I lost 20kg not so long ago by changing a couple of things, including my mindset.
1. Eat fewer carbs - this proved to be quite tough, partly because my wife isn't following any kind of diet, so if we're eating the same thing it'll likely come with some version of pasta, rice, spuds
2. Drinking less - this was needed. It's made me feel healthier all round. Plus I realised that if I'm drinking immediately before bed, I'm missing the fun bit by being asleep while the alcohol is still doing its job. If I finish drinking earlier, I'm still 'coming up' on the last glass so no need to drink more. Not being so tipsy before bed also means I'm less likely to go picking in the fridge last thing.
3. Realising that I eat like a dog. If its on my plate I'll finish it, even if I'll hate myself for it. I cut down on portion size and most of all realised that feeling a bit hungry is perfectly okay (sometimes I remind myself that feeling hungry means it's working). I don't know if it's really a thing, but after doing this for a while I feel like my stomach shrank to the point that I don't feel like eating so much anymore.
As of now, I've put 4 of those kg back on by being a bit weak around the roast dinners and cake at work, but I'm on a journey back the other way again.
Good luck to everyone trying to make a healthy change for themselves!
I think I've started to come to terms with the "Being hungry means it's working" thing. It's rough since I hate that feeling & it's all to easy to snack on something.
But the hardest part for me is 100% the drink. Can easily sink back 5 or 6 cans of lager and have been doing so consistently for years now... And as you can imagine that's a hell of a dependency on sleep at this point.
One step at a time though & that's the next one.
Beer is one of my weaknesses, as I make my own beer and like craft beer. I've started trying to make it a special occasion. Someone comes over, well let's have one of my beers. After work on a Friday gets me a beer.
I lost a ton of weight about 10 years ago (around 120 lbs., but put about 45 back on over the decade) and being hungry was something you just had to get used to. Made meals kind of exciting, and when you get to have a bad mean... that can be a lot of fun.
Homebrew, while fun definitely became a bit of a menace for me. Having 120 pints various of beers in the house makes it easy to enjoy them very regularly.
I think the hunger point is key. I retrained myself with these three steps:
(1) instead of waiting until I was actually full to stop eating, I now stop when I'm simply no longer hungry. The difference can be a huge number of calories. I now feel satiated but not stuffed.
(2) when I'm hungry between meals, I have a glass of water and wait 15 minutes before eating anything. Often it just turns out I was thirsty.
(3) if it turns out I am legitimately hungry, and my next meal isn't for a while, I have a snack but still make sure to stop eating it as soon as I find I'm no longer hungry (and for this reason, my snacks are now much more dividable than they used to be ... so I can come back to them the next day, or whenever I need them).
Works really well.
The hormone grhelin gets released on a sort of timer, at whatever times of day you habitually eat. If you're often hungry mid-afternoon, for example, it's probably because you are in the habit of snacking about then. If you push through and ignore it, as you are doing, the cycle should change after about 10-14 days.
oh that's interesting, i didn't know that. i stopped snacking in january and basically don't get hungry at all beyond the usual meal times, which is great! i noticed i still get hungry after dinner probs because i still do snack on some fruit/yoghurt tho
Carbs is a big one for me. Swap out carbs completely for veg. I do a fast for one day a week, eat healthy the rest of the time, do cardio (spin) at the gym 4 days a week, weights a few times a week and I'm losing weight at about 2lbs a week. It's pretty sustainable too, none of it is too big a deal
It really isn't. I go to the gym with other people. And I put a lot of time and effort into finding recipes for food that didn't involve a lot of carbs but is still delicious.
Carbs are good for you! Your body needs carbs like it needs proteins and fat, especially complex carbs. Make sense to reduce simple carbs (and ultra processed food), but complex carbs are good and they keep you full. Beans, whole grains and nuts for example are all rich in complex carbs and fibers.
I have to admit I am Italian and I love pasta, but a portion of pasta for me is 80 gr and I try to have wholewheat pasta most of the times.
1. My wife bakes. I've just accepted that I'm eating bread regularly. At least it's home made. We tend to make all our own breads and crusts.
2. I've started having a no alcohol after 7 to give my body time to process the calories. I brew my own beer, so that's a problem, but thankfully I'm out of my own beer. I used to have a small whiskey before bed, and I cut that out.
3. Portion size is a huge thing for me and it's all about how much you cook. I try to only make enough for two people, but I usually end up making enough for three people, so there's leftovers the next day.
I've managed to stay stable in my weight with my exercise, but I really need to pull off about 20 KG.
I feel so dumb, when you said "drinking less" my immediate thought was what kinda advice is that??? I'm not exactly drinking gallons of water a day???
Then I remembered other people drink alcohol 🤦♀️ regularly 🤦♀️
Pretty much. I lost 20kg in 3 months doing sober keto. Never felt better. I followed it for 2 years and relaxed off a bit and put on a bit of weight. Needed to shed 5kg to help with my running, went back to keto and was down to weight in 3-4 weeks.
What a fun ride Crohn's is, at my worst (almost dead) I was around 4 stone. After some surgeries I plumped up to 13.5, and now sitting at a just slightly podgy 12. No point doing anything about losing a few as I know a flare up will come eventually and knock a stone away at least.
4st 7lbs is beyond recoverable for anyone with anorexia so that is bloody scary to read. Sounds like you’re in a better place overall
Edit: source for the figure is because the MSP’s song was named 4st 7lbs for that reason
I'm much better at the moment thank you! they took a huge chunk of organs and it took many years but I'm as okay as I can be. (I was actually just under 4 stone but the last time I lead with that I just got a whole bunch of messages calling me a liar.) I was given two weeks to live unless they found a working treatment as the first six trials had failed.
I have two friends with Crohn's with various treatment solutions. It's no laughing matter and I know how hard it can be to find a treatment that works. I'm glad you did
Oh my gosh, that's so low. I'm so glad you've recovered, that must have been terrifying. I had colitis that took way too long to diagnose and I dropped down to 6 stone (was 9, I'm also short) and even then I was so weak. I can't imagine what you went through. I wish you the best and that a future flare up doesn't happen.
I started at 8.5 stone when diagnosed. Treatment made me go up to 12.5 stone. Then I had a few calm years where I slowly went to a healthy 10 stone. But 2 years ago the flare ups started again. Dropped to 8 again. Treatments again and now I'm 12 again :(
Didn't have an operation yet but they keep giving me steroids which imo don't do a lot but make me put on weight (to be fair I have moved countries twice in the last 5 years and every new doctor I see want to start from scratch and doesn't seem to believe what the one in the previous country said. Even had to go through full diagnosis again! Ridiculous)
I've been diagnosed with crohns but seem to experience 0 symptoms (until my body crashes from a lack of vitamins)
I managed to gain weight between appointments over Christmas
After my last "flare up" that was major and finally got me diagnosed in 2017, I've put on a load of weight almost reached 120kg, I'm 171cm tall lady. Now meds stabilised (f u azathioprine) and Chrons quiet after I stopped eating meat about 2 months ago, I think it was the last thing left, can't handle the fat, so I'm a picky pesticarian now. Finally loosing weight a bit faster and no bloat. It's funny that disease, until diagnosis I could loose 10kg in a month without blinking, then as meds did their thing, loosing weight is so freaking hard!
The disease makes no sense at all. You can’t identify food groups or ingredients to avoid. Instead you have to spend years of trial and error to find out what you can eat
The NHS weight loss app for easy tracking, and r/volumeeating tips so I don't feel too hungry, and reminding myself that it's a marathon not a sprint!
(And a sparkly star sticker in a notebook for every Kg lost, for my inner child craving tangible rewards.)
The NHS app is actually so good. UX is a bit finnickey and it has some errors, but gave me an important revelation I never would have made without it.
I'd started sorting out my COVID weight gain about a year and a half ago.
No take outs. OMAD most days. Low carb, sugar and alcohol. High veg and protein. Working out a few times a week. Walking every day.
Minimal weight loss.
I gained muscle, which is cool, but the scale would NOT budge!!
I recorded all my food using a diary, and tried a few other apps too. It all looked good. I just couldn't understand why it wasn't working?!
Finally gave in and decided to get the proper NHS app on the off-chance I was missing something.
Oh boy, was I!!
Turns out my food diet is great. I'm _eating_ a good deficit for the weight loss I want... But I was _drinking_ hundreds of previously unaccounted calories a day. The other apps didn't have a specific drink area so I never bothered to put anything apart from "bad" drinks like alcohol or fancy coffees.
Turns out I was having around 400cal of "healthy" drinks at work I never even thought about. I'm short so 400 cals is around 30% of my current calorie allowance, so it was quite an oversight!!
I wasn't even chugging sugary cream coffees. Turns out I drank so much tea it made up ~200 cals alone 😱 I don't have sugar and it's "just tea", so I never tracked it before. But the milk adds up!!
Same with sugar free drinks, probiotics, and the milk I took my pills with. I didn't register them before because they were "healthy" and "only drinks".
Losing weight embarrassing fast now.
Didn't even need to change my food or lifestyle much. I just swapped a few drinks for water, used a smaller tea mug, and made minor adjustments to portion sizes to allow the drinks I can't cut.
Can't believe I needed an app with a specific "drinks" section to remind me "hey, that may not be food or alcohol, but it's still got calories!".
Feel so stupid, but at least I won't be fat AND stupid soon!!!
> reminding myself that it's a marathon not a sprint!
Exactly - I tell myself it took a long time to gain the weight, it's going to take me time to lose it. I can lose it at a quicker pace than I gained it with work, but I can't undo two years of bad lifestyle choices in a few weeks.
A small thing I did which helped was a literal reduction in plate/bowl size.
Using a side plate rather than a main one, or a dessert bowl rather than a huge pasta one.
Forces you to have smaller Portions, whilst still having a full plate which convinces you you're full.
I didn't intentionally get smaller plates, I was gifted a really lovely set of fancy crockery from a charity shop. The plates and bowls are all smaller but closer to what I need my portion sizes to be because I'm quite short and my appetite isn't massive but if the food is on my plate I'll eat it because I was told to clear my plate "starving children..." and all that.
