Shame and Weight

[reboundstudent]

So I'm really tired of being overweight. Like, sick of looking at myself in the mirror.... sick of constantly hearing negative comments directed towards my body... sick of having every single goddamn answer to any question be about my weight (I swear to God, I could ask the Internet why the sky is blue, and they'd respond it's because I'm fat, just lose some weight already!)

I'm not the most dedicated, but I've made it to the gym about once to twice a week for several months. Well, that was clearly not enough. About three weeks ago, I also started counting and cutting down my calories, to 1245 a day (with 2 cheat days.)

Well, after three weeks, I haven't lost any weight. In fact, I've gained. When I've asked for advice elsewhere on the web, the answer has always been that I'm not cutting enough calories, and that having 2 cheat days (where I go 300-500 calories over) is what's sabotaging me.

But I have no idea how to go lower. Advice on the Internet also says below 1200 calories is not recommended for women, as that's nearing starvation. I am already having frequent headaches, and just feel exhausted and starving all the time.

I want to eat more, but if I do that, then I'll never lose the weight. I feel so much shame around my eating already, especially when I slip up and go slightly over my limit (which I usually try to burn off through cardio.) I'm so tired of feeling ashamed and anxious about the way I look, but I also hate how I feel physically.

What do I do? I feel so helpless and lost.

[Enail]

Uggghh, Marty, no advice, but that sounds like a huuuuuuge amount of work you're putting into it and that must be so frustrating not getting the results you want to. Much sympathy to you.

[Aggrax]

If you're feeling that exhausted and hungry, your body likely isn't going to want to lose weight since it thinks your literally starving. You need to balance your calorie intake with food that is actually filling enough that your body is comfortable getting rid of fat.

I actually recommend not eating the 3 meals a day that people normally eat, but rather spacing food intake out during the day. It should take the edge off the hunger.

On a personal note, try not to track your early progress by weight or look, but by how you feel. When I wanted to lose weight for a trip a year ago, I started walking regularly. Honestly, I only lost maybe 4 pounds over 3 months and still looked round and bouncy, but I felt loads better. I was able to go from half a lap around the track before I had to sit down, to going straight from home, to the track and back home without stopping.

Good luck rebound, I know you can make it over that hill.

[Werel]

I am right there with you in the "body shame flareup so great it makes you physically ill" camp the past few days, Marty. Jedi hugs. This shit sucks.

I would suggest prioritizing how you feel physically over the mirror, though. If you're weak and headachey and starving, you're not being healthy, any more than you're not being healthy if you're feeling bloated and sick from grease and sugar and being sedentary. Not hurting yourself > how much other people want to sleep with you. Feeling strong and being able to rely on your body to do things > looking the way you're sold products to look.

I bought a nice painting at a Buddhist temple once which depicted a plum, and some Korean phrases that translated to something like "If you are hungry, eat some fruit. If you are thirsty, drink water. Your body asks for nothing in vain." I think of it from time to time.

[nearly_takuan]

Vitamins/minerals might (might) help, partly because of the effects certain ones (roommate is the Vitamin Queen; I don't know this stuff so well) can have on mood. Sun radiation being the most confusing one to me—it's bad for your skin, but you need it to synthesize Vitamin D? And Vitamin D makes you happier? I guess?

I am not the most consistent about exercise but it does seem like when I'm not paying any attention at all to physical activity or diet I hover around 135 lbs. and get called things like "noodle arms", and when I'm in my "consistently going to the gym and eating everything I'm supposed to and taking my vitamins and stuff" phase I go all the way up to...140 lbs. and then start just pooping out all the rest. So I feel ya. Some of us just don't change shape that easily.

[kath]

*additional Jedi hugs, RBS*

[Caffeinated]

1245 calories a day? I... I am so horrified by that. That's just inhumane.

In my life, I've only had two things make me lose weight:
1. Breastfeeding. This is obviously not a workable solution for most people under most circumstances, but it's kind of wild.
2. Grief. The kind of grief where you have to force yourself to choke down a few bites of food, and everything tastes like ashes in your mouth. Unavoidable when it happens, but not something worth seeking out.

