I’ve been pretty struggle-free. I guess that is because I went into this with the mindset of improving my long-term health instead of just trying to lose weight. Other foods just don’t appeal to me so there’s no temptation to fall off the wagon.
That said, I did have some extra weight to lose, even if I wasn’t intentionally trying to reduce it. A lot of it covid weight, but it’s been 1.5 years now and I’m down 60 pounds and slimmer than I was before my bad habits started during the pandemic. Nearly all of that came off in the first 6-8 months or so, and I’ve been maintaining my weight since.
I basically follow a McDougall/starch-based diet, which makes the most sense to me conceptionally. I don’t avoid salt or sugar, but eliminating oil was absolutely necessary to get where I am now.
I started doing some bodyweight exercises, and have noticed my strength increasing quite a bit (newbie gains). Before wfpb, I would do literally hours of cardio each day to try to maintain my weight while eating all of the fatty stuff I used to enjoy. But that wasn’t sustainable, and I’d eventually stop hitting the treadmill each day, then stop going to the gym at all, and my weight would bounce right back. I had previously focused on cardio so much because it was the best for burning calories, while resistance training doesn’t burn nearly as many, but now I feel like I can incorporate a lot more resistance training and it’s not a burden on my schedule.
I feel fantastic, have much better mental clarity, don’t get drowsy at work at 2pm. My resting heart rate is much lower. It’s pretty surreal how much of a difference it has made in such a short time.