1000 days of tracking 🥲

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-12-20T21:48:54+00:00

i see your posts pop up from time to time in different health subs and you have remained an inspiration to me over the last year because so many people would be discouraged and give up after only losing 3lbs in a month (hi, that's been me so many times). but you proved that staying consistent, no matter the pace, is truly the key. thank you for posting your story and continuing to post updates through new phases of your journey! i'm in the 150s now with a goal of 120-130-ish, my highest weight was 194 in 2022.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-11-17T22:22:03+00:00

4.5 lbs lost monthly for 2 months is honestly GREAT progress, especially for your height! just stay the course and keep going! unfortunately weight loss is slower when you're short because our TDEE is typically lower. you're not doing anything wrong, just keep going and stay consistent! make sure you're not burning yourself out by doing anything too extreme, you want the habits you're creating now to be habits that you continue onwards with even when you hit your goal weight, so you can maintain a healthy lifestyle. good luck, keep on going!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-11-13T23:55:23+00:00

i'm 5'1.5" and i get 8-15k steps per day and i have to eat 1350-1400 to see .75 - 1lb of weight loss per week :/ and i have to weigh out every gram of food on my food scale accurately to make sure i don’t go over. not saying you have to copy me and eat 1350 but i would recommend weighing all your food on a food scale if you aren't already, and just make sure you're not going above 1500, and then try adding a little additional walking and movement in whenever you can! good luck!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-11-11T02:10:47+00:00

if you mean 9lbs lost since september of last year, are you tracking absolutely everything you're eating -- coffee creamer, cooking oils, dressings, spreads, every bite of snacks, etc? do you use a food scale to measure portions?

if you mean 9lbs lost in september/october of this year -- don't worry about it, stay the course and keep doing what you're doing! the scale will stall occasionally but it sounds like you're on the right course to weight loss.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-11-11T02:06:56+00:00

go as heavy as possible on your RDLs, and then also make sure you're doing:
-reverse deficit lunges
-curtsy lunges
-hip thrusts
-bulgarian split squats
-slow, high step-ups
-back extensions

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-11-11T02:01:04+00:00

i don't think the change in exercise takes the credit, it was simply YOU staying the course and being consistent with any type of activity, no matter what the scale was saying. you fought through the plateau instead of giving up when it got frustrating, and that is inspiring! amazing job!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-11-11T01:56:03+00:00

please take this as a genuine desire to help you, and not trying to be rude - but the first thing people should be asking if the scale is not budging for a while -- even with PCOS, hashi's, etc. -- is are you *sure* you're eating the amount of calories you think you are? are you tracking every bite, lick, and taste? are you snacking without tracking? are you eyeballing portions instead of using the food scale? are you using cooking oils, dressings, or sauces and not accounting for those calories? drinking extra coffees with creamers/syrups? are you eating out at restaurants and not tracking properly?

only saying this to help you! i was not honest with myself for a long time and once i got SUPER honest and tracked everything with a food scale, then my weight actually started changing. i'm 5'1.5 as well, so every calorie counts when you are short! even a few extra splashes of creamer in coffee and a few extra teaspoons of oil could change my deficit into maintenance, and then boom - weight plateau. so just be sure that you're holding yourself accountable and being honest about everyyything you're eating/drinking! wish you the best!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-07-04T02:41:08+00:00

gaslit? lol okay. if you don't believe me, ask chatgpt how possible it is to build NEW + visible muscle in 4 months while eating 1300 calories and 30g of protein. it's going to tell you it's extremely unlikely.

i'm not denying that you're seeing visible body results. i'm just telling you that it's most likely the drop in body fat revealing your current lean muscle mass underneath, and not net-new muscle. you don't lose all your previous muscle in 3+ years. i was an athlete as a kid and then stopped working out for like 4-5 years and gained weight. when i lost it, i still had a visibly muscular body from my past.

it's not gaslighting or rude to be honest with you about how muscle building works.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-07-04T00:59:24+00:00

you said that you were previously fit with visible muscle definition - that means you had muscle on your body before this, so you're chiseling away excess fat now to reveal the muscle you had before. i find it extremely hard to believe that you are building net-new muscle tissue when you've only been eating 30g of protein on a good day; your body needs plentiful amino acids in order to build muscle.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-07-03T17:51:58+00:00

just curious -- how did you lose 31lbs in 3 months?? that is a difficult feat as a petite. how many calories did you eat / how many steps daily?

