I'm going to try to lose weight for the umpteenth time this year, seriously this time. I have made various attempts in the past 3 years, with minimal success (<2kg lost and kept off).

My attempts have included IF which i stuck to for ~1 month on average before quitting, and ramping up exercise which I later learnt was mostly not sufficient on its own. I tried counting calories for 1 week but found it tedious and overwhelming, so I'm super disinclined to do it even when I know it might be effective. My exercise habits are excellent, i run or go to the gym at least 4 days a week consistently.

Thinking back on my failed attempts, the most likely culprits for my failures were a) super-ambitious short term goals, which led to some quick gains but an unsustainable change in lifestlye b) personal stress which led me to fallling off the diet wagon

I think this time I might be more successful because:

• i'm chastened enough to accept a more gradual but sustainable weight loss rate. 12kg in 5 months seems eminently doable to me.

• my past tries have given me a lot of reps in various failures modes so I know what to do but also what not to do e.g focus on diet not exercise, prefer strength training to cardio, the importance of sleep, stress management etc

• i'll be attending my first in-person office event in July and don't want to show up fat ;)

Some reasons I might fail:

• I have been similarly motivated in the past, but still failed

• I have never lost more than 2.5kg over a 6 month period in the past

• Since the year began, i have not lost any weight despite running ~100km so far and going to the gym ~10 times, because I haven't adopted any dietary restrictions effectively yet. I started the year with a 1 week average weight of 92.81 and my last week's average was 92.82

• My stress coping skills are quite bad, so even a tiny spike in stress is usually enough to knock me off the wagon and undo any gains. I anticipate a few high-stress periods over the coming months, but my meta-awareness of that should hopefully help in dealing with them

I'll share a spreadsheet with my daily weigh-ins (which i use to generate a weekly average) and exercise+IF log once this hits 10 bettors. I'll also be sharing my own personal assessments once every ~2 weeks. I'll resolve this YES as soon as I reach a weekly average of 80.8kg or NO if August 1st rolls by without having accomplished that. If I judge this goal out of reach even earlier, I will probably resolve early as well which shouldn't be an issue since it would be apparent to everyone else.

Weight log here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQW3XVik23-cwEBnJErZSSmELUnrzZ5g846e_NXumtMgO7m9Deo36sOi1r2Jx75A_a-rcBp-3dTEeRB/pubhtml