Hello! I am a 26F 5’7” with a SW of 207 lbs and a CW of 145 lbs, a change which has taken place over the past 18 months or so. I have officially reached a point where I have been slowly increasing my calories back up to maintenance with the hope that I will start maintaining between about 140-145 lbs. So, essentially, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at and have started to actually notice some negative effects of weight loss (gaunt looking face and shrinking boobs) that are affecting me enough that I know I, at a minimum, am in need of a prolonged maintenance break.
However, I am absolutely terrified to switch into maintenance. I have lost a significant amount of weight before and gained it all back and I am so fearful that the same could happen again. So I was hoping I could share a few of my concerns:
1) Back in December, when I was already in a normal BMI range, I got a Dexa Scan that told me I still have a 39% body fat percentage. So I am the dreaded “skinny fat” now. Because I know this, I am having a really hard time convincing myself to switch to maintenance, as to me I mentally know I’m still physiologically considered obese. Plus, the Dexa scan guy told me I should keep losing. Logically, I do know my other option is to build muscle, which leads me to point 2
2) Thus far in my journey, I have pretty much avoided the gym. I feel fatigued all of the time and I’ve been having some issues with motivation recently. I do know I need to start weight lifting now, though. I am so close to having a consult with a personal trainer just to learn the ropes of it all. But again, I’m scared. I’m scared that lifting weights will cause me to gain weight. Even if I logically know it’s just fluid retention, etc. I’m scared it will send me into a mental spiral and panic. I’m sure I’ll just learn to deal with it, but I’m scared.
3) I am also scared to start with cardio exercises. I’m scared that I will get too used to an increased TDEE to the point where if I ever got sick or injured, my weight would pile back on. Rapidly. This is exactly what happened to me when I got long COVID and could no longer be physically active, and I just don’t want to have my weight be that dependent on physical activity. Again, I know it sounds crazy but to me it feels logical.
4) Last thing. When in a maintenance phase, how do you ever make up for “bad days?” I have been very forgiving with myself using CICO if I go over by a bit, and I just tell myself to get back to the deficit the next day.
But in maintenance, there is no deficit in the following days. So every time I go over my calorie limit in maintenance, I feel like I am packing on weight. Which makes me feel even more restricted even though my daily allowance is higher. And this restricted feeling makes me want to overeat. I didn’t have this restricted feeling when I was in a deficit. It’s just weird.
If you took the time to read through this, thank you. If anyone has any guidance for me or experience that I can learn from, I would be really appreciative because at this point I feel pretty overwhelmed about how to approach maintenance.
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from loseit - Lose the Fat https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/1k5tqbp/i_need_help_sorting_out_some_troublesome_thoughts/
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