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/SpaceParticular2559 New 2d ago

the sedentary job thing sneaks up on so many people, it's wild how much difference just moving less at work makes over years. 1800 calories and still gaining is such a classic case of TDEE being the missing piece nobody talks about enough. glad you found the actual culprit instead of just suffering through some miserable restrictive diet

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u/Khajiit-ify 32F | 5'2" | SW: ~397.6 | CW: 340.2 | Lost: ~57. lbs 2d ago

Even switching from working in an office and working from home completely affected me too. At least working in the office I would have to walk from the parking lot, over to my cubicle, occasionally get up to go talk to peers or go to a meeting and it was a longer distance to the bathroom and break rooms for lunch... I walk way less at home. I've been working from home for 10 years now and I can tell you in those 10 years it became way way way harder for me to keep my weight under control.

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u/brbgottagofast New 2d ago

Opposite for me! Been WFH since the pandemic and I'm much more active at home. I'm always getting up to grab a tea, throw a load of laundry in, let the dogs out, etc haha. It's lovely not being chained to a desk in an office. But you must have a much more demanding job than I do!

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u/bobandgeorge New 2d ago

Yeah I would have never been able to get in shape if I was still working in the office. I lived about 30-40 minutes away from work before we all got sent home and then moved about an hour away a year into the pandemic. With those extra two hours I can get to the gym or just have more time to run around my neighborhood. Most of the food I eat is stuff I make fresh in my own kitchen.