š how im losingĀ ā¤4lb a week š
firstly: on GOD i am not endorsing eating disorders and/or disordered eating. itās not funny, itās not quirky, itās not trendy. itās fucking horrifying and it eats away at your soul and mind.Ā
secondly: i do not work out regularly, and definitely no cardio. i am currently working on my arms so i do lift some light weights, but truthfully i amĀ lazy and not exercising as much as i really should be (!!) that being said, i live in a city and when i miss transit or am too late to wait for a bus or train or hang out with friends, i end up doing a lot of walking. also, iām currently in a school thatās very narrow and tall, and end up walking up and down stairs at least a dozen times a day.
thirdly: i am 5ā²5ā³ and 15, and naturally have a pretty decent metabolism. not as good as it could be, but definitely not as bad as it could be, either. i have not purged or fasted in about three months, and started dieting again towards the end of august, and since then have lost about 18 pounds in the one-ish month since then. i am not restricting per se, but make it a habit not to go over 1200 cal a day at most. though honestly most days i donāt go over about 800. notĀ a strict restriction at all.
š how iām losing about 4lb a week !Ā š
š i track everything i eat! this means barcodes and a kitchen scale are a must for me. i eat a lot of homecooked meals, and scan the barcodes of the ingredients used to track. this means if i scramble eggs, i carefully measure out the butter for the pan, etc. if i canāt track it, i wonāt eat it.
š i donāt eat rice or pasta. this used to be a staple in my diet, and i really, really love them! iām on a low-carb diet (anything over 100g a day makes me nervous, never, never, neverĀ over 130 at all !!) and in the beginning, it really was hard. my family makes a lot of stir-fry and rice based dishes, but what helps is seperating the two ā for example, the meat and vegetables (always tracked !) cook in the wok, while the ricemaker for the rest of my family who eats the rice on the side, and they mix it in themselves. but after a while, rice and pasta and other starchy foods just arenāt that appealing right now. definitely a food i look forward to eating once i hit my gw!!Ā
š i meal prep! iām currently a student, and school lunches always give me so much anxiety because thereās really no way to track or even know whatās going on in them. most days, i buy gluten-free whole wheat bread from trader joes (120 cal for 2 slices) for sandwiches, and cold cuts that are in the range of 40-70 cal per serving. personally, i always only add one serving size (1-2 slices, depending on the cold cut) of the meat. i toast the bread, but do not add butter or mayo. this means that most days my lunch averages around 190-240 calories, depending on what i add or donāt.
š speaking of, i never, never, never add mayo or other condomients if i can help it. ketchup is the only condomient i like, and even then i carefully watch the amount i add. i have a soft spot for hot sauce (though i honestly havenāt had a reason to eat it since iāve started dieting), and almost all hot sauces have 0 calories. still, the carb content can add up, and so can the sodium if you count that, so itās always important to track !Ā
š even if i know something has 0 calories, i still track it.Ā
š speaking of! diet soda is a favorite. my go-to drink will always be water, but 0 cal seltzers and diet sodas are also amazing if you have the chance to treat yourself. always double-check to make sure there are no carbs, no calories, etc. !! i also always order my drink myself in case i am with a friend that accidently mishears me and orders a regular, or a family member that thinks iām being snotty about my drink order and buys me a regular.Ā
š research low calorie snack options! if you are hungry, eat, but make sure you know exactly what you are putting in your system. personally, some of my favorite snacks are: kosher dill pickles (0 cal!), rice cakes (i have two brands i switch between, 40 cal. and 90 cal. respectively!), brocolli (about 31 cal. in a cup chopped), clementines (cuties have 40 cal. per clementine), grapes (each indiviual grape has about 2 calories in it, or a cup is about 62 calories), yogurt (chobani fruit flavored is 110 cal. per container), tomatoes (about 24-30 cal. per whole tomato), etc. if you are hungry, definitely eat! just be aware of what you are eating.
š if you chew gum/suck on mints, track it. as a sometimes gum chewer, i know and i understand that gum sticks are usually like, less than 5 calories and about 1 carb each, but still, iād say track it. the same way youād track condiments, little things can add up.
š speaking of natural foods like fruits and veggies ā itās always a range. thereās no barcode on nature! i always round up to be on the safe side. so if i put aside a cup of grapes, for example, on my app i will track that i ate 1.3 cup just for a little wiggle room.
š eggs are a super food. the average egg has about 70-80 calories in it, and almost 0 carbs. boiled eggs with a little salt are really good, scrambled/fried eggs are really good (watch the butter used on the pan!!). once you start adding things to your eggs like cheese or excessive butter, etc. is when you will see the calories in these meals go up.
