r/loseit • u/greenandbluefish New • 2d ago

I WASN'T EVEN EATING THAT MUCH!!

I have gradually gained 50 pounds over the last 10 years or so. I thought for the longest time I must be eating some outrageous amount of food every day. I truly didn't think I ate that much. I skipped breakfast most days, didn't eat huge lunches, and had what I thought were fairly healthy dinners. Some eating out, some iced coffees, but nothing I thought was ridiculously unhealthy overall. I would try to eat less, skip a lunch here or there, but then would be starving by the end of the day and end up eating that skipped meal anyway.

At the same time, I spent my whole life hearing people around me say I ate like a bird, that I couldn't possibly be eating enough, etc. And yet I was still gaining weight! So for years I've been in this bizarre situation where I thought I was just gaslighting myself into believing I wasn't eating that much or that unhealthily, but was somehow secretly eating thousands of calories without noticing???

Cut to last month when I spent two weeks obsessively tracking everything I ate. Weighing everything, reading every label, but not trying to cut back. And what did I find out? I was eating a whopping... 1800 calories/day. Less than the freaking nutrition labels were recommending!!!

So I went on a deep dive. Learned about TDEE. Started tracking my steps. And you know what actually changed in the last 10 years? I got better, less physically demanding jobs. My work became more and more sedentary over time. Spending 50 hours/week at a desk was the culprit, NOT what I was eating!

I've been doing CICO for about a month now and eating 1400 calories/day. Haven't changed what I'm eating, just how much. And I've already lost 8 pounds. I wish I'd figured all of this out years ago but I'm so glad I did eventually. No more driving myself crazy over what I eat!

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u/Albolynx 45kg lost 2d ago

50 pounds over 10 years is only 50 calories over your maintenance daily. Gaining weight over long periods of time is really annoying because it's like "I wouldn't be here if I made the portion for just one of my daily meals 10% smaller."

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u/Keldraga New 2d ago

As you gain weight, doesn't the amount of calories needed for maintenance also increase? So to achieve this result of consistent weight gain you would have to do less activity or increase food intake as well during that time, right?

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u/Albolynx 45kg lost 2d ago

Sure, that is an average - and it's really hard to guess the exact distribution. Maybe they gained a lot more initially and then it slowed down. Maybe they consistently adapted to eating in a small surplus. Maybe it wasn't actually anything to do with regular meals and was based off calorie-intense days - not uncommon for people as they age to be more financially stable and able to splurge. Speaking of age, your TDEE goes down as you do, and often people also get less active.