60 pounds down, no drugs; just learned how to eat.
I just wanted to share this as it took me 54 years to figure out how to lose weight and keep it off.... I did diets in the past, worked out etc... But my weight just roller coastered in an upward trend. Also I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol.
For me the before picture was when I was at the breaking point. What ended up working was I read in a book about weight lifters and how they do "bulking" and "cutting" and keeping calories at a surplus or deficit. So I tried an app the book recommended (Macrofactor) to track this. Basically the app calculates your daily tdee (total daily expenditure) calories you burn per day and gives you a number to stop at to lose weight. (I was set to .5 to 1.5 pounds a week) Then I also found a reddit where people do this and post some great tips and motivation r/cico
Anyways, for people who want to try losing weight without drugs, it works. And since I was only running about a 500 calorie deficit, I wasn't to hungry. My cholesterol and blood pressure are great now (they were suggesting I start medication before).
Here is the TLDR steps:
- Buy a kitchen food scale.
- Buy a body weight scale.
- Download and use food tracking app. (I used Macrofactor, but many more out there like loseIt, my fitness pal etc)
- Weigh yourself every morning and track all food intake in app.
Just make sure to accurately track your food intake using the scale for stuff not pre measured. It gets easier the more you do it. The app needed this info along with my weight to keep adjusting my daily calorie limit. This would change weekly and lower as I lost weight. (Or raise if I exercised a lot). Also try to hit the protein goal it gives you.
Sounds difficult, but it really wasn't. Now at 55 I'm in probably close to the best shape of my life. I see so many commercials pushing glp drugs in my feed that I just wanted people to know there are other ways to achieve weight loss.. (I am not against others using them if they feel they need them, and even looked into them myself, but decided to try without using them as I was worried about side effects).
Good luck! and feel free to hit me up if you have any questions. But I can't stress enough how helpful reddit in general and the r/cico community were to me to meet my goals.
5'10 242 pounds down to 180 in the picture.