Ha, I’ve done similar things, but I’m still in the middle of it, 62 pounds in to be exact, that’s about the half-way point.
The key component turned out to be the scale for me. Automatic tracking works much better for me than manually keeping track of it. (I also got a Withings scale, but I don’t think the brand matters. As long as the scale automatically logs everything without you having to do anything or even look how much you weigh in the morning it’s great.) Seeing your whole progress in one graph really helps me keep on track.
A week without progress even though you did all the exercise you always do and ate like you always do? With the trend-line and the chart going all the way back you can easily see that it’s just a statistical anomaly, most likely random noise (probably mostly dependent on when you drank your water and when you went to the toilet). It doesn’t mean progress has stopped.
That 2lb setback, probably because I wasn’t careful about what I eat? Now I look back all the way I have come and those 2lbs seem harmless. That’s a ridiculously tiny amount of weight to lose. It’s so easy. Just some extra care to what I eat and how active I am and I’m all set.
With manual tracking (mostly memorising what I weighed and remembering it the next day) I would at these points just get afraid of the scale and eventually stop weighing myself. The whole process was less transparent with manual tracking and the automatically logging scale demystified it for me. During my previous attempts weeks without any progress just doomed me and got me to this really dark place. No I’m not even bothered by them. The trend-line is going down. Always.
Now, step counters may not be accurate or even a good way to track how active you are (and walking or cardio may not the best ways to aid weight loss) but the built-in step counter in my iPhone that I have always with me (plus my podcast addiction and the beautiful weather this summer) actually lead me to automatically want to beat those 10,000 steps per day. And at some point I just started doing it. I think there isn’t one day during the last two months where I didn’t walk at least 9,000 steps per day, without even consciously deciding to do that. I just wanted to beat those 10,000 steps. I want to see the bar turn green and the 10,000 to light up. That has helped me tremendously to stay active (and not just move less when I started eating less).
I also started driving the ergometer for 30 minutes every day and while I don’t really track that I’m seeing my progress (I can drive with more and more resistance and without any breaks in-between) – also with my scale. The heart rate measurement doesn’t work so well (it fails two times out of three) but it also shows steady downward progress. From a resting heart rate in the high 80s I’m now down to a healthy one in the low 60s. I also feel much better and sleep much better. (This would certainly be beneficial for me, even without any weight loss.)
All this progress also motivates me to constantly optimise. Next step: Buy good shoes and convert some of that walking distance into running distance. (70 minutes of walking per day are a bit long, but doable. However, with some running I can bring that time down.)
(The eating story is similar. I don’t particularly care about what I eat, but when you restrict how much you eat you will automatically tend to prefer food that makes you feel fuller. That’s at least how it was for me so far. I don’t want to eat pasta every day because then I wouldn’t ever feel full. And when I do eat pasta I would rather make the portion a bit smaller and add a salad for the saved calories to feel fuller.)
Will it work? Ask me in three years. I hope so. I think keeping up my weighing routine forever will be the key. If I can do that I see no reason why I can’t keep at it and at least hold my weight (but most likely lose some more and hold the weight I want to have). I’m cautiously optimistic. This is the most weight I have ever lost in my life and the longest I have been at it and I don’t even feel constantly starving or demotivated or crushed (something that was common during previous attempts). I actually feel great most of the time.
Just remember losing weight is not the hard part. You need to keep it off. I lost 100LB over 2 years with vary little effort, stopped paying attention for 6 months and gained much of it back.
Losing weight is the hard part. Keeping the weight constant is the hard part. Everything is the hard part. (I attempted and failed losing weight for years now. Getting this started was extremely hard. Right now it’s admittedly easy.)
I just assume that I can never stop tracking my weight and never really stop counting calories. These changes that I’m making now are constant. This is not a temporary thing. That’s just how it is. I will see how it turns out in a year or so.
Although I'm not overweight, I had been trying for a long time to get myself to exercise, and finally started running a few years back, and I totally agree with the "this is not a temporary thing". Right now I basically run at least once a week but average about 3-4 times a week (it's only on terrible weeks that I get one run in, and I'm usually really antsy if I can't run more than once). That is basically non-negotiable, I will continue running regularly until I'm too old to.
If you are going to engage in that level of tracking already, you should definitely consider looking into bodybuilding. It's a good way to build confidence for former fatties (myself included), and you get to eat more.
The hard part is living a lifestyle consistent with being the right weight.
Most people fail to keep their weight down because they do something until they lose the weight, then forget about it. The real strategy is to do something sustainable, which you don't mind, and which you plan to keep up forever.
> Next step: Buy good shoes and convert some of that walking distance into running distance
I highly recommend going to a running shop and getting fitted. They'll watch how you run and give you the correct sort of shoe. If it's a quality shop, they really aren't trying to up-sell you or anything (most high-quality running shoes are about the same price anyways).
If you have the money, you can buy the shoes there too (I would feel guilty if I didn't, but that's just me). Otherwise they're typically 10-30 dollars cheaper online.
>The heart rate measurement doesn’t work so well (it fails two times out of three) but it also shows steady downward progress.
Look into buying a 3rd party HRM (heart rate monitor). There's a fair chance that a chest strap will broadcast to your device and that you won't need a watch.
In my case, my treadmill's metal pads wouldn't read my HR consistently.
The strap that came with the Polar FT7* (I think it might be an HR1?) broadcasts to my treadmill, which solves the problem for me, and lets me track even if I forego the watch.
The watch (more or less a display unit for the chest strap) is handy for resistance training or exercising outside, though.