In my experience of watching other people, I can think of two more things that can make someone lose weight:
1. Weight-loss surgery. Like any surgery, it's expensive and risky, plus as far as I know you have to meet certain criteria to be a candidate.
2. Running. From watching friends, it would seem that once you pass a certain number of miles run, it's almost impossible to eat enough calories not to lose weight. But we're talking serious distance running. I know for certain it's like that with ultra-running (anything longer than a marathon counts as an ultra), and it appears to be that way for marathons too. Basically if you're running ten miles a day, give or take, and a long run on the weekends.

[reboot]

In the past couple of weeks I have found doing refugee intake interviews for 14-16 hours a day is a great way to lose weight.... and sleep... and any hope for the human race....I do not recommend it.

As for doing something normal, I know a lot of people whose "baseline" weight is healthy, but not the ideal in appearance in either the more/less weight direction. They can do everything "right", but since they are at the weight their body is built for, moving that needle is almost impossible while remaining healthy and of sound mind. I know it sucks to hear because everyone wants to look how the societal ideal looks, but genetics can fuck you in that endeavor.

[Jayce]

It can be really difficult, especially when we are all busy, and have other stuff to attend to as well. Sometimes it takes a lot of work for minimal results or sometimes no results. It also really sucks when other people are making you feel bad about it.

No one ever comes up to me on a regular basis on say "ha! you're short! I bet you're less than 170cm tall and I could put my shoulder on your head as a shoulder rest! You short person! You probably have a small penis cause you're so short and no woman would ever go out with you! Why don't you go back to the fridge and drink some milk to grow taller!"

Yet when I was overweight back when I was younger so many people just had some right to make nasty comments about it, and nasty comments about me. And even as a 20 year old adult now, I still hear people saying bad things about other people's weight sometimes. Hell, my parents still talk crap about my weight once in a while like its their business, and I'm already considered lean enough by most of society. And the thing is, I'm leaner than they are!

And I still feel obnoxious about whether I'm getting fatter or not.

My routine is:
No carbs , low sugar (one piece of fruit for breakfast and another piece for dinner was all the sugar I took), high protein+ low fat meat/fish to keep me full, so mostly round steak, tuna, chicken breast (200-250 grams for lunch, 150 grams for dinner), lots of green leafy vegetables and other low calorie veggies to keep me full (200-250g for lunch, 200-250g for dinner), 15-20g of walnuts&pecans during breakfast and lunch to keep me feeling fuller, three tofus+one cup of almond milk+ two eggs+spoonfuls of low fat cottage cheese for breakfast (I would like to add in some no sugar low fat greek yoghurt for breakfast but I never found a brand I liked, one cup of protein powder mixed with water after workouts. That is literally all I eat in one day. All of the meat and veggies are weighed on a scale so I eat the exact right amount, put in lunch boxes and prepared on usually a Sunday. No snacks, no cheat days (except for when I'm out with friends or having a coke, drink at the cafe or a bar so events counts as my cheat days). I would try to rotate the variety of fruits, vegetables, meat/fish, nuts I ate every week so I wouldn't be too bored. Also the veggies were boiled, the meats were steamed or grilled with just spices. No sauce.

I also went to the gym two-three times every week, Each session with 10 minutes of cardio, then one hour to one and half hours of strength training. In addition I went to dance classes for an hour each week where the dance was for performance so it can be intense.

You know what? Even by doing all of that I only lose a bit of body fat here and there. (I end up hovering around 60-63 kilos which is around 132 pounds compared to being 68-70kgs during exam periods where I don't have as much time to do all of this and I just grab what I can to fill myself so I can go do my assignments). My stomach never became flat even at 60kgs. I did quite a lot of physical exercise so there were nights where I felt tired, and wanted to go to bed.

Ironically even though I'm working to be more sexually appealing to women, even if someone liked me, there will be quite a few nights where I would probably feel too tired for sex, or my muscles are still aching from yesterday and I wouldn't have to have sex when I already feel sore, or I need to go study cause I've been spending my other time at the gym, in the studio or out and about doing other self maintenance stuff.

