Attempt One Million and One

DavidStar500

DavidStar500

New member
Hi, my name is David and I'm overweight. Specifically, I weigh 320 lbs. at 5 feet 4 inches. I am 22 years old and have been overweight for most of my life. I have been on several diets. In my teens, I lost over a hundred pounds, then gained it all back with interest as an adult. I feel miserable every day.
I have decided to try again once more.
Today I'm just doing caloric restriction, nothing else. I'm not sure how my method will change in the coming days. I'm posting on here in the hope that I will stick to it. I'm aiming for a caloric goal of 2500, which, according to a calorie calculator I found, is good for "slow weight loss" as I need around 2850 to maintain my current weight. Eventually, I want to try and lower that daily number a bit more while adding exercise, but I'm just starting out right now trying to keep a small deficit.
Advise and kind words are always appreciated! This is day one!
 
Hi David, and welcome to our forum! In the end weightloss always comes down to calories in/calories out, and every (legit) diet, trick, and expensive membership comes down to trying to make you eat less than you burn so "just" counting calories sounds excellent to me. My advise would be to keep posting in your diary, sharing your struggles and victories (even the seemingly tiny ones) and to keep experimenting with new foods/recipes to ultimately find a "diet" full of foods that will fill you up without breaking your calorie budget and which you´ll actually enjoy so you can keep it up for life this time and never have to feel as miserable again as you have been doing lately. You can do this, and I look forward to cheering you on along the way.
 
Welcome David! You've come to a good place for support and ideas to help you along your way (especially if you start a diary because that is where most of the activity is).

My only advice for you right now is to consider looking at this not as a diet to be temporarily endured but as a healthy new way of eating going forward for the rest of your life. A "weight loss diet" ends and then what happens? ...you go back to eating/living the way that caused you to gain weight in the first place! That mindset difference seems to have made the difference for me anyway.
 
Welcome to the forum! You have gotten some good advice from LaMa and Err, nice and knowledgeable folks.

I also started posting here and my current diet at 320 lbs, this morning I was at 148, it did take a while to get here. I have also been overweight all my life, this is by far my greatest dieting success. A big difference is I am a lot older than you. I think you are a wise young man to be trying to fix this now, I sure wish I had years ago. And Err is absolutely right when he says:
Err2 said:
consider looking at this not as a diet to be temporarily endured but as a healthy new way of eating going forward for the rest of your life. A "weight loss diet" ends and then what happens? ...you go back to eating/living the way that caused you to gain weight in the first place!
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I am still struggling to do that right, but I now know it is the only route to success.

I am looking forward to following your progress!
 
Hi, David & welcome to the forum. LaMa, Err & Rob have given you excellent advice. Taking control of your health at your age & losing weight slowly & doing it in a sustainable way should ensure you have a chance at a healthy life & hopefully never have to “ go on a diet”.
 
So "yesterday" ended about an hour and a half ago. I tallied up the day's calories as close as I could figure. The result is extremely ominous, but it's a good representation of what I'm eating every day.

My maintenance weight is about 2850. My daily caloric goal is 2500. Today I consumed approximately...3550 calories. That is...quite a bit of excess. And that's a very normal day for me. My hope is to keep tracking and reducing that number little by little until I'm consistently eating at a deficit.

By far the most calorically rich (and surprisingly so!) thing I ate today was a plate of meatballs. During my teens, I was on a low-carb diet, and these frozen meatballs would often be a go-to food source. But eating enough to fill me up resulted in a whopping 1450 calories! WOW! Had I eaten a smaller amount of these, perhaps with a salad or veggies, things might have gone smoother. Likely as not, I'll avoid this particular meatball brand.

Again, thanks for checking out this diary. I wasn't successful at reaching a deficit. But I was successful at tracking everything!
 
Tracking your normal diet without changing it at first is actually often recommended to help people realize where their weight is coming from in the first place, so even without a deficit I think this was a useful day. I don't know if you like to cook but homemade meatballs can be very low-calorie and if you simmer them in sauce after searing the reduced fat really isn't very noticeable. But of course finding a low-cal store-bought version you like the taste of or reducing the amount you have and making up the volume with veggies is also excellent.
 
