Here’s how my weight loss went:
I was at around 265-270lbs and getting bigger every day when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
I don’t have to live to eat, so to speak, so I took pretty drastic measures to lose the weight. I stopped all sugared drinks. I stopped all alcohol. I stopped all processed foods. I stopped all cheese. I stopped all restaurant food.
I drank water and plain black tea (hot and cold), I ate salads with nothing but oil and vinegar, and fresh fruit, and plain oatmeal, and plain shredded wheat cereal, and I measured/weighed every last thing that went in my mouth.
A year to the day later…I’d lost just under a hundred pounds. It wasn’t the smartest or healthiest way to do it, but it worked for me, because I told myself food from now on is for staying alive, not for enjoying, and let’s see how you look a year from now. I also exercised vigorously every day, and because I was diabetic, I was monitoring my glucose levels at home several times a day, and my A1C every three months.
As soon as that happened, I started introducing some of those things back to my diet. I’d have one Ores, not six like I used to do. I’d have two slices of pizza, not the entire 18-inch pizza like I used to do, I’d have two slices of bacon, not the half-pound I used to eat. I’d have responsible amounts of alcohol at the weekends only, instead of two or three drinks every night and twice that on weekends. I never went back to sugared drinks.
Lo and behold, over time, I slowly put weight back on. I went from 175, up and up, until I went a little over 200, and that’s when I saw my glucose numbers change, so I figure out pretty quickly that I could stay under 200 and be ok, so from that point forward, for the next 18 years or so, I did just enough to maintain my weight at around 195. I was determined to get every pound I was entitled to.
Oh, I’m somewhere between 5’9” and 5’10”.
Then, in 2020, my doc told me my numbers were back in the danger zone, which surprised me, because I was at about 195, and she wanted me to go on meds, but I begged off three months to lose some weight, and in three months, I managed to drop 20lbs by cutting my alcohol way down (that’s why MrsT and I split beers to this day), exercising more, and eating what I want, but back to smaller portions.
Since 2020, I’ve kept my weight between 175-180, so I’m not on meds. Yet. I think as I get older, that day is coming, regardless of my weight.
Unfortunately, there’s no way MrsT would ever be able to follow that drastic a diet. It was easy for me, because I just stopped eating most everything, but she still insists things taste good and she still insists (too much, I think
on variety. Where WW helps her is that it eliminates tracking carbs (and the associated fiber), calories, fat (food vs bad), and even portion size. She just has to follow one overall point system, and it gives her the serving size right there, so while she does have to measure and weigh things (until it becomes second nature), she doesn’t have to go out and research what a serving size of steak is, and what a serving size of potatoes are, etc.
Also, she gets rewarded for healthy behavior, which appeals to her intense sense of competition. Anything with points that can be accumulated, she’s going to do anything she can to accumulate those points. To that end, a woman who previously moved from the bed to the lounge chair and back to the bed, is now walking a couple of miles a day, every day, rain or shine.
. I apologise if I come off a little rude sometimes in this thread, having an eating disorder doesn't make this easy. I try to control the way I respond as much as possible, but it's a very loaded subject for me.