How do you successfully maintain a calorie deficit over the long run?
I’m currently a lump of chocolate and cheese, but once the new year hits, I’m determined to make 2026 the year I finally get back to a healthy weight (I’ve lost about 20 pounds, with about 80-100 to go). I’m pretty good about exercising regularly, but, as they say, abs are made in the kitchen. Those who have successfully lost weight, is there anything you particularly recommend for maintaining a calorie deficit to lose the weight, and then avoiding gaining it back later on?
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Edit: some improvements made to my (severely) lacking English.
These are all great suggestions, and I would just like to add: drink more water. If water gets boring, add some lemon / lime / fruit, have some herbal teas, or even some coffee (black). When I'm in ravenous eating mode and about to go for seconds, it's helpful if I can catch myself and have a glass of water first. Then wait 5 - 10 minutes and see if I actually want more food.
+1 to all you just said :)
We quit drinking soda (and I quit alcohol, too). Now it's, water, pressed fresh fruits (but not too much), tea and infusions. Maybe once a year I will have a drink of wine (I'm French, I have an excuse ;)
As for teas, my advice there would be to not cheap out on tea. quality teas, aka full leaves, are a thing of their own. Also I would encourage to get at least two tea posts (one for stronger teas and the other one for the lighter ones)
Drinking calories is so bad.
I only drink Coconut Unsweetened Silk and tap water outside of a zero cal soda now and then.
Be weary of artificial sugar that can still trigger hunger by impacting your blood sugar levels due to insulin release. Your body can respond to the sudden influx of artificial sugar the same way it does to real sugar.
What do you mean when you say artificial sugars? The insulin response to different sweeteners vary a lot.
I still lightly sweeten my coffee most mornings, but that's about it.
What do you like to eat that’s less processed? I’d like to do that, processed food unfortunately requires just so much less prep.
Fresh veggies & fruits, a little quality meat (but not too much and not every day), no industrial bread (I live in Paris, we still have access to a few real artisanal bakeries where they make their own bread, but here too they're getting replaced by industrial ones, so we've planned on learning to make our own bread soon), no industrial sweets/treats and no soda.
My spouse and I also learned to cook, instead of going out to a restaurant multiple times a week like we used. Saves us money and it's a fine moment we spend together too ;)
As for the time it takes to cook fresh food: either we will make very simple meal, which takes minutes (plus we often have fun while cooking) or we will cook a meal that we will last us 2 or 3 days. So it's really not that much of an issue. And since eating better helps us feeling a lot less tired too, well... we think it's really worth it. The real effort is to be willing to change one's own habits, at least if I can relate to my own experience.
Edit: maybe I should make it clear that the key change, and the very first step anyone should do is to stop eating those ready-made, over-processed and over-packaged shit food that we've learned to consider normal food. Sorry I this sound rude, even more so in the USA I would imagine, but this what I think they're worth (with all their sugar and salt, and conservatives and colorants) and how good I think they're for our health: barely a few weeks after I quite eating that I started getting better. To me, it's the same shit as the cigarettes and if we don't self-destroy in a nuclear holocaust (or ins ome ecological major crisis) before that I have little doubt this industrial food will end being an even worse scandal than tobacco ever was.
It is garbage food-like industrial waste, mostly. Read the nutrition information and it's mostly empty calories! And with a work schedule all over the map, it is challenging. But an air fryer and sweet/regular potatoes pack a lot of nutrients in with the denser calorie count and fiber!
Hi! Not the same person but I'm in the same process!
Firstly, take it in steps, don't quit all processed food at once. I actually started with eating more veggies, both in the food and as a side salad.
Then read on the products, not all processed foods are equal, and it depends on what more you have in the meal. On meat products I often look at the meat percentages, it can vary A LOT. A sausage with + 80% meat is a lot better than 30%...
You can also look for E-numbers, concentrates, and other additives. How good or bad these are are still being discussed but I'm leaning towards bad, especially if it's a lot.
For example a highly processed sausage with basmati rice and a decent amount of salad isn't the same as said sausage with just mac and cheese.
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Some meals are easier to prep than others but more often than not I've found meals, especially the meat, to need time. Time to cook properly!
Fry meat in a pan, let it simmer in water for half an hour or so ( I rarely keep time ), make a sauce in the pan.
Or put a chunk of meat on a oven safe plate and trow it into the oven on 150-175°C for 1.5-3h or more depending on size and tenderness.
Or make a soup, just make sure it boils long enough for the meat! :)
I would like to stress the eating better part. In the past, I've made the mistake of looking only at calories. I never chose the whole grain option because it had more calories. Weight loss was hard and I was constantly hungry. Now I stopped eating at the canteen for lunch and started cooking my own stuff instead with lots of whole grain pasta, whole grain rice, potatoes, lots and lots of vegetables, legumes and plant based protein like tofu and tempeh. For a sweet snack I eat fruit. Lost 9kg in 5 months and it didn't even feel really hard, honestly. Cooking takes a lot of time though, but it's so much easier than being hungry all the time.
It's easier to use your will power to not buy snacks at the grocery store than it is to not eat them once they are at your home.
Track your calories. Eventually you get skilled enough at it that you don't necessarily have to journal everything to have a good idea of how many calories you are taking in. If you can eat the same things day after day without getting bored, that helps a lot.
Learn to cook well. Chicken breast doesn't have to be dry and bad. Veggies can be dressed up and made tasty without adding too many calories.
Sugar snap peas are a tasty, crunchy snack and you can eat a lot of them without blowing out your daily calorie limit.
If you drink alcohol, stop, at least mostly. Even a shot of vodka with no mix is ~60 calories. In fact, try not to drink calories in general.
In the past, I have found crippling levels of poverty to be quite helpful.
I've got a mysterious health problem that's causing near constant nausea and have lost over 50lbs this year without even trying.
What kind of test have you got done? Does medicine to stop the nausea help?
I've had bloodwork, stool samples, xray, CT, and upper/lower scope. I've got a hernia, and some intestinal ulcers, but insurance won't approve the meds, so I'm still looking for a diagnosis they like.
It's also likely to have an element of autonomic dysfunction too, since they've found bone spurs in my neck that are pushing on my spinal cord, but there's not much I can do about that. It's possible that overusing painkillers for my neck is whats causing the ulcers.
I hope every employee of your insurance company involved with this decision gets obliterated by karma. Fucking assholes
I know Lemmy thinks everyone that avoids carbs must be carnivore, but you can use your head and avoid sugar/starches and lose a lot of weight. Fruit is tough to drop but apart from a few blueberries or something, fruit is pure sugar, and juice is as bad as pop. Don't think because something is "healthy" that it's not loaded with sugar.
By the time you get full eating things like pasta, you've eaten way, way too much. Fats will make you feel full. I used to eat a 16 oz steak with potatoes and vege and still want dessert, and now 6 oz of something fatty like brisket with some broccoli or brussel sprouts will fill me up.
And you can't outrun a bad diet. Exercise will tone you, but you can't exercise enough to work off a cup of mashed potatoes without giving up the rest of your free time.
Start by cleaning the house out of that shit, don't bring it back in, and use something like Carb Manager to figure out the sleepers that are putting weight on you.
Strawberries and raspberries are very low in sugar.
Not only that but many fruits are full of fiber and water. Pretty sure it's not eating too much fruit that causes weight loss/gain issues, unless it's all being blended into easily consumed drinks.