There was a time I almost vomited after my cardio session because I turned up the intensity so much. I finally understood Chris Evan's statement about wanting to vomit after his gym sessions sometimes when he is training for the role of Captain America. I still sometimes feel hungry at lectures, sometimes my stomach would gurgle, and ever since trying to get into some part time modelling gigs I have to take it more seriously now cause there's money to be made.

[reboot]

... (I would like to add in some no sugar low fat greek yoghurt for breakfast but I never found a brand I liked, on....

Not to derail, but you can make yogurt really easily: http://www.turkishcookbook.com/2006/05/yogurt.php

[caliseivy]

My sympathies to you, RBS, I know the feelings of shame over weight and eating all too well.
My personal opinion: if your regimen is resulting in headaches and exhaustion it's definitely not something you should be doing, and it's not something that's sustainable long-term what with the headaches and exhaustion and all.
Since I have a hard time exercising and know genetically there's only so far I could ever possibly go, I have to come at the issue from the angle of trying to just accept myself and fuck everyone else's opinion that I'm too fat; I could drop down to what the accepted weight for me is but what do I have to give up for it? What do I gain? This isn't perfect, I still have trouble accepting myself and on rare days just want to sit in a corner and cry, but if I have to make myself miserable and sick to be smaller, would that really be better?

I'm not saying you shouldn't exercise or eat healthy or anything like that, but maybe there's only so far that your body should go and still function normally, and if so, maybe it's beneficial to challenge people's opinions on your weight and what you eat rather than pushing yourself into physical and mental exhaustion? Actually, I've found that challenging people when they try to shame me makes me feel slightly better about myself and my right to exist as as I am despite what society is trying to tell me. I don't know if you already do so, but maybe vocalizing it might help you a bit too.

/end ramble.

[Conreezy]

Have you considered getting a trainer, RBS? Someone who can put some science and structure behind your workouts and/or dieting?

[Nerdator]

I'm not the most dedicated, but I've made it to the gym about once to twice a week for several months. Well, that was clearly not enough. About three weeks ago, I also started counting and cutting down my calories, to 1245 a day (with 2 cheat days.)
Well, after three weeks, I haven't lost any weight. In fact, I've gained. When I've asked for advice elsewhere on the web, the answer has always been that I'm not cutting enough calories, and that having 2 cheat days (where I go 300-500 calories over) is what's sabotaging me.

Unless you're absorbing carbon dioxide and water from the atmosphere (kudos if you do!), you can't be gaining weight. This is basic chemistry. And doing 300–500 more every once in a while won't break your progress, just slow it down. Could it be that you're actually not counting things right – maybe you're trusting packaging that has mistakes in it (not unheard of)?

Also here's something motivation-wise that's worked for me – stop weighing yourself. Ever. It quantifies your progress (and if you're really doing 1245, there will be progress), which has huge potential to destroy any wish to continue you might have, especially if the progress is not as fast as you'd like it to be. Plus it shifts your focus way too much towards the result, which makes creating the habit of managing the food you eat even harder.

I got burned weighing myself in the past. Now, after going from regular-fit L shirts (the size that had accompanied me all my adult life) to very comfortably wearing slim-fit S shirts in 5 months (4 months 1500 calories, 1 – 1300, light exercise at home 5–7 times a week), I haven't the slightest idea how many kilos I lost – and i couldn't give less of a crap, really.

[reboundstudent]

Unless you're absorbing carbon dioxide and water from the atmosphere (kudos if you do!), you can't be gaining weight. This is basic chemistry. And doing 300–500 more every once in a while won't break your progress, just slow it down. Could it be that you're actually not counting things right – maybe you're trusting packaging that has mistakes in it (not unheard of)?

Also here's something motivation-wise that's worked for me – stop weighing yourself. Ever. It quantifies your progress (and if you're really doing 1245, there will be progress), which has huge potential to destroy any wish to continue you might have, especially if the progress is not as fast as you'd like it to be. Plus it shifts your focus way too much towards the result, which makes creating the habit of managing the food you eat even harder.

I got burned weighing myself in the past. Now, after going from regular-fit L shirts (the size that had accompanied me all my adult life) to very comfortably wearing slim-fit S shirts in 5 months (4 months 1500 calories, 1 – 1300, light exercise at home 5–7 times a week), I haven't the slightest idea how many kilos I lost – and i couldn't give less of a crap, really.

