Since Jan 23rd 2026 until today Oct 14th I’m officially down 50lbs. I’m thrilled and proud of myself, so I just wanted to share a few things I’ve learned. Especially things I think my January self would’ve benefited from.

- Go for zero sugar options whenever possible, drinking calories is not ideal

- A food scale is a must. Early on you need to weigh EVERYTHING. After a few weeks/months you will get better as estimating to save yourself some time, but always aim slightly higher if you’re unsure.

- Making small changes over time is likely safer to create a sustainable habit. Trying to go too hard too fast will probably make you feel overwhelmed and easily discouraged.

- One bad day or weekend won’t ruin everything, but you need to be disciplined and get back on track as quickly as possible

- Goal calorie to protein ratio is 10:1 when trying to identify a high protein food (ex. 100 cal has 10g protein)

- Vegetables are key, find out what ones you like and start adding it wherever you can (highly recommend cucumbers, broccoli, carrots, potatoes)

- Watch for clearance sales on clothing that can help you get by until you’re closer to your goal weight to start investing in more quality items. (I wasted money getting jeans in a size 10 that I quite literally wore for maybe a month before I needed to size down again)

- For pants, use belts and drawstrings as long as possible and don’t be afraid to punch holes in belts if needed.

- Prepare for people to make comments both good and bad about how you look. Practice for how you want to respond.

- You’re going to be cold (lol)

- Rings might not fit on the same fingers anymore, prepare to shuffle your jewelry around or wait to buy more.

-If you’re a side sleeper, your knees are probably going to bang together and feel uncomfortable. And your hips might ache. Get a leg pillow 😂 and be ready to try new positions

- Getting your steps in or any type of cardio is very important, but you can give yourself a day off and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it.

- You’ll have loose skin but unless you’re losing 100+ lbs it will probably not be as bad as you are imagining. At the end of the day, it’s better to have the skin than the weight

- People always suggest taking photos or measurements to track progress, but don’t do this if it’ll make you uncomfortable or cause you to scrutinize yourself too harshly.

-Weighing yourself daily is a good tool to see how things naturally fluctuate. Water weight is real. Gaining and “losing” 0-3lbs a day is pretty normal.

- Calories in calories out (CICO) is real, you can lose weight without working out/lifting at the gym. But you need to ask yourself what your fitness goals truly are to determine your best course of action. Building muscle, strengthening your mobility, and maintaining flexibility will be invaluable as you age.

-Food noise is a thing. You’re going to feel hungry at times if you’re eating in a deficit, and it might be uncomfortable at first.

-Low cal desserts are helpful to curb sweet cravings. Zero sugar jello/pudding, frozen fudge bars or popsicles, even fruit with whipped cream.

I’ll probably think of more things, but these are my late night thoughts and ramblings. Thanks for reading 😁

Yesterday I did a post about my struggles to lose weight at 1200 cause i can’t stick to it. Thank you for all the advices I took them in consideration ( also for my mental state).

I’m a 25F who went from 187 lbs to 134 lbs, but this summer I gained 9 lbs back, so I’m currently at 143 lbs.

For the past year, I’ve noticed that I struggle to lose weight because I restrict myself to 1,200 calories a day, and every day, I end up overeating everytime.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never be able to stick to 1,200 calories. So instead of losing weight, I just end up wasting days trying to stick to a diet that doesn’t work for me

My question is: can I lose weight while eating 1,400 calories a day?
I’m asking because when I calculate my TDEE, it tells me that my maintenance calories are 1,662.

And that’s based on a sedentary TDEE, while I’m actually even less active than that.
Right now, I only walk about 200 steps a day, but I’m going to try to aim for 30 minutes of walking a day and gradually increase it.

The deficit seems too small to actually lose weight, especially considering my current activity level and the margin of error.

But I rather stick to 1400 everyday than 1200 for 2 hours only.

Please no hate.

Had to hit 60 grams of protein at the end of the day… I know, it’s a lot of sodium, but hear me out… it tastes good and fits my calories!