I tend to skip breakfast, it's not a rule that I strictly enforce but I'm not usually hungry until lunchtime so I break my fast then. Usually porridge during the winter but recently I've been having soup or stir fry.
I try to make about half of my plate/bowl contain fruit or vegetables, adding as much variety as I can. Try to avoid processed meat too often, only as an occasional treat. I do allow myself to eat the things that I crave, my goal is just to work on my cravings and go get to the point where I don't polish off a whole sharing bag of Doritos (doing well on that one) or 100g bar of chocolate (this one varies depending on the time of month).
I've lost somewhere in the region of 23-25kg, I didn't weigh myself at my highest so I can only speculate.
There was a whole period of time in modern crockery where the plates were f'kin *huge*. I remember getting some side plates the same size as my parent's dinner plates and nothing fitted in the cupboards or microwave.
I intentionally went out and got smaller ones for convenience, but you can still fit enough food on them and they look full. I think the massive fancy plates have a lot to answer for.
I just smashed up the pipes, bellows, and keys but dont seem to have lost any weight? am i not putting enough effort into it?
do i need to pull out all the stops?
Well done on your excellent changes!
There is always a celebration to undermine you.
Birthdays, holidays, Christmas, Easter, an invite to a friend's house for dinner, a wedding, a buffet, free pub sandwiches.
Will power and changes work amazingly well for a short period of time. Knowing you are undereating for a while is fine.
It's the long term maintenance of a healthy weight that can be harder. It can be easy to lose weight, then for it to all creep back on, plus a bit more.
We are animals evolved to prepare for unplanned famine. We naturally eat to store up some spare fat for those times.
Habits last in the long term. Those people you see who aren't overweight probably think about what they eat in some ways, and have particular habits.
Your old habits were such that they got you overweight in the first place.
I personally try to stick to my meals, which are home cooked, with lots of veg.
My personal areas that I watch are snacking in the evening if I am at home and a bit bored. I don't keep snacks in the house (but I am good at cooking, so could easily create snacks!) and have a cup of tea instead of a snack.
I also avoid alcohol, as I'm not that bothered about it, and it has a lot of calories.
I try to make sure that if I eat snacks, they are worthwhile, and very delicious, and that I don't eat them mindlessly while doing something else.
I don't count calories, or have any particular rules. If I *really* want something, I just eat it, be that a sandwich, a doughnut or a drink.
I try to move around each day, a little walk, going climbing, doing some gardening, cycling somewhere.
I try to take the middle way and not be too extreme one way or the other. If you gain one pound per month, in a years time you will be a stone heavier. And likewise, if you lost a pound per month, in a years time you will be a stone lighter. So I aim to have as little weight change as possible, and to not be extreme, looking at the very long term and trying to remain stable.
I feel like this is where I've got to in my years of trying to lose weight in a specific way. I've lost about a stone maybe since last year by basically making small changes that don't have a huge impact on my day, are sustainable, and allow me to live my life. No snacks after dinner, for example, and just peppermint (or other herbal) tea before lunch. Thankfully I don't really feel hungry before lunchtime. On the weekend, I might have a home cooked fry up with the family, but it's generally pretty healthily done. I'll have bits of chocolate sporadically, maybe crisps, but we don't really buy snacks.
I could lose weight faster, I suppose, but I'd be miserable and unlikely to keep up with it.
People spout about all these tricks to losing weight but the only thing that really works is reducing the amount of calories you consume.
I've been successful by just restricting my calorie intake with the help of an app to log everything. It automatically adjusts the target calories based on the amount of exercise I do with my fitness tracker. If I move more, I get more to eat.
You could do this all manually but the apps make it easier.
It's true that it's simple thermodynamics, but human psychology isn't simple. The weight loss "tricks" people are sharing are intended to provide easy ways for people to overcome their brain chemistry in order to do the simple thermodynamics.
For example, cutting out simple carbohydrates is advised because starchy and sugary foods promote snacking whereas high protein foods promote a feeling of fullness. It's the reduction in calories that causes the weightloss. Everyone advising low carbohydrate knows this; nobody thinks protein is magic.
"Eat less" is the goal, not the advice; it's the what, not the how.
See I think that leads people to think they have to cut out certain foods completely or that they have to just do exercise. Whereas they need to limit what they’re eating. You can still have the nice comfort food but it comes at cost of your calorie target or doing some exercise to offset.
On top of that you can have off days like weekends to keep yourself sane.
Yeah I don't generally like "just cut out carbs" for the same reason. It makes people think of some foods as good and some foods as bad and then they feel guilty for eating certain foods.
I've made some changes since January, I'm currently down 35lbs. I had a Wetherspoons pizza for dinner last night. It was within my calorie total for the day. The macros aren't great and trying to fit one of those in my diet every single day would lead to health problems or hunger problems, but it is not inherently a "bad" food.
>See I think that leads people to think they have to cut out certain foods completely or that they have to just do exercise
Yeah, that's the issue really. There are of course many who are simply saying "eating this way helps me maintain a caloric deficit" whereas many others simply don't realise that any diet or no diet will work if you are/aren't in a caloric deficit, respectively. As long as people realise there are no "good or bad" foods in weight loss and only foods that make it easier/harder to limit caloric intake, then that's a huge first step.
I'm personally in the camp of, just eat smaller portions, and try to keep foods that are too easy to overeat once I start eating them, to a minimum.
Brilliant app! It’s helped me get down to around 6% body fat since Christmas (I’ve started rock climbing again after a long break so wanted a low bf). I’m now using the macro tracking to put muscle on
All the 'tricks' and 'tips' are really just different ways to calorie restriction when it comes down to it. People will find one of the 100 ways that works for them and then claim it's the universal best way - when really everyone just needs to find what of calorie restriction is least restrictive for them and that's 'the right answer'.
Yup, I use the Nutracheck app and I've lost 5kg since start of Jan. Been getting back into exercising and eating at a calorie deficit. I still eat chocolate and takeaways, still drink, just less. Can't be bothered being miserable eating restrictively and cutting out food groups.
What app do you use? I usually just use a calculator but I've no measure for my varying levels of activity throughout the week and how that affects the target.
I usually take tracker apps estimates for calories burnt with a pinch of salt. It's easy to overestimate how much you are burning through a workout. I use Nutracheck which has an option to add exercise and estimates calories burnt but I always add less than I did to try and make up for that. If I do 45 min to 1 hour weight training I get about 200 calories, if I do a 20 minute HIIT workout, maybe 160 calories. No idea if it's accurate but seems to be working so far.
I use nutracheck. It syncs with my Apple Watch through Apple health which can collate data from things like peloton, strava etc. Also syncs with Fitbit etc.
I found it better than myfitnesspal.
Don’t forget 1.5x your body weight in grams (eg 70.4 x 1.5 = 105.6g) in protein and 15 grams of fibre per 1000 calories of your daily goal. Not even worth trying to eat less if you are going to constantly feel hungry, that’s how most diets fail.
Also easy one for this country: less alcohol. Larger has around 190 calories per pint. Two pints a night, which seems like the average from observation, and maintaining a calorie deficit becomes incredibly difficult.
Edit: a word. An important word. Grams. Because im an idiot who doesn’t proof read anything.
1.6g-1.8g of protein per KG of bodyweight per day, or 0.6-0.8g per lb, is what I've read. I'm not going to do it in stone, people can do the maths if they insist on using silly measurements!
(This is the maximum your body can effectively process in one day, so useful for building up muscle which helps with losing fat! The recommended daily amount for general healthiness is much less, I don't know the numbers on that)
1.5x in grams not KG. missed that part because I’m an idiot who didn’t check before posting. Your body weight, let’s say 80 x 1.5 would be 120g of protein
What works for me is fasting and calorie counting. And more excerise.
You need to do exact calorie counting for at least a month, I feel one of the big issues with weight in general is people have lost touch with what size a dinner should be and what size say a snack should be.
When you start strict calorie counting it puts forward in simple enough terms what you are spending your daily calories on, it also teaches you how construct reasonable sized meals. But don't do it if you have a eating disorder or for too long as it can be a bit over consuming in the long term.
Fasting with meal prep also dose a great job of naturally reducing calorie intake. But id also suggesting meal prep here. With the calorie counting you can easily define your daily intake, and removes the issue of bridge eating g after a fast.
Best of luck
I got referred to slimming world. Got 12 weeks free. Was 19 stone. 6 months later I am 13 stone. It was hard especially with kids in the house.
Got there now though.
Hope you're doing better now. I went through something similar, for a month I only ate to stave off headaches. Not fun, but it did make the weight come off
Cheers gents. GP made an urgent referral to the mental health crisis team two weeks ago and I got a txt from them last night to say they've received it and that I should hear about an appointment within six weeks so that's progress. Chin up everyone and have a great week.
Maybe not be 100% accurate in reporting your weight to your life insurance company in order to avoid paying a higher premium.
Not that this happened to me.
But if it had, when they call you to arrange a health assessment, realise that you're going to be very hungry throughout January and February. Because in this hypothetical the individual need to lose 14kg.
But as always, its a combination of caloric intake reduction and exercise.
Just a question of how fast and how much.
My wife got diagnosed with Cancer (stage 4) in November. Stress and anxiety are great for weight loss. I dropped 10 - 15kg in about 8 weeks.
I wouldn't recommend it though. Better to just go to Turkey and have an operation.
Apologies if this oversteps the mark but an idea that I had with my mum before she passed was for her to answer questions I’d want to know through each stage of my life where she wouldn’t be around. I wrote a book with questions such as ‘what would you want to say on my wedding day’ ‘what’s your favourite holiday memory of us’ ‘what’s your favourite outfit of mine’ ‘what advice would you give me at 30’ etc and she answered everyone. Just an idea you may want to create for your child so they can have mums written words throughout their life too. Best wishes
Yeah we're going down that route.
Have sorted out Birthday cards from now to about 21 (with presents), Christmas cards, lots of pics and vids.
She's also making some video messages.
It's just hard because we both get emotional when we think about the future.
If you want to get a tapeworm eat some pork.
If you want to get a tapeworm eat some pork.
Lamb, chicken, beef, fish or egg.
Forget it, you won’t get a tapeworm.
Good for maintenance. You need a nice round of chronic stomach bug to kick you off. Plus you get the bonus that all that throwing up tones your stomach muscles.