Those are acceptable answers as well.
Fruit have sugar but not eating fruit for that reason is one of the worst mistakes I used to make. Fruit are full of good things your body needs, including fiber, vitamins, antioxidants. It's the perfect sweet snack. Eat fruit. It will make you eat less of the stuff that will actually make you fat.
Sugar makes you fat. 15-20g of sugar in an apple. I used to eat a bag of apples in the combine in a day of harvesting, and I still had room for sandwiches and cookies too. They don't fill you up.
Apples have loads of fiber (especially pectin) which makes you feel full and actually take in fewer calories of what you're digesting. Apples IN MODERATION do not make you fat. If you eat 10 apples a day on top of your normal food, yes, they will make you fat. They will not make you fat if you eat them when you feel snackish and would otherwise eat a cereal bar or worse. Even if you eat nothing instead and decide to stay hungry, I think studies show that during your next meal you will overeat more calories than the fruit would have had, if you had eaten it as a snack. I can try to find the source if you're interested.
i was raised on SAD...been trying to break to the habit but goddamn is it hard.
I used Carb Manager to monitor my diet completely and break the habits, but my wife couldn't manage that, she just went full carnivore. But we farm, hunt, make sausage and jerky, so it's not hard to get meat. I can see where that would be damn expensive for others though.
Eating fats to stay thin when you are young will lead to cardiovascular challenges when you older.
It does work a treat for a few decades. High Cholesterol helps build testosterone and suppress appetite. It’s just long term bad.
I once lost some weight not by focusing on what not to eat, but by making myself eat a large salad for lunch. I forget what order things went in, but at one point I was eating a lot of home made fermented vegetables (cabbage mostly with others things in the mix, so basically kraut) mixed with romaine to dilute the sourness. At another point I would buy the sort of thing I previously ate for lunch (like a sandwich) and eat only half of it, chopping it up and mixing it with my salad. I ate whatever for dinner.
I wasn't trying to lose as much weight as you, I realize. But I think for some people, not focusing of deprivation / but focusing on something I like "I will eat this quantity of these vegetables" and letting the fullness from that reduce the amount of more caloric stuff you eat, can work better.
I love fermented veggies! I never thought to make them at home. What's the process like?
Basically stuff chopped cabbage (I like to add some carrot, onion, maybe some herbs... garlic, ginger and chillis can make a kimchee-like flavor) and salt into a jar or crock and leave it for a few days. It will naturally ferment and acidify. The salt favors desirable beasties, as does the acidic pH that will develop.
The only tricky bit is you need to keep the veggies submerged in liquid to keep things anaerobic. The salt will usually draw enough liquid from the cabbage, but you can add water if necessary. There are various devices people use to keep air out: glass weights to put on top, airlocks like used in beer brewing. IMO the easiest thing is a fido jar: the kind of thing with a gasket and metal clamp on the lid. The fermentation produces CO2 and that will force the O2 out through the gasket, and a blanket of CO2 will keep the veggies safely anaerobic.
Thank you so much ❤️
Don't just stop: swap.
Cutting things out leads to cravings and causes the entire process to be a constant fight. Instead, make small swaps over time that build habits.
I have a burrito every day. I swapped the tortilla for a high fiber one (get more fiber). It saved 50 calories a day and is still delicious. I swapped my side of chips for protein chips (when I can get them on sale). Lower cal, high protein, still crunchy and taste like cool ranch.
Think about what you can ADD to your meal. Having stew? Add beans and extra peppers. A sandwich? Add spinach. You'll end up eating less of the calorie sense stuff. You'll also get more fiber.
Also: cooking anything at all? Add spinach. I eat so much spinach and kale because they’re so easy to add to anything.
I've lost more than 70lbs of fat and have not kept it off for about 4 years. I've previously lost more than 50lbs, but then regained the weight later. What is different this time is I have a much better understanding of the forces at work and have made fundamental, sustainable lifestyle changes that will help keep me fit over the long term.
The saying is that "you'll never out exercise a bad diet," which is completely true, but even if the calorie burn isn't sufficient to put you in a calorie deficit, there is tremendous value in exercising. Muscle is an endocrine organ, and exercise helps produce things like brain-derived neurotrophic factor a protein that is vital for the functioning of your brain. Muscle is also a huge chunk of your metabolic overhead, so maintaining or increasing muscle mass makes it easier to manage your caloric intake and not be in surplus, adding fat. Something like 90% of people who lose weight gain it all back and then some, and among those able to keep it off, nearly all of them have adapted their lifestyle to increase their baseline level of physical activity. I've done it by using a bicycle for nearly all of my local transportation. I live in a warm climate and my city is fairly bikable (though there is definitely room for improvement!) This one change adds ~ 6-7 hours of additional cardio to my week.
When it comes to eating, whatever you do has to be sustainable. You can "go on a diet", but if you revert to your former norms once you've lost the weight, you're just going to gain it all back. Worse, if you didn't take care to boost your protein and do resistance training to maintain muscle mass while in a calorie deficit, you'll have lost substantial muscle mass as well, and you'll likely end up fatter and in a worse position when all is said and done. With strict caloric restriction without boosting protein or doing resistance training, about 40% of your weight loss will be muscle mass. Minimize the loss of muscle by boosting protein intake to around 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass, and doing some form of resistance training. Weight training in a gym is preferable, but you can do a lot with simply bodyweight fitness at home. Joe Delaney's beginner gym workout program is a useful starting point, and is what I'm doing now. However, I started with a basic bodyweight fitness program I put together from the info at reddit's r/bodyweightfitness, and it helped me a lot. Point is, something is better than nothing in this regard, and you need to do it as a matter of habit, like brushing your teeth.
As far as diet goes, there are lots of opinions out there and you have to find what works for you. If you have a lot of fat to lose, the ketogenic diet is helpful but restrictive. I did this for a while, and transitioned into what is more or less a Mediterranean diet. I eat whole foods, minimize highly processed foods, exclude highly processed foods with added sugars, and emphasize lean meats for protein and also fiber intake. I shoot for 160g of protein per day and 50-100g of fiber. If I consume carbohydrates, they have to come with fiber. Whatever dietary regime you choose, calorie tracking with a tool like myfitnesspal is vital. It is so easy to overlook consumption that if you don't strictly measure and log everything that goes into your mouth, you really have no idea where you're at with respect to being in a calorie deficit. After you've done it long enough you end up with a good grasp on your calorie intake and can relax the burden. No matter what dietary regime you select, it has to be a sustainable part of your life or the results will only be temporary.
In my experience, there's an impulse to eat that can be curbed if you aim for foods you can chew on without outpacing your calorie count.
The classic is celery. Carrots, apples, and other crunchy foods all work pretty well, too. I can nosh and sate the raw impulse to eat without feeling like I need to starve myself at actual meal times. Just having vegetables you enjoy on hand to indulge in is a good for you generally speaking, even when you're not aiming to lose pounds.
For bigger meals, soup is a favorite dish. Lots of fluids leave you full. You can have the flavors you enjoy without housing an entire slab of meat or a bunch of carbs. I also try to avoid sauces (which often means avoiding eating out generally speaking). All that stuff is packed with sugar, which makes everything more expensive to consume. Dry fried meat and veggies, spices and rubs for flavor, and grilled food rather than fried or stewed keeps me away from excess junk.
