How many times have you lost the weight? page 3

[sbhikes]

I don't count calories. The only time I did was the first time when I got my weight to 108lbs. I don't remember anything from my American History class, or any class really. I was too busy recalculating the calories of everything I had eaten each day.

All I've ever wanted was to be able to eat to my appetite like any normal person can.

[Rusty]

Like quelsen, I lost a huge amount of weight with hCG. I started at 325 a year ago, and am at 195 now. From a size 30 (60 inch waist) to a size 14/16 36 inch waist, with another 50 lbs to go.

I have done many "diets". One I made up, eating 6 Taco Bell bean burritos a day (how that for a dumb idea!). I've tried starvation (like most women), Slim Fast, Mayo Clinic diet (like Atkins), and many, many tries at SAD. I have done the gym rat thing, swimming (the best exercise overall), and at home calisthetics with the Wii.

The one thing I finally figured out (at 45 yo!) is that I cannot eat what "everyone else" does. I went Paleo after two long rounds of hCG, and have maintained my weight. Grains, legumes, milk products, sugar, make my body go apeshit and make me super fat, a real problem, 'cause it's a sort of rule of thumb, that if you start to gain weight back, it will come back with even more than you started with!

I have always been a fat person, but now I am the same size I was in JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL! The damage has been done, but with proper eating habits, I am living life again!

I am still working on losing more weight, but only through Paleo eating. But, if I don't, I am very happy to not be the fattest person in the room!

[canio6]

I consider losing 'the weight' to be hitting goal. I have done that once. Sure, I have lost 20 pounds here and there and gained it back, but that is just weight not 'the weight'. I lost 110 pounds before joining the Army on a combo of WW, Atkins, South Beach, doing my own thing + exercise. I gained the weight back over 8 years. I'm losing it again now so will let you know when I get there again. Here's to time number two!

[Sandra in BC]

To the best of my recollection, 4. Not including now.

Once after high school, once in my 20s, once after each kid in my 30s. 1 on irresponsible partying and calorie restriction, 1 on Jenny Craig, 2 on WW and breasfeeding. Clearly none of those work for the long term unless you are "on" them at all times.

So now, without weighing, measuring or counting, or any prepackaged food or miracle shakes -- eating t-bones, butter and bacon -- here I am 2 pants sizes and 2 bra sizes smaller than 14 months ago. And I'm not on a diet, so I dont have to be "on" anything.

[meeshar]

Oh goodness, many times. My first diet was when I was 7, I was in TOPS, which was kind-of like Weight Watchers. I've always been a "big girl". I wore "pretty plus" (husky for girls) clothing and then women's clothing. Every summer during jr. high/high school I did one crash diet or another (chicken and rice, Slim-Fast, etc.) and usually lost 10-15 lbs. but put it back on as soon as I started eating cafeteria food again. I lost 45 lbs. just before my wedding 10 years ago on the oh-so-healthy diet of ephedra pills and backwards Slim-Fast (I worked nights). Then I gained all of that back, plus some, and 2 years later I found myself weighing 280 lbs. and suddenly I wasn't "fat but healthy" anymore--my knee was about to go, I had high cholesterol, hypertension, borderline type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and infertility. I had gastric bypass that year and lost 130 lbs. Still, the weight eventually crept back on. I managed to keep myself from topping 200 again (so still 100+ lbs. down from surgery) but losing/keeping weight off while eating CW was still very difficult. (not to mention the health problems) I've lost 25 lbs. since going Primal, and need to lose another 30. And the best part is, it's not really a diet. I do have to count calories though, because I have the metabolism of a slug and gain weight if I eat more than 1500 calories a day.

[Shelli]

My "crazy diet plan" back in the teenage days was a couple weeks of eating nothing but a small diet Coke and an order of Chicken Mcnuggets each day. Nothing else. This in an effort to get below 150, which is the least I've ever weighed in my adult life. I thought I should be 130 max. My poor body was just trying to tell me something and I wasn't listening.

[Ayla2010]

whenever i gained weight back, i had no idea how many calories i would be eating. i was like an addict. in fact, given the kind of binging i used to do, i wouldn't dispute an addict diagnosis at all. and the food was always the very SAD things that people point to when talking about weight gain: pizza, ice cream, cookies, chips, chips, chips. comfort foods were my things, and usually ones that we easy to hold and eat, rather than eat from a plate.

Yes this.
Then I would try diets, counting points etc, and be starving so end up bingeing some more.

[cobalamin]

I never understood how people became overweight... didn't you see the stomach get larger under your nose? or feel the stomach rolls touching each other?

I am not trying to be offensive. I don't understand since I've never been overweight but then again.. I've never had the money to buy too much food growing up.

[Ayla2010]

I never understood how people became overweight... didn't you see the stomach get larger under your nose? or feel the stomach rolls touching each other?

I am not trying to be offensive. I don't understand since I've never been overweight but then again.. I've never had the money to buy too much food growing up.

Don't try to understand then. I think you need to have been overweight to understand.
And OMG do not ever say that first sentence again, highly offensive.

And have you read the Primal Blueprint book? That will give you an idea of some of the reasons people become overweight.

[sbhikes]

There have been times in my life when the weight gain was so rapid I could see the difference in the mirror from one day to the next but I still could not stop it. Today I read this whole website of some guy who purposefully tried to gain about 20lbs in a month. Oh my god, the amount of food he ate was quite incredible and yet he struggled to put on the weight. I could put on 30lbs in a week eating like he did. Of course, none of it would be muscle.