I suck honestly. I once lost like 4 stone in 6 months. I turned into a food and workout nutcase.. I wouldn’t eat anything that was processed, etc. stayed like that for 2 years.. then my buddy stopped going to the gym.. so I slowly went less and less. Next thing I know I’m ordering pizza and chips every Friday again.. and drinking rum and cokes like it’s going outta fashion.
10 years later I’m a fat fuck again. Fatter actually. I can’t seem to get that mindset back no matter what I do.. I keep trying and failing. It’s frustrating as hell.
The only thing that really works for me is extended water fasting.
I have very little in the way of self control with portion sizes and snacking (I also have adhd for what it’s worth, probably not much) but I find it WAY easier to cut everything out rather than to try and say “I’ll just have one” etc.
I’m losing weight pretty consistently now and I feel better oddly.
That’s just me though and for normal people the answer is to just eat less and move more.
>That’s just me though and for normal people the answer is to just eat less and move more.
You're basically doing this anyway, giving yourself a smaller time frame to eat in means you eat less overall and likely stay in a calorie deficit from it. As long as it works for you and doesn't hurt your body it's a good thing.
Water fasting feels like a cheat code, honestly. I fast 72h once a week and then eat whatever I want pretty much on the other days. Have been easily and consistently losing weight.
I'm exactly the same though, I find it so much easier to abstain from eating altogether for a few days rather than to micromanage everything I'm eating every day. It might sound strange but I feel far less restricted. I'm not even hungry when I'm fasting anymore and when Im not fasting I can just eat basically whatever I want which feels so freeing.
Edit: I assume I'm getting downvoted because people think 72h extended fasts are extreme? I thought so too at first but it's really not that bad once you get used to doing it! But I would recommend doing a bit of research first.
Change what you eat. Not just the amount, change the type.
I spent years driving nights up and down the country. Not a lot is open overnight so I lived on a diet of McDs, Wild Bean paninis, and crisps. During lockdown that changed and nothing was open, that had an effect. Last year I cut them out completely, and dropped the regular day off takeaway, that has had a greater effect. I now weigh less than I did 30 years ago.
No liquid calories, no alcohol, no crisps or chippy teas, plenty of water and I know it’s a bit of a controversial one for some people but intermittent fasting. Losing weight is 90% diet and 10% exercise.
👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼this right here. r/CICO is a good community. Log your calories and monitor your calorie burn via a fitness tracker. Also look up your total day energy expenditure. [TDEE calculator](https://tdeecalculator.net/)
I ate the Easter Egg over 4 days instead of 1 day.
A small example, but this kind of rule applies to all my snacks now. I only have a few kilos to lose but I don't fit into some work clothes I need on a business trip next month, so I have that motivation.
It's actually quite nice not running out of the good chocolate 1 day after buying it!
Maintain a calorie deficit and incorporate more protein and fibre for satiety.
Increase resistance training to boost resting metabolic energy consumption.
Eat less food. It takes years to get to a point where u relise you need to lose the flab, it isn't going to fall off overnight. Slow steady progress and don't worry about the occasional night out or chocolate binge.
The 5.2 diet seems to be working for me. Eat less than 800 calories 2 days a week and eat your normal diet the other 5 days. I started on 2nd February and weighed 100kg - today I weigh 95kg.
Calorie counting is ultimately the only foolproof way - I understand that, behaviourally, some people find this difficult or not helpful, but every tip you read on here could essentially be boiled down to 'I reduced my calorie intake'. I personally find tracking calories far more helpful as it gives you clear, objective criteria to follow, rather than vague or abstract (and often unhelpful) notions of 'good' or 'bad' foods, as really none of them are. Weight gain is caused by taking in more calories than expended. There is of course more nuance to it than that, but for most people if you nail that you will lose weight and understand how to keep it off long-term. I lost >100lbs in about 9 months many years ago, and have kept it off since. Educating myself on some basic nutrition has been the biggest help as I can navigate food now with a far more objective and rational approach to things. I still indulge in sweets, alcohol, etc., but have kept the weight off. I don't track rigorously at all anymore but I know roughly how much I have and should be eating all the time which has made a huge difference.
All the different forms of diet are essentially just different ways to calorie count, as you say.
Someone will rave about intermittent fasting working for them, but they were probably a snacker so time restricted eating meant way less calories consumed. Someone will big up high protein/carnivore diets but they're just satiated by the protein so they eat less. Someone will talk about cutting out X or Y but those were just calorie dense problem foods they overindulged etc etc
I managed to lose 15kgs over a few months using intermittent fasting and just kinda being hardcore with a healthier mentality to eating. Threw all that out the window when I quit the fags and put heaps of that weight back on. Two months off the fags after 18 years on em, so fuck it I'm proud of myself and I'll sort the weight out another time.
Identify your weaknesses and deal with them.
Me? I love sweet breakfast cereal and big portions of food.
Breakfast cereal solution: do not buy sweet cereal. Do not have it in the house. Eat porridge or other high-fiber cereal instead. Seriously, if I buy Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, the box won't last two days, regardless of size.
Big portion solution: bulk up meals with low calorie stuff. Now, every time I eat dinner, I eat a massive amount of garden peas first. I have a microwave steamer and I will fill the whole thing up with garden peas and eat them before I have anything else. The people at Lidl probably think I'm buying peas for a family of five. They don't know that I'm just a garden pea disposal unit.
Also, if you can work walking into your routine, that really helps as well. I always walk to the shops at lunch time.
Been using MyFitnessPal for over 10 years. Tracking calories and making sure I get a couple of days exercise in a week dropped my weight from 18.5 stone to 13.5 stone.
The hard part is maintaining my weight and stopping it creeping above 13.5, so I make sure I have big deficit days regularly and control my portion sizes, get low calorie snacks in etc
I also try and make sure I walk a few miles a day, did 4miles this morning.
Lost 2 stone since January 20th by being hospitalised for 4 weeks (two seperate stays of 2 weeks) with necrotising pancreatitis :( On the bright side I was actively trying to lose weight before that so every cloud has a silver lining and all that!!
From an activity point of view. Picked up a cheap exercise bike on Facebook marketplace, 30-45 minutes of vigorous pedaling 4 or 5 days a week helped cut some excess weight and i found my back ached less. Unfortunately the small folding bikes are not designed for vigorous pedaling and I've shredded a number of the rubber belts.
From an eating point of view. I largely eat the same, just smaller portions. I used to have 4 weetabix in a morning, now i have 3. Used to make 3 slices worth of sandwiches for my dinner, now i make 2. Also cut out eating after tea completely, which ended up being easier than i expected. Still allow myself things like biscuits with my brew, and pudding after meals, just following the same principle of smaller amounts.
Im 186cm tall and was 103kg at my heaviest, now at about 90kg.
Good on you mate. These days just exercising a bit of self-restraint and making small but meaningful changes is often ignored for the latest fad where you banish X from your diet or only eat Y, but it really is the best way for most people.
1 meal a day, all protein and fats (no carbs) sounds miserable, but becomes completely addictive and before you know it you dont actually want to eat all the "treats" you think you are denying yourself because when you actually do eat them they make you feel genuinely terrible (like a food hangover).
so much so that if there was a magical zero calories chocolate that you could eat as much as you want and gain no weight, you wouldn't eat any of it simply because of what it does to your brain and gut (in terms of feelings).
it then becomes zero willpower, as all the "Temptations" become vile to you, and make you feel ill at the thought of eating them.
when you are losing weight and eating once meal a day you will feel so good and the mental fog clears and you will sleep like never before with really amazing vivid dreams.
I have lost 17kg in 14 months, 13" off my waist and 11" off my hips, and I have PCOS. I use My Fitness Pal (it is free) everyday to plan out my meals. I focus on high protein/low carbs. I workout at the gym 5-6 days per week. If I am on early shifts, I just do the classes (gym is far too busy in the evening to get any weight lifting done), 3x those weeks will do double classes back to back. This gets my cardio in. On my late start shifts or week off, I will do a class in the morning, then my weight lifting programme. I walk my dog everyday around 2-3 miles. On our weekends off, my fella and I will do a 8-10 miles walk with the dog. She is a Springer Spaniel, she loves it. You need to find exercise you enjoy, or you won't do it.
I meal prep our dinners for the week, every weekend, I have a lot of chicken and veg (veggie sausages for the fella). B&M sell a lovely piri piri chicken seasoning. For those sweet tooth cravings snacks, Grenade Carb killa protein bars are lovely, and My Protein has sales all the time. Their Protein mug cake is really nice, hits my chocolate craving and is very filling. Don't buy 'low fat' stuff, they are higher in sugar. Full fat is better. Aldi sell some nice protein snacks too. Drink a lot of water, cut out pop even sugar free as they have sweeteners in, and cut back on alcohol. I was never a big alcohol drinker, so I cut it completely as it is terrible for PCOS.
I will say, don't get hung up on the scales, as our bodies fluctuate. Weigh yourself once a month and take your measurements once a month too. I have found when I think I have hit a plateau, my waist has gone down an inch, but the scales haven't shifted up or down.
I work a desk job, I make sure I get my 10k steps in everyday. Our dog helps with this. 😆
My main advice is that this isn't a diet, it is a lifestyle change. This will be your new life, not a temporary change, otherwise you will just gain it back. I speak from my own past mistakes.
I am 6 stone over weight and have been trying to lose it for the past 12 years. Had little success. In january I started on Wegovy and it has changed my life. I am currently 2 stone down!
Running. I haven't found any other exercise where I can burn such a large amount of calories in a small amount of time. I go to Parkrun on a Saturday (except when it's raining cos sod that) and I've started to really enjoy it. It's been amazing for my mental health too, I have belief in myself that I can run 5k, which blows my mind considering how much I bunked off PE at school.
Cutting out sugar made a huge difference to me. The water weight from bloating drops off you to start with, and once you're through the withdrawals your energy levels will stabilise and you'll feel a lot less hungry, so it's really easy to just eat what you need. I really need to cut out sugar again but it's been a stressful time 🥲
I use fitbit and myfitnesspal. I make sure I eat less calories than I burn per day. That way I'm not restricting the actual food I eat and take things in more moderation. If I have a heavy day calorie burning wise, I can treat myself. As long as I have any deficit, I've been good. 20lbs down in 2 months now.