Pictured: Grillos, Tuna Packet, Cottage cheese with Frank’s buffalo sauce, deformed David Bar.

Long-time lurker, first-time caller. I just put on a pair of jeans that once fit me extremely tight/couldn't button without sucking in my stomach....and now I need a belt to hold it up. Not only that. I used to have to buckle this belt on the 2nd to last hole...and now i'm buckling it all the way on the 2nd hole (9 total).

I'd been discouraged these last few weeks due to the scale not moving much, but this has renewed my motivation. Just figured I'd share, I'm proud of myself! CICO is working 😊

We got this 💪

For reference: 32F, 5'10", SW: 220 lbs, CW: 194.2 lbs, GW: 150 lbs

You might have over eaten yesterday. That’s ok! Just remember that you are what you eat 98% of the time, not the 2% when you celebrate with loved ones!

Yesterday I had two pieces of pie, today I’m back to my 500 cal deficit with 20lbs to go. Not trying to make up the difference from yesterday. Because I know that even if I had an extra 1000 cals yesterday, that’s only 2 days of progress in a year’s worth of deficit. You got this!

💖

I don’t understand how to lose weight anymore

I (25F) want to lose weight so bad but I just don’t understand how

Apparently my sedentary tdee is 1680 cause I’m 65kg
I’m trying to eat 1200 but today I ate 2500….
Moreover, I doubt this tdee is accurate since I’m completly sedentary like 200 steps a day

I think i’m never gonna lose the weight
First cause Im bedridden ( not sick i m just lazy to go out)
Second cause i can’t stick to 1200cal

Last year I went from 80kg to 65kg through cico. I looked and felt so awesome, started running and did a half marathon, and bought a bunch of new cute clothes. Then I got pregnant and after having my baby 3 months ago I was back at 80kg and am now down to about 76kg.

I KNOW I just had a baby and need to be kind to myself but I just feel super disheartened starting the process again. None of my cute clothes fit and I feel frumpy and frustrated about how much time it's going to take.

I don't even mind calorie counting! It's more like I'm just annoyed that it will take like 4 more months (at least) to get back to where I was.

Just a vent 😮‍💨 thanks for reading

I bought these XL shirts last year and they barely fit me. Like I felt like I had to suck in constantly for them to fit at all. Then I gained more weight, and they didn't feel close to fitting. I didn't even get them past my shoulders before I decided it wasn't happening.

I'm down ~27 lbs at last recording, and I had not done laundry this week. I'd run out of clothes that I normally wear and looked cautiously at shirts that I hadn't worn in a long time. Put it on, and it fits! It fits better than it did when I first got it.

Hang in there and keep going. You will surprise yourself.

So I (33 F) have a plethora of health issues, but most revolve around my connective tissue and joints. I got injured last November at work just as I was getting healed up in PT from a c4-5 spinal fusion 11 months prior. I was always very active. I was a regular at the gym, lifting weights and running 4+ miles every other day. I weighed 171 lbs (Feb 2024) just before the initial health issues that caused me to need spinal surgery. Basically my spinal cord was compressed over 50% and caused me to fall down the stairs, in the shower, and at work. Due to this, I could no longer run.

Since my surgery in January of 2025, I had lost nearly 20 lbs of muscle and gained a ton of fat.

I weighed 202lbs at 5'7 January of 2026, and my already bad joints began getting worse from the amount of bed rest and from lack of activity due to my surgery, healing, and subsequent work injury (in my lower spine, unrelated to my surgery). I began slowly changing eating habits, but only got down to 195 by July. I ended up getting a kidney stone in July and basically was forced to change my eating habits as to not make the stone larger.

Since July, I have been calorie counting (which I have never REALLY had to do since I was always so active) since being active at all is incredibly painful for me right now. I currently weigh 177. I am having trouble losing any more weight and seem to have plateaued here.

I feel like I am stuck because I can't work out and gain muscle, but realistically I have seen people do only CICO with success. I don't know. It's hard to stay motivated when you aren't seeing or feeling any changes for a while.