LaMaria said:
Tracking your normal diet without changing it at first is actually often recommended to help people realize where their weight is coming from in the first place, so even without a deficit I think this was a useful day. I don't know if you like to cook but homemade meatballs can be very low-calorie and if you simmer them in sauce after searing the reduced fat really isn't very noticeable. But of course finding a low-cal store-bought version you like the taste of or reducing the amount you have and making up the volume with veggies is also excellent.
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It really is an eye-opener to see! I feel I need to learn how to cook. Like...I can. I'm just...not very proficient. If I do learn, I feel I'd have a better chance at this! :)
 
I don´t enjoy cooking all that much but I do enjoy eating homecooked food, so I do it anyway :p It´s such a helpful skill, even if you only ever learn 5 different recipes you really enjoy. Saves money, tastes better, is generally healthier, AND saves calories.
 
Great job getting started!

Tracking calories has been very informative for me. 80% of high calorie foods I already knew were "junk food" but there are lots of foods I always considered "healthy" that are super high in calories so they need to be consumed in moderation (e.g. dried fruit). Just keep tracking & experimenting until you find what you like eating that fits in your calorie goal without leaving you hungry.

Cooking your own meals will help give you a lot more options, but isn't required. I stayed low calorie despite eating fast food/drive-thru my first two months just by selecting low cal items (e.g. lettuce-wrapped 'burger' with no mayo/sauce, no fries, & no soda).
 
So today's results were almost the same. Total caloric intake 3310. Assuming I eat nothing else today, that is a slight improvement over yesterday, but still not close to the mark of 2500.
There was one minor slip up when I ordered a diet coke (or so I thought I said) but I received a regular coke instead. But I might have mumbled or misspoke. Besides, that was hardly the biggest number for today. That honor went to a...DQ treat. Oy. Ice Cream cravings are going to be a real pain for this.
Still, day two of keeping track. Keeping track is important. Eventually, it will lead me to that deficit! I know it!
 
If you have a powerful blender blending up some frozen banana chunks with a dash of milk and a little vanilla may help the icecream cravings. Icecream is one of my biggest trigger foods; it's so easy to eat way too much of it.
 
LaMaria said:
I don´t enjoy cooking all that much but I do enjoy eating homecooked food, so I do it anyway :p It´s such a helpful skill, even if you only ever learn 5 different recipes you really enjoy. Saves money, tastes better, is generally healthier, AND saves calories.
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I feel the same, it takes some time but I spend it for my health.
 
DavidStar500 said:
Keeping track is important. Eventually, it will lead me to that deficit! I know it!
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I think you are right, the tracking not only leads to a better understanding of what you are eating but, for me anyway, in the beginning it became another incentive to stay on track. You are doing the right thing, you will make this work!

Cooking... for years my wife did most of our cooking, and she is a pretty good cook. Of late I have had to do a lot of my own and I know there is a learning curve. I am still kind of low on it. My wife became a vegetarian before I started the diet, and after though she tried she did not always fix things in a lower calorie way. So now we eat differently and cook our own food 80% of the time. Cooking for yourself lets you better measure and control amounts. As you learn what you like and can easily fix it gets better and easier. And you can get lots of suggestions here, from better cooks than I. Enjoy the process!
 
I find tracking calories is the only way I can get on track & I have been fighting against doing it for a year now. When I was maintaining a healthy weight after losing my excess I used to track everything. It is incredible what you “forget” so I try to anticipate what I am going to have & then adjust back. My Fitness Pal is what I use & it gets easier to use the more you use it. I save regular meals. I try not to eat back my exercise calories ( I have a Fitbit synchronised)

You can do this, David! I'm on day 3 of tracking again. We can do this!
 
DavidStar500 said:
Had I eaten a smaller amount of these, perhaps with a salad or veggies, things might have gone smoother.
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Hi David,
I think the salad and veggies are a huge help. So low in calories and really help fill me up.

Anyways nice to have you here and I'm cheering you on!
 
liza said:
Hi David,
I think the salad and veggies are a huge help. So low in calories and really help fill me up.

Anyways nice to have you here and I'm cheering you on!
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Thank you! :) :)
 
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