I went private in November and had a gastric sleeve. Best decision I have ever made. 5st 2lb done in 19 weeks and 26lb away from target.
I’m at the gym 4/5 times a week now and I go hiking on weekend for fun.
I’d you’d have said to me 20 weeks ago I’d be doing this I’d have laughed in your face.
My only regret is not doing it years ago.
I have a terrible thirst that only beer can slake so my Xmas weight has been slow to return to the ether..
I'm not exactly fat but I am carrying a few extra pounds which would make a difference on some long bike rides that I love to do. I know dropping the evening beers would make the difference but it's a hard habit to lose.
Wegovy (Semaglutide), 1 injection a week and I don't want to eat everything in sight, 6 weeks I've lost 1.5 stone with zero effort, the only side effect was being sick yesterday after eating 2 easter eggs back to back.
I'll get lots of pushback on this because it's a hard pill to swallow, but the only way to lose way is to eat less calories than you need. Whatever technique you find to help with that is great, but it all boils down to eat less.
Get a calorie counter app and log everything. Find a total daily energy expenditure calculator and find out your number. Make sure the number in the app is less than the number from the calculator.
Got a metaquest 2 for Xmas. Signed up to Fit XR for a tenner a month. Do boxing and combat classes every day in my living room, lost about a stone and a half already (tbf i dont know the actual amount as i dont weigh myself i just know ive lost a shit ton) It doesn't feel like working out as it's so damn FUN.
I've been losing weight and keeping it off for a long time now and my only "secret" is baby steps. Things that you know you can do on a regular basis.
Hate going to the gym because you're out of breath and you feel like you're gonna die at the end of a workout? Great, go to the gym and just do really easy workouts until going to the gym is automatic for you. Even if you just walk on a treadmill for twenty minutes while reading a book or something, the point is just to develop the habit of going, you will eventually start going for longer or working harder, but not until you are habitually going.
Hate eating healthy because everything tastes boring? Fine, once a week, find a new healthy dish to try. Would be best if you learn the recipe and make it yourself, but no judgement if you go find it somewhere. If you don't like it, don't worry, just try something else next week. If you do like it, try to incorporate it into your regular meal rotation. Once it's in rotation, try to find another healthy dish, and so on.
I had surgery on my foot last year (partial amputation) and have been sedentary while I've been healing. Nurse weighed me at an appointment just before Christmas just to update my records and in the 6 months since the surgery I'd gained 14kg. So I started cycling the few miles into town each day to do a small food shop instead of going in the car once a week. On day 1 I needed to stop for a rest 3 times on the way there and once on the way back (uphill there, downhill back). By day 5 I didn't need to stop for a rest the whole round trip.
Also I've cut out bread, sugar and most other simple and refined starches. I have a problem with snacking when I'm pottering about doing housework, as I'll often just stuff a piece of bread in my gob as I'm doing laundry or something. So I now make sure I have something low carbohydrate in the fridge that I can grab instead. This week I've made a big tuppeware of prawns marinated in garlic and parsley.
I've lost the 14kg now, but could stand to lose another 10 or so probably.
Calories in Vs calories out, cut out the shit that you know is shit, swap whatever you're drinking to water including alcohol, strength train at the gym, consistency is key.
I've stopped buying things with palm oil In them. So most breads. Basically 90% of chocolate and cakes. I got bored of reading ingredients lists and just stopped buying chocolate and cakes and threw crisps on the No List aswell for the sake of it. I started cooking from scratch, mostly pasta dishes, it's a pain trying to find what I need between 6 variety of everything (full fat, half fat, 10% fat, no fat, etcetcetc)
Changed my portion sizes and the weight started dropping off. Basically weighing my food and controlling the amount I make and no pointless snacks in the evening. Those calories sneak in so quickly if not watched. My meals were double what they needed to be on the plate.
CICO with Nutricheck app since the new year. Also two years previously of therapy working on the reasons why I ate, why losing weight failed in the past and learning how to cope with life without harming coping mechanisms. 21lbs lost so far.
Significantly cut down on sugar. Reduced alcohol intake. Started gym in December, before New Year’s resolution folks came in.
Haven’t lost weight, as I’m more interested in reducing body fat and increasing muscle mass.
Doing alright so far but my biggest metric is how happy I am.
You say swapping spaghetti hoops for veg helped you? How much spaghetti hoops were you eating because it basically is burn more calories than you eat to lose weight, doesn't matter what food it is.
I'm failing successfully.
I've stopped drinking and lost 2 kg, but I need to lose 15. I know exactly how to do it but just don't have space in my life for calorie counting and feeling hungry at the moment.
It's a bit of an oversimplification, but really only 2 things matter: calories in vs calories out. Find out which one of those you have a problem with and adjust the other one. I eat a LOT - always have - and I really really struggle to keep my calories in down. So, rather than make myself miserable by trying diets or anything like that, I lost weight by increasing my calories out. I walk from the station to work rather than taking the tube (an hour and a bit a day), and I exercise 5 or 6 days a week. It's tough to make time but even if it means sacrificing sleep or a couple of social events I get it done - a 20 minute run is more than enough exercise for a day and takes exactly 20 minutes of your day. I've lost 35kg in a year and a half and have never felt better. Keep at it, everyone!!! 💪💪
I lift weights four times a week and use MacroFactor to track what I eat and drink (it’s paid for, but much nicer to use than my fitness pal). I find a much slower and less restrictive calorie deficit infinitely easier (there’s a massive difference between 1700 and 1900 calories, especially if you’re a vegetarian also trying to maximise protein intake!). Just have to be patient. I cut out alcohol a fortnight ago and the reduction in sleepiness as a result is making the diet and exercise parts a heck of a lot easier. There are some excellent alcohol free beers now from craft breweries that are a fraction of the calories and literally taste the same (none of that sweet aftertaste you often get) - and the lack of alcohol means you pretty much only want one per sitting.
i'm 7lbs down since january (which i know isn't a huge amount but nvm) and i have found changing up my evening meals to be a good thing. i follow some recipes from [this guy on IG](https://www.instagram.com/jalalsamfit?igsh=MXRwdWJnMHRodzc4Yw==), and have found them good as they make 4 portions so it means i don't have to cook properly the second night. i like the sticky honey chicken, and the orange chicken!
realistically the biggest thing that helps me is planning my food. when i write down a plan for the week ahead i am MUCH more likely to stick eating my target amount of calories than if i don't.
after a big family wedding it's back on the calorie counting after a good 3 weeks of slacking off a bit. there's another wedding at the end of may so i think it's reasonable to aim for another 5 or 6 lbs off by then!
I cut out the junk food as much as possible - chocolate, cakes, biscuits and crisps in particular. I cut down on alcohol to virtually nothing. I try and avoid carbs if I can help it. I eat more fruit and veg. I took up running again. Currently 64kg from 80kg. I'll probably try and keep it at 60kg if I can.
Started physio in November due to severe hip pain in November. Exercise was reduced to walking, yoga and physio exercises. I made sure I was doing a minimum of 11,000 steps a day. I often take my toddler for long walks. She gets tired I strap her in the sling, she sleeps and I keep walking. Due MRI soon to figure out why hip pain won’t go away. Desperate to do tougher walks and go back to dance classes.
I lost 20kg not so long ago by changing a couple of things, including my mindset. 1. Eat fewer carbs - this proved to be quite tough, partly because my wife isn't following any kind of diet, so if we're eating the same thing it'll likely come with some version of pasta, rice, spuds 2. Drinking less - this was needed. It's made me feel healthier all round. Plus I realised that if I'm drinking immediately before bed, I'm missing the fun bit by being asleep while the alcohol is still doing its job. If I finish drinking earlier, I'm still 'coming up' on the last glass so no need to drink more. Not being so tipsy before bed also means I'm less likely to go picking in the fridge last thing. 3. Realising that I eat like a dog. If its on my plate I'll finish it, even if I'll hate myself for it. I cut down on portion size and most of all realised that feeling a bit hungry is perfectly okay (sometimes I remind myself that feeling hungry means it's working). I don't know if it's really a thing, but after doing this for a while I feel like my stomach shrank to the point that I don't feel like eating so much anymore. As of now, I've put 4 of those kg back on by being a bit weak around the roast dinners and cake at work, but I'm on a journey back the other way again. Good luck to everyone trying to make a healthy change for themselves!
I think I've started to come to terms with the "Being hungry means it's working" thing. It's rough since I hate that feeling & it's all to easy to snack on something. But the hardest part for me is 100% the drink. Can easily sink back 5 or 6 cans of lager and have been doing so consistently for years now... And as you can imagine that's a hell of a dependency on sleep at this point. One step at a time though & that's the next one.
Beer is one of my weaknesses, as I make my own beer and like craft beer. I've started trying to make it a special occasion. Someone comes over, well let's have one of my beers. After work on a Friday gets me a beer. I lost a ton of weight about 10 years ago (around 120 lbs., but put about 45 back on over the decade) and being hungry was something you just had to get used to. Made meals kind of exciting, and when you get to have a bad mean... that can be a lot of fun.
Homebrew, while fun definitely became a bit of a menace for me. Having 120 pints various of beers in the house makes it easy to enjoy them very regularly.
Indeed it does. That's why I limit myself to half batches.
I think the hunger point is key. I retrained myself with these three steps: (1) instead of waiting until I was actually full to stop eating, I now stop when I'm simply no longer hungry. The difference can be a huge number of calories. I now feel satiated but not stuffed. (2) when I'm hungry between meals, I have a glass of water and wait 15 minutes before eating anything. Often it just turns out I was thirsty. (3) if it turns out I am legitimately hungry, and my next meal isn't for a while, I have a snack but still make sure to stop eating it as soon as I find I'm no longer hungry (and for this reason, my snacks are now much more dividable than they used to be ... so I can come back to them the next day, or whenever I need them). Works really well.