For my sweet tooth, Japanese candy tends to have less sugar than the American stuff. Mochi is better than a candy bar. Pocky is better than a box of popcorn.
I straight up cut soda and beer out of my diet when I'm focused on losing weight. (Really, just ditch soda entirely, or go to the flavored seltzer water - it's awful for you).
After that, it really does help to count the calories. When you know what you're eating, your logical "is this worth it" brain can temper the base impulses of the "I just want it in my mouth" animal brain. I hate counting calories, because it's annoying. But making the things that are hard to count annoying to keep track of also helps to focus my diet back onto foods I've got memorized and are low calorie.
When I cut out soda and other sweetened beverages for water, I lost 13 pounds in less than a month!
Estimate your total daily energy expenditure:
https://tdeecalculator.net/
Eat in a caloric deficit. You will need to weigh your food and track calories, at least for a while.
Weigh yourself and see if the weight is going in the right direction and not losing too fast either. Adjust calories as needed.
It's way harder than just these steps but this is the foundation. Personally I found the food weighing and calorie counting massively stressful but I got a good sense of how much to eat from doing it from a few weeks. Now I check the scale and log weight and make sure it's going the way I want it.
Also talk to a therapist. I needed one to get over certain mental barriers and to re-evaluate my relationship to food and my body image.
Last time I got serious about weight loss, I just counted calories really aggressively. It worked.
But my diet was boring and eventually I got tired of depriving myself, so I stopped. I gained back some of the weight, but not all of it, so that's nice.
It also helps to not be constantly depressed and stress-eating through the fall of democracy.
I'm going to answer this as a physiologist: First, eliminate processed foods as they do make you over eat Next, start exercising. Any amount is fine as long as you do something at least 6 days a week. Don't get obsessive; just do something To maintain the proper deficit, you need to measure and plan your meals. Keeping to a mostly consistent calorie total is important. It doesn't have to be exact every day, but you need to stick to a weekly total. This should be about 200-400 calories less than your total caloric needs by day. Too much and your body will fight back and your metabolism will drop to match this new level and you'll stop losing weight. To find the right amount, you're going to need to see a nutritionist and a weight loss expert with a real degree. They'll be able to fill in the details. Any specialty diet only works short term. An active lifestyle with healthy foods will make the biggest impact. And you need to be think long term: losing more than 1 pound per week will cause your body to fight back. You need to very slowly nudge it to where you want it to be, but also realize where your genetics put you. There are so many things to consider, so you need to connect with a specialist.
Saying "Don't get obsessive" while stating you need to do something 6 days a week is an insane starting point.. I agree excersie helps with weight loss, but being in a calorie deficit is enough to loose weight. Dont set the goal too high or else no one will be able to stick to it...
Count your calories and see what isn't worth it. Usually the best thing to cut first is liquid calories, when I realized I could basically have another meal a day if I quit soda, it made things a lot easier.
I guess the most important thing would be to focus on lifestyle changes. You can have a super strict diet for months and lose tons of weight, but if you don't incorporate that as a permanent change, it can be easy to gain it back while not in "diet mode." Smaller changes that you stick with perpetually are better in the long run, even a 100 calorie daily deficit will eventually see results.
Also perhaps get a kitchen scale for portion control, this kinda ties in with counting your calories, but after I started measuring meals it was also easier to not overeat.
Eat until you're not hungry, not when you're full. That may require eating more slowly. It will be an adjustment for sure.
That’s definitely a challenge for me. I grew up with a bunch of siblings, so if you didn’t eat fast, you’d be stuck with leftovers. Inhaling my food is an unfortunate habit I’ve held onto.
You can get out in front of it by estimating how much food will get you to satisfied but not full and only place that much in front of you.
And wait about 10 minutes before going back for seconds. For some reason when I still feel hungry after eating, if I wait a bit before seconds, I don't feel hungry anymore.
It gives your body time to start digesting, and once digesting it is like "I got to work on this food, don't need any more just yet." If you eat fast enough that the digestion doesn't kick in then you still feel as hungry as you did initially and you have to fill your stomach before that feeling kicks in.
Source: vague recollection of some nutritional information from years ago
For me the big problem is that as a kid I would eat something for breakfast and then one big meal a day after playing outside constantly, so my eating pattern is wolfing down food until I feel like I could burst. That doesn't work well when life changed to have three scheduled meals a day, but it did take a decade or two and a desk job to really catch up with me. Still a struggle not to over eat, especially with people around me encouraging me to eat more.
I can relate, and also not wanting to seem rude and turn down overly processed food/sugar laden cookies/pies, etc. I love sweets, I just don't want them in excess, or hfcs/beet sugar, or really much cane sugar, especially white, and other things that are my own peculiarities.
Also yes, it seems I remember something about digestion kicking in, now that you mention it, thanks!
This is important! These small habit changes all add up.
Try using a smaller plate which forces you to take a smaller amount initially and consciously makes you aware of going back for more.
A weird way I learned to eat more normal portions was to buy frozen meals. Sure they are super processed but when looking at the ingredients it looks like completely normal homemade food so it can't be that bad. We ate that for a couple of weeks before we got tired of it. But that was enough to learn
Intermittent fasting worked for me. By setting a limit on the number of hours I can only eat, it effectively put me into a calorie deficit. There’s only so much you can eat within several hours.
The great part is I didn’t have to be selective with what I eat. I just needed to quit eating before my daily eating window closed. No need for overly complicated diets.
I’ve tried intermittent fasting before and didn’t have much luck. I’d reach my eating window and be so hungry that I’d blow through my calorie limit for the day
How long did you try it? It took me around 2 weeks to get used to it and it was pretty difficult having to deal with the hunger in the first few days. I just had to power through it. Nowadays I can go up to 18 hours without eating.
This kind of behavior tells me you have little to no hope on any plan without a major change in your psychology. You will just find a loophole and fail.
That’s a lot to assume based on two sentences about something I did eight years ago
Everyone thinks they are a unique case, but when you've seen enough examples, it's not a lot to assume. There is a lot of other evidence within your initial post, other responses and how you wrote about it, such as speed eating versus siblings carrying into current day, coupled with depression issues... It's many factors and I've seen it 1000's of times. Be prepared to suffer, being hungry, and eating a lot less. There are no secrets, but you will fail if you don't get your mind right, as you will find loopholes and excuses forever.
I don’t think I’m a unique case, and respectfully, you don’t know me. Certainly not based only on the information contained in this post. If you just want to discourage me, rather than provide actual advice, don’t bother.
This is actual advice. You need mental support before you will be successful with changing your diet habits, and all the reasons for that are really apparent in this thread, and you're dismissing that's the case as a defensive mechanism.
Preperation. If my house is full of healthy food, I'm much less likely to impulsively order delivery food or head to 7/11. You have to learn how to cook without using highly processed foods too.
Edit: This includes flour btw, it's as bad as refined sugar, basically! There's nuance sure, but tell it to the ghosts of my flab rolls!
I never buy snacks or treats in my usual weekly shop - once in while I treat myself such as buying a box of stollen for Christmas... and even then I share with my family. Switching to unsalted/flavoured nuts and fruit after meals helped a lot.
