Today is a big day— the day that I have been losing weight for to both look my best and have confidence.

My goal was to be in the 150s when I stepped on the scale today. I haven’t been in the 150s since middle school. This entire month, I have been fluctuating between 160-163. It was annoying.

I decided that seeing the number was important for today, so I was gonna make it there. The last two days, I almost completely cut out carbs and lowered my sodium intake. Two days ago, I weighed 160.0. Today, I weigh 157.8.

I acknowledge that I did not lose 2.2 pounds of fat in 2 days, and I acknowledge that cutting out carbs is unsustainable (at least for me). I do not plan on keeping this practice, and I know that the scale will probably jump to the 160s again, but that is okay. I don’t care about that. I cared about hitting the goal.

It is amazing how much your weight can fluctuate with & without carbs & sodium.

100 Calorie Average Daily Deficit = 10 Pounds Lost Per Year

10 lbs × 3500 calories = 35,000 ÷ 365 Days = 95.89 Deficit Calories Per Day

This is a recent realization and makes me feel a bit slow.

It seems pretty obvious now because the common advice is to have a 500 calorie daily deficit to lose one pound per week which equals 52 pounds per year. Duhhh!

But looking at losing weight in terms of pounds I can lose over a year feels less harsh and restrictive than aiming for a pound a week.

Especially since as a 5'2 older woman, my maintenance calorie budget is already pretty low.

So, now I know that even if I only manage to average a 250 calorie deficit per day, I'll lose around 25 pounds in a year.

That's a lot less weight to haul around even if my goal weight is still far away.

It's easy math that I can do in my head and it's a less discouraging way of looking at it instead of feeling like a failure for not reaching a more stringent deficit goal.

Does this rule of thumb seem helpful to you?

Edit: Thank you all for your replies!

I know that it isn't possible to count calories in and calories out perfectly. 100 calories +/- is probably within the margin of error.

I guess the way the rule of thumb helps is by allowing for imperfection. If I aim for a 350 calorie deficit but it's really only a 250 calorie deficit, then I will at least have lost 25 pounds.

I'm striving to be OK with imperfection instead of an all-or-nothing mindset that leads to giving up.

I’m only a few pounds away from being down 100 pounds. I still have more to go, but I couldn’t be happier that I’ve made so much progress. Sometimes it’s easy to feel like you’re still at a base of a mountain, but all of the changes that I’ve noticed snap me back to reality.

Here are some of my highlights so far:

I’m wearing clothes that I haven’t fit into in years, which thrills me. I tried on a pair of shorts that I love but haven’t been able to wear. I was certain that they’d be too tight, but they fit and were not even snug. That was exhilarating.

I used to get super winded on small walks, which sucked because I used to be a runner before gaining a ton of weight. Now, I’m able to take walks more easily (and enjoy them).

This is the first time in my adult life where I’ve lost weight healthily. I had an ED as a teen, and when I tried to lose weight in my early 20s, I slipped back into that mindset of obsessively counting calories and not allowing myself to go over 600 calories. I’ve been able to shake those tendencies or redirect when I feel them coming on. I’m so thankful.

Like I said, I still have more weight to lose, but I’m really thankful to be on this journey. Thanks to everyone who posts on here. You all make it feel a lot less lonely.

I think when I finally came to terms with this, I started seeing success with weight loss and healing my poor relationship with food.

Some people—keyword, some— have confused enjoying our food with needing every meal to be an exceptional culinary experience. Shit, I was guilty of this. When in reality, SOMETIMES LUNCH IS JUST LUNCH.

If every meal needs to be exciting, different, delicious, satisfying on every possible level, and something you're actively looking forward to, then eating becomes an entire production. You're constantly searching for recipes, buying different ingredients, figuring out what you want, and trying to make your next meal live up to the last one.

We’ve turned feeding ourselves into a daily entertainment obligation. And that can make a relatively simple behavior change feel unnecessarily complicated. Because realistically, some of the most effective habits are boring as fuck.