Dude, this? Really not helpful. This is exactly what I was talking about.... the double whammy of not only failing to lose weight, but then having it suggested that I am either a liar, a moron, or a mathematical impossibility. This is not my first, second, or even seventh attempt to lose weight; I have been very diligent about tracking meals. I am also not just eating things out of packages; I am either eating meals prepared at restaurants (Panera, Chipotle) which have verified calorie counts, or using the MyFitnessPal Calorie Calculator to determine calories based on recipes. If I'm unsure about calories, I always round up. And yet I am clearly gaining weight.

Even if my calorie counting was slightly off, with all of the exercise I do (which is on top of 1-2 daily "light" walks) should allow for that margin of error.

You lost weight. Congrats to you. But, frankly, it sounds like you have an easier time than me doing so. I am sick to death of this idea that losing weight is so easy, only morons/liars can't do it.

[reboundstudent]

Have you considered getting a trainer, RBS? Someone who can put some science and structure behind your workouts and/or dieting?

No, they are ridiculously expensive. And given what I've seen online, they've probably just contradict everything anyway and leave me even more frustrated.

[nearly_takuan]

Have you considered getting a trainer, RBS? Someone who can put some science and structure behind your workouts and/or dieting?

No, they are ridiculously expensive. And given what I've seen online, they've probably just contradict everything anyway and leave me even more frustrated.

Check Groupon from time to time; I don't even have "health and fitness" as an interest but they'll still sometimes send me deals for like six fifteen-minute consultations with a trainer or nutritionist for $30, which to me doesn't seem so bad.

But yeah, the health industry is such that it's a mess of contradictions and it's way easier to find correlations between $behavior and $result than cause-effect relationships. Rather like a certain other subject we sometimes discuss in these forums, no? I'd say do what keeps you healthy and never mind what makes you "look healthy" to the rest of the world...but that might be unfair/privileged of me to say.

[Conreezy]

Have you considered getting a trainer, RBS? Someone who can put some science and structure behind your workouts and/or dieting?

No, they are ridiculously expensive. And given what I've seen online, they've probably just contradict everything anyway and leave me even more frustrated.

Well, I can't speak to the finance problem. That's a legit issue for everyone. When my wife and I went to one income, though, our training was the first thing we put into the new budget. If changing your lifestyle to promote weight loss is your goal, I'd highly recommend entering into some sort of program and skipping the generic Globo-gyms of the world. Depending on your interests, this could mean a physically intense martial art, a Ninja Warrior style gym, a weightlifting gym (like the Olympic sport of weightlifting), Crossfit, gymnastics, whatever.

Personally, I'm a Crossfitter. Yeah, I know, there are lots of douchey Crossfit people, and I'm not necessarily recommending it to you, but what hooked me was the structure. The workouts are programmed for me by people with good training (I vetted them). Just that is a huge weight off of my shoulders. Also, it's a sport in and of itself, which means there are always different techniques to learn, always new goals to achieve, always something to keep my attention.

[reboundstudent]

Well, I can't speak to the finance problem.  That's a legit issue for everyone.  When my wife and I went to one income, though, our training was the first thing we put into the new budget.  If changing your lifestyle to promote weight loss is your goal, I'd highly recommend entering into some sort of program and skipping the generic Globo-gyms of the world.  Depending on your interests, this could mean a physically intense martial art, a Ninja Warrior style gym, a weightlifting gym (like the Olympic sport of weightlifting), Crossfit, gymnastics, whatever.  

Personally, I'm a Crossfitter. Yeah, I know, there are lots of douchey Crossfit people, and I'm not necessarily recommending it to you, but what hooked me was the structure.  The workouts are programmed for me by people with good training (I vetted them).  Just that is a huge weight off of my shoulders.  Also, it's a sport in and of itself, which means there are always different techniques to learn, always new goals to achieve, always something to keep my attention.  

My friends do Crossfit and seem to enjoy it. But they mentioned that their classes are like $200/month. If I had an extra $200 in the budget, I'd spend that on therapy, the lack of which could legitimately kill me if I have any depressive episode.

