No magic tricks or diet fads.
Eat less, move more.
Eat more vegetables and salad, cut down bread and meat.
Stop drinking sodas and juices with extra sugar in them and learn to quench your thirst with water.
Limit eating candy or cookies to one day per a week, if you can’t let them go entirely.
Got a divorce and lost my job. Spent six months eating 1500 calories a day, 600 of which were liquor, and walking five to seven miles a day. Hours of walking by the Sound in the rain every day. Felt like the only thing I could control was what I ate and how much I walked. Lost thirty pounds. I got a few compliments on how much thinner I looked. Didn’t tell anyone that every pound was burned with hate.
I’m doing better now.
I’m glad you’re better now, I wish you all the best!
Stopped eating so damn much.
I read the The Hacker’s Diet by John Walker (who recently died, sadly) and followed his advice.
I see a lot of exercise reccomended ITT, but just remember that it takes an hour to “burn” 300 calories walking, but under a minute to eat a donut. Dieting is your battle. Also, doing a little exercise (5 min walk) everyday that you can keep yourself doing consistently is WAYY more important than the 2 hour gym sesh you hit twice then get demotivated and never do again
(This is coming from someone with no experience losing weight, so take it with a grain of salt)
I agree with you overall. One benefit of exercise, is it increases your muscle mass. Which generally increases your overall metabolic rate. Which means throughout the day to maintain that muscle mass you are burning more calories at rest then if you hadn’t developed that muscle mass. So there is benefit to generating muscles for the sake of generating muscles
All people who mentionned sport also mentionned the importance of diet. It’s sport that is always downplayed when it comes to losing weight.
I go road cycling a lot. That burns more than 600 calories an hour. Just one 3 hour ride per week offsets almost as much calories as eating in one day does.
Restricted my calories. It works, you just have to eat fewer calories than your previous weight to maintain your new weight, so a lot of people put that weight back on. That said, if you put yourself in a mild caloric deficit, it’s extremely easy. Then it’s mostly a matter of not keeping binge-worthy foods in your living space (you can eat them as much as you want when you’re out), and it’s pretty easy.
It might sound weird, but I’ve been progressively losing weight by religiously brushing my teeth after eating anything.
I used to have a problem of eating small things like candies and biscuits randomly, as a way to control anxiety. Now I think twice before eating anything, because I don’t want to go and brush my teeth again. After some time doing that, I ended regulating myself and eating at specific times, with no extra eating between them.
Can that be bad for your teeth? Is over brushing a thing?
Yes, it’s a thing. Brushing too often can damage the enamel and lead to some issues.
However, in my case, it’s my inertia and laziness that are the stronger forces preventing me from taking some extra snacks, and not the fear of overbrushing. 😅
Crippling Depression
Funny, that just makes me eat even more. How can I learn your power?
Get more depressed and add intense anxiety to the mix.
If my depression is bad, but not suicidal bad, then I overeat. If it’s suicidal bad, I stop eating.
Intermittent fasting. It takes a fair amount of discipline, but if you stick with it past the first week or two it becomes very easy
Wherever I vacation to a walkable city, I lose weight.
Europe, please let me move in 😭
My weight loss started in a thread exactly like this. I read about someone using My Fitness Pal to track their food intake and consuming less than they were burning. I tried the same thing and within days I was losing weight and feeling better.
I lost 80 pounds over the following year, took up running using the Couch 2 5K program and have been maintaining that since 2018.
Finished my first triathlon last summer.
stopped snacking and stopped the everyday pops. easiest start of weight loss. from there its proper dieting and walking as much as possible
Everyday pops?
Also known as soda in Freedomland
I started living alone and grocery shopping for myself so I just stopped buying high calories food and sugary snacks. And count calories.
Being poor. Lost 20 kilos.
There are many methods that are ultimately a combination of psychological tricks, and finding food and meal times that you work well with.
The one thing they all have in common is calories in being less than calories out.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to get started is simply establishing a baseline. Don’t try to change anything, just count everything. And yes that means everything. After that, look for things you know don’t make you feel good. Maybe limit or drop soda, cut a snack in half, limit dessert, reduce alcohol, etc.
Radical diet changes aren’t required, just consistent.
When you start to run into problems with something that feels like self control (snacking, meal size, alcohol, sugar, etc), then look into ways to work through that. Often it’s just learning new habits (never eat from the bag, seconds are ok but start small and wait, etc). Those habits really depend on the individual and where you’re currently at though.
Some people do great with keto, some with fasting 20 hours a day, some with only snacks instead of meals, or only meals and zero snacks. Just trying those at random without understanding where you’re currently at first can lead to feeling failure and giving up unless you happen to get lucky with what you try first.
And, always be kind to yourself.
The first thing you said here is pretty spot on for me. Losing weight is largely a psychological battle, so giving people a simple task list doesn’t always work.
What we need to understand is that “losing weight” goes against our biological programming. We have evolved over millenia to crave carbohydrates (sugars) and fats because they are ready sources of energy, and to only undertake strenuous physical activity if absolutely necessary. In developed nations today neither of these leads to very healthy living, so we need to actively fight against our reptile brains to stay healthy.
As you said, consistency is key. You don’t get healthy by working out 9 hours one day only and eating salad for a week, you get healthy by making small, manageable healthy choices every day.
Try doing a little more exercise this week than you did last week. You can increase time, intensity, or frequency of whatever your chosen activity is. Try deprogramming your need for ultra-sweet foods by limiting your sugar intake and always try to consume fiber with your sugars (raw fruits are great for this.)
Little by little you will see beneficial changes
Logging my calories intake with an app and logging burning calories with a smart watch while playing BeatSaber and Supernatural on my Quest 2/3.
Lost 40 lbs in 1.5 years while consuming 1500-1800 calories per day. I’m now right in the middle of my BMI. I’m proud and I’m now trying to stay right there! I can still eat cake and drink wine! Just need to count those calories and adjust!