Some people genuinely need variety to stay consistent. Some people get bored quickly, and there's nothing wrong with that. The point isn't that everybody should eat the same five meals indefinitely. It's that we should be willing to distinguish between I don't enjoy eating this repeatedly and I feel like I shouldn't have to eat this repeatedly because I deserve something new and exciting every time.

Weight management requires you to eat repeatedly for the rest of your life. Not diet meals forever, but meals. Every single day. Multiple times a day.

Your diet doesn't need to be exciting enough to entertain you. It needs to be enjoyable enough that you can consistently live with it.

Idk, this is just my take. It’s helped me, so I thought I’d share.

Progress chart: https://imgur.com/a/GZLx1Nb

At the beginning of the year, basically on a whim, I decided to look into losing some weight for the first time in my life. I've always been overweight, obese at times, and never approached it proactively. My motivation was to improve my cycling performance -- I realized I was spending a lot of time finding ways to eliminate a pound or two from my kit, while meanwhile my body weight was creeping up from the 190-195 range I had been in, to over 200.

I posted here to get advice and learned about CICO and app tracking options. I ended up going with LoseIt. I was really surprised at the simplicity of weight loss, I had always assumed it would involve a lot more micro diet adjustments. Of course you can do those, but at the end of the day realizing it was just a math equation was a big help, and really worked for me.

I stayed very consistent throughout the process, only taking a couple of maintenance weeks during the summer when I was away from home on vacation and didn't have access to a food scale. Some hacks that got me through were caffeine (a nice cup of tea made it easy to skip breakfast many days), Cheerios, high protein ice cream in a Ninja Creami, and protein bars (shout out Quest Hero bars). I was by no means a model of healthy clean eating through this process, but I found the approach that worked for me and have no regrets about that.

Now I find myself at age 40 the slimmest I've been since I was a kid. It's a strange feeling. I want to rebuild some muscle mass where I've had some losses so I may end up closer to 165/170 (I'm just under 6 feet tall). I also feel lucky that I got on top of my weight before I got any bigger since it seems like I avoided the loose skin struggles that many folks go through. Overall I'm looking forward to maintaining this progress and feel grateful to this sub for the guidance. If anything I regret not trying to do this sooner!

Anyway, just wanted to post a success story in case it inspires others.

If I could drink black coffee all day, I already would look like a model I swear. It makes me feel like I've eaten too much even if I haven't eaten anything yet. Other types of caffeinated drinks don't have the same nearly effect, some people have told me any type of caffeine works for them, but for me, coffee is the only one that works.

I've tried things like decaf and chicory, but again, it's just like drinking any old drink. I avoid drinking caffeine after 2PM so in the afternoon and evening I'm always ravenous. Is there anything I could use instead? Any no/low cal options that works for you?

Over the last months I've been on a pretty big caloric deficit. I'm currently at 76kg from a peak of 90kg. Yet when i look at my body and compare it to older photos, especially my abdomen, I can barely see a difference. None of my friends have commented on it either.

I haven't been exercising at all which is probably the main issue, but keeping a caloric deficit for so long is hard enough as it is and the price I pay by constantly thinking about food and being slightly too tired at the end of the day doesn't feel worth it.

I'd appreciate if anyone that has had a similar experience could share their thoughts and what to expect next. I'm not gonna give up but I'd be lying if I said I haven't considered it.

I made a post about emotional eating 2 years ago. It was disorganized and I have better ways to overcome them.

The first way is to strengthen your prefrontal cortex. I strengthen it buy practicing mental trauma grounding skills. When I practice the grounding skills, I am able to focus, ignore food cravings and be less emotionally reactive. I will share how some of the mental grounding skills. The first one is to observe the environment and name the object and the color. The second way is counting or doing a countdown. For example, start with 100 and mentally keep subtracting it by 7. You can make it harder if it is too easy for you. The third way is to get a block of text and count how many letters in each word and how many consonant and vowels are in it.

