She Lost 11 Pounds in 60 Days Without Giving Up Her Favorite Foods: "Progress Isn't Perfect"

Ever stepped on the scale and felt your heart sink? Or maybe you've watched your favorite jeans get tighter, wondering how you got here? We've all been there—trying to figure out how to get back on track without giving up everything we love.

Sarah Mackay, a fitness coach and psychology student from Edinburgh, knows this struggle intimately. When she noticed she had gained 11 pounds (5 kilos) over the summer of 2024, she decided to document her 60-day transformation journey. Instead of crash dieting, she developed a sustainable approach that worked—and kept working. Here's her blueprint for success.

Start with Honest Tracking (Even When It Hurts)

"At the start of this challenge, I had no routine at all. Over summer, I let everything slide, so I had to rebuild my routine from scratch completely," Sarah admits in her post. She began with calorie tracking, which proved eye-opening. "Tracking keeps you honest and makes you realize why you gained that weight in the first place," she explains. One particularly humbling moment? "Realizing one serving of peanut butter is actually three servings."

Create a Sustainable Meal Planning System

"After week one, I got really serious with my meal prepping and started planning my meals for the next day the night before in my FitnessPal," Sarah shares. This preparation eliminated daily decision-making about food. She opted for five smaller meals instead of three larger ones, noting, "This helps me curb my snacking in between meals, which I do have a little snacking demon inside me that's never satiated."

Master Simple Meal Prep Without Kitchen Slavery

Sarah's approach to meal prep is refreshingly straightforward. "I'm personally not one who likes to spend hours in the kitchen," she says. Her strategy involves choosing one protein and one carb for the week, making enough to mix and match throughout the days. "By changing up the sauces I use, my fat sources, how I cook my carbs or my protein on individual nights, it really feels like I'm having different meals every single day," she explains.

Tackle Sugar Cravings Without Going Crazy

"My cravings at the beginning of this diet were unbelievably intense," Sarah admits. While she temporarily cut back on sugar, she emphasizes this wasn't forever: "I now no longer look at what I'm restricting from my diet in order to reach a certain goal, but how I can prioritize certain foods that make me feel my best while reaching my goal."

Navigate Plateaus Without Panic

When progress slowed around week three, Sarah stayed calm. "I did not panic," she emphasizes. "All I did was decrease my calories by around another 200 a day and increase my cardio by one more 25-minute session a week." She also focused on protein intake and volume eating with low-calorie, high-volume foods to stay satisfied.

Find Your Joy in Movement

"Looking back, starting running was the best decision I ever made during this entire challenge," Sarah reflects. While the beginning was tough—"those first runs were brutal"—it became something she genuinely enjoyed. "Cardio has been such a chore for me, but with running, I felt like it was something that I just wanted to push myself further on," she shares.

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Stay on Track While Traveling

"In the past, I used to avoid trips at all costs because they would completely throw me off," Sarah admits. Now she plans ahead: "Pre-planned my meals the night before in my Fitness Pal, meal prep all my food on a Sunday, and work out first thing in the morning in order to get it out of the way." This strategy helps her maintain progress even during busy periods.

Accept Your Body's Natural Rhythms

"During ovulation and the week before my period, not only does my hunger spike up, but my weight also spikes up overnight," Sarah shares. She learned to accept these fluctuations: "Period-related weight gain is normal and is usually the result of water retention, not fat gain." Her advice? "Just follow your plan. At the end of your period, you will notice a big drop usually again on the scale."

Make Rest Part of Your Strategy

"One thing I always forget about dieting is literally just how exhausting it is," Sarah admits. She learned to prioritize recovery: "I found that an extra rest day or going on a nice long run instead of going to the gym and lifting weights and doing cardio was what kept me going in the long run." She emphasizes, "This is supposed to be a sustainable lifestyle change, and if you're pushing yourself so hard you're going to burnout, then it's not sustainable."

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Trust the Process (Even When Progress Is Invisible)

"When I'm dieting, my body likes to do this super fun thing where it doesn't make any visual progress for weeks, and then all of a sudden everything will change," Sarah explains. She emphasizes tracking multiple measures: "The scale progress, photos, how your clothes are fitting, your energy levels in the gym all matter when judging if you're progressing or not."

Create Your Maintenance Game Plan

After reaching her goal weight of 125 pounds (56.9 kilos) from her starting weight of 137.5 pounds (62.4 kilos), Sarah focused on maintaining her results. "My main goal will be to gradually increase my calories to my new body weight's maintenance calories," she explains. "My end goal will be to work up to around 1800-1900 calories a day, which I'll do by increasing my calories by around 100 to 200 calories per week."

The most important lesson from Sarah's journey? "You have to stop viewing your diet as something that is all or nothing," she emphasizes. "Food is food, not a person. So you shouldn't attach morality to it and feel guilty over eating it." Her final piece of advice resonates with anyone who's ever struggled with weight loss: "You didn't lose all of this weight in one day, so what makes you think that you're going to put it all back on in one day? Consistency beats perfection every single time." And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.