I don't mean to post this often, but today was fun. I finished my 5 mile hike much faster, so I took a look back at the first time I attempted it this year back in June.

Not great, but it was the first time in awhile that I did it. Fast forward to today.

I shaved off 20 minutes and my average pace is 5 minutes faster. While I might not be losing much my body is certainly getting faster, stronger, and hiking is getting easier.

So don't look at just the scale because it can be deceptive. Find something that brings you joy and go do it.

Back in 2021 I started hiking because I stopped going to the gym because COVID, and it worked pretty well for me. Then winter hit and I had to stop because of lack of light in the morning and it was getting dangerous.

Last year I switched jobs and we moved just as I got back into hiking. Anyway, I started back up in June because I hit a high of 270 lbs. Well I am attempting to hike 100 miles this month and I am already at about 55. I am on track to hit 30 miles just this week. To be more specific, my goal this week is to hike a 5.1 mile loop 6 days. When I started I was hiking a 2.5 mile loop mostly.

On the weight side, I was pretty stable around 268lbs for most of June, and last week I stayed under 268lbs. Granted it is only Tuesday, but I've stayed under 267 so far, and today I weighed in at 265.2

Obviously it's not much but I am feeling better, I'm hiking faster, and I am not bouncing back up to 268+. I can't wait to see what next week is like.

TL;DR - been battling weight my entire life, starting Vyvanse for help with binge eating

I’m here because I broke up with Reddit and there is no Lemmy community specifically for binge eating yet… I wanted to stop in and share. I’ve battled weight all of my life to different degrees of success. Most recently I’ve been confronting trauma and binge eating related to trauma. I think I’m at the point where I can have success on my own but I have thought that many times…so at my last physical I talked to my doctor about getting on something to help me with weight loss and appetite.

At this point, I’m 43 and even if something has some side effects or negative effects it would be worth it over losing years of my life by staying too heavy. Because I first talked to my doctor about what I believe is behind it all…binge-eating as self-numbing related to trauma…she suggested trying Vyvanse first rather than Wegovy or Ozempic because it doesn’t have the same side effects and has been shown to help specifically with binge eating as an appetite suppressant.

I’m ready to do the work, I know I can’t just try to take something and not try, and excited for weeks and months to come. I have found success at different points in my life using LoseIt for calorie counting and exercise…that’s the goal now with a little help.

Wish me luck. See you around lemmy loseits :)

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I got my first plateau, of 9 days (an arbitrary number, there is no official one), in the middle third of my 9-month weight-loss. There were three of them, about 3-4 weeks apart.

Don't expect to avoid plateaus. The body is a system of systems and its main composition component is water. When we are very large, we often will have a bodyfat% of 35-45 (Obese male) instead of 18-24 (Normal male). The amount of water our body is using or storing at this present moment is a percentage that is always changing, but it is 60% when we are normal bodyfat% and less when we are higher (bodyfat contains very little water). So, when those upward water fluctuations happen in a body with obesity, they don't affect the downward trend of our fat loss as much as when those fluctuations happen in a body of normal weight. Therefore, someone with a smaller weight body will get plateaus more often than someone with a higher weight body.

You may read in articles about the body fighting back against losses. That's true, but if we are tracking and managing our deficit to be both accurate and substantial, then this fighting back doesn't affect us. The hormonal signals of the body defending a set point would normally cause us to eat more if we were depending on those signals. But we, thanks to tracking and measuring our food, are keeping up our deficit despite those signals.

So the things to do:

1. Ensure your program is right and tight. Right in that you still have a pronounced deficit (-500 to -1000 against your current TDEE based on your current stats). Tight in that your tracking is 100% itemized including the oft-forgotten condiments, cooking oils, salad add-ons and dressings, and all the little things and that those things are well estimated.
2. Occasionally take a 10-14 day period at maintenance. This helps restore order to your metabolism and your psychology. The body, like much of nature, needs tension and release. I took 3 such periods in 9 months, usually connected to some travel or major holiday. I kept up on exercise and tracking, all the normal things, but at maintenance calories instead of deficit calories. https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break explains the rationale and how-to.
3. Expect more plateaus more often as you get closer to goal weight. Expecting them helps us be mentally ready.
4. Ride them out. If you're doing all these things, then assign plateaus to the body doing its watery thing. Nothing is wrong. This is expected and healthy. Sometimes it helps to manage our patience with the thought that at goal weight, our effort becomes to maintain one life-long plateau at goal weight.

• https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/weight-loss-plateau/art-20044615
• https://health.clevelandclinic.org/weight-loss-plateau/

Edit: changed rational to rationale

obviously while counting calories, but the longer i delay eating it seems to help. just wish i could stop binging at night