Reaching my weight loss goal.?

30 pounds in 4 months is too drastic. The best rate of body fat loss is half a pound a week (1,750 calories of exercising). 8.5lbs in 4 months (not taking into account muscle mass gain, which is very good but heavy and water/waste fluctuations which are temporary and therefore irrelevant).

If you sent your metabolism down the drain by not eating enough, you better watch out now or you’ll regain all the weight that you lost if you start eating normally...and when I say “normally” I mean that you can eat your mom’s lasagna, have some chocolate and a cake once in a while so they don’t become forbidden obsessions. It does not “truly feel great” because you feel deprived of the food that you like. Each pound of body fat is 3,500 calories of exercise...30 pounds = 105,000 calories = a weekly average of 6,125 calories over 4 months (105,000 divided by 120 days multiplied by 7 days).

If you need a couple of days of rest a week, I doubt that you exercised for 1,225 calories 5 days a week for 4 months to lose 30lbs of body fat. Then, in order to achieve 30lbs of weight loss, you did not eat enough (under your BMR...that must have made your exercising quite challenging) and now you have to deal with a lower metabolism as your body adapted to lower caloric intake and lowered it (marvelous adaptable system, isn’t it?). What bothers me is your saying “in the past 4 months I have lost over 30 pounds from changing my eating habits and exercising.

It truly feels great...” Then other people could get the idea that it’s the right thing to do...just eat healthy, exercise and lose tons of weight and feel great. Now, I would have liked you to say “in the past 4 months, I made a huge mistake, I lost weight too fast, 30 pounds instead of 8 or 9 pounds, from changing my eating habits and exercising but I did not eat enough so I sent my metabolism down the drain and now I cannot eat normally without gaining all the weight back”. Then you would help people not make the same mistake as you did.

Do not despair. I also have a low metabolism because I could not eat much for a few months but I can still enjoy lasagna or pasta in all forms, chocolate, cake (if I make it), or whatever I want. Unlike you, I got my low metabolism because of a disease so I don’t have to deal with the guilt of having done that to myself...I guess, maybe smack yourself in the head and learn from your mistakes.

You just have to exercise more when enjoying high calorie food. Lasagna is a form of pasta, which you need for energy to exercise anyway. It’s a healthy meal, usually with meat (protein), veggies (onions, tomatoes...antioxidants), cheese (protein, calcium), herbs (limitless benefit there).

A big plate of lasagna is really only 400 calories and if you have to choose between that and 100 calories veggies, you need to reevaluate your caloric requirements. I used to eat cookies and just exercise more. I could eat as many cookies as I wanted.

Now I do not eat cookies anymore. I look at one and it’s like “gosh, I’m going to have to bike 2 more miles”...after my regular 25 miles workout. That’s a big deterrent.

I still eat Girl Scouts cookies (now) and candies around Halloween but the rest of the year I don’t even get cravings for those. About your “carefree days of munching”...you don’t need to munch when you eat good satisfying healthy meals. If you exercise A LOT, you might need a snack in the afternoon, between lunch and dinner, after 2 and a half hour of exercising and before another 2 and a half hour of exercising.

Why cannot you eat a healthy pbj sandwich?!? Peanut butter is good...peanuts = protein and the good kind of dietary fats. Jelly/jam is fruits and sugar (carbs) that you need for energy (you cannot weight train properly without a high carbs meal about 2 hours before).

Eating healthy is about avoiding the unhealthy food as much as possible. Once you stay away from fast food (any restaurant food, really), packaged and boxed food (except for bread, pasta and rice, if you don’t make your own bread/pasta), canned food, prepared and processed food, then you’re left with the fruits/veggies, whole wheat food (the brown kind of bread, pasta), brown rice, legumes (beans, peas, lentils...), lean meat, low fat dairies, eggs and the good kind of oil (olive, avocado, nuts, fish). You can have any of the bad stuff occasionally so they don’t become forbidden obsessions.

Have some French fries, or one slice of pizza (with your favorite veggies) or a cookie, once in a while. Just don’t do it every day and watch out for portion sizes. Also the cooking method can double the calorie content of a meal, so learn about healthy cooking without having to add extra fats, like using a steamer (using water), a rotisserie (using heat and herbs), a slow cooker (using homemade broth and herbs), a pressure cooker, a grill….

Pat yourself on the back first of all, congrats. Second, just be smart. No sodas, no huge servings of desserts.

If you keep your current workout schedule, you should be able to add 200-300 calories back into your diet to maintain your weight. Don't obsess, but just keep track of your weight. If you find you've gained weight more than your daily fluctuation, be a bit stricter on your diet for a week or two and it should come off again!

Good luck.

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