What is the longest time anyone has successfully spent losing 100lbs?

#1

Not looking for flippant answers, I have been on diets since age 13, now late 50s.

Wondering who has successfully lost weight despite month long stalls and losing very slowly

I started keto in March 2017 after losing about 15 lbs through a Mediterranean type diet starting in 2016. In 2016 I had about 115 lbs to lose. I lost about 59 lbs in total in that time period but then found I could not keep it off. I also found that most of my weight was lost through EF (3-5 days) and low carb really only worked to maintain the loss. Yes, my weight and body size track, it is not that I am building muscle or my clothes are looser than what the scale shows.

Did not regain a lot at first but it started creeping back. Basically as the experts say, it worked for about 8 months and then it really did not work as well. Got discouraged and cheated a lot for days at a time.

Regained about a total of 40 lbs during the Pandemic (not low carbs fault!). Got things under control in 2023 and lost a little. In July 2023 decided to stop eating at 5 every day unless a semi special occasion (eg dinner with friends, about once a week). This worked well. I have been losing on average about 1-2 lbs a month, for a total of about 37lbs as of last week. The weird thing is I am still losing even though it will be 2 years in July. So slowly (and no I do not believe that slow and steady is better, it leads to more frustration).

Here is where I get frustrated. Up until last week, I weighed about the same as I did on Thanksgiving morning. I remember it because it was a milestone goal to get to that weight. Finally lost two lbs (really four but did not keep two of them!) but this took almost five months!

I still have another 53 lbs that I would like to lose (and yes this is a realistic weight for me). Not looking for praise, but genuinely frustrated that this is taking so long. I keep to not eating at night because I find it reduces the cravings. If I eat after 7 I am tempted the rest of the night (and I am up very late), if I donā€™t, I might get hungry but it is very manageable

Thank you for reading

(Edith) #2

About how many calories a day do you think you are eating?

#3

I have no idea. Every once in a while I track and it is about 1500-2200 depending on the day. Some days it is a lot less than that because I really do not usually have much appetite before dinner. When I go out it is much more I would think. I also play a sport 2-5 times a week depending on my time and the weather (it is indoor outdoor but outdoor is free). This is something I started doing in 2023. It was not to lose weight, I enjoy it and would do it anyway.

When I lost weight in 2017 I did not exercise at all. At other points when I was younger I would exercise and it never helped me to lose weight

#4

IMG_0496
IMG_0496.png960Ɨ2079 109 KB

Iā€™ve only lost 62.7 lbs but itā€™s taken a while - this graph shows the result - started in November 2021.

Itā€™s definitely doable - Iā€™m just working on the last little bit now but whatever I weigh in 6 weeks will become my maintenance weight.

#5

You can tell on the graph where I was diagnosed with autoimmune thyroid disease!

(Bob M) #6

Is that the sudden peak?

#7

It is probably a factor outside of diet when you have the workable eating plan locked in. That has been my experience. Body fat loss has always been a side effect for me when I work on other aspects of life with the dietary part dialled in as a background foundation. Iā€™ll get to where I want for a year or two, and then add more work, more life challenges, more helping other people etc, and lose grip on my own goals to regain. Then getting ā€˜selfishā€™ again is really hard as promises have been made to others and they have become comfortable or lazy in their reliance in my/ your hard work for them. But getting selfish is required. Taking back some energy for your own needs. Otherwise you shorten your own life.

Good and consistent:

  • Physical activity
  • Meal timing eating window
  • Sleep
  • Stress management (strategies to increase time in parasympathetic state = breathing, yoga, meditation, yoga nidraā€¦)
  • Rule out food sensitivities/ eat cleaner than yesterday e.g. lactose, eggs, food additives
  • Psychological support for carbohydrate addiction

Identify micro-nutrient needs such as magnesium, selenium, copper, adequate essential nutrients (fatty acids and amino acids). Supplement based on findings for what is needed.

Off track doctor supervised experiment to try: Micro-dosing semaglutide but only if it is combined with a resistance training prescription, and has a defined duration, for example, not longer than 60 days. To mitigate the lean body tissue loss, gut stasis issues, and adipogenisis that are part and parcel of those drugs.

(Edith) #8

Well, it sounds like you are getting enough calories.

Have you had your thyroid hormone levels checked?

Also, do you do any strength training? Building muscle is the best way to speed up the metabolism. We really do lose muscle mass as we get older unless we do something deliberate to keep it. Aerobic exercise, while good for endurance, does not help build muscle.

I think thatā€™s one of the reasons women especially, as they get older and hit menopause say, ā€œBoy, I hit menopause and even though my eating hasnā€™t changed, I started gaining weight.ā€ I think those dropping hormone levels make it harder for us to hold onto our muscle. As our muscle decreases, we donā€™t need as many calories to feed it. That is why eating the same actually causes us to gain weight.
Maybe add strength training a couple of times per week to your exercise regime?

