uneasy both emotionally, mentally and physically. Does that sound somewhat on track?