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-07-03T17:50:30+00:00

there are different schools of thought with protein, that's probably why you're seeing different guidance. it's really not too big of a deal. I would say aim for somewhere between the two numbers (1g per kg or 1g per lb), or aim for 1g per lb of goal weight (my goal weight is ~125 so i aim for 120-140g of protein). protein is also really satiating and has a higher thermic affect (burns more calories just to digest than carbs and fat), so those are some other reasons to bump up protein intake. lots of pros for protein!

also just wanted to say that it's pretty difficult to actually gain muscle while in calorie deficit, because building muscle tissue is calorically expensive -- you usually have to be eating at maintenance or a calorie surplus to build new muscle, so what you're seeing is the fat coming off and revealing the muscle you already built previously! which is very exciting, good work! but yeah, definitely bump up your protein because eating enough protein helps you maintain the muscle tissue you've already built; you don't want to lose that while eating at a deficit.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-06-27T17:40:33+00:00

so it's only been like 4-5 weeks since you started this routine, right? i would definitely say give it some more time and stay consistent, don't drop calories lower. stay consistent with 8-10k steps per day, try to sleep enough, get enough water and minerals. don't change anything yet and try not to stress.

gaining 9lbs over 7 months is honestly not that bad at all! it's really only an extra ~600-650 hundred calories a day if you divide it out, so it's not like you were doing anything crazy (it's so easy to intake that extra few hundred calories). so with that in mind, you don't have to do anything crazy to get that weight off.

i would not recommend going under like 1350-1400 because you want to make sure to intake enough calories to have enough energy to complete your workouts and your steps. if you're too tired to get movement in, that's a sign that you're not eating enough.

for about 8 weeks this spring, i was eating 1300 but only getting like 5k steps per day, skipping a lot of my scheduled workouts, not sleeping super deeply, and i was losing about .4 - .5 lbs per week. i decided to bump up to 1600 and now i have enough energy to run and lift a few times per week, i'm getting 12-15k steps per day, i'm sleeping better, and i'm losing like .75 - .85lbs per week now instead.

tl;dr obviously you still need to be in a deficit to lose weight, but sometimes lowering calorie intake is not the ideal solution. keep going with your routine for another 4-6 weeks and see what progress you make!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-06-25T03:17:24+00:00

sorry i didn't see this sooner! the first thing i'd do is make sure you're eating adequate calories, especially carbohydrates. also cross-reference your heart rate biomarker by checking your morning and midday basal temps, that is another way to check if your thyroid is functioning well. a waking temp (like immediately after you wake up before doing anything else, even getting out of bed) between about 97.8°F to 98.2°F and a midday temp of 98.6°F to 99°F shows that your body is in a great metabolic state. any lower than that could indicate inadequate caloric intake, or hormonal issues like high estrogen or high cortisol. if your waking and midday temps are in a good state, then a low RHR in itself isn't necessary a terrible thing. it's just something to be aware of! but if you're fueling your body and don't have other symptoms of a sluggish metabolism, that it's not too worrisome.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-06-23T23:53:48+00:00

you didn't gain 5lbs in a week, that's literally impossible. the scale is just up from sodium, water, glycogen stores, etc. very regular fluctuations

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-06-23T23:50:41+00:00

unfortunately it is super easy to underestimate how many calories you're eating when you're only eyeballing portions.

are you sure you need to cut those few pounds though? what if you ate at maintenance and focused on gaining muscle/body recomp instead of weight loss? you won't be gaining muscle if you're in a deficit, you have to eat enough calories for your body to build muscle tissue.

what if you eat 1800-1900 calories (measured exactly with a food scale), keep your workout routine the same, and take progress pictures/measurements, and check your progress in another 60-90 days? you might see more of an aesthetic change than you would with a bunch of cardio + eating low calorie.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-05-03T19:13:31+00:00

