Re: Lost 88 pounds in under six months
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2011 9:37 am
Haven't posted here in a while, mostly because I wasn't making quite the steady progress on weight loss that I had become used to. But after losing so much weight so fast, I was quite happy to let my body adjust and my skin shrink to catch up with the rest of me. (It's still got a lot of shrinking to do.)
Meanwhile I soldiered onwards, making little tweaks, trying to work more veggies into my daily routine, working on shifting the balance away from more calorie-dense foods to less calorie-dense ones, and continuing to enjoy my vastly improved blood pressure and blood sugar numbers. It's very possible -- I kept telling myself -- that my body needed some time to adjust. But for whatever reason, my weight loss slowed dramatically in mid September when I first broke below 395. I went 394, 395, 391, 393, 393, and then 386 (a new low for me) on October 14. Then for the next four weeks it was 392, 393, 389, 390, 392. Then (finally!) I started to see a steadier decline trend again starting November 11: 390, 387, 377, and today's 373.
Below 375 is a big milestone for me -- my exercise buddy from grad school (who has a photographic memory) remembers that as being my weight at the beginning of the semester we set up a workout schedule and I was failing miserably at trying to eat the sort of standard American Heart Association lower-fat-but-not-low-enough diet with the hamster-sized portions. My own memory tells me I was a bit smaller then (closer to 350) but I've never exactly had a reliable body image and I trust his ancient recollection far more than my own. That was, roughly speaking, two decades ago; and after a semester of daily walks or exercise machines plus tuna fish and skinless chicken and infrequent-but-memorable bizarre explosions of late-night binge eating, I was imperceptibly more buff from the exercise but hadn't lost more than single-digit pounds. Surprise surprise.
Of course posting this probably guarantees that next week I'll be at three-eighty-something. But heck, I'm gonna watch the big picture. It's two weeks shy of Christmas, which means that I've lost 138 pounds in 50 weeks, for a very respectable 2.76 pounds a week of weight loss. Measuring since I started eating exclusively plant-based on March 19 it's been 109 pounds of loss in 38 weeks, or 2.87 pounds a week. I'm not gonna kvetch and whine about that!
I figure on Christmas I'll post an updated figure (a year since I got my big-people scales) and update the thread title.
What I've learned in the last couple of months as the steady weight loss I'd been experiencing became less steady:
1) For me, tortillas, even corn tortillas with no added fat, are too calorie dense and too easy to over-eat. I've asked Santa for a tortilla press for Christmas so I can try making my own for special meals, but as a regular take-three-out-of-the-bag habit, they don't work for me.
2) I've learned not to fear white potatoes, but also to recognize my ability to heinously overeat them. I love them too much. I still eat them several times a week, but when I load them into my steamer I'm trying to stick more carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, and bell peppers in there so that the white potatoes are a smaller proportion of the meal. It seems to make a difference, although confounding variables are always lurking out there.
3) Processed whole grains (whole wheat pasta and bread) can be a problem for me. If I use them as treat foods or include them as single servings in meals from time to time, no problem; but if I treat them as staple foods and make big batches that I eat for days, they torpedo my weight loss. Too much calorie density I'm guessing.
4) More legumes = win! I like beans and peas and lentils, and they like me. The more I eat, the more reliable my weight loss. They come in infinite varieties, and they mix well with everything. I'm mindful of the recommendation not to exceed a cup a day, but I ride that pretty hard. My guess (I don't measure portions and most of my legumes are mixed into a slurry of veggies by the time they reach my plate) is that I slightly exceed the cup recommendation on many days but have enough no-legumes days to drop the running average below a cup. I could be fooling myself about that.
5) Oats are good for you. I am not terribly fond of them due to too much "eat your oats or starve" in my childhood. But I was eating them faithfully (mixed with fruit, cooked in water with enough apple juice to sweeten) for several months. Then I got out of the habit, and was eating more savory choices for breakfast (leftover legume glops over my cooked grain mix, generally). Lately, however, I've been experimenting with steel cut oats and trying to find a good combination of overnight soaking and fast microwave cookery for them. Steady diet of morning oats again has coincided with steady weight loss in recent weeks. Correlation don't prove causation, yes we know, but it's enough to earn my watchfulness going forward.