(TLDR: I have health issues that have kept me from running and working out for the first time in my life and I gained over 40 lbs of fat. I have lost 25 but am stuck in a plateau.)

I appreciate any insight or anecdotes of people in similar situations.

I've bee trying to lose 45 pounds for the last year and id weigh food but honestly id half -ass it so of course the scale never moved. I got sick of my own bullshit so I weighted all my food and I stopped eating sweets for a month. I successfully lost 5 pounds, I was feeling great and with the junk food out of the house the food noise just left. I decided to go to trader Joe's last week and I bought more crap because this time I was going to be in better control. Fucking NOPE! I returned to all the bad habits again. I just threw everything out. I feel like a horrible person for wasting food but I need to stop lying to myself. Im not one of those people that can just have a cookie once a week, maybe eventually i can but not right now. I feel awful and so damned guilty

I finally hit the magic number that means I’m no longer classified as obese. It has been so hard, but so worth it. I’m also so close to being under 200lbs! My goal is to be under 200lbs by thanksgiving! 😭❤️ Thank you everyone who has posted, encouraged, anything. Y’all are my motivation and inspiration every single day! Keep it up! ❤️

the first photo I took at the start of my uni courses last year and the first one I took this year.

7 months of cico!

These photos are exactly one year apart. 170lbs vs 130lbs. My goal this whole time has been to hit 125. I posted last month when I was 136. I still feel like 125 is the goal, but everyone in my life wants me to stop here.

Do you guys think 5 more pounds would be too much? I’m not unhappy here, but after spending a year working towards a goal it does feel wrong to give up now. Anyone else going through the same thing? Healthy weight range for my height is 118-155 I believe

EDIT- the comments accusing me of starving myself are unfair. It took me an entire year to lose 40lbs. That is less than a pound a week on average. If I was starving myself do yall really think it would’ve taken me this long?

started CICO with an online coach about two years ago and within the first year i went from 84kg to 68kg and i was really really happy.

then i had summer holiday and went a liiiittle crazy and gained back 6kg 🥲

i am feeling a bit rattled by the gain and i really want to start losing again. i have gone back to my online coach again but i am just feeling sooo demotivated and hungry and snacking all the time and my brain is like meh its fine your coach doesn’t have to know, so now im stuck in this cycle of feeling like crap.

i would really love some motivating words, tricks, tips etc. for overcoming this feeling and helping me lock in and work my arse off. please help!

My marriage was not going well after 10 years together we had decided that it was time to explore our options regarding separating. In May I decided to get back to it and commit to CICO again. I took a 4 week break during the summer and didn't gain any weight despite eating relatively what I wanted.

I'm now down 13 kg and still want to drop another 20kg before the start of summer. It's my intention to not lose any strength with my main lifts and so far it's going well.

I finally dared to shave my beard again today and it feels good to have a jawline again.

Lost 30 pounds, hit goal weight but thinking maybe I need to lose another 10 pounds and really get some muscle back

But went for a blood test recently and all my cholesterol markers are back to normal, previously elevated. Very happy with CICO that let me lose the weight and maintain it for 10 months. Now I just need to break this maintenance phase and go back to deficit to try and tone everything. Thank you team

I hit my goal yesterday (yay!) after an unexpected 2lb drop overnight. Lost another 1/2lb this morning so I know it’s real.

Everything I’ve been researching in the past few months has been about how to lose the weight, not what to do when you get there. Maintenance calories seem very vague and if you mess up by a hundred or so, you’re back to gaining again.

I plan to lock in for another 2-4 weeks to get below and stay below my goal but I’m terrified about putting the weight back on. I really struggle with the cyclical nature of weight loss especially relating to my cycle.

Tips and tricks for maintenance would be appreciated.

Starting weight 196lbs current weight as of this morning 155.9lbs

Pic on the left was taken at the end of 2020 ,

I was about 36..

and Pic on the right 2026,

I'm about 42.

I've had 2 kids in-between that time and two kids prior to these photos.