š avoid eating out! now, that doesnāt mean donāt hang out with friends or go out with friends or your partner or family, it just means be cautious. for example, over the weekend i hung out with my friends, and we all went to chipotle. i did not order any food there because while chipotle is so good, a single burrito there is enough calories for an entire day. instead, i got a soda cup and filled it with coke zero (they were out of diet coke, but coke zero also has 0 calories and 0 carbs). we still had fun, they both enjoyed their meals, and so did i!Ā
š this is for people who do drugs/drink/smoke ā personally, i donāt mess with nicotine at all. however, i have heard from people who do that itās an appetite suppressant. now, in saying that, please not iām not endorsing nicotine/smoking cigarettes/juuling at all !! please donāt, there are other suppressants you can use if you want to look into that. alcohol has a lotĀ of calories and carbs in it, so i would recommend not drinking at all if you are looking to keep your calorie intake at a minimum. the thing about marijuana that you should be wary about is that it can cause cravings (āmunchiesā lol haha) after smoking it. having an edible of course means tracking the calories in whatever the pot was in. for example, if you have a weed brownie youād have to track the brownie, if you had a candy edible youād have to track the candy. if you want to ingest marijuana into your system, i would reccommend smoking or vaping it (though, be careful, with all this news and drama of people reportedly dying or becoming very ill from vaping illegal carts!!).
š you needĀ to eat breakfast. breakfast is the most important meal of the day. there are low-cal breakfast options, and even though i am really, really bad at doing this myself, iād argue that if you were to eat a larger calorie meal, breakfast would be the meal to do it. you need the energy to get up and at them!!Ā
š be careful while weighing yourself. personally, i weigh myself at least a few times daily, but i also am very mentally ill and itās an impulse and a thing i need to feel safe and secure in my body. that being said, weigh yourself as much as you are safe to do, but i would not record every little change as your weight fluctuates during the day !!! to update your weight, either for medical reports, fitness apps, whatever, i would recommend waiting at the very least once a week on a scale that is not your own. you can weigh yourself at home as many times as you want, but to update your weight formally, i would do it at the minimum once a week, not on your scale. at a doctorās or dietitianās office would be ideal, as they have the big, clunky, very accurate scales (you know the types!!) and are writing that down for medical purposes anyway. however, i know that not everyone has the opportunity or previldge to have access to those once a week. alternatively, if itās okay with a friend, i would use their scale once a week at the very least, especially if it is one of those modern ones with a screen that display the exact number down to the decimal. however, donāt freak out if you canāt weigh yourself at least once a week to update! and donāt freak out if you weigh yourself at home and the scale says that youāre a decimal point or a pound heavier or lighter. scales can be affected by water weight, sodium intake, weight of your clothes or jewelery, or even whether or not you have pooped that day, lol. something i personally struggled with was weighing myself at the beginning of the day and seeing a number, then weighing myself again at the end of the day and seeing that number had grown by a few pounds. remember: that is not humanly possible. humans will notĀ gain whole pounds in one day. i would freak out and cry because i thought that somehow i had gained 4 or 5 pounds in less than 24 hours ā this is not possible. do not worry. weighing yourself at home is to see the range you are currently in.
š though i havenāt binged in months, or even have the urge to really, truly binge, i remember that when i would want to, iād watch mukbangs on youtube. part of it was to watch the food, but a larger part was to watch these people shove thousands and thousands of calories into their mouths in one sitting. i love trisha paytas, but imagining the amount of calories and carbs she would be eating in those videos would always make me suddenlyā¦ not hungry, lol.Ā
š even now, i watch shows like my 600 pound life or supersize vs. superskinny, or those youtubers like amberlynn reid who post frequent mukbang videos. i donāt want people like her to satisify binge urges, but because itās so gross watching her eat all that food, mentally counting the calories sheās eating. my 600 pound life can get ghraphic, though, with gore or cuts, so do be warned !!
š for yall with ovaries ā donāt freak out during your period. personally, whenever iām on mine, i tend to bloat. i donāt binge, because obviously iām still tracking, but i always freak out and get scared because i feel larger than usual. but once my period ends and i stop bloating, iām reminded that it was just that. when youāre on your period, and if you bloat during your period, you will feel larger. donāt take it too seriously !Ā
š donāt expect to hit your goal weight immediately. things take time. but, i assure you, if you are counting your calories and staying under your limit, you willĀ lose weight. since starting my diet, iāve been noticing things about my body which i love. iām starting to see my collarbones again, and thatās causing extreme, undescribable happiness. iām begginning to see that diamond first-steps-of-a-thigh-gap between my legs. my forearms donāt crease when i hold it to my chest or press it to my arm. my jawline is slowly, but surely coming back. even my stomach, which is my major problem area (though personally i feel like my whole body is my problem area lol !!!) begin to shrink in size. when i lay down, though my stomach still has a bunch of fat, especially around the lower part, i see and feel my hipbones. clothes that i saved for when i get skinny still donāt fit, but they fit better than they did before. this morning, i tried on this skirt that i saved, saw that, yeah, it didnāt fit yet, but i remember thinking to myself,Ā āalmost there!ā and smiled. itās important to be positive. donāt get me wrong, iām not mentally well, and i have a horribleĀ relationship with my body. i mean, itās funny because this morning at school i had the worst body dysmorphic attack of the school year, but there are moments where you will just beam because youāre doing it. youāll start to have to tighten your belt. youāll get there. but you have to be careful. this phrase has been said time and time again, but iāll say it again: you want to be skinny and alive, not skinny and dead.
š keep your head up. stay safe. youāre doing so well!!
kianamaiart
blakekathryn
areudirty
tangentwithtanner