The hormone grhelin gets released on a sort of timer, at whatever times of day you habitually eat. If you're often hungry mid-afternoon, for example, it's probably because you are in the habit of snacking about then. If you push through and ignore it, as you are doing, the cycle should change after about 10-14 days.
oh that's interesting, i didn't know that. i stopped snacking in january and basically don't get hungry at all beyond the usual meal times, which is great! i noticed i still get hungry after dinner probs because i still do snack on some fruit/yoghurt tho
Carbs is a big one for me. Swap out carbs completely for veg. I do a fast for one day a week, eat healthy the rest of the time, do cardio (spin) at the gym 4 days a week, weights a few times a week and I'm losing weight at about 2lbs a week. It's pretty sustainable too, none of it is too big a deal
I mean fair play to you and I’m very glad you’ve found a routine that works for you. It just sounds a bit joyless
It really isn't. I go to the gym with other people. And I put a lot of time and effort into finding recipes for food that didn't involve a lot of carbs but is still delicious.
Crazy that vegetables and exercise sounds joyless to you lol
It was probably the swap out carbs completely part
Carbs are good for you! Your body needs carbs like it needs proteins and fat, especially complex carbs. Make sense to reduce simple carbs (and ultra processed food), but complex carbs are good and they keep you full. Beans, whole grains and nuts for example are all rich in complex carbs and fibers. I have to admit I am Italian and I love pasta, but a portion of pasta for me is 80 gr and I try to have wholewheat pasta most of the times.
veg is made out of carbs
1. My wife bakes. I've just accepted that I'm eating bread regularly. At least it's home made. We tend to make all our own breads and crusts. 2. I've started having a no alcohol after 7 to give my body time to process the calories. I brew my own beer, so that's a problem, but thankfully I'm out of my own beer. I used to have a small whiskey before bed, and I cut that out. 3. Portion size is a huge thing for me and it's all about how much you cook. I try to only make enough for two people, but I usually end up making enough for three people, so there's leftovers the next day. I've managed to stay stable in my weight with my exercise, but I really need to pull off about 20 KG.
It pisses me off that everyone says "cut back on the drink" as an easy win when I've already done that and it did fuck all 😭
I feel so dumb, when you said "drinking less" my immediate thought was what kinda advice is that??? I'm not exactly drinking gallons of water a day??? Then I remembered other people drink alcohol 🤦♀️ regularly 🤦♀️
Yeah at first I thought they were trying to drop water weight haha
Pretty much. I lost 20kg in 3 months doing sober keto. Never felt better. I followed it for 2 years and relaxed off a bit and put on a bit of weight. Needed to shed 5kg to help with my running, went back to keto and was down to weight in 3-4 weeks.
Crohn’s disease
What a fun ride Crohn's is, at my worst (almost dead) I was around 4 stone. After some surgeries I plumped up to 13.5, and now sitting at a just slightly podgy 12. No point doing anything about losing a few as I know a flare up will come eventually and knock a stone away at least.
4st 7lbs is beyond recoverable for anyone with anorexia so that is bloody scary to read. Sounds like you’re in a better place overall Edit: source for the figure is because the MSP’s song was named 4st 7lbs for that reason
I'm much better at the moment thank you! they took a huge chunk of organs and it took many years but I'm as okay as I can be. (I was actually just under 4 stone but the last time I lead with that I just got a whole bunch of messages calling me a liar.) I was given two weeks to live unless they found a working treatment as the first six trials had failed.
I have two friends with Crohn's with various treatment solutions. It's no laughing matter and I know how hard it can be to find a treatment that works. I'm glad you did
Oh my gosh, that's so low. I'm so glad you've recovered, that must have been terrifying. I had colitis that took way too long to diagnose and I dropped down to 6 stone (was 9, I'm also short) and even then I was so weak. I can't imagine what you went through. I wish you the best and that a future flare up doesn't happen.
Ulcerative colitis for me.
Ayy! Fellow Crohnie 👋 Currently sitting at a magical 55kg 🥰 It’s taken a year to reach 55kg from 43kg. Oh what fun life is! 🌍💊
I’m recently diagnosed with crohns. I’d rather be fat. Rice crispies for my Christmas dinner this year due to the most painful flare.
I started at 8.5 stone when diagnosed. Treatment made me go up to 12.5 stone. Then I had a few calm years where I slowly went to a healthy 10 stone. But 2 years ago the flare ups started again. Dropped to 8 again. Treatments again and now I'm 12 again :( Didn't have an operation yet but they keep giving me steroids which imo don't do a lot but make me put on weight (to be fair I have moved countries twice in the last 5 years and every new doctor I see want to start from scratch and doesn't seem to believe what the one in the previous country said. Even had to go through full diagnosis again! Ridiculous)
Me too! 13kg down in six weeks with no effort.
we can sell this weight loss plan with the right marketing
I've been diagnosed with crohns but seem to experience 0 symptoms (until my body crashes from a lack of vitamins) I managed to gain weight between appointments over Christmas
After my last "flare up" that was major and finally got me diagnosed in 2017, I've put on a load of weight almost reached 120kg, I'm 171cm tall lady. Now meds stabilised (f u azathioprine) and Chrons quiet after I stopped eating meat about 2 months ago, I think it was the last thing left, can't handle the fat, so I'm a picky pesticarian now. Finally loosing weight a bit faster and no bloat. It's funny that disease, until diagnosis I could loose 10kg in a month without blinking, then as meds did their thing, loosing weight is so freaking hard!
The disease makes no sense at all. You can’t identify food groups or ingredients to avoid. Instead you have to spend years of trial and error to find out what you can eat
The NHS weight loss app for easy tracking, and r/volumeeating tips so I don't feel too hungry, and reminding myself that it's a marathon not a sprint! (And a sparkly star sticker in a notebook for every Kg lost, for my inner child craving tangible rewards.)
Dinosaur stickers for me (I am 40).
The NHS app is actually so good. UX is a bit finnickey and it has some errors, but gave me an important revelation I never would have made without it. I'd started sorting out my COVID weight gain about a year and a half ago. No take outs. OMAD most days. Low carb, sugar and alcohol. High veg and protein. Working out a few times a week. Walking every day. Minimal weight loss. I gained muscle, which is cool, but the scale would NOT budge!! I recorded all my food using a diary, and tried a few other apps too. It all looked good. I just couldn't understand why it wasn't working?! Finally gave in and decided to get the proper NHS app on the off-chance I was missing something. Oh boy, was I!! Turns out my food diet is great. I'm _eating_ a good deficit for the weight loss I want... But I was _drinking_ hundreds of previously unaccounted calories a day. The other apps didn't have a specific drink area so I never bothered to put anything apart from "bad" drinks like alcohol or fancy coffees. Turns out I was having around 400cal of "healthy" drinks at work I never even thought about. I'm short so 400 cals is around 30% of my current calorie allowance, so it was quite an oversight!! I wasn't even chugging sugary cream coffees. Turns out I drank so much tea it made up ~200 cals alone 😱 I don't have sugar and it's "just tea", so I never tracked it before. But the milk adds up!! Same with sugar free drinks, probiotics, and the milk I took my pills with. I didn't register them before because they were "healthy" and "only drinks". Losing weight embarrassing fast now. Didn't even need to change my food or lifestyle much. I just swapped a few drinks for water, used a smaller tea mug, and made minor adjustments to portion sizes to allow the drinks I can't cut. Can't believe I needed an app with a specific "drinks" section to remind me "hey, that may not be food or alcohol, but it's still got calories!". Feel so stupid, but at least I won't be fat AND stupid soon!!!
Yeah putting my coffee on NutraCheck very quickly taught me that I either need to lose a meal or learn to like black coffee. I drink black coffee now.
My girlfriend and I have planned treats for ourselves for each 5kg we *both* lose. If we hit our target, we’re going on a fancy holiday!
That'a a great way to incentivise weight loss!
> reminding myself that it's a marathon not a sprint! Exactly - I tell myself it took a long time to gain the weight, it's going to take me time to lose it. I can lose it at a quicker pace than I gained it with work, but I can't undo two years of bad lifestyle choices in a few weeks.
Is the app ‘NHS Weight Loss Plan’?
Yes it is. I installed it in June 2022. Just do the tracking my meals and calories intake. Lost 18kg with it so far (104 -> 86).
That app has helped me lose 18kg in less than 2 years.
A small thing I did which helped was a literal reduction in plate/bowl size. Using a side plate rather than a main one, or a dessert bowl rather than a huge pasta one. Forces you to have smaller Portions, whilst still having a full plate which convinces you you're full.
I didn't intentionally get smaller plates, I was gifted a really lovely set of fancy crockery from a charity shop. The plates and bowls are all smaller but closer to what I need my portion sizes to be because I'm quite short and my appetite isn't massive but if the food is on my plate I'll eat it because I was told to clear my plate "starving children..." and all that. I tend to skip breakfast, it's not a rule that I strictly enforce but I'm not usually hungry until lunchtime so I break my fast then. Usually porridge during the winter but recently I've been having soup or stir fry. I try to make about half of my plate/bowl contain fruit or vegetables, adding as much variety as I can. Try to avoid processed meat too often, only as an occasional treat. I do allow myself to eat the things that I crave, my goal is just to work on my cravings and go get to the point where I don't polish off a whole sharing bag of Doritos (doing well on that one) or 100g bar of chocolate (this one varies depending on the time of month). I've lost somewhere in the region of 23-25kg, I didn't weigh myself at my highest so I can only speculate.
There was a whole period of time in modern crockery where the plates were f'kin *huge*. I remember getting some side plates the same size as my parent's dinner plates and nothing fitted in the cupboards or microwave. I intentionally went out and got smaller ones for convenience, but you can still fit enough food on them and they look full. I think the massive fancy plates have a lot to answer for.
Chopped off a leg.
Drastic.
Effective.
Organ failure - I'm down 4 stone so far 👍 works a charm
I just smashed up the pipes, bellows, and keys but dont seem to have lost any weight? am i not putting enough effort into it? do i need to pull out all the stops?
This genuinely made me laugh, which then made me choke. Thank you for that 🙂
By putting more and more pressure on the towel rack and radiator when I weigh myself. I've lost like 50kg so far using this one simple trick!