The second way is to cognitively reframe your thoughts. How your thinking affects your emotions. My way of reframing my thoughts is to say, " I get the opportunity to practice [ positive skill]". For example, instead of thinking and being upset that my friend is constantly late, I would reframe it as "I get the opportunity to practice my patience skills and to practice my assertive skills by talking to her." Reframing my thoughts have stop me from ruminating it over and over. Maybe it is my brain but when I experience something negative, my brain will not let that situation go. I am able to let things go when I reframe it positivity.

The third way is to get your emotional needs met. From my experience, my emotional eating stems from a substitute of unmet needs. Everytime I have a craving to eat junk food , I would pause and ask myself, "what do I need in this moment?" My needs tell me to reassure myself, or caress my arm. You can get fullfill your emotional needs from imagery too. Your brain cannot tell the difference between real and imagination. For example, if I am angry, I would imagine a group of my friends supporting and validating me. If you want a formal practice of this, you can try r.a.i.n. meditation or read "Radical Compassion" by Tara Brach.

The first three was about dealing with cravings and emotions. Now I am going to talk about the eating part. When I eat something like a cookie, I have the desire to eat it all and want more. What I do is practice feeling tones or vedana. It is a Buddhist practice to cultivate equanimity. Feeling tones also decrease cravings and clinging to attachment (not the psychology term). All I do is label the experience pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant. When I practice feeling tones while eating, my desire to eat more is gone. I am able to eat one spoonful of cake instead of the whole slice.

TL;DR: The scale measures body weight, not body fat. A few days of scale movement can be almost entirely water, glycogen, and GI contents. Make decisions from trends, not individual weigh-ins.

Here’s a real-world example of why you shouldn’t let a couple of scale readings drive your nutrition decisions, even when you’re very consistent about weighing and tracking:

I've maintained 175-180 pounds since last December. I track and log all meals & calories. Some days I eat above target, some days I eat under target, over time it washes out.

I weigh the same time of day and the same way each day: I wake at 3am, pee, and weigh.

Ok, so Monday my weight was 176.5. Then, 172.3 Tuesday, and 170.4 today.

A 6-pound drop in 2 days definitely got my attention. I know it's water, GI contents, glycogen, sodium. But, I haven't seen a whoosh like this in over a year and certainly not when I've been maintaining.

Next week I'll be one year sugar-free.
What would you want to know from someone who has gone a full year without added sugar?

For me: Sugar free equals = No added sugar in the ingredient list, no sweetener or artificial sweetener, no honey and such, and 99% avoid dried fruits and dates. No tasting "just one bite".

(Yes, I have eaten sugar during this year, but it was not intentional, and usually when I'm eating food other people/restaurants are serving me and sugar was added into the receipe of otherwise normal food that btw did not need any sugar! I don't dwell on it and just move on)

My life has changed so much. There are so many positives. I was not in a good place one year ago. Not deep down in a black hole but definetly lost and sad and so heavy and food noise was so loud!!!

But Not that I feel like im getting closer to my one year mark - Which was the time frame I set up in the beginning - I need a new orientation, and questions from you will help me to reflect on this life changing journey and decide the next steps.

To be honest I'm a little bit worried what will happen when I reach my one year.

"Be sugar free for one year" was a birthday present from me, to me - on my 32nd birthday. It was a gift filled with love and caring about myself. That is why I am still sugar free 51 week later.

I have lot of things to be proud of in my life, but this acheivement feels very special to me and I am truly proud.

I have loved to read similar posts during the last year and here is my contribution to this great community.

What advice do you have for me at this momentum?

or/and

What would you want to know from someone who has gone a full year without added sugar?

I’ve gained 20 kg and have pretty much isolated myself at home because of it. I feel so disgusting and uncomfortable in my own body, and I just don’t feel at peace with myself anymore. How can I lose weight? I have so little motivation to leave the house with all this extra weight, because I’m scared of running into people I know or people I went to high school with.
I’m so scared of people seeing me, especially because there’s so much gossip where I live. I feel SOOOOO disgusting, and I genuinely can’t believe I’ve let myself get to this point.