Wow, isn't that a lot of blatheration for a "Woot! Below 375 first time since FOREVAR!" post?
Meanwhile I soldiered onwards, making little tweaks, trying to work more veggies into my daily routine, working on shifting the balance away from more calorie-dense foods to less calorie-dense ones, and continuing to enjoy my vastly improved blood pressure and blood sugar numbers. It's very possible -- I kept telling myself -- that my body needed some time to adjust. But for whatever reason, my weight loss slowed dramatically in mid September when I first broke below 395. I went 394, 395, 391, 393, 393, and then 386 (a new low for me) on October 14. Then for the next four weeks it was 392, 393, 389, 390, 392. Then (finally!) I started to see a steadier decline trend again starting November 11: 390, 387, 377, and today's 373.
Below 375 is a big milestone for me -- my exercise buddy from grad school (who has a photographic memory) remembers that as being my weight at the beginning of the semester we set up a workout schedule and I was failing miserably at trying to eat the sort of standard American Heart Association lower-fat-but-not-low-enough diet with the hamster-sized portions. My own memory tells me I was a bit smaller then (closer to 350) but I've never exactly had a reliable body image and I trust his ancient recollection far more than my own. That was, roughly speaking, two decades ago; and after a semester of daily walks or exercise machines plus tuna fish and skinless chicken and infrequent-but-memorable bizarre explosions of late-night binge eating, I was imperceptibly more buff from the exercise but hadn't lost more than single-digit pounds. Surprise surprise.
Of course posting this probably guarantees that next week I'll be at three-eighty-something. But heck, I'm gonna watch the big picture. It's two weeks shy of Christmas, which means that I've lost 138 pounds in 50 weeks, for a very respectable 2.76 pounds a week of weight loss. Measuring since I started eating exclusively plant-based on March 19 it's been 109 pounds of loss in 38 weeks, or 2.87 pounds a week. I'm not gonna kvetch and whine about that!
I figure on Christmas I'll post an updated figure (a year since I got my big-people scales) and update the thread title.
What I've learned in the last couple of months as the steady weight loss I'd been experiencing became less steady:
1) For me, tortillas, even corn tortillas with no added fat, are too calorie dense and too easy to over-eat. I've asked Santa for a tortilla press for Christmas so I can try making my own for special meals, but as a regular take-three-out-of-the-bag habit, they don't work for me.
2) I've learned not to fear white potatoes, but also to recognize my ability to heinously overeat them. I love them too much. I still eat them several times a week, but when I load them into my steamer I'm trying to stick more carrots, sweet potatoes, onions, and bell peppers in there so that the white potatoes are a smaller proportion of the meal. It seems to make a difference, although confounding variables are always lurking out there.
3) Processed whole grains (whole wheat pasta and bread) can be a problem for me. If I use them as treat foods or include them as single servings in meals from time to time, no problem; but if I treat them as staple foods and make big batches that I eat for days, they torpedo my weight loss. Too much calorie density I'm guessing.
4) More legumes = win! I like beans and peas and lentils, and they like me. The more I eat, the more reliable my weight loss. They come in infinite varieties, and they mix well with everything. I'm mindful of the recommendation not to exceed a cup a day, but I ride that pretty hard. My guess (I don't measure portions and most of my legumes are mixed into a slurry of veggies by the time they reach my plate) is that I slightly exceed the cup recommendation on many days but have enough no-legumes days to drop the running average below a cup. I could be fooling myself about that.
5) Oats are good for you. I am not terribly fond of them due to too much "eat your oats or starve" in my childhood. But I was eating them faithfully (mixed with fruit, cooked in water with enough apple juice to sweeten) for several months. Then I got out of the habit, and was eating more savory choices for breakfast (leftover legume glops over my cooked grain mix, generally). Lately, however, I've been experimenting with steel cut oats and trying to find a good combination of overnight soaking and fast microwave cookery for them. Steady diet of morning oats again has coincided with steady weight loss in recent weeks. Correlation don't prove causation, yes we know, but it's enough to earn my watchfulness going forward.
Wow, isn't that a lot of blatheration for a "Woot! Below 375 first time since FOREVAR!" post?