Another thing is getting into the habit of intermittent fasting. At least three days a week, I only eat dinner in a 24hr period. This definitely isn't for everyone - I only happened to get back into it noticing I was putting on weight working from home through COVID however there are other versions like 16/8
I just finished maintaining a calorie deficit for about 8 months and losing a little over 50 lbs, so here's a few things I can think of:
I like to binge snacks (doesn't matter if healthy or not) out from my house, so it sometimes feels hard to stay in specific calorie amount. What helps me with that is to either make snacking a process where I need to prepare it each time I want them or not to buy any from stores.
Also just generally preparing food yourself instead of just ordering/buying food helps with getting less calories. Not always possible due to time/energy/money, but it has helped me a lot.
Good luck with your plans!
I personally use a calorie counting app, like Waistline, and when I start getting into that routine of eating less naturally without actively counting, I stop using the app.
When I fall off, I go back to it for a bit until I'm back in the rhythm.
I also exercise a few times a week and try to do at least one walk a day.
Wearables like Garmin also do great calculations of calories burned. If you don't like the idea of your data being sold, which you shouldn't, Garmins are often compatible with this FOSS app: https://f-droid.org/packages/nodomain.freeyourgadget.gadgetbridge
One key trick I did was be completely honest with my calorie counting app.
Lying to it only lied to myself.
After about a month, I started getting "lazy" by documenting it by not eating certain things. I knew adding cookies would add 200 calories, and I didn't feel like opening up the app. So I didn't eat it.
And My cheat days suddenly felt real. I ate a whole pizza and watched those calorie numbers go higher. When cheat day came around again, I "cheated" by picking healthier things.
You're obviously getting a lot of specific nutritional advice regarding what to eat, avoid, and how to behave.
My biggest recommendation is to find support in creating a healthy relationship with food. No individual or category of food is "bad" but our behaviors and views can support or sabotage our progress.
I highly recommend the podcasts In Moderation and Showing Up Anyway with Coach Adam. Also social media - I know they have accounts across platforms but on YouTube look for The Plant Slant, ScottyKFitness, Adam Wright Fitness, and Hybrid Calisthenics.
Most people can force themselves into a box and create a habit for a period of time, but making long term changes stick needs healthy support and education.
This. All of this. Make this part of your lifestyle.
"All food is guilt free, because guilt is not an ingredient"
Cut out soda entirely. Skip breakfast and lunch. Maybe eat a light snack at some point during the day if you need to (real food, not sugary crap). Train yourself to just deal with being hungry. When you do eat, focus on things that are nutritionally dense, filling, and slow to digest.
Yeah, because I am poor, AuDHD and depressed, so I very often go an entire day without eating.
I've only crossed the "slight overweight" line now. But in the past 15 years I have monitored my weight while trying gentle changes: eat healthier, no added sugar, more exercise, build a small amount of muscle. Nothing has made a difference. I was gaining weight slowly, year by year.
Now I'm finally doing what I wanted to avoid for 15 years: stop eating while still slightly hungry. It was a psychological exercise: To focus on the feeling of hunger so I stay aware of it, so I don't automatically walk into the kitchen. To convince myself that I'm okay with it, this is how it has feel, no need to panic. There was some resistance, but in the end it was easier than expected. I mostly do this towards the evening, and not every day, and when I'm more than just a bit hungry I still eat.
The effect on my weight was almost a shock after the non-effect of all my previous attempts. I feel like I can keep this up easily. In fact I had to dial it back, losing weight faster than I intended. And I did keep my healthy habits from earlier: especially I try to be active one hour each day, and if I wasn't I usually go for a late walk.
Hey, so I dropped weight casually and all I did was:
You will be hungry, a lot for some time but shortly it will stabilise and you'd mainly feel hunger around food time.
After time, my body stabilised around 15kg lower than I were when I began, and that's with me breaking it quite often xD
There are a few different strategies I have used at different phases in life.
Where I am at right now.
Don’t eat processed foods. They make it easy to over way by design.
Eat the recommended amount of sodium or less a day. Sodium makes food more palatable. You will find yourself eating less calories simply because the food isn’t as good.
I’ve been eating the recommended amount if fiber on purpose. I eat oatmeal instead of rice/potatoes/bread. It’s filling and less ‘munchable’ if you think you are hungry put a bowl of oatmeal infront of yourself. I do season it with olive oil and spices.
I restrict sugar and high fuctrose corn syrup for the same reason I restrict salt. Sugar makes food taste to good making it easy to eat more then you need to without realizing.
These change help me eat the proper and filling portions of food without overeating. I eat till I’m full.
I also only eat like this most of the time. But even then I’m giving myself leeway on the holidays. I just try to make more good decisions then bad.
Eh, I don't love this one. The idea of intentionally making food shittier so that you enjoy it less is never gonna work for me.
You do you.
It’s way easier to eat the right amount of food if you aren’t making it extra salty or extra sweet.
Basically I need to eat foods that actually taste good as opposed to making them palatable.
I have had to find different ways to season foods. I find I am more sensitive to salt and less salt makes me satisfied.
As an example, I salt my salads fairly precisely. After all, the word "salad" itself derives from the Latin word for "salted."
But there's also like literally no way that overeating a salad would be unhealthy for me, a person who doesn't have hypertension (and who sweats a lot of salt so that I need a higher than normal sodium intake). I'm going to salt my salads as I see fit, and use the right amount of acid and maybe a source of umami for flavor, as well. I want my salads to be delicious, because I have basically zero fear that I'll overeat them to the point of adverse health effects.
For plenty of other foods, I'm basically controlling portions before I plate anyway. If I'm at a restaurant, the portions are tightly controlled and I control what portions I eat by simply controlling what portions I order. If I'm cooking at home, I'm not accidentally meal planning for the week but running out of food on Wednesday. Everything I eat should be delicious, and if there's a problem with overeating, it's because I failed to control portions before it was placed in front of me.
To borrow an analogy from Homer's The Odyssey, I prefer Odysseus's strategy of tying himself to the mast and hearing the sirens anyway, over the crew plugging their ears and never hearing them in the first place.
Everyone can take their own approaches, but my own strategies for portioning already make it so that making the food less delicious wouldn't do much for myself.
Great. Sounds like you have a strategy for you.
I just eat till I feel full, not paying attention to portions.
Even when I wasn’t watching what I eat at all I never salted a salad. Never found it necessary. I just like the way leafy greens taste.
We have pretty different sets of tastes.
This is the only long-term sustainable answer.
I hope so.
It’s way easier to be extreme then constantly make choices. Takes a lot more brain power to says sometimes it’s okay as opposed to never.
Still I’m trying it out.
Don't focus on what you can take out. Focus on what you can add. So like if you live instant ramen. Make a half pack and add bok choy and a soy egg or something. Kylie Sakaida on YouTube (actual dietician, dunno all her credentials) focuses a lot on this and gives examples. Changed my life and lost maybe 30 lbs just by following that train of thought.
For me meal prepping is big too. Make a bunch of something on Sunday when I have time and divvy it up throughout the week. My wife can't eat the same stuff as much so I freeze some now and pull something out from a previous week. If you plan it out right you start building variety of your favorite stuff in the freezer for easy meals you just throw in oven.
I found cutting carbs to be a big help. I eat massive amounts of protein and little to no carb and I've been losing a lot of weight that way
Figure out what diet you can actually maintain in the long run. All of them work if you stick to them. You can't out excercise a bad diet but at some point a stricter diet becomes harder than a bit of exercise.