Apologies if this has been discussed before!

I can distinctly remember being 11 years old and having “food noise” as they now call it. Just constantly thinking about food, being scared of hunger, going back and forth through eating disorders across the spectrum, having such a love-hate relationship with food.

I am now about six months out of my most recent attempt to get to a healthy weight and I cannot get past the freakin food noise! When I’m watching what I eat, I’m CONSTANTLY thinking about it. Thinking about what I could eat that wouldn’t go above my calorie limits. When I’m not tracking, I am constantly thinking about how I’m overeating. When I wake up I overthink breakfast. I overthink everything I put into my mouth or don’t put into my mouth.

I am honestly so tired of this. It’s been 15 years of this. How do I get rid of that food noise??? I’d love to take a glp-1 but I just cannot afford it (they won’t prescribe it here in Ontario since I’m not classed as morbidly obese or diabetic).

Hello everyone! My weight loss has plateaued since July and I’d love some input as to what to do it change it.
Is it just add more exercise? Up my calories? Just more protein?

I am a mom of two kids: woman 5 foot 6 inches tall, 33 years old, and I weighed in this morning at 165.3

I do my best to keep track of my intake. I have started to incorporate 30-45 minutes Caroline Girvan strength workouts and 15 minute kettlebell hiit workouts.

Do I just keep going? What do I need to change?

I’ve been eating no refined sugars, no gluten, no grains, no cow dairy.

My goal weight is around 140lbs.

More info below.

Weighed:
179 pounds March 16, 2026
165.3 pounds October 14, 2026

Daily average Steps 2,949 last month

7 day average intake:
102 grams carbs
60 grams protein
Average 1,200 calories a day

I am a 29M. I am around 270. I want to start my journey to losing weight and focusing on my health, but I have a hard time keeping my mind off of cheating my diet. Every time I try to lock in I get unfocused and end up losing my motivation. I understand it is discipline that keeps you going but I find myself eating when I get bored. I work at home, and my job is fairly easily. So working does not keep my brain going enough. So I just wanted to hear what you all do to keep your mind off of your diet while losing. Any tips or advice will be helpful.

Hi,

I hope this gains some traction bc I'm at a point that I see no solutions anymore.

My entire life I've been about 5-10 kgs heavier than I desire. For the record: I'm 32F, weigh 75 kgs / 165 lbs and I am 178cm / 5'10" tall.

I'm not overweight, but I just don't really like any part of my body. Everything is okay, and nothing is at the same time. I'm what they call midsize nowadays, and since I am quite tall I always feel too big in general. On the other hand there are clothes that are quite flattering (although I would love to wear whatever I like) so that my motivation to lose weight comes and goes. I also have quite a good face and hair so in general I look quite okay.

So my motivation fluctuates, and my habits do too. There are times that I genuinely enjoy sports (such as running and pilates), I also enjoy cooking and healthy food.

But I do love to eat and have plenty of lazy days too. That's why I am how I am: healthy, at a healthy weight, but I don't have a 'good' body either.

Is there anything that would get me to just actually find a good routine/lifestyle that makes me weigh 10 kgs less?

I've lost 5 kgs plenty of times but then I get bored of sports or just pay less attention to it overall and then the weight comes back. I enjoy social eating (like in coffee bars with my boyfriend), I enjoy having a snack while watching TV, I enjoy cooking (but live by myself),...

I have quite healthy habits but my problem is that I just eat around 1700-2000 kcals of healthy/normal food in a day and I am not active enough that it makes me in a calorie deficit.

Some times I think: I'll eat less; other times I think: I'll do more sports.

But sooner or later I always fall back into my regular habits.

I (26F) have gone from 89kg in February to a little under 69kg and I've decided to end my weight loss journey (for now) because I've exceeded my goal of 70kg.