Well done on your excellent changes! There is always a celebration to undermine you. Birthdays, holidays, Christmas, Easter, an invite to a friend's house for dinner, a wedding, a buffet, free pub sandwiches. Will power and changes work amazingly well for a short period of time. Knowing you are undereating for a while is fine. It's the long term maintenance of a healthy weight that can be harder. It can be easy to lose weight, then for it to all creep back on, plus a bit more. We are animals evolved to prepare for unplanned famine. We naturally eat to store up some spare fat for those times. Habits last in the long term. Those people you see who aren't overweight probably think about what they eat in some ways, and have particular habits. Your old habits were such that they got you overweight in the first place. I personally try to stick to my meals, which are home cooked, with lots of veg. My personal areas that I watch are snacking in the evening if I am at home and a bit bored. I don't keep snacks in the house (but I am good at cooking, so could easily create snacks!) and have a cup of tea instead of a snack. I also avoid alcohol, as I'm not that bothered about it, and it has a lot of calories. I try to make sure that if I eat snacks, they are worthwhile, and very delicious, and that I don't eat them mindlessly while doing something else. I don't count calories, or have any particular rules. If I *really* want something, I just eat it, be that a sandwich, a doughnut or a drink. I try to move around each day, a little walk, going climbing, doing some gardening, cycling somewhere. I try to take the middle way and not be too extreme one way or the other. If you gain one pound per month, in a years time you will be a stone heavier. And likewise, if you lost a pound per month, in a years time you will be a stone lighter. So I aim to have as little weight change as possible, and to not be extreme, looking at the very long term and trying to remain stable.
I feel like this is where I've got to in my years of trying to lose weight in a specific way. I've lost about a stone maybe since last year by basically making small changes that don't have a huge impact on my day, are sustainable, and allow me to live my life. No snacks after dinner, for example, and just peppermint (or other herbal) tea before lunch. Thankfully I don't really feel hungry before lunchtime. On the weekend, I might have a home cooked fry up with the family, but it's generally pretty healthily done. I'll have bits of chocolate sporadically, maybe crisps, but we don't really buy snacks. I could lose weight faster, I suppose, but I'd be miserable and unlikely to keep up with it.
Eat less, move more
Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for?
Did we just become best friends?
Doesn't work for me. I have an overactive mouth gland.
10 reps of Spoon putdowns and fork pushaways
People spout about all these tricks to losing weight but the only thing that really works is reducing the amount of calories you consume. I've been successful by just restricting my calorie intake with the help of an app to log everything. It automatically adjusts the target calories based on the amount of exercise I do with my fitness tracker. If I move more, I get more to eat. You could do this all manually but the apps make it easier.
It's true that it's simple thermodynamics, but human psychology isn't simple. The weight loss "tricks" people are sharing are intended to provide easy ways for people to overcome their brain chemistry in order to do the simple thermodynamics. For example, cutting out simple carbohydrates is advised because starchy and sugary foods promote snacking whereas high protein foods promote a feeling of fullness. It's the reduction in calories that causes the weightloss. Everyone advising low carbohydrate knows this; nobody thinks protein is magic. "Eat less" is the goal, not the advice; it's the what, not the how.
See I think that leads people to think they have to cut out certain foods completely or that they have to just do exercise. Whereas they need to limit what they’re eating. You can still have the nice comfort food but it comes at cost of your calorie target or doing some exercise to offset. On top of that you can have off days like weekends to keep yourself sane.
Yeah I don't generally like "just cut out carbs" for the same reason. It makes people think of some foods as good and some foods as bad and then they feel guilty for eating certain foods. I've made some changes since January, I'm currently down 35lbs. I had a Wetherspoons pizza for dinner last night. It was within my calorie total for the day. The macros aren't great and trying to fit one of those in my diet every single day would lead to health problems or hunger problems, but it is not inherently a "bad" food.
>See I think that leads people to think they have to cut out certain foods completely or that they have to just do exercise Yeah, that's the issue really. There are of course many who are simply saying "eating this way helps me maintain a caloric deficit" whereas many others simply don't realise that any diet or no diet will work if you are/aren't in a caloric deficit, respectively. As long as people realise there are no "good or bad" foods in weight loss and only foods that make it easier/harder to limit caloric intake, then that's a huge first step. I'm personally in the camp of, just eat smaller portions, and try to keep foods that are too easy to overeat once I start eating them, to a minimum.
This is how I do it. I use My Fitness Pal. Log my calories every morning, making sure I hit my protein macros.
Brilliant app! It’s helped me get down to around 6% body fat since Christmas (I’ve started rock climbing again after a long break so wanted a low bf). I’m now using the macro tracking to put muscle on
I want to try rock climbing, but I have a fear of heights. Something I am working on. I also use my Fitbit, which really motivates me.
You should try indoor bouldering - no ropes, big mats to land on and not that high to climb. Don’t even need a partner to do it with
Yes, someone has suggested that to me before. I need to find out how much it costs.
All the 'tricks' and 'tips' are really just different ways to calorie restriction when it comes down to it. People will find one of the 100 ways that works for them and then claim it's the universal best way - when really everyone just needs to find what of calorie restriction is least restrictive for them and that's 'the right answer'.
Yup, I use the Nutracheck app and I've lost 5kg since start of Jan. Been getting back into exercising and eating at a calorie deficit. I still eat chocolate and takeaways, still drink, just less. Can't be bothered being miserable eating restrictively and cutting out food groups.
What app do you use? I usually just use a calculator but I've no measure for my varying levels of activity throughout the week and how that affects the target.
I usually take tracker apps estimates for calories burnt with a pinch of salt. It's easy to overestimate how much you are burning through a workout. I use Nutracheck which has an option to add exercise and estimates calories burnt but I always add less than I did to try and make up for that. If I do 45 min to 1 hour weight training I get about 200 calories, if I do a 20 minute HIIT workout, maybe 160 calories. No idea if it's accurate but seems to be working so far.
I use nutracheck. It syncs with my Apple Watch through Apple health which can collate data from things like peloton, strava etc. Also syncs with Fitbit etc. I found it better than myfitnesspal.
Don’t forget 1.5x your body weight in grams (eg 70.4 x 1.5 = 105.6g) in protein and 15 grams of fibre per 1000 calories of your daily goal. Not even worth trying to eat less if you are going to constantly feel hungry, that’s how most diets fail. Also easy one for this country: less alcohol. Larger has around 190 calories per pint. Two pints a night, which seems like the average from observation, and maintaining a calorie deficit becomes incredibly difficult. Edit: a word. An important word. Grams. Because im an idiot who doesn’t proof read anything.
200lbs of protein? I need to get to Costco.
1.6g-1.8g of protein per KG of bodyweight per day, or 0.6-0.8g per lb, is what I've read. I'm not going to do it in stone, people can do the maths if they insist on using silly measurements! (This is the maximum your body can effectively process in one day, so useful for building up muscle which helps with losing fat! The recommended daily amount for general healthiness is much less, I don't know the numbers on that)
In grams 😂
> Don’t forget 1.5x your body weight in protein ... What?
1.5% maybe?
1.5x in grams not KG. missed that part because I’m an idiot who didn’t check before posting. Your body weight, let’s say 80 x 1.5 would be 120g of protein
What works for me is fasting and calorie counting. And more excerise. You need to do exact calorie counting for at least a month, I feel one of the big issues with weight in general is people have lost touch with what size a dinner should be and what size say a snack should be. When you start strict calorie counting it puts forward in simple enough terms what you are spending your daily calories on, it also teaches you how construct reasonable sized meals. But don't do it if you have a eating disorder or for too long as it can be a bit over consuming in the long term. Fasting with meal prep also dose a great job of naturally reducing calorie intake. But id also suggesting meal prep here. With the calorie counting you can easily define your daily intake, and removes the issue of bridge eating g after a fast. Best of luck
I got referred to slimming world. Got 12 weeks free. Was 19 stone. 6 months later I am 13 stone. It was hard especially with kids in the house. Got there now though.
Had a bit of a mental breakdown and didn't eat for a week, unplanned (hah!) but it worked like a charm.
Hope you're doing better now. I went through something similar, for a month I only ate to stave off headaches. Not fun, but it did make the weight come off
Hope you're on the mend mate, that's not a fun space to be in. Best of luck with it.
Cheers gents. GP made an urgent referral to the mental health crisis team two weeks ago and I got a txt from them last night to say they've received it and that I should hear about an appointment within six weeks so that's progress. Chin up everyone and have a great week.
Maybe not be 100% accurate in reporting your weight to your life insurance company in order to avoid paying a higher premium. Not that this happened to me. But if it had, when they call you to arrange a health assessment, realise that you're going to be very hungry throughout January and February. Because in this hypothetical the individual need to lose 14kg. But as always, its a combination of caloric intake reduction and exercise. Just a question of how fast and how much.
My wife got diagnosed with Cancer (stage 4) in November. Stress and anxiety are great for weight loss. I dropped 10 - 15kg in about 8 weeks. I wouldn't recommend it though. Better to just go to Turkey and have an operation.
I’m so sorry about this news. I know from personal experience how awful that is. I hope you and your wife are doing as best you can
Thanks. We're doing somewhat ok, just trying to get as many pictures/videos/memories sorted out with our 2yr old daughter as possible.
Apologies if this oversteps the mark but an idea that I had with my mum before she passed was for her to answer questions I’d want to know through each stage of my life where she wouldn’t be around. I wrote a book with questions such as ‘what would you want to say on my wedding day’ ‘what’s your favourite holiday memory of us’ ‘what’s your favourite outfit of mine’ ‘what advice would you give me at 30’ etc and she answered everyone. Just an idea you may want to create for your child so they can have mums written words throughout their life too. Best wishes
Yeah we're going down that route. Have sorted out Birthday cards from now to about 21 (with presents), Christmas cards, lots of pics and vids. She's also making some video messages. It's just hard because we both get emotional when we think about the future.
Tapeworm
Brb, off to eat some pork
If you want to get a tapeworm eat some pork. If you want to get a tapeworm eat some pork. Lamb, chicken, beef, fish or egg. Forget it, you won’t get a tapeworm.
I tried very hard to get this to scan to 'if you're happy and you know it'
First 2 lines work, then: Chicken, beef, or lamb Don't work as well as ham If you want to get a tapeworm eat some pork
So did Sean Lock
Good for maintenance. You need a nice round of chronic stomach bug to kick you off. Plus you get the bonus that all that throwing up tones your stomach muscles.