What works for me is replacing carbs with meat , cheese and vegetables. Tastes good and at a slight deficit I'll still mange to not raid the fridge after dinner.
Fruit and veggies will fill your stomach up making it harder to eat anything else while being lower in calories, I drench them in steak fat, idc, about the extra calories gained there, if I dont eag vegetables I eat a ton of snacks, if my stomach is uncomfortably full I dont think about eating. It's just expensive (in my case I have limited fast food options, just restaurants) if you dont cook to get healthier options but you can save hella calories. Like keto bread instead of regular for hotdogs/hamburgers save me at least 100 calories a burger, coke zero instead of coke saves me like 600 calories a day drinking 4 cans (ik I should drink less soda but ive done much much worse to my body being fat and abusing drugs, this is fine in comparison so im sticking to it)
You could always intermittent fast, eat like 4-8 hours of your day and the no food until the next 4-8 hour period, worked for me but I gained most of my weight back when I stopped, I wouldnt want to do it forever so its not viable for me. I lost like 90 lbs gained 70 back. Now I've been losing 10 a year but not gaining it back just trying to minimize calories through ingredients and less snacking.
For candy I swapped to stuff that last longer flavorwise and I get sick of faster like hichews over chocolate. ChocolateI can eat lbs of nonstop, once I start each bite just tastes better, so I try to avoid it or get a variety of minis, having a few small portions of different kinds is more satisfying than one extra large portion of one kind.
I really recomend checking out a weight loss clinic, the one i went with was not a chain and didnt accept insurance, its run by an obesity M.D. doctor, and their spouse a professional dietician. There they prescribed me a flexible diet that has me going to the grocery store and cooking in the kitchen and an excersize plan that has me going regularly to the gym (in the beginning with a personal trainer) and weekly tirzeptide injections and some specific supplements after taking blood work.
I've lost over 100 lbs, sustainably at about 2lbs/week, and i feel better than I ever have.
It costs me about 500$/month for the service - cheaper exists - but the support from the professionals along with the guided plan has worked wonders, now that im approaching my goal the conversation has evolved into safely tapering off tirzeptide, how to avoid rebound weight gain (like i have in the past weight loss journeys), technical talk about how ghreline and leptin work and can override will power and how to avoid and deal with that scenario, etc
The pros know how to focus and train you for genuine lifestyle change as well as the turbulence between changes, not just weight loss
Avoiding nearly all sugars + mental conditioning to be ok with mild hunger
Ill drink water if I’m hungry or have a hard boiled egg and then just…deal with being hungry 🤷♀️ if I really need a snack I try to make it something very small and high fat/protein but ultimately there’s no avoiding having to mentally endure some hunger
I also switched to smaller bowls and plates because psychologically the mind is indeed somewhat fooled by finishing 1 plate of food, even if it’s a smaller plate
What have been working for me until the cold weather and the scale ran out of batteries is to weight every meal and count all the calories I consume. I eat whatever I want as long it fits inside the 2300kcal daily budget, the weight loss was slow but steady since summer. I could get faster results by exercising more and/or setting a tighter budget but I'm happy enough with the current rate.
This week I bought new batteries, so I'm good to go again.
In my late 20's, I managed to cut to probably the lowest body fat percentage of my life.
I learned which foods I found to be satisfying despite a lower calorie count, and vice versa. In my case, it's water, fiber, and protein that are important for feeling full even when I'm not eating a lot of calories. That means lots of soups, lots of green vegetables, lots of lean meats and cheeses, and some member of the legume family in almost every meal (beans and lentils, and also things like green beans, peas, peanuts). It also meant a dramatic reduction in sugars, especially in beverages, and a big reduction in alcohol consumption.
I started running a lot. Some people say you can't outrun a bad diet, but running 25 miles (40km) per week goes a really, really long way and buys you a big buffer that allows you a few high calorie meals here and there.
I stopped keeping snacks on hand. Almost everything in my house required some degree of prep or cooking to eat.
Many of those I've kept up in the 20 years since, but I've re-added whole grains and fruit into my previously low carb diet because they have a good satiety to calorie ratio (probably because of the fiber). And I've stopped running but also tolerate a higher body fat percentage and higher overall weight in support of a significantly more muscular build (and a lot more measurable strength). Finally, I do keep certain ready to eat foods in the house, but mainly because I have kids and need to feed them without spending all my time on that task.
A big thing is don't buy junk food. Its much easier to not buy that bag of chips then to resist eating them at 2am...
I try not to. My wife likes buy snacks, she just has more self discipline than me haha
This is the hardest thing in a house with multiple people. Especially young people who are active and have no problem with weight. I can only do so much when I control one quarter of the food strategy. And the coupe of times I've brought it up to my spouse it is like I am attacking them, which is it's own problem, I know.
I switched to one meal a day for blood sugar management. I fast all day eat dinner then normally have a snack before bed. you learn to deal with minor hunger and it does not effect you anymore. Food is also better in general. Delayed gratification etc
Yeah I do a similar thing with intermittent fasting. I allow myself to eat as much as I want, but only after around 1600 (4pm for the temporally confused friends) or roughly the time the kid gets home from school and either has a small snack or we eat dinner straight away around that time. Couldn’t skip that, because I do need to show example too, since they, as many kids do, struggle to eat enough, sometimes just nibbling on stuff. Even if they’ve been very active with hobbies and friends and walking to and from school (around 4km total) and they really need the energy and the nutrients to build back and heal the body after all that, not to mention usual growing stuff. And as they often do, especially the salad sides are difficult without someone body doubling the experience, or if we’re doing something different, unusual food to slightly expand their comfort zone progressively. So I can’t really fast beyond that. But I’ve found I don’t really need to. I’ve lost around 10kg in a year just by this small fasting period. No other changes. I wasn’t obese before, just a bit overweight, but I have been back in the day, on the obese side even. I got back from that with keto diet, and luckily never let it slip back too much, but that isn’t an option anymore, for largely the same reasons; have to lead by example, show healthy eating habits (when they are there) and have diverse, nutritious food. Can’t do keto like that.
I’m not doing this for weight reasons though; my blood sugar is on the high side, almost pre-diabetic, and the docs tell me if I don’t get it sorted, I’ll eventually just slip over the line and that’s not something you get back from apparently. I also have vascular fat (or whatever it’s called in English, the inner fat) that I’d need to get rid of to get my liver values back to healthy bounds. Already gave up drinking some years back, even if it was occasional even then, and it wasn’t enough, so I have to try and get the fat off too. Keto would’ve been perfect for this, back in the day I lost crazy amount of that inner fat especially on it, but apparently this intermittent fasting is doing good things there too, although not nearly as effectively.
But the surprising thing to me is, I didn’t cut off any foods or food types, generally I’ve tried to keep the short carbs a bit lower than usual, but haven’t gone entirely off. And it still works. I haven’t been on the blood controls yet for either of the reasons, but my scale tells me about 2-3kg of that 10kg has been inner fat.
And even through Christmas and a lot of carbs, the weight didn’t seem to sway back almost at all, even with delayed monitoring.