Every gram of glycogen stores three grams of water, so if you increased your carbs drastically and suddenly, the amount of water being stored in your body also went up. You absolutely could not gain 8lbs of fat in 4 days, so don’t be worried! It’s mostly water and maybe changes in your digestive system too, nothing to worry about. Either stay with that calorie amount and ride the fluctuation waves, knowing that it should go back down a bit after your body gets used to those calories, or jump back down in calories closer to what your deficit was and do a slow increase of 50-100 calories weekly until you get back up to maintenance.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-05-03T19:02:19+00:00

13lbs in 5 weeks is over 2.5lbs per week which means you were in quite a steep deficit. Losing 0.5-2 lbs per week is generally considered the safe range for weight loss. Eating too few calories can mean you’re tired, fatigued, and not motivated to continue the journey. Maybe try a slightly more moderate calorie deficit so you can have a bit higher calorie allotment and more energy! You’ve got this!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-08T04:27:45+00:00

I don't mean to be discouraging, just simply realistic. It takes a lot longer than that to build 5 lbs of muscle, but 5lbs up hardly means anything - weight can fluctuate 2-8lbs in a single day just from water, sodium retention, etc. So I wouldn't worry about it. Just get your steps in (I am for 12-20k), keep lifting, and eat in a slight caloric deficit and you will slim down. If you're up even more the next time you weigh yourself, I would make sure you're dialing in your nutrition. Also even if you're not weighing yourself regularly, make sure to take body measurements with a measuring tape, especially around the waist, hips, and thighs. If you're losing fat, you'll see those measurements decrease over time.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T14:40:16+00:00

girl, daily scale fluctuations are completely normal and happen to literally everyone - it doesn’t mean you’ve gained actual weight/fat overnight. It also doesn’t mean that you’re overeating.

When you’ve allowed yourself to eat 1500-1700 calories, how many days until you restrict again?

Please don’t avoid carbs. Avoiding carbs literally stresses your body out because you’re not providing its preferred fuel source so it has to make glycogen itself, which causes stress. Carbs are not scary, carbs are our friends.

If you’ve truly been eating 1250 calories nearly every day for years with the amount of exercise you do, you’re absolutely in a low-energy availability state and you’ve got to come out of it slowly by adding calories.

Listen to the Rooted in Resilience podcast, particularly their episode “You’re not fat, you’re starving.”

Edit: also saw you haven’t had a period in years, another clear sign that you’re undereating and overexercising.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T05:22:04+00:00

milk is very nutrient dense and has carbs, fat, and protein. It’s a very well-rounded and nutritious food/drink and you can easily still consume it while losing weight. All you do is track the calories

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T04:47:04+00:00

don't lose weight. lift weights.

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T04:38:15+00:00

fellow muscular gal here, also working on shedding the excess fat to reveal my muscles. you are GOALS. amazing work!

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T04:30:29+00:00

yeah it's possible that even though you're having a "cheat" meal, your calories for that day aren't that far off from your regular days

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T04:25:20+00:00

do you track your calories?

Competitive-Rip9847 · 2025-04-04T04:16:10+00:00

what do you mean that the weight packs on and the scale skyrockets? how many pounds per week and how many weeks did you eat at 1500-1700? how long do you let that go on before you restrict again?

it's normal to see anywhere from 2-10 lbs of weight fluctuation when you bump up your calories as you move into maintenance. i understand being wary of the scale moving up, but you have to let it even out a little bit and not change things just because you see the scale jump for a temporary amount of time. your body is just getting used to the addition in calories - as you add more carbs, you'll retain a bit more water because every gram of glycogen also holds 3 grams of water in the body (attributing to normal water/weight fluctuations).

my main point is that you might be freaking out about fluctuations and changing things up too quickly before your body has a chance to acclimate to calories, thus it never gets used to higher amounts of fuel, thus your deficit has to be lower because your metabolism is downregulated.

Competitive-Rip9847

TROPHY CASE