I was a black belt in the martial art I studied in college, and was really looking forward to training for my black sash when I moved back here to the states. However, the only dojang in the area required a $2,000 down payment and then $150 a month, which I've found seems to actually be the cheap price.

I admit, now I'm just getting frustrated, because it really does seem like unless you make physical fitness the #1, 2 and 3 priority in life, dropping even just 20 pounds seems impossible...

It also doesn't help that I read an article linked to Jezebel today about a woman with a "fat fetish" (she herself hates the term.) She mentioned in the article that she's my exact size (5'1", 135 pounds, size 6ish, bra 34DD) and over half the comments were about how she isn't allowed to call herself fat because supposedly, she's not.

Meanwhile I have my yearly insurance physical coming up, and at 135 pounds, I'm considered "overweight/obese" and thus have to pay a higher premium. And I stumbled across a forum today in which guys were detailing exactly how disgusting and fat any 5' woman over 100 pounds is.

So, in conclusion, fuck my life in every direction.

[Enail]

And I stumbled across a forum today in which guys were detailing exactly how disgusting and fat any 5' woman over 100 pounds is.

WTF!? When I was 5', as a teenager who was considered thin-to-skinny - like, I had to carry lots of change in my pockets if I wanted to pass the height/weight ratio to be allowed to donate blood (and I'm of a fairly delicate build, so my weight isn't surprisingly high for my appearance-of-weight or anything)-  I weighed 105]. I kind of suspect those guys don't actually know how much people weigh and they've just picked a number to represent what they imagine is right for a woman of the figure they prefer.

[Wondering]

Yeah, I am 5'. My best weight ever, when I was in college, was 104. Those guys are clueless or jerks. Or both!

I'm 138 now. I'd like to lose some, but eh. Can't really be tasked to care too much at this point.

One thing about nutrition counts both on packages and at restaurants is that, IIRC, the FDA allows them to be off by up to 20%. Which is a huge margin and makes accurate carb counting for me really difficult. Places like Panera, Chipotle, Subway, where they make food for you and it's not pre-packaged are going to fluctuate more than a place like McDonalds where everything is exactly the same every time. Not trying to say you're dumb or counting wrong or anything like that at all. Just something to keep in mind about how trustworthy that nutrition information is that we who read the labels put so much trust in. I find it incredibly frustrating myself.

[Robjection]

It also doesn't help that I read an article linked to Jezebel today about a woman with a "fat fetish" (she herself hates the term.) She mentioned in the article that she's my exact size (5'1", 135 pounds, size 6ish, bra 34DD) and over half the comments were about how she isn't allowed to call herself fat because supposedly, she's not.

Meanwhile I have my yearly insurance physical coming up, and at 135 pounds, I'm considered "overweight/obese" and thus have to pay a higher premium. And I stumbled across a forum today in which guys were detailing exactly how disgusting and fat any 5' woman over 100 pounds is.

I suspect this may be a case of (these) guys not being able to properly visualise a woman given a height and a weight. They don't connect the numbers to actual appearances.

[nearly_takuan]

I want to preface this by saying body-shaming in all directions is terrible, and actually Twiggy claims (and I have no reason to doubt*) that she ate and exercised more-or-less normally and this was just her most natural shape, but...


112 lbs.

Those dudes have no idea what they're talking about.

(*I was literally an exactly 98-pound weakling in high school and early college; the "Freshman fifteen" everyone kept talking about didn't hit until my junior year, and it had more to do with a final burst of height and hair than any other effects of the additional exercise or food I was getting. So I am inclined to be very sympathetic to "this is just how my body looks/weighs/behaves unless I go to extreme lengths.")

[Nerdator]

Mod note: Posting removed.

[jcorozza]

Mod note: Posting removed.

Um, wow, this seems really uncalled for.

Especially since there is no simple answer for weight loss, since everyone's body works different.  Some people, like my dad, and guys I've date, can exercise a little more often, and eat a little less, and weight seems to melt off them.  This is not most people. And if it were this simple, do you think we'd have this huge weight loss industry?  Why would we still have so many different diets out there (most of which don't seem to work for most people)?

[Chickpea Sarada]

Mod note: Posting removed.

That was totally uncalled for, Nerdator.  Not cool.

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