Which is all to say, it seems easier to cut on the calories if you only consume them less than half a day, time-wise, even if you ate unhealthy food and generally not very diet-y. In the limited timespan it might just be impossible to get to similar amounts of calories vs. if you ate regularly throughout all day, if you like me have trouble regulating and tend to overeat fairly consistently (I have adhd so the dopamine rush gets me too excited every time and I guess I lose most of my sense of moderation for a while there).
Sorry for the weird digression. Just wanted to hop in with my experiences.
This works well for me. The hardest part comes from social interactions, not from hunger. Cooking for a family and not eating, that sucks.
I can't really recommend anything specific to weight loss, but as someone who hates spending more than 30 minutes cooking (and then cleaning up), I would recommend dishes that can be prepared in a single pot, such as stews, soups, or similar. These dishes can also be stored well for several days.
This is also a good alternative to processed foods in terms of time.
Being overweight is a natural reaction to an unnatural food environment. Processed foods contain far too much energy and too little fiber (i.e., stuff that fills our stomachs but contains hardly any energy.
Exercise is important for keeping our bodies fit, but it is not the right choice to lose weight. It is much easier not to consume 300 calories in the first place than to burn them off through exercise. Simply eating less does not help either. If your stomach is not full, you are constantly hungry, and no one can keep that up for long. To lose weight in the long term, you need to change your energy intake, i.e., the type of food, not the amount of food. So you have to change your diet, there's no way around it. Move away from processed stuff and toward whole food, plant-based meals.
"Whole food" means:
Grown from soil, nothing good removed after harvesting and nothing bad added. Over time, your body and your gut flora will get used to it, your cravings for junk food will subside, and you'll be able to eat your fill of vegetables, fruit, legumes, and nuts every day cheaply, healthily, and with a clear conscience. And you'll still lose weight.
So: Keep the junk out of the house! Don't let that crap into your home anymore; if it's there, you'll eat it.
You gain weight in the gym but you lose it in the kitchen! If you really hate the taste (/ texture is usually the real issue), you can also consume the fiber separately before the meal (the brand name of psyllium husk is metamucil and it comes as a drink or as a pill and you can buy it generic too). If you do take it as a pill make sure to chase it with plenty of water to help it gel up properly and not constipate you. Like this user said it'll help you feel fuller longer and it'll also detox your bowels by sticking to stuff on it's way through like one of those cleaning slimes where you push it into all the cracks of something and when you pull it out all the dirt / dust is stuck to it. Great when you eat a meal with a lot of capsaicin and your bowels are having trouble / still mad about it a few days later.
Or you start adding half a can of legumes like beans, lentils, chickpeas to your meals. It's cheap, yummy, healthy superfood for you and your gut. :)
OMAD or IF works really well for a lot of people. What you eat and when you eat are critical, not just how many calories are going in and out. CICO is far from the whole story when it comes to metabolism and your endocrine system.
Depression and poverty are really good for losing weight. I've lost 10 lbs in the last few months.
Unfortunately, I tend to eat my feelings, and depression just helps me gain weight :(
I just skip breakfast and lunch when I'm trying to lose weight. Your body gets used to it after a few days and doesn't send the same hunger signals.
Be efficient with your calories. If you overeat and then you try to cut to 1800 but are still eating ice cream, chips, Starbucks. That 1800 is going to go so fast and you'll still be hungry.
Eat lean protein, simple carbs a ton of veggies and drink lots of water. You can also reduce exercise intensity if you're feeling super drained.
Another thing is to not try and cut to fast. Doing a 1000+cal deficit for weeks is going to wreck you. Better to go slow with 250 or 500 and take extra time.
You could try intermittent fasting.
For me it helped to focus on small changes. If I just cut my calorie intake in half, upped my exercise, and other large changes all at once, it would overload my brain and I'd back slide. I started making oatmeal in the morning. One cup of oats, one cup of frozen blueberries, and a little [too much] sugar. The next was understanding what hunger means. Your level of hunger indicates how soon you should eat. Not how much. Start making a conscious decision to only have one helping for a meal. Try drinking a lot of water before meals. Like straight chug water until you feel like you'll burst. You can trick your stomach into feeling full quicker if water takes up some space as you start to eat.
I'm on a flexitarian diet. Not intentionally, my tastes just change up periodically. So I eat a lot less meat and a lot more salad with evoo/vinegar and Italian seasonings for dressing. My bread intake is way down. Getting enough bioavailable B12 and protein without a supplement is challenging. I've been meaning to get nooch but every time I'm in a store that carries it, I forget, so I end up eating eggs, cheese and having whole milk and yogurt. And with unseasonably warm weather, I'm walking again, so the deficit is a lot easier.
The great thing about salad and fruits is they fill you up, the downside is it doesn't stick as long.
Good luck. You got this. OK so 100lb is quite a lot. And please stay above 100lb body weight. OK now then. I lost around 30lbs give or take. And here are some tips:
Good luck. You got this.
GLP-1
I’d really rather not
ah, well.. alright. i have found mine rather life changing but if you're not interested then i'll leave it there.
I’d be interested to hear about your experience with them! I mentioned it in another reply, but cost, side effects, and worries about regaining the weight once going off them are my main concerns
ah sure! more than happy and willing to help how i can.
yeah this is the biggest barrier. i am thankfully on state medicaid which is covering the cost, but when i had personal insurance i ended up paying $500/mo. however, the pill form is coming and is already available compounded. it should make things more affordable.
varies from person to person obv but i don't have many: skin sensitivity, mild cramping, nausea on occasion, constipation. might sound like a lot but these aren't 24/7 or disruptive. they are also treatable and i have lowered their frequencies by keeping hydrated and increasing fiber, stuff like that. i will tell you it is 100x better than the symptoms i had being morbidly obese.
well good news, these are lifelong lol. this is a common concern but it stems from Hollywood abusing the intention of these drugs going towards treating a chronic condition. you don't lose 40 lbs and get off. GLP-1s treat your brain which then controls the metabolic disease you likely have. medicine will need to control it lifelong, there's no cure.
when i started Zepbound i weighed 363 lbs. i am now 209 and continuing to lose. It's been a year and one month. i will stay on these class of drugs until told otherwise by trusted experts and professionals. the amount of physical and psychological improvements have been worth any cost needed for this medication. i feel tremendously human for the first time in my life. i wasn't restored, i was rebuilt.
I'm afraid you're not quite right with that second part. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/over-half-regain-weight-after-stopping-glp-1s-2025a1000vmt
Other benefits, such as to blood pressure, often frequently reverse as well. These are now being further investigated.
hello, what are you talking about lol this is a study for people who stop taking the medicine. i mentioned staying on for life.
Ah, I understand now. I think you were not as explicit as you might think you were. Regardless, my comment is still relevant as a response to yours. It's not so simple as just going off of these things after you have achieved your goals. Unfortunately.
Why
Cost mostly, but also concerns about side effects, and regaining weight once I go off them. I think learning to change my behavior and form healthy habits will probably have more staying power
I’m not ruling them out entirely, but they’re not my first choice
regular excercise; doesnt have to be Hiit - e.g. daily walk (30-60mins) does wonders
Literally impossible to outrun overeating;
how much you eat is your size
how you work out is your definition
Tracking my food made a big impact for me. I started not by changing anything, but just writing everything I ate down. From there, it was pretty obvious to me where I could make changes, but I didnt change everything at once. If I were to list the changes I made, nobody would be surprised. They were exactly the kinds of recommendations others have made here. It's just that it was so much easier for me to pick something specific to change and have a good idea of the kind of impact that change would make when I could see the numbers.