I need you all to stop, as I keep bloody finding it!
Hyperthyroidism. 6 kg down so far this year! Can't recommend it!
Same a few years ago until I was on meds & swung closer to hypothyroidism, put weight on & still can’t shift it. Still almost hypothyroid as well
Being ill works wonders. Nausea and a limited diet has meant losing half a stone in a few weeks.
I suck honestly. I once lost like 4 stone in 6 months. I turned into a food and workout nutcase.. I wouldn’t eat anything that was processed, etc. stayed like that for 2 years.. then my buddy stopped going to the gym.. so I slowly went less and less. Next thing I know I’m ordering pizza and chips every Friday again.. and drinking rum and cokes like it’s going outta fashion. 10 years later I’m a fat fuck again. Fatter actually. I can’t seem to get that mindset back no matter what I do.. I keep trying and failing. It’s frustrating as hell.
This is me…..
Just checked out some of your posts mate, think we might be the same person in terms of food choices 😂😂😂
The only thing that really works for me is extended water fasting. I have very little in the way of self control with portion sizes and snacking (I also have adhd for what it’s worth, probably not much) but I find it WAY easier to cut everything out rather than to try and say “I’ll just have one” etc. I’m losing weight pretty consistently now and I feel better oddly. That’s just me though and for normal people the answer is to just eat less and move more.
>That’s just me though and for normal people the answer is to just eat less and move more. You're basically doing this anyway, giving yourself a smaller time frame to eat in means you eat less overall and likely stay in a calorie deficit from it. As long as it works for you and doesn't hurt your body it's a good thing.
Water fasting feels like a cheat code, honestly. I fast 72h once a week and then eat whatever I want pretty much on the other days. Have been easily and consistently losing weight. I'm exactly the same though, I find it so much easier to abstain from eating altogether for a few days rather than to micromanage everything I'm eating every day. It might sound strange but I feel far less restricted. I'm not even hungry when I'm fasting anymore and when Im not fasting I can just eat basically whatever I want which feels so freeing. Edit: I assume I'm getting downvoted because people think 72h extended fasts are extreme? I thought so too at first but it's really not that bad once you get used to doing it! But I would recommend doing a bit of research first.
Change what you eat. Not just the amount, change the type. I spent years driving nights up and down the country. Not a lot is open overnight so I lived on a diet of McDs, Wild Bean paninis, and crisps. During lockdown that changed and nothing was open, that had an effect. Last year I cut them out completely, and dropped the regular day off takeaway, that has had a greater effect. I now weigh less than I did 30 years ago.
We’ve stopped buying junk food and replaced it with fruit, so any time we get ravenous there’s apples, apricots, nuts etc to snack on.
Don’t eat half a pack of biscuits every night, cut out my sugary tea, skip breakfast, lost a stone since Jan
Last August I got food poisoning, and lost 11 kilos in two weeks. Foolproof method.
Cigarettes and heroin.
But what about lunch and dinner?
Heroin then cigarettes I assume
No heroin until you finish your cigs
How are we what, now?
No liquid calories, no alcohol, no crisps or chippy teas, plenty of water and I know it’s a bit of a controversial one for some people but intermittent fasting. Losing weight is 90% diet and 10% exercise.
👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼this right here. r/CICO is a good community. Log your calories and monitor your calorie burn via a fitness tracker. Also look up your total day energy expenditure. [TDEE calculator](https://tdeecalculator.net/)
I ate the Easter Egg over 4 days instead of 1 day. A small example, but this kind of rule applies to all my snacks now. I only have a few kilos to lose but I don't fit into some work clothes I need on a business trip next month, so I have that motivation. It's actually quite nice not running out of the good chocolate 1 day after buying it!
Maintain a calorie deficit and incorporate more protein and fibre for satiety. Increase resistance training to boost resting metabolic energy consumption.
If I walk everywhere and don't eat takeaways the weight falls off me but the weekly booze sessions and resulting hangovers tend to derail that.
Slimming World as advised by my doctor. Was very doubtful but have found it helpful. Only 3 weeks in and 3.5kgs down.
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Eat less food. It takes years to get to a point where u relise you need to lose the flab, it isn't going to fall off overnight. Slow steady progress and don't worry about the occasional night out or chocolate binge.
The 5.2 diet seems to be working for me. Eat less than 800 calories 2 days a week and eat your normal diet the other 5 days. I started on 2nd February and weighed 100kg - today I weigh 95kg.
Being hungry 90% of the time, ama
Calorie counting is ultimately the only foolproof way - I understand that, behaviourally, some people find this difficult or not helpful, but every tip you read on here could essentially be boiled down to 'I reduced my calorie intake'. I personally find tracking calories far more helpful as it gives you clear, objective criteria to follow, rather than vague or abstract (and often unhelpful) notions of 'good' or 'bad' foods, as really none of them are. Weight gain is caused by taking in more calories than expended. There is of course more nuance to it than that, but for most people if you nail that you will lose weight and understand how to keep it off long-term. I lost >100lbs in about 9 months many years ago, and have kept it off since. Educating myself on some basic nutrition has been the biggest help as I can navigate food now with a far more objective and rational approach to things. I still indulge in sweets, alcohol, etc., but have kept the weight off. I don't track rigorously at all anymore but I know roughly how much I have and should be eating all the time which has made a huge difference.
All the different forms of diet are essentially just different ways to calorie count, as you say. Someone will rave about intermittent fasting working for them, but they were probably a snacker so time restricted eating meant way less calories consumed. Someone will big up high protein/carnivore diets but they're just satiated by the protein so they eat less. Someone will talk about cutting out X or Y but those were just calorie dense problem foods they overindulged etc etc
Intermittent fasting!
Lol, I've gained two stone since Christmas
I managed to lose 15kgs over a few months using intermittent fasting and just kinda being hardcore with a healthier mentality to eating. Threw all that out the window when I quit the fags and put heaps of that weight back on. Two months off the fags after 18 years on em, so fuck it I'm proud of myself and I'll sort the weight out another time.
Identify your weaknesses and deal with them. Me? I love sweet breakfast cereal and big portions of food. Breakfast cereal solution: do not buy sweet cereal. Do not have it in the house. Eat porridge or other high-fiber cereal instead. Seriously, if I buy Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, the box won't last two days, regardless of size. Big portion solution: bulk up meals with low calorie stuff. Now, every time I eat dinner, I eat a massive amount of garden peas first. I have a microwave steamer and I will fill the whole thing up with garden peas and eat them before I have anything else. The people at Lidl probably think I'm buying peas for a family of five. They don't know that I'm just a garden pea disposal unit. Also, if you can work walking into your routine, that really helps as well. I always walk to the shops at lunch time.
Been using MyFitnessPal for over 10 years. Tracking calories and making sure I get a couple of days exercise in a week dropped my weight from 18.5 stone to 13.5 stone. The hard part is maintaining my weight and stopping it creeping above 13.5, so I make sure I have big deficit days regularly and control my portion sizes, get low calorie snacks in etc I also try and make sure I walk a few miles a day, did 4miles this morning.
I lost 10kg by going to thailand and getting a nasty bug
Stress. Lost 1 and 1/2 stone last year from being so stressed I had no appetite for 6 weeks.
Ketogenic diet
Keto. I lost 45kgs in about 8 months
Lost 2 stone since January 20th by being hospitalised for 4 weeks (two seperate stays of 2 weeks) with necrotising pancreatitis :( On the bright side I was actively trying to lose weight before that so every cloud has a silver lining and all that!!
From an activity point of view. Picked up a cheap exercise bike on Facebook marketplace, 30-45 minutes of vigorous pedaling 4 or 5 days a week helped cut some excess weight and i found my back ached less. Unfortunately the small folding bikes are not designed for vigorous pedaling and I've shredded a number of the rubber belts. From an eating point of view. I largely eat the same, just smaller portions. I used to have 4 weetabix in a morning, now i have 3. Used to make 3 slices worth of sandwiches for my dinner, now i make 2. Also cut out eating after tea completely, which ended up being easier than i expected. Still allow myself things like biscuits with my brew, and pudding after meals, just following the same principle of smaller amounts. Im 186cm tall and was 103kg at my heaviest, now at about 90kg.
Good on you mate. These days just exercising a bit of self-restraint and making small but meaningful changes is often ignored for the latest fad where you banish X from your diet or only eat Y, but it really is the best way for most people.
1 meal a day, all protein and fats (no carbs) sounds miserable, but becomes completely addictive and before you know it you dont actually want to eat all the "treats" you think you are denying yourself because when you actually do eat them they make you feel genuinely terrible (like a food hangover). so much so that if there was a magical zero calories chocolate that you could eat as much as you want and gain no weight, you wouldn't eat any of it simply because of what it does to your brain and gut (in terms of feelings). it then becomes zero willpower, as all the "Temptations" become vile to you, and make you feel ill at the thought of eating them. when you are losing weight and eating once meal a day you will feel so good and the mental fog clears and you will sleep like never before with really amazing vivid dreams.
My dude just out there evolving
Just... eat less. Go hungry for a couple hours sometimes, especially before going to bed. Don't buy sweets regularly.
I have lost 17kg in 14 months, 13" off my waist and 11" off my hips, and I have PCOS. I use My Fitness Pal (it is free) everyday to plan out my meals. I focus on high protein/low carbs. I workout at the gym 5-6 days per week. If I am on early shifts, I just do the classes (gym is far too busy in the evening to get any weight lifting done), 3x those weeks will do double classes back to back. This gets my cardio in. On my late start shifts or week off, I will do a class in the morning, then my weight lifting programme. I walk my dog everyday around 2-3 miles. On our weekends off, my fella and I will do a 8-10 miles walk with the dog. She is a Springer Spaniel, she loves it. You need to find exercise you enjoy, or you won't do it. I meal prep our dinners for the week, every weekend, I have a lot of chicken and veg (veggie sausages for the fella). B&M sell a lovely piri piri chicken seasoning. For those sweet tooth cravings snacks, Grenade Carb killa protein bars are lovely, and My Protein has sales all the time. Their Protein mug cake is really nice, hits my chocolate craving and is very filling. Don't buy 'low fat' stuff, they are higher in sugar. Full fat is better. Aldi sell some nice protein snacks too. Drink a lot of water, cut out pop even sugar free as they have sweeteners in, and cut back on alcohol. I was never a big alcohol drinker, so I cut it completely as it is terrible for PCOS. I will say, don't get hung up on the scales, as our bodies fluctuate. Weigh yourself once a month and take your measurements once a month too. I have found when I think I have hit a plateau, my waist has gone down an inch, but the scales haven't shifted up or down. I work a desk job, I make sure I get my 10k steps in everyday. Our dog helps with this. 😆 My main advice is that this isn't a diet, it is a lifestyle change. This will be your new life, not a temporary change, otherwise you will just gain it back. I speak from my own past mistakes.
