Struggling to get down to maintenance (keep gaining 1/2 lb a month)
Dear Coach Heather, I have been listening to the podcast for about 7-8 years, and tracking my food since 2017. I’ve been a podcast subscriber for about a year, and I joined the HSM community and started the Weight Management Plan in April. Over this time, I’ve gotten my habits under pretty strict control. My problem is that I seem to gain 1-2 lbs every year, no matter what I do, and it’s getting worse. When I started tracking, my average daily calories was around 1900, and I was gaining ~½ pound a year. Now it’s around 1750, and I’m gaining 3 lbs this year. In 2019, I weighed 152. Now I weigh 163. I’m short, and it’s all around my waist, so this means I’ve outgrown all my clothes. I never go down, only up. I signed up for the HSM weight management plan in April, and I’ve been using a PPJ. I’m Category D: “I am planning my meals and have treats and snacks planned. There are no highlights but my calories are very high.” PPJ definitely helps with unstructured days, but it’s not solving the problem yet. Summary of 2024: Month/Average Calories/Happy Scale Average on last day of month: Jan 1724 159.4 Feb 1700 160.4 March 1823 160.8 April 1789 161.7 May 1736 162.2 June (so far) 1699 162.6 (as of 6/15) Some observations: - I’ve never achieved maintenance yet in 2024 (or ever, really) - I gained about ½ a pound at 1823 cal, at 1736 cal, and at 1699 cal, and the last one was over only 2 weeks! - Using the PPJ definitely helps, especially with unstructured days. - It’s very hard for me to ever eat under 1550 calories. - When I go over maintenance, it's usually 1800-1900, and rarely over 2000. Every time I drop my calories, my weight still goes up. (I could give similar data for past years.) If my maintenance calories are 1650 (maybe?) and I can’t get much lower than 1550, then my ratio of days-under-maintenance to days-over-maintenance is really hard to manage. So my question is: how can I get lower than 1550, to make it easier to balance out the over-maintenance days? My habits: - I track everything religiously, good and bad, for years - I have a whey protein powder that I use 1-3x/day, to get my protein in the 80-100 range - I drink 1-2 glasses of metamucil a day, to make sure my fiber stays high. (I have other medical reasons to be doing that.) - I don’t really drink alcohol or ever binge. I’m starting to feel like there’s nothing left to change, and it’s so frustrating. How do I get under 1550? Some other bio details: - I’m 44, and my youngest child is 9, so I’m looking back over the past 7-8 years. - I’m not dealing with menopause because I had a hysterectomy, and I’m on hormone replacement therapy since then. - I go to an exercise class 3x/week, but that also hasn’t changed in a decade, and try to get out on the weekends and be active. My weight doesn’t fluctuate like other people’s weight seems to. It just goes slowly and steadily up. I know this means I’m eating over my maintenance calories, but each time I implement a habit change, nothing changes. If anything, my weight gain is accelerating. I would be happy getting back to the 150-159 range and maintaining there. But my weight seems to only ratchet one way. I am so frustrated. I have no idea what my blind spots could be. If I keep gaining 1-3 lbs per year, I’m going to outgrow my clothes every couple years! Please help. (Sorry this is so long - I’m trying to provide all information you might need.) Thank you for any help you’ve got, BR
Healthy living in relation to financial success
Hi Heather, You've mentioned that there are so many connections between living a healthy lifestyle and achieving financial success. I was wondering if you'd be willing to dive into these a little? I have achieved so much success with the HSM approach over the last 18 months and it has completely transformed my life. I want to take what I have learned from this journey and start working on habits related to finances, which is an area that I have also struggled with for most of my adult life. I have identified a few habits and behaviors that I think could carry over. These are all things that I am successfully doing in my health journey and I want to develop them in relation to finances as well: 1. Delayed gratificaiton (you've mentioned this before - I think you said something about waiting 24 hours before making a purchase?) 2. A daily check-in (similar to tracking my weight daily). It's a little embarrassing to say this, but I get super anxious every time I log in to my banking app. I think I need to start by at least checking my balance once a day to create an awareness. 3. Working on small, sustainable changes and letting go of black and white thinking. I always get so overwhelmed by the idea of budgeting because I feel like there are just too many variables. I think this is similar to the reason tracking food can feel overwhelming, but I'm not really sure what the small and sustainable action steps could look like for finances. 4. Scheduling time on my calendar that is set aside for budgeting and reviewing my spending. Is there anything you would add to this list (i.e. other connections I'm not seeing)? I know this isn't 100 percent related to HSM, but I'm really hoping you'd be willing to address this! Getting control of my health has felt so freeing and I want so badly to experience that same freedom with money. Thank you!