> All this progress also motivates me to constantly optimise. Next step: Buy good shoes and convert some of that walking distance into running distance. (70 minutes of walking per day are a bit long, but doable. However, with some running I can bring that time down.)
Or look into barefoot running. It might be better for your joints. (It anecdotally works that way for me and some friends.)
That only works if you have a place to do it. Inner-city, for example, probably isn't the place you want to be running with no protection on your feet. Or places where there may be metal or glass on your running surface.
You might want to check out a site that'll integrate with the internet connected scales that are out there. http://www.weightgrapher.com/ It'll keep track and give you an exponetially decaying average so that small blips don't impact the actual trend of your weight.
Tracking is definitely great, but you don't need an automatic scale for that - get a manual scale and then something like my fitness pal (or any other weightloss app) and record your loss/gain. Keep doing it when you are done losing.
It’s about removing friction. I did manual tracking in the past sometimes, but it was a hassle, I kept forgetting (or I was just too lazy) and for me that was really not good. The biggest psychological hurdle for me to start losing weight was my fear of weighing myself. That’s what I had to overcome. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I’m afraid of weighing myself, and if I weigh myself every day (or even somewhat less frequently but still with regularity) and keep track of my weight that fear is just not an issue. The changes day to day (or even week to week) are just too harmless to instil fear in me – but if I go a month without weighing I get scared and let it slide. That’s how it was in the past, anyway.
Another factor for me personally was that I really love all these tech toys. That was the catalyst to me starting to weigh myself. I really wanted to try this cool scale and play around with it. That definitely helped overcome my fear. Your mileage may vary if you aren’t really that much into tech toys.
A fitbit sits on my wrist as I write this and I had considered buying that scale too, if I could expect it to be accurate (this is my biggest issue with my scale).
If and auto updating scale means you remember to weight yourself regulary then that is very good investment.
I was mostly writing for those who would hesitate to purchase such an expensive scale especially since I believe owning and using a scale is so fucking important. Not knowing the number means you are too likely to let your mind play games with you and end up having to lose a ton (hopefully not literally) instead of being warned in time.
You're correct that you don't need an automatic scale, but it's worth pointing out that the parent specifically got his because it removed all of the barriers to creating/maintaining his source of motivation. Doing it on his own wouldn't have been difficult per se, but doing it consistently in a way that he knew was useful was not the problem he was trying to solve so he eliminated it altogether.
The key component turned out to be the scale for me. Automatic tracking works much better for me than manually keeping track of it. (I also got a Withings scale, but I don’t think the brand matters. As long as the scale automatically logs everything without you having to do anything or even look how much you weigh in the morning it’s great.) Seeing your whole progress in one graph really helps me keep on track.
A week without progress even though you did all the exercise you always do and ate like you always do? With the trend-line and the chart going all the way back you can easily see that it’s just a statistical anomaly, most likely random noise (probably mostly dependent on when you drank your water and when you went to the toilet). It doesn’t mean progress has stopped.
That 2lb setback, probably because I wasn’t careful about what I eat? Now I look back all the way I have come and those 2lbs seem harmless. That’s a ridiculously tiny amount of weight to lose. It’s so easy. Just some extra care to what I eat and how active I am and I’m all set.
With manual tracking (mostly memorising what I weighed and remembering it the next day) I would at these points just get afraid of the scale and eventually stop weighing myself. The whole process was less transparent with manual tracking and the automatically logging scale demystified it for me. During my previous attempts weeks without any progress just doomed me and got me to this really dark place. No I’m not even bothered by them. The trend-line is going down. Always.
Now, step counters may not be accurate or even a good way to track how active you are (and walking or cardio may not the best ways to aid weight loss) but the built-in step counter in my iPhone that I have always with me (plus my podcast addiction and the beautiful weather this summer) actually lead me to automatically want to beat those 10,000 steps per day. And at some point I just started doing it. I think there isn’t one day during the last two months where I didn’t walk at least 9,000 steps per day, without even consciously deciding to do that. I just wanted to beat those 10,000 steps. I want to see the bar turn green and the 10,000 to light up. That has helped me tremendously to stay active (and not just move less when I started eating less).
I also started driving the ergometer for 30 minutes every day and while I don’t really track that I’m seeing my progress (I can drive with more and more resistance and without any breaks in-between) – also with my scale. The heart rate measurement doesn’t work so well (it fails two times out of three) but it also shows steady downward progress. From a resting heart rate in the high 80s I’m now down to a healthy one in the low 60s. I also feel much better and sleep much better. (This would certainly be beneficial for me, even without any weight loss.)
All this progress also motivates me to constantly optimise. Next step: Buy good shoes and convert some of that walking distance into running distance. (70 minutes of walking per day are a bit long, but doable. However, with some running I can bring that time down.)
(The eating story is similar. I don’t particularly care about what I eat, but when you restrict how much you eat you will automatically tend to prefer food that makes you feel fuller. That’s at least how it was for me so far. I don’t want to eat pasta every day because then I wouldn’t ever feel full. And when I do eat pasta I would rather make the portion a bit smaller and add a salad for the saved calories to feel fuller.)
Will it work? Ask me in three years. I hope so. I think keeping up my weighing routine forever will be the key. If I can do that I see no reason why I can’t keep at it and at least hold my weight (but most likely lose some more and hold the weight I want to have). I’m cautiously optimistic. This is the most weight I have ever lost in my life and the longest I have been at it and I don’t even feel constantly starving or demotivated or crushed (something that was common during previous attempts). I actually feel great most of the time.
Get tracking! It helped me.