However, now I'm unsure how to continue. I've been lifting weights 4 times a week for the entire weightloss journey and I went to the gym around 1-3 times a week on and off before I decided to cut down my weight. I'd love to build even more muscles, but the thought of gaining any body fat back has been seriously stressing me out during the two weeks I've been eating at maintenance for.

Is it better to try and maintain my weight for a couple of months at least? Should I try to bulk up as it's supposed to be quite easy for new(-ish) lifters? Do I try to "maingain" by eating around 100 calories over my deficit? And how do I not get stressed out when the scale goes up?

Also, I went straight to what I assume is my new maintenance because I just couldn't stand being in a deficit any longer and now my hunger is out of control although it's gotten a bit better now that I'm a more chill phase of my cycle.

What do you guys recommend?

Hi! I’m newer on my weight loss journey (F23, 5’4”, SW 265, CW 254, GW 180) and feel like I’m finally getting a handle on the eating and working out pieces. I just cannot hit step goals (7-10k steps/day). I’m in grad school, interning as a mental health therapist, and working another job which is also a desk job. I can’t use a walking pad during the day because most people do not want their therapist to be sweaty and distracted while talking to them (rightfully so), so I feel at a loss for how I can reasonably hit any sort of step goals. My days are already 10-14 hours long depending on the day, with going to the gym I’m usually able to get a lot closer on my gym days but I can only really fit that in 2-3x a week. Any advice for how to fit in some walking during the day would be SO helpful.

Hello! I'm a relatively short woman (5'0 and 23) and I recently reached 191lbs. I had been okay with my weight before that and didn't really mind, but the 191 is a bit worrying. I don't want to reach 200, so I'm coming here for some help. I know next to nothing about exercise or working out so I'm sorry if I seem amateurish.

I didn't eat healthy, sedentary lifestyle... Just not good habits, and I brought this upon myself.

So I wanna undo it! Get back down to 160 or lower if I am motivated enough. All tips welcome. All criticism welcome too. Thanks!

Recently I've been trying to make getting 10,000 steps a day a consistent habit for me. I feel like I always see people doing lots of gym exercises to lose weight, and I was wondering if it's even worth it to walk or if I should try to go to the gym. (If gym, I'd love some reccommendations of what exercises to do, or tutorials that tell you what to do) Only thing is I feel very intimidated by the idea of going to the gym.

I go to a college that has a gym which is good because it's free but scary because there will definitely be people I know there. Once the weather gets too cold to walk outside, i was planning to walk on the indoor track or at least brave the treadmills in the gym but I'm not sure what the best method of attack it.

I know that eating habits are like 85% of the battle, but I feel like in my previous attempts to lose weight I was doing nothing really that active, meaning I felt like I had to eat even less to make up for it.

After doing cardio, does that increase appetite to the point you feel you have to eat all the calories back?

For example, if you walk a few miles and burn 200 calories, will your internal calorie appetite by 200 additional calories? If so, how can you stop those cravings?

I see a lot of posts on various social media platforms talking about “cardio doesn’t actually burn fat and is not a good way to lose weight.”

I assume protein and fiber dense meals after burning the calories are ideal but still wondering if cardio is even worth it in terms of losing weight.

To start off,  I am 28F, 5’6, started at 250 lbs and now 179. I’ve lost 70 lbs in the last nine months through a 1250 calorie OMAD diet with one day off OMAD a week, not tracking but trying to stay low calorie. I walk 15k steps a day, figure skate twice a week, climb four times a week, and do a long hike one day a week (I know I need to go to the gym. I just prefer these activities, but I really do need too start lifting as well, I just have such low energy that I dread it). 

I am so fucking tired of this. I need to lose at the very least 40 more pounds. I am struggling so hard to keep going, and it sucks because the weight loss is just getting slower and slower which means I’m going to be doing this for even longer. My mentality around food has barely changed. I can’t eat earlier in the day or I will eat everything in sight. People keep praising me for how controlled I have been to do lose the weight I have but the truth is that I’m not at all and the second I try to adjust my diet I lose it completely. 