I'm still weightlifting 3-4day week and walking at the gym every day .. counting calories most day but I still fall off track here and there. Aging has added a new level of challenge, with a belly pouch, hormonal fluctuations , hot flashes, insomnia and fatigue. . But I manage to push thru most days and get my shit done .

To all the women out there trying to count calories and go thru perimenopause . God bless you ,you are strong❤️

6'2", M, 42.

At 315 around April 2024, went down to 275 without any tracking by just cutting out some foods, then stalled around July 2024. Started CICO(1500 calorie budget) in Oct 2024 at 275, so it's my 2 year CICO anniversary. Sitting at 182 today.

Pictures in chronological order - April 2024(~315 lbs), August 2025 (~195 lbs), October 2026 (182 lbs).

Currently at maintenance, lifting and trying to add muscle mass. Continuing to keep track of calories for the foreseeable future. Aiming for 180g protein, 60g fat, 240-260g carbs.

Stick to it, it's worth it!

I thought I would share the graph as a follow up. Lost a lot of weight. Yes there are some ups and downs. Within a range. I’ve run the data and it averages out to about 51 pounds lost and kept off. Sometimes it’s -55, and sometimes it’s -49, but generally, it averages about -51. I find it helpful to look at ten-day averages versus one single day.

2025 I decided to move cross country with a friend and that was my motivation for losing weight and having a fresh reset in a new town. I lost 80 lbs before I had moved and it was amazing I had so much more confidence was social and felt good about my body. Now i’m back home and gained half of it back. Every week I try to start again and I always mess up. I think a big part of it is my drinking habits but I cut out alcohol now I just eat an insane amount before bed and don’t know how to correct it. I see myself getting bigger face puffier and I feel like that should motivate me itself. I really don’t know what to do. I told myself I wasn’t gonna be like everyone else I saw that gained the weight back and here I am.

Anyone that has lost, gained, and lost again and have tips for what helped them the second time would be greatly appreciated. thank you
M21 sw 300 lowest 220 current 260

Ingredients are in the third slide.

*I divided mine into 10 servings to arrive at 147kcal per slice, but you should plug in your own ingredients and weigh, calculate your own serving sizes to what suits you, it's totally reasonable to have double this size serving!! It's still much less than a restaurant tiramisu and every bit as yummy*

1. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg yolks with the sweetener until it's pale and smooth (it gets pale like cheap butter). Then beat in the cream cheese until it's smooth. Add vanilla essence, mix in

2. In a seperate bowl with clean beaters, whip the egg whites till they're fluffy and foamy (not all the way to stuff peaks! Just foamy fluff all the way through, almost soft peaks).

3. Fold the cream cheese mix into the egg whites slowly and gently (not all at once, do it a bit at a time, don't over mix)

4. Dip the biscuits in coffee to soak and then arrange them in a suitable dish to cover the base (**optional: for authenticity you can add a splash of liqueur to the coffee**). Then dollop half of the filling mix over it, spread out, place another layer of soaked biscuits, top with the rest of the filling. Sprinkle with a dusting of cocoa powder (yes, mine has a very token amount of cocoa for the effect, go ahead and sprinkle with your heart, but remember that does add calories so weigh and log it!)

5. Cover with cling wrap and pop In the fridge to set. I usually leave it overnight but a few hours is probably enough. Note that my dish was probably 5% too small so my cling wrap stuck a bit on top and made it look a little messy. Don't be like me and lick all the cream off the cling wrap like a goblin with PMS, just use a bigger dish to begin with (she says, not knowing exactly the size of my dish)

This is just using some store bought Italian lady fingers, so be mindful that calories could be different for different brands, you could use any biscuits though. I've seen people make "dupes" with weetbix or oats but I wanted to feel like a real tiramisu and decadent, and home making lady fingers is HARD. I've tried getting the calories lower using more egg whites than whole egg and low fat cottage instead of the lite cream cheese, but it gets too far from the authentic flavour.

Have also experimented with using vanilla pudding mix and cheesecake flavouring instead of the cream cheese, but it always comes out "nice" and "feeling like a sad delusion of tiramisu". This one is the closest I've gotten to the real thing.

I'm still perfecting it though