I started on this path a year ago. I homebrew beer and it's pretty yummy. Years of drinking a couple of beers a night got me over 100kg. That was my trigger. 1x beer about same as a Mars bar in calories. Stopped drinking weekdays. Only vape weed as a wind down now. Switched to whisky ginger ale on weekends. Buy less snacks Drink more water and tea and stopped having sugar in tea.10x teas a day is a lot of unnecessary sugar. Stopped eating lunch, have miso soup sachets. Breakfast is toast and marmite Dinner is full normal meal My stomach stopped complaining it was hungry, though it helped to have awareness that the hungry feeling is a good feeling and to embrace it as a sign of success. I don't beat myself up for a stumble. Sometimes I snack, sometimes I go out for midweek beers though rarely.
Over a year I dropped 25kg A quarter of my body mass I'm 52 It helps I'm adhd lol and eating has always been an afterthought But the main weight loss came from significantly reducing alcohol Unfortunately I've not made any beer for two years.. so there is a downside lol Anyway.. just my 2c Good luck 👍
The last time I decided to lose weight, I basically cut out all sweet things after meals and avoided regular snacking. It took a while to get used to not having those things (he said, with enormous understatement) but nowhere near as long as it did to lose the weight, so the good habits did lock in for a while, and the weight did eventually come off.
I allowed myself low calorie drinks whenever. The more water in them, the better. Tea with sweetener not sugar is my usual poison, but I switch it up with squash depending on mood and time of day.
A change in medication and slow fall back into old habits has got the BMI back over 25 again, so I intend to employ the same tactics again in the new year. Once all the Christmas snacks I've been bought are gone, anyway. *cough*
If I wasn't snacking and still needed to lose weight, I'd probably try reducing my portion sizes. One less potato. Smaller chops. One less sausage. etc. but I can't vouch for that because I've never needed to go that far.
Are you on any meds? If so, see if they're a problem. I had some anti anxiety meds that made me hungry all the time. I could maintain healthy weight before them.
Yeah, I’m on Effexor. I’m not sure if hunger is a common problem with it, I’ll look into it though, thanks!
I'm not one to talk because I also need to lose like 50lbs, but I'm starting to think that weight gain/loss happens when I put the food on my plate.
Sometimes I just serve myself too much food, especially if it's something that I really like. So I think using a smaller diameter plate and making sure that self-control is on point at serving time is underrated.
Also, another thing I've been trying that at least feels good is parking farther from where I want to go. Here in the US I'm driving all the time, but I have found that I feel can get more walking in just by parking on the other side of the parking lot, or even in a different parking lot entirely, and getting some extra steps in.
Finally I need to learn to eat a little slower! 🤣
Intermittent fasting is the way - read Dr Fung’s book
My experience has been that you need to pay attention to what I call the "satiety-to-calorie ratio." Some foods have really good ratios, meaning you feel full without a lot of calories. Some foods have really poor ratios, meaning you get a lot of calories but still feel hungry afterwards. Start keeping track of how full you feel after eating a meal or a snack, and also keep track of how many calories it has.
You will be surprised by some of the results. Some of what would be considered healthy foods can have pretty poor ratios and some of what would be considered unhealthy can have pretty good ratios. Obviously, the issue here is that we're only factoring in calories, not nutrients, so this isn't the end-all-be-all system that you need to follow. But if weight loss is your primary objective, this is a good starting metric.
You'll want to cut out or minimize foods that have a low ratio, and keep foods that have a good ratio. Keep a couple of good-ratio snacks for when you crave snacks. That way, you can satisfy cravings without getting too many extra calories.
I find that it helps me to set a daily calorie limit and aim to keep under it. Going over the limit is fine, but the extra calories get rolled over and need to be paid off over the next days. If you don't know the calories of foods that you ate, give your best estimate. You'll get better at estimating over time as you pay attention to the calories of the foods that you do know.
Also, when you cook, make sure to add in the calories from oil. And if you just need a way to drop your calories rapidly, I find that Soylent or Huel have remarkably good ratios and taste like milkshake, though they are somewhat expensive.
Eat less and count calories. If you're getting < 1000 calories a day, you'll almost certainly lose weight. And when I did it, it was a keto diet, but I couldn't say whether keto is a dumb fad thing or legit, just that that's what I was doing when I lost weight. Mostly because protein calories kept me feeling fuller longer. But that feeling of hunger is also the feeling of a calorie deficit.
Less than 1000 calories per day is way too low for a lot of people. Like, an unhealthy level. You’ll put your body into starvation mode.
Long-term, sustained weight loss is about lifestyle change. Don’t set a goal and implement dietary and/or exercise changes you have to force yourself to stick to; instead, you have to find a lower-calorie diet and exercise routine that you actually like. Some “dealing with hunger” may be necessary in the beginning if you’re used to frequent eating or large portions, but your body/brain should acclimate to your new diet in a few weeks. If you can, the best eating schedule is actually one with no meals, but around six healthy snacks throughout the day. This is because the frequent eating keeps your metabolism up throughout the day, which burns calories faster. You want to aim for no more than 2,000 calories a day if you’re counting them. I would also recommend taking a multivitamin (most people should be taking one anyway).
For me it’s just sheer discipline and the occasional motivational drop in weight to a new low. I set myself a clear goal I want to reach and stick to that plan, knowing roughly by when I will reach it.
Discipline: I just forbid myself any kind of sweets (no chocolate, gummybears, chips, cookies, etc for 3 months now) and try to eat as little as I can stick with. This is most likely not the most healthy way to diet, but I can take a strict discipline for a little time better than having to be only a little strict for a much longer time. Most days I only eat something in the evening, ideally some salad or cottage cheese with veggies. Drinking lots of water and coffee helps. Sometimes a zero sugar energy drink which helps soothe the need for something sweet.
Motivation: I track my weight using the app Happy Scale, but any spreadsheet to average out numbers will work. Basically I get on the scale every morning before drinking or eating anything, and log my weight. It will still fluctuate daily, but tracking a rolling average helps to see it go down overall. And if for some days in a row it doesn’t, I just have to stick to the laws of physics which dictate that my body can’t create energy out of thin air, so it’s most likely just water being stored more some days than others.
I make salad dressing from low fat cottage cheese. I use a strong immersion blender to make it the consistency of sour cream. Thin it with water and add ranch dip seasoning. Anytime I feel hungry. I just have a salad with protein ranch. Make staying full very easy. Also fake bacon bits are almost pure protein.
Throw out/donate junk food. Don't buy more. Ask yourself if your actually hungry before getting a snack. Often times I'm just bored or procrastinating. But ive found the most success with HARD REASONABLE RULES.
Example : 2023 was the year of zero alcohol. I did it for a year and gave myself permission to drink again after the year's end. I didn't. Stopped caring about drinking after a few months without it. I can count the number of drinks on one hand I've had since then.
Example 2: 2024 was the no Candy and no ice cream year. Candy was defined as "anything you could find in a Halloween bag"
Ive found a lot of success with HARD reasonable clearly defined rules.
First step is to meal prep. Make sure you always have healthy food and reasonable portions. A “deep freeze” freezer can help with this.
Also make sure you have healthy, low-calories options for snacking as you adjust to the new diet. Hard-boiled eggs are the best go-to under the sun.