#9

I canā€™t offer any advice but just to say youā€™ve done wellā€¦and Iā€™m in a similar position as in EFs seem to be the only way to lose for me as well. After 6 months on keto I gave up waiting to lose more, I am not patient!

#10

It is

#11

Thank you. I have Hashimotos since my 30s. It is managed. I have actually increased the dosage in the last 6 months.

I checked my levels of micronutriets recently and they are all fine except Vitamin D which most people have issues with and have added that. Plus it was January in the NorthEast and I am outside all summer. The one thing that is odd is my hemotocrit is at the top of the normal range 45, and my ferritin is somewhat above the normal range but not to a worrying degree. My hematocrit has always been at least 44 even as a teenager, so 45 is normal for me. I probably should start donating blood

I do strength periodically and am naturally pretty strong and muscular. I bike a lot which is both and since it is a road bike it works my core as well. I play racquet sports regularly which is not entirely aerobic. I am hopeless at anything like Zumba so never do that!

I think since hitting menopause it has been much much easier to at least maintain. I do not have that second part of the month where I want to eat everything in sight. Although the ironic thing is when I was pregnant, other than my first where I weighed 25 lbs less than I do now and could ā€œpassā€ for normal, I was not hungry during my pregnancies and did not have food cravings. I ate like what I would imagine a ā€œnormalā€ person eats and my kids were still on the larger side. For most of them I was 15-30lbs heavier than I am now. For my last I actually was about 10 lbs thinner when they were 2 weeks old than before pregnancy. I had a new coworker who only met me pregnant and we spent a lot of time together and she could not understand why I was overweight. It was not deliberate either. Then when I was home nursing I would gain everything back and then some

This experience with pregnancy is what makes me take issue with the whole carb addiction paradigm.
@FrankoBear, is carb addiction real? Sure, is it based on emotions for some people, possibly, is it based on emotions for me? Absolutely not. Normally, when I used to go to my SILā€™s house who is amazing baker, I would be thinking about dessert and thinking about how many slices I could eat without being rude, even as I was talking to you about something interesting to me. When pregnant, I would think about dessert but more than once I would get involved in talking and would forget to have dessert and would leave without having any!

The funniest story with that is that my now best friend who I met in my 30s, as young moms, had always been heavy (I only gained weight as a teenager and really packed it on starting at 26), since age 2. Her mother (who was not the parent with the weight problem) always tried to limit her. This made my friend believe she had emotional eating issues. This was someone who never had any major trauma growing up other than the normal, my friend was mean to me stuff. When I met her it was right after my second pregnancy where I realized eating was physical not emotional. I told her so, she remembers thinking about me ā€œshe is very nice but she has no idea what she is talking about.ā€ Years later after she lost 100 lbs with IF, she told me I was right!

Based on past experience, if things are working, even if they working slowly, I will not add an outside substance such as a GLP1. I have no issue with it for others and appreciate the suggestion but I do not see a reason to. I feel like I just have to patient but I do wonder if it will stop which prompted the question. This is not like my other stalls where things would start to reverse. I am not gaining and did finally lose 2lbs last week!

@Chezza Congratulations on the weight loss. I had trouble following the graph, do each 12/11 and 12/05 represent different years? It looks like mine although I have never graphed it and I think my last two years might be less steep. The initial downward trajectory, the jump up to 90 and then the way you are losing weight where it is two steps down and one step back up instead of straight downward like in the beginning, feels similar. I have had Hashimotos for over 20 years.Any ideas what caused the second smaller jump from 84 -90? Covid years?

(Bob M) #12

Whatā€™s your ferritin level? Thatā€™s a weird one, because high = inflammation, but low isnā€™t good either. I reduced the number of times I gave blood because mine was really low, like in the 20s. For people with my condition (cardiomyopathy), they recommend above 100.

#13

I think just over 200 and the reference range ends at 150. Inflammation would not surprise me although I usually feel really good. Iā€™m really not sure what to do about it and may do some research

One of my kids who has celiac is always under 20. They are fine otherwise, often borderline anemic. They are a young adult and their MD is not concerned but they do try to take iron

#14

That graph spans 4 years I think. Iā€™m always very up and down with weight loss - my body wants to hang on to that weight!

Hopefully Iā€™ll finally hit target in six weeks time.

#15

Congratulations! I think that is the point, most bodies want to hang onto weight for evolutionary reasons. Food was not readily available at your local Publix throughout history! Our bodies want a cushion in case of famine. It has no idea that you are trying to get down a size. It has not read the latest research on set point theory. Other than keto have you been doing anything special?

#16

I workout a lot, both weights & cardio. My step count averages above 20k a day. I donā€™t drink alcohol. I try to eat less and eat keto but fail quite a bit x

#17

My step count is nowhere near that! I have always been sedentary but with bouts of exercise. I think part of the reason I gained during the pandemic is that I started working from home and not going out for errands as much. I still do that and my out of the house errands are fewer as my youngest left for college so no need to be an uber driver anymore