Deciphering My Data
Hi Heather - First, thank you for all the work you do and the helpful content you put out. I discovered your podcast in the Fall of 2023 (I so wish I had found you sooner) and have been rabidly consuming all of your past recordings since then. In fact, the first time I listened to one of your podcasts tears came to my eyes. I had never felt so understood in my life! I have struggled with weight and body image since I was as young as 6 years old, and on my first formal diet by 11 years old, like so many of your listeners and community members. I have made many, many trips up and down the scale in the last 30+ years, and I am hoping and striving to make this time the LAST time. I would love your advice on what I'm currently struggling with... I am very close to the goal I have set for myself of 146lbs. I am 5'10 and currently am unintentionally maintaining at around 150lbs. I wish I didn't care about the last 4lbs but I really do. It is a weight where I feel great and enjoy seeing myself in photos, and have reached it (and even lower) a couple of times in my adult life, so it's not some crazy HS weight that I'm striving to get back to :) That said, I don't want to sabotage all my progress by obsessing over a few pounds. I track religiously and my maintenance calories per the diet fix calculator are supposed to be around 1940. I only weigh weekly, so I know that Happy Scale might not be as helpful as if I weighed daily, but the following is a snapshot of my calories and weight moving average at then end of each of the last 5 months: January 2024: 1871 Avg Daily Calories, Moving Average: 149.9 February 2024: 1914 Avg Daily Calories, Moving Average 149.5 March 2024: 1894 Avg Daily Calories, Moving Average 148.8 April 2024: 1856 Avg Daily Calories, Moving Average 148.6 May 2024: 1854 Avg Daily Calories, Moving Average 149.8 So far, halfway through June, my Avg Daily Calories are 1771, and my Moving Average is 149.6. Based on the first three/four months of data, I was thinking that the diet fix calculator figure of 1940 was probably pretty spot on. Admittedly, I'm taking a VERY slight deficit, but really thought that keeping my calories under 1800 should produce a little more downward movement on the scale, but it feels like I'm stalling out. I'm basically in the same spot I was in back in January. Sure looks like maintenance to me. My activity has remained the same. I would really like to get your read on what this data all means. Does that mean my maintenance is more likely lower than 1940? Is it too soon to jump to conclusions? Should I go back up to around 1850 where it seemed like the scale was at least gently trending down? Should I take a maintenance break? I'm trying to resist the urge to drop my calories even further because your message of sustainability and long term maintenance HAS actually gotten through to my disordered brain! I would appreciate any insights or advice. Thanks again for all you do.
Paper Pen Journal
I was looking for a tutorial on how to fill the paper pen journal that has been talked about on the podcast. I went to the YouTube channel for a deep dive. However I am 3-4 videos in but nowhere do I see an example of what the page should look like. There are mentions of right side, left side, highlights and stars but I haven’t seen an actual journal. Is that demonstrated anywhere?
Weight creep
Hi Heather, Thanks for all you do! I have been a long time listener. For several years I did a good job maintaining around 150-160 before my second child came along and since 2021 I noticed my weight creep up about 10-15 lbs. I have been maintaining without meaning to between 167-172 most of that time. I am tracking around the same calories as before between 1700-1800 but it doesn’t feel as easy and the weight doesn’t seem to budge. I wondered if you had some advice on how to tighten my tracking as I’m probably underestimating by quite a bit. Even though I have a desk job I do 3 spin classes a week and 1-2 short strength classes. Going down any additional calories would be difficult as I have struggled to stay in this range while trying to exercise. Do you have anything you can recommend? I don’t have a habit of weighing and measuring and I don’t know that I could do it long term. I don’t need to get back to the 150 range but would like to just feel a bit more comfortable in my clothes.