You can also add psyllium fiber to your meals to keep you full and help your gut biome. Metamucil is the moat famous brand, but there are others.
Preventing yourself from feeling hungry is critical. So plan, make smart choices, and learn how to avoid hunger wisely.
Smaller plates genuinely helped me reduce portion sizes.
Use foods with a low calorie density as fillings. Things like cabbage and other veggies are very filling leaving you feeling more satisfied
Make soup (from veggies and beans). Eat fruit for your snacks multiple times a day. Always go for whole grains (bread, pasta, rice, etc.). Eliminate cheese entirely (seriously, it is terrible for you). Replace milk with soy milk (doesn't have the saturated fat or sugar). Reduce or eliminate meat consumption. Avoid added sugars when possible.
A good rule of thumb that I find helpful is that the majority of ingredients in all meals should naturally contain non-negligible amounts of fiber. The things you eat should also mostly have plenty of water in them already for bulk and digestion. Dry foods (including oil-based foods) are far too easy to overeat.
These are relatively simple rules that leave tons of options for variety but force you to have a fairly healthy diet. They are easy to implement in a lifelong diet with no need for calorie-counting.
Cut out the sugars (including pasta, potatoes, corn,...) and ditch that addiction. You'll not only lose weight and be healthier, but the cravings will also stop.
Keep track, plan meals, don't bring home junk from the store, and be honest with yourself about what is junk.
You could make lots of jello. Easy, tastes good, fills you, and there’s nearly no calories. I personally just drink water when I crave snacks.
Huh, the more you know! I had no clue jello was so low calorie
If you substitute the sugar with a xylitol or erythritol it will basically have no calories at all.
I haven't experienced this yet myself, but I'm considering starting to take a fiber supplement and have read that it helps a lot with satiety.
I did a keto diet for a bit back in the summer. It worked very well for me and I lost 10kg in about 7 weeks. The diet made me feel full for a long time so I was also on one meal a day and not snacking. It's not something I think I could keep up long term, the variety in what you can eat isn't enough for me, although since coming off the diet, I haven't put any of the weight back on so my metabolism must have changed somehow as a result.
Not saying it's for everyone, but I was surprised how well it worked for me.
I wish you the best of luck!
Haven't been fat but have been hugely pregnant and had to lose weight and even though people say you can't outrun a diet, exercise has been the only thing that's really made a difference for me. The more I exercise the less I weigh, the "out" part of calories in, calories out makes the bigger difference for my body.
Ditch processed foods, cook your own meals, and find a hobby you enjoy that is active.
nicotine, caffeine, gum, not buying candy
Obviously you cannot maintain a deficit over the long run. Eventually, you disappear.
But for any given caloric intake that can sustain you, you will eventually come to a steady state where your body doesn't grow or shrink any longer, because the bigger your body is, the more calories are required to maintain it.
But also be aware that this isn't a case of calories in/calories out. There are things that you can add to your diet, introducing new daily calories, and yet you will maintain a lower weight than if you had not added those calories. All calories are NOT equal (despite containing the same chemical energy).
I think a better phrasing would be that all calories are the same, but not all calories are equally accessible (I think this is what you're getting at?). Eating calories that take more work to access inherently adds less stored energy at the end.
I think it's pretty simple. Eat less. But it is not easy for some.
If this was the answer for them, they wouldn't have made this post
I think you're on a good track. Some tips i've picked up though: Switch the milk you use with cereal/tea/coffee to soya milk, i found that it helps. Also don't underestimate the power of a short stroll if you've been sitting down for a lot of the day - prompts the body to be in fat burning mode rrathee than fat building mode.
You need to track your calories and macros. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. You can go overboard sometimes, but you still need to track the calories. Someone else has recommended https://tdeecalculator.net/ which is a great starter point to set targets. Eat whatever you want, but follow your macros targets: I'd recommend a macros target high in proteins.
Track everything you eat, even when you're in a good place, keep tracking. I have ADHD so I've found it best to treat it like I do financial tracking, it becomes habit very quickly and apps like waistline make it super easy to enter, especially if you're in the habit of weighing everything.
I have to minimise the smacks kept in the house, and what we do keep tends to be "better" or at least less calorie dense. I don't deny myself cravings, but I'll follow servings and budget for it in calories. Waistline averages out calories over a configurable period so I don't sweat going over one day, all balances out over the long term.
Therapy helped a lot, if only to help me have a healthier relationship with food, my therapist has a lot of experience with addiction & substance abuse and food can absolutely be a drug (which is not acknowledged enough imo). Between that and getting treatment for ADHD I've managed to get back down to one of the lowest weights I've been as an adult. I've tried to make it a lifestyle change which I credit heavily to success as well. My partner having a health scare that forced them to review their diet also helped tbf, but we were already on that path, was just some extra push.
What you eat can help too, fibre being a big one. Make friends with legumes, add them into your cooking. I like chickpeas and lentils, will add them into a lot of dishes I cook. Use seeds too, ground flax tastes great and adds a lot of good fats, sunflower and pumpkin seeds go well in salads. I like to do meals that can serve leftovers, stuff like soups & stews are great because they don't have a lot of active cooking (you throw stuff into a pot and let it simmer for a while). Higher quality calories are helpful, tell you that personally I'll feel fuller longer eating some porridge with flax and fruit in the morning than the occasions I'll grab a McMuffin or something.
Adding to the tracking idea, log it BEFORE you eat it (or buy it, depending). You'll find that a lot of items aren't worth it, and you'll put it back.
Track everything you eat. I use the Energize app becasue it's private but there are lots out there. Eat the correct balance of carbs, protein, veg, etx. Get your daily calorie limit from your doctor..
Exercise as regularly as you can but remember you can't outrun your fork.
Hydrate.
That's it. Everything else is pretty much smoke and mirrors. It is not easy.
Mainly, cook your own food. Stop eating out.I found the America's Test Kitchen Skillet Recipes and Best Soups to be amazing.
You can't. Your metabolism will just start being more conservative.
Everything in the body is balanced and the body does not want to lose its reserves.
Once you change the system, it will react to revert it back to how it was.
You can increase your metabolism with a lot of exercise. The less calories you eat, the more tired you will be. The harder it will be to force yourself to exercise.
Dieting will ultimately reduce your metabolism burn rate. And make you more tired.
You can offset it by forcing exercise. Which will be hard due to the fatigue.
It's why loosing weight is hard for people.
It's never as simple as "eat less". Unless you are literally starving yourself. Like with lap band surgery.
It's been said and I'll echo it, there's foods that fill you for longer though might be higher in calories than foods you think you should eat. I found that whole grain items, brown rice or whole grain bread will keep you fuller filling for longer though are fairly dense calorie wise. Just be sure to rinse the brown rice if you include it in your prepared meals. Which is another thing, if you can meal prep and make a few days of meals ahead of time to say take to work or for a quick "I'm too tired to cook" dinner it helps a lot. You can measure out the portions and able to record it better. To point three, record what you eat, how many calories.
Noom. It's not impossible to achieve your weight loss journey by making changes like eating better and exercising more, but it's a lot easier with a cheerleading coach in your pocket giving you daily ways to break it down and make it more manageable. Lmk if you're looking for a referral code, friend, and whatever route you take I wish you the best and hope you can achieve your goal! ❤️