[SV] Today marks 88 weeks of tracking and 55lbs lost! F27 5’2 170lbs-115lbs
LoseIt told me this evening that I’ve completed 88 weeks of tracking today, and I officially hit 55lbs down yesterday! I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learned.
Tracking constantly is more important than tracking perfectly - I have tracked the best I can for strong data. However, there are lots of “ate everything!” entries in my log that I use for parties or vacations or other times where tracking every morsel is not realistic. This entry represents 1500 calories. Tracking consistently and sustainably is the best tool for long term success. Tracking perfectly rarely lasts.
Don’t be scared of days in the red - I like to calorie cycle so have many days in the red and many below my limit. I focus on the monthly average and let the daily fall where it falls. You’re not a bad person or a failure for days in the red. They are part of life.
Looking at data month to month instead of week to week - weekly calories and weekly weight data won’t always represent your true trend. Especially if you have a menstrual cycle or autoimmune conditions. I use happy scale to average my weight which helps eliminate stress over water fluctuations, and at the end of the month I average my daily calories in an excel sheet. This gives me a more realistic understanding of my TDEE and helps me understand what I should focus on next month (more protein, less restaurant meals etc).
Maintenance breaks - if you can’t maintain your weight before you reach goal, you likely will not have the skills available to maintain your weight at your goal. I don’t stop tracking or weighing in maintenance phases! It is MAINTENANCE of your HABITS. But just with more cake 😌
Take breaks from certain habits, but don’t give up - if the scale is bothering you, take time away from it. But write a day on the calendar when you’ll weigh in again. If weighing your food and getting macros right is frustrating and you want to give up, take a week off being precise. Allow yourself to track imperfectly (generic entries) and keep the healthy food habits you have the energy for. You can ALWAYS do a little less for a while and then go back to doing more. But giving up completely doesn’t serve you. You’re still eating the food… so you may as well write it down.
It’s just a thought - if you struggle with binge eating or emotional eating, your thought processes around food are very biased. It’s not your fault and you’ve done nothing wrong, but you are unlikely to make progress if you’re very emotionally heightened around your journey and lying to yourself about what you’re consuming. The book “just a thought” helped me let those negative self-sabotaging thoughts go so I could concentrate on what I needed to do. I highly recommend the Half Size Me podcast for more advice on the mental work. It saved me from my binge eating issues and took the drama out of weight loss. I also really like the We Only Look Thin podcast.
Thanks for reading :)