I’m in my 30’s 5ft 2 and currently 136.6lbs SW 140lbs GW:119lbs started IF 3 weeks ago, lost 4lbs then gained 0.6lbs (I lost 0.4%BF this week though)
I really struggled last week. I’ve been putting in the hours 18:6 but still a little too much junk although I thought I’d been balancing it out with 10k steps a day and sessions on the bike.
I know you can’t out exercise a bad diet but equally the maths says I was creating a calorie excess daily so I thought I’d get away with it I guess..
It’s week 4 I’m currently fasting approximately 14hrs and 40 mins into it but again the scales have discouraged me.
I’ve had non scale victories, I fit back in a dress, I’ve put in the hours, I’ve stopped snacking after dinner, I’ve done some mega workouts, i lost body fat. But I am so discouraged!
ahhhh I need more mental strength right now, my motivation is low and I really wanted to be 129lbs by 5th of March. Can I still do it??
TLDR: scale made me feel like a failure and now I need to know what pulls you through daily, what pulls you through on the hard days.
For me it’s different everyday. Sometimes it’s that I want the actual goal sometimes it’s cuz I wanna be healthy for my fam sometimes it’s just wanting to look good for the girls. Whatever grip you can grip on the edge of the cliff that day I’d just grab it and hold on until you have to grab something else to get up higher on the mountain
Something that really resonated with me was - FOOD IS JUST MOUTH PLEASURE. Drink more water, weigh yourself once a month or less. What you eat is so much more important than exercise. If you eat a bag of potato chips that’s about 1000 calories. To burn 1000 cals extra you need to do a strength training workout and 1 hour hard cardio. It’s just easier not to snack as much. Y
Think of the scale as your fickle crush. He’ll lead you on one day and drop 2 pounds. Then he’ll break your heart popping up 2.5 the next.
The process is your loyal and constant friend. You control what you eat, when you eat, and the quality of food you eat. That is where you should invest your energy. Celebrate the successful completion of a fast. Celebrate the proper eating window with the right amount of high quality nutrition. Repeat daily.
With consistency and time the scale will move.
This is my answer to your question. When times get tough, and they always do at some point, I fall back to process and ignore the scale. I worry about perfectly executing the next 24 hours, and then do it. Then I worry about the next 24, and do that. And so on. I can’t guarantee how much I’ll lose in the next week or months, but I can guarantee that I’ll execute the next fast or the next eating cycle perfectly. I do that for a while and the scale falls back in line.
You are 3 weeks into it. I don’t feel like most folks can get properly established into their IF routine until 4 weeks have passed. You’re still setting up the process and figuring out how to manage it and merge it with the rest of your life. Watching the scale isn’t bad, but putting lots of emotional energy into it is. One thing that can help is to keep a 10 day running average of daily weights and only look at that for feedback on how you’re doing. The daily weight is just data you collect. The 10 day average is how you’re actually doing.
>I know you can’t out exercise a bad diet but equally the maths says I was creating a calorie excess daily so I thought I’d get away with it I guess..
Just because the treadmill or smart watch says X calories burned that’s not what the body actually used. This is part of why it’s important to not rely on exercise for a deficit.
>ahhhh I need more mental strength right now, my motivation is low and I really wanted to be 129lbs by 5th of March. Can I still do it??
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>TLDR: scale made me feel like a failure and now I need to know what pulls you through daily, what pulls you through on the hard days.
From my own experience, motivation, willpower, and self control are all fickle things. They are finite resources that get taxed by the rest of life. So it’s important to not overload them, especially at the start when motivation is high, which is going to wane.
What helped me was focusing on the process and less the outcome along with working on adding things until they are really a part of routine and habit. For instance, there’s a big difference between forcing myself to work out and actually wanting to work out. And once something has reached that point it’s easier add something new since you’re now longer relying on sheer willpower alone to sustain it.
And as for keeping it going, I’ve seen someone describe it as getting these new habits and routines into the same place as brushing your teeth. You might not want to do it every day, you may even give in and skip one, but chances are it’s so ingrained that you won’t skip it twice. So it’s just like slipping up on our journeys, again rather than relying on other things to get us back on the wagon we just get back on because that’s who we are now.
Obviously all a little easier said than done, but could be something to work towards.
If your only focus is the scale you will be screwed if you ever get your goal weight. You cant rely on motivation for long term change. You need to really figure out your why in your change. Weight loss is about a change in being not a change in weight. Id suggest looking at people that have succeeded holding weight off for a long time and you will see a focus on a better life not a number on the scale. It is tough but you can do it!
Not sure of the gender of the OP but just in case you’re a female, period MATTERS. There are days during the month where we can be fasting and days strictly no-no because they mess up with sex hormones and stress hormones. Also, during the period, the body tends to have water retention which reflects in higher numbers on the scale, but it’s artificial and temporary.
The reason why I brought this up is that, basically, for females, there is a rhythmic fasting rule to follow, so that they don’t need to fast everyday nor for the same amount of time. This might give you some motivation, knowing that it’s not a disservice to your weight loss if not fast ing all the time.
In the case of a 30-day period:
Not knowing these female physiology is a big reason why many females stop having period or having irregular period when fasting, let alone severe mood swings and, you guess it, loss of motivation.
In order for hormones (estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, progesterone etc) to stay in check and even work in our favour, it is quite necessary to take the body period into account when fasting. I’d recommend watching Dr. Mindy Pelz for more elaborate info, e.g. https://youtu.be/fZSN5vsAWgM last but not least, good luck!! 💪
you cannot worry about single scale weighings. especially less than 5 pounds.
Also you should not worry about what weight you will be on march 5th 2022.
I would consider what weight you will be march 5th of 2023 or 2030 much more important.
Long term, sustainable habits will do that. Fretting about .5 pounds here and there everyday is asking for burnout. If you cant use the scale without becoming obsessed, cut weigh ins down to once a month or quarter.