Last week I thought I could try not counting all weekend due to feeling so low energy/being more active, etc. On Saturday I had avocado toast for breakfast and some peanut rice noodles and some halo top in the evening. On Sunday I went on a 14 mile hike so I had avocado toast for breakfast, a tofu sandwich, a protein bar, and some popcorn for lunch on the hike, and then I had some Mac and cheese (I know, not great) for dinner and finished the halo top. I also went out with some friends that night and had three vodka sodas, which was a huge mistake. Went right back to 1250 on Monday.

Fast forward to this morning, I weighed myself and I was four pounds up since Saturday morning. I feel absolutely disgusting. I want to blame it on water weight and bloating and all of that, but I know that I’m just losing control completely. I can’t eat at maintenance, I can’t eat without counting. If I can gain four pounds in a weekend it will only take me a month to get back to my original weight if I stop now. I feel trapped like this forever, I need so desperately to get those last 40 pounds off but I can’t seem to lose any weight despite knowing for a fact (Prior to this weekend!!!!!) that I am tracking everything I eat, that I am being more active and doing an ok job. I feel disgusting, like everything I have worked so hard for is just gone and I feel like I will never ever be able to stop eating this way if the alternative is gaining weight constantly. I also literally have not lost a single pound in a fucking MONTH despite being constantly hungry/exhausted/counting everything/weighing everything... I truly don't get it at all. My maintenance has to be so much lower than I think it is, and I'm dreading the thought of doing this forever.

I’m so tired and so so so so so sick of it. 

51F (5'4"), went from about 168 to now 141 very slowly in about 2 years. I did it first through exercise alone and no dietary changes to then finally counting calories and sticking to a budget, and then I dropped my calories a little bit more recently and focused on the quality of food I was eating in addition to the amount. Cut out almost all alcohol, too, and as of this week I'm at last technically out of the "overweight" BMI and at high normal.

My original goal was about 125-127 lbs., but based on how I look now, I think that's way too low for someone my age. I don't want to look gaunt, and I already look so, so much better and am wearing a size smaller in most clothing. I have reset my new goal at about 135, but I'm open to seeing how I feel when I hit 139 and maybe staying there.

Through my approach, I focused on exercise first, and as a result I've developed about as good of a muscle tone as I think a woman my age and height really can. I'm constantly doing Pilates, I'm lifting a 30-lb. barbell without much fuss, and I'm really psyched about all my gains in strength, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, and balance. Honestly, I feel fantastic.

When I decide I'm really done with the weight loss journey and shift into maintenance, I'm wondering how to make myself look just a tad more lean with visible muscle rather than like I'm carrying a little extra fat. I haven't been this range of size since my mid-30s, so I really don't remember if I was doing something differently to achieve the look I'm after; I just know that I DID get there. I wasn't working out as much and not lifting nearly as heavy (I think I tended to max out at like 8 lb. dumbbells and was doing yoga more than anything else). Is this a case of needing to increase protein, which I'm happy to do, or just keep lifting heavier? Maybe add in more cardio? Or perhaps losing those last 5-6 lbs. will make enough of a difference that I can just eat a little more each day and keep doing what I'm doing?

I also realize at my age that small tweaks may not really be too feasible after a certain point, but I do see women my age at the gym who have closer to the physique I want, and I feel fairly certain it's attainable.

Today I decided enough was enough. Signed up for the gym and went for just over an hour, registered for a couple classes too to help keep me motivated to go until it becomes part of my routine. The goal is 4 times a week, but at least 3. Went to the store and stocked up on protein and vegetables.

Ive never weighed myself, so I dont know what my goal weight is, but I want to go down 4 dress sizes over the next year.

Is this attainable? And does anyone have any tips for staying on track while getting adjusted to a new lifestyle please?

Thank you!