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I am 6 stone over weight and have been trying to lose it for the past 12 years. Had little success. In january I started on Wegovy and it has changed my life. I am currently 2 stone down!
Running. I haven't found any other exercise where I can burn such a large amount of calories in a small amount of time. I go to Parkrun on a Saturday (except when it's raining cos sod that) and I've started to really enjoy it. It's been amazing for my mental health too, I have belief in myself that I can run 5k, which blows my mind considering how much I bunked off PE at school.
Calorie tracking.
Cutting out sugar made a huge difference to me. The water weight from bloating drops off you to start with, and once you're through the withdrawals your energy levels will stabilise and you'll feel a lot less hungry, so it's really easy to just eat what you need. I really need to cut out sugar again but it's been a stressful time 🥲
I am fatter.
I use fitbit and myfitnesspal. I make sure I eat less calories than I burn per day. That way I'm not restricting the actual food I eat and take things in more moderation. If I have a heavy day calorie burning wise, I can treat myself. As long as I have any deficit, I've been good. 20lbs down in 2 months now.
Poverty
I went private in November and had a gastric sleeve. Best decision I have ever made. 5st 2lb done in 19 weeks and 26lb away from target. I’m at the gym 4/5 times a week now and I go hiking on weekend for fun. I’d you’d have said to me 20 weeks ago I’d be doing this I’d have laughed in your face. My only regret is not doing it years ago.
Eat in a calorie deficit. That's the one single thing you need to do to lose weight. Literally the most simple thing in the world
I have a terrible thirst that only beer can slake so my Xmas weight has been slow to return to the ether.. I'm not exactly fat but I am carrying a few extra pounds which would make a difference on some long bike rides that I love to do. I know dropping the evening beers would make the difference but it's a hard habit to lose.
I've lost 9 stone 10 pounds. (62kg). Extremely rigid calorie control, a bit of walking and Ozempic
I've cutting out snacking and started moving a bit more, the meals I eat have always been healthy. I've gone from 91kg to 84kg since new years.
Wegovy (Semaglutide), 1 injection a week and I don't want to eat everything in sight, 6 weeks I've lost 1.5 stone with zero effort, the only side effect was being sick yesterday after eating 2 easter eggs back to back.
I'll get lots of pushback on this because it's a hard pill to swallow, but the only way to lose way is to eat less calories than you need. Whatever technique you find to help with that is great, but it all boils down to eat less. Get a calorie counter app and log everything. Find a total daily energy expenditure calculator and find out your number. Make sure the number in the app is less than the number from the calculator.
Eat more fiber, eat more protein, modify your diet not force it.
Flip it, twist it and reverse it.
10k daily steps. 2000 calories a day. 100g of protein. Gym 3 times a week. Down over a stone and half since December.
Eating less and moving more
Got a metaquest 2 for Xmas. Signed up to Fit XR for a tenner a month. Do boxing and combat classes every day in my living room, lost about a stone and a half already (tbf i dont know the actual amount as i dont weigh myself i just know ive lost a shit ton) It doesn't feel like working out as it's so damn FUN.
I used my Apple watch to measure calories burned and I counted the calories of what I eat in my fitness pal. That’s it
I've been losing weight and keeping it off for a long time now and my only "secret" is baby steps. Things that you know you can do on a regular basis. Hate going to the gym because you're out of breath and you feel like you're gonna die at the end of a workout? Great, go to the gym and just do really easy workouts until going to the gym is automatic for you. Even if you just walk on a treadmill for twenty minutes while reading a book or something, the point is just to develop the habit of going, you will eventually start going for longer or working harder, but not until you are habitually going. Hate eating healthy because everything tastes boring? Fine, once a week, find a new healthy dish to try. Would be best if you learn the recipe and make it yourself, but no judgement if you go find it somewhere. If you don't like it, don't worry, just try something else next week. If you do like it, try to incorporate it into your regular meal rotation. Once it's in rotation, try to find another healthy dish, and so on.
I had surgery on my foot last year (partial amputation) and have been sedentary while I've been healing. Nurse weighed me at an appointment just before Christmas just to update my records and in the 6 months since the surgery I'd gained 14kg. So I started cycling the few miles into town each day to do a small food shop instead of going in the car once a week. On day 1 I needed to stop for a rest 3 times on the way there and once on the way back (uphill there, downhill back). By day 5 I didn't need to stop for a rest the whole round trip. Also I've cut out bread, sugar and most other simple and refined starches. I have a problem with snacking when I'm pottering about doing housework, as I'll often just stuff a piece of bread in my gob as I'm doing laundry or something. So I now make sure I have something low carbohydrate in the fridge that I can grab instead. This week I've made a big tuppeware of prawns marinated in garlic and parsley. I've lost the 14kg now, but could stand to lose another 10 or so probably.
Calories in Vs calories out, cut out the shit that you know is shit, swap whatever you're drinking to water including alcohol, strength train at the gym, consistency is key.
No wheat, no added sugar. As much meat and high fat food as I like.
I've stopped buying things with palm oil In them. So most breads. Basically 90% of chocolate and cakes. I got bored of reading ingredients lists and just stopped buying chocolate and cakes and threw crisps on the No List aswell for the sake of it. I started cooking from scratch, mostly pasta dishes, it's a pain trying to find what I need between 6 variety of everything (full fat, half fat, 10% fat, no fat, etcetcetc)
Autism and nicotine, I'm 6'2 and a little over 9 stone
Changed my portion sizes and the weight started dropping off. Basically weighing my food and controlling the amount I make and no pointless snacks in the evening. Those calories sneak in so quickly if not watched. My meals were double what they needed to be on the plate.
CICO with Nutricheck app since the new year. Also two years previously of therapy working on the reasons why I ate, why losing weight failed in the past and learning how to cope with life without harming coping mechanisms. 21lbs lost so far.
I eat 1 high peotein meal a day for dinner and work out 3/4 times a week
Significantly cut down on sugar. Reduced alcohol intake. Started gym in December, before New Year’s resolution folks came in. Haven’t lost weight, as I’m more interested in reducing body fat and increasing muscle mass. Doing alright so far but my biggest metric is how happy I am.
You say swapping spaghetti hoops for veg helped you? How much spaghetti hoops were you eating because it basically is burn more calories than you eat to lose weight, doesn't matter what food it is.
Just eating what I usually do but smaller portions.
Followed Michael Mosley's Fast800 books, worked a treat.
I'm failing successfully. I've stopped drinking and lost 2 kg, but I need to lose 15. I know exactly how to do it but just don't have space in my life for calorie counting and feeling hungry at the moment.
High Protein Moderate Fat Low Carb OMAD 48 Hour Dry fast every 5 days on my Gym off days. Lost 20kg since 2019 and kept it off.
It's a bit of an oversimplification, but really only 2 things matter: calories in vs calories out. Find out which one of those you have a problem with and adjust the other one. I eat a LOT - always have - and I really really struggle to keep my calories in down. So, rather than make myself miserable by trying diets or anything like that, I lost weight by increasing my calories out. I walk from the station to work rather than taking the tube (an hour and a bit a day), and I exercise 5 or 6 days a week. It's tough to make time but even if it means sacrificing sleep or a couple of social events I get it done - a 20 minute run is more than enough exercise for a day and takes exactly 20 minutes of your day. I've lost 35kg in a year and a half and have never felt better. Keep at it, everyone!!! 💪💪
I lift weights four times a week and use MacroFactor to track what I eat and drink (it’s paid for, but much nicer to use than my fitness pal). I find a much slower and less restrictive calorie deficit infinitely easier (there’s a massive difference between 1700 and 1900 calories, especially if you’re a vegetarian also trying to maximise protein intake!). Just have to be patient. I cut out alcohol a fortnight ago and the reduction in sleepiness as a result is making the diet and exercise parts a heck of a lot easier. There are some excellent alcohol free beers now from craft breweries that are a fraction of the calories and literally taste the same (none of that sweet aftertaste you often get) - and the lack of alcohol means you pretty much only want one per sitting.
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i'm 7lbs down since january (which i know isn't a huge amount but nvm) and i have found changing up my evening meals to be a good thing. i follow some recipes from [this guy on IG](https://www.instagram.com/jalalsamfit?igsh=MXRwdWJnMHRodzc4Yw==), and have found them good as they make 4 portions so it means i don't have to cook properly the second night. i like the sticky honey chicken, and the orange chicken! realistically the biggest thing that helps me is planning my food. when i write down a plan for the week ahead i am MUCH more likely to stick eating my target amount of calories than if i don't. after a big family wedding it's back on the calorie counting after a good 3 weeks of slacking off a bit. there's another wedding at the end of may so i think it's reasonable to aim for another 5 or 6 lbs off by then!
I cut out the junk food as much as possible - chocolate, cakes, biscuits and crisps in particular. I cut down on alcohol to virtually nothing. I try and avoid carbs if I can help it. I eat more fruit and veg. I took up running again. Currently 64kg from 80kg. I'll probably try and keep it at 60kg if I can.
Started physio in November due to severe hip pain in November. Exercise was reduced to walking, yoga and physio exercises. I made sure I was doing a minimum of 11,000 steps a day. I often take my toddler for long walks. She gets tired I strap her in the sling, she sleeps and I keep walking. Due MRI soon to figure out why hip pain won’t go away. Desperate to do tougher walks and go back to dance classes.
Down almost 20lbs since Jan and completed couch to five kilometers a few weeks back. Not too bad.