Hello! I would love some advice on how to shake this water weight!

So I’m currently on a 1200 calorie diet. I drink 64oz of water each day plus two protein shakes. I’m painfully bloated. A caveat is that I take lithium (which contains sodium) twice a day, and I can’t take a diuretic to lessen water weight (because it would put too much of a strain on my kidneys). I also take risperidone. I’m trying a low carb diet but am not sure how long it will take to see results.

How can I reduce water weight? Any and all ideas welcome! Thank you!!

Hello reddit, Im a 25 year old male who is 175 cm tall and weighs 70 kg, my weight loss journey has come to an end last month, i wanted to lose a little bit more to get to 10-12% body fat, im curently at around 14%, so i should be cutting more but i feel so drained from having this calorie deficit its affecting me way more now than before, i feel light headed, way more hungry and my weightlifting has started to hit a wall, not enough energy to keep proggresive overload. So i started to eat at maintanance for about a month and my lifting has improved a lot i put more weight in all exercises and also i can keep doing it more in 1 week because my recovery also has improved a lot, and i started to think, what if i keep eating at maintanace for 6 months and lift weights, will this be a good idea to drop the last 5-8 pounds of fat by gaining muscle at maintanance or is a bad idea and i should just take a 3 months maintanance break and after do again a full cut?

So “actual” day 1 would be about 2 weeks ago, because that was when I decided to start tracking again. I remembered this sub about a week ago and have been kinda nervous about posting (both because I didn’t want to post in a way I wasn’t supposed to, and it would mean I’m “really” trying I suppose)

Stats or whatever: (couple weeks from) 29, m, 6’4″ (193cm/~1.93m), SW: ~440, CW: 430, GW: 275

So, a bit of a history:

Since I can remember I’ve been chubby/fluffy/overweight/fat, I weighed about 275 when I was 13, through high school I was 330-360 depending on if school was in or not, afterwards I was consistently closer to 350. I’m convinced without my best friend I would have been bed ridden or even dead by about now (we walked a lot since the beginning of high school).

When I was about 22 I was working an intensely active job, still walked with my friend, and kinda started seeing someone and over that year I lost a lot of weight, I was more or less a healthy relatively thin guy on a big dude frame. Unfortunately about that time I lost my job, I moved away, and the woman I was seeing passed away. I don’t think I did anything for about 2 weeks, like at all, then I was forcing myself to eat something because that’s what humans do and I was living with family then so that probably helped… (~2016-2017)

Anyway, got a job, then got the flu which is important because that’s where I found out I was 275 lbs again. Was encouraged to get a car to drive myself to work, which is important because then I had money and a car so I started eating food I rarely got (ever in life cause I was poor growing up, which gave me a poor relationship with food). I ballooned over that year (2017-2018ish) I went from 275 to over 400, so we’ll say ~150 lbs up.

So, I’ve been about level at ~450 for the past 3-4 years. Recently I’ve gotten a customer service job (that relies on tips), which is one reason for finally trying to do something about this, and secondly a person finally convinced me (without actually saying anything about it) that I should get off of the auto-pilot I’ve been in the last 6 years.

Backstory TL;DR: been big for ever, got a lot bigger recently (pre-pandemic) so I’m trying to be thinner/healthier now

On the more technical side:

I’ve started tracking what I eat and the activity(ies) I do. until a couple weeks ago I guess I’ve been consuming 3500-4500 kcal a day on average, since I started watching what I’m eating I’m apparently averaging closer to 3000 and trying to be more active (more specifically it says I’m averaging about 2700 but there’s some low days and some higher days). kinda strange because I’m tracking midnight to midnight, instead of wake-to-sleep since I have an irregular sleep schedule.

My nutrition could be better but I am taking a multivitamin every day. I need to be more consistent about my water, e.g. I drink a liter one day and a few sips the next.

I deliver pizzas, so I try not to eat or drink anything at work so I don’t get tempted by more soda or a whole pizza, plus it’s not exactly an “active” job. And I’m trying to be more active outside of work but haven’t gotten into that yet, mostly walking but I plan on finding a gym to try not to lose muscle (Idk if I want to actually “gain” anything yet).

the scale says I lost 10 lbs this week. 8 lbs was toward the beginning and I’m assuming it was mostly water weight.

I took a picture of when I was ~445 so this time I don’t get fooled by the mirror like I was before, I don’t really have pictures from when I was thinner since I’ve never liked my picture taken.

I suppose this is me in a nutshell. Questions? Comments? Advice?

https://imgur.com/a/JcnAbIl

Beginning of August —> mid August —> end of August —> end of September

I don’t see much but everyone at work has been commenting on it.

Down 55 pounds since the beginning of the year. Hoping for 50 more.

I’ve been tracking on the LoseIt app and started getting more fresh foods again (last time I did a major weight loss I did strictly vegan – I’m not doing strict vegan but a lot of vegan).

There’s a park near my house and I do a 4 mile walk loop 3 – 5 times a week – not sure what I’m going to do when it gets too cold to be outside.

I grocery shop on Saturday and meal prep a lot on Sundays. I have severe mental health issues including crippling depression and severe manic mood swings so when I’m in the mood to do something (such as grocery shop or meal prep) I do it.

First, this is my first post here, so some stats, I am 5’6″ Male age 45, been working on losing weight for a bit now, started at 300 pounds (when I steped on the scale and saw that 300 it scared the heck out of me so I went on a diet), And now at 171 pounds. Goal is 125 (or a 32″ waist which ever comes first), so I have a long way to go still. I will adit I still don’t see it in the mirror, even though every one else says they see a diffence. Using only diet and going to the gym 3 times a week (2 boxing classes a week, and the 3rd day things like eliptical and the stationary bike)

Now onto my question: how do you all deal when you have a major craving for a food that would be outside your diet (for me it been pizza)? Been craving it like crazy for the last 3 weeks, I am refusing to give in to it (and will not do a cheat day for it, I try to limit the cheat days to only holodays or REAL special occations such as birthday or aniversery things like that) But I can not shake the craving. I will admit I looked at “light” pizzas but, even though have more cals in them then I allow myself in a meal, and the idea of only eating part of it, well that would not work, as if I ate only part of it, I would strongly want to finish the rest of it, so I will not do that.

I started going to the gym at the beginning of the month which is the same time I quit smoking weed. I’ve never worked out a lot before this and I am pretty overweight. I successfully made it to the gym 20 times and I spent 1000 minutes there this month which was my goal. My endurance has increased a ton, I’ve lost roughly 10 pounds, my clothes fit way better, I’ve been less depressed and anxious, I have a lot more confidence in myself. I still weigh 290 lbs but I did a 9:47 mile yesterday which felt amazing. I’m looking forward to October and I am actually so stoked for month 2. I’m giving myself a much needed break tomorrow because I know I need it but I already don’t want to skip it.

I feel great, like I’m actually am doing it after so many failed starts!