Ask Lemmy

I started on this path a year ago. I homebrew beer and it's pretty yummy. Years of drinking a couple of beers a night got me over 100kg. That was my trigger. 1x beer about same as a Mars bar in calories. Stopped drinking weekdays. Only vape weed as a wind down now. Switched to whisky ginger ale on weekends. Buy less snacks Drink more water and tea and stopped having sugar in tea.10x teas a day is a lot of unnecessary sugar. Stopped eating lunch, have miso soup sachets. Breakfast is toast and marmite Dinner is full normal meal My stomach stopped complaining it was hungry, though it helped to have awareness that the hungry feeling is a good feeling and to embrace it as a sign of success. I don't beat myself up for a stumble. Sometimes I snack, sometimes I go out for midweek beers though rarely.

Over a year I dropped 25kg A quarter of my body mass I'm 52 It helps I'm adhd lol and eating has always been an afterthought But the main weight loss came from significantly reducing alcohol Unfortunately I've not made any beer for two years.. so there is a downside lol Anyway.. just my 2c Good luck 👍

Be efficient with your calories. If you overeat and then you try to cut to 1800 but are still eating ice cream, chips, Starbucks. That 1800 is going to go so fast and you'll still be hungry.

Eat lean protein, simple carbs a ton of veggies and drink lots of water. You can also reduce exercise intensity if you're feeling super drained.

Another thing is to not try and cut to fast. Doing a 1000+cal deficit for weeks is going to wreck you. Better to go slow with 250 or 500 and take extra time.

Don't just stop: swap.

Cutting things out leads to cravings and causes the entire process to be a constant fight. Instead, make small swaps over time that build habits.

I have a burrito every day. I swapped the tortilla for a high fiber one (get more fiber). It saved 50 calories a day and is still delicious. I swapped my side of chips for protein chips (when I can get them on sale). Lower cal, high protein, still crunchy and taste like cool ranch.

Think about what you can ADD to your meal. Having stew? Add beans and extra peppers. A sandwich? Add spinach. You'll end up eating less of the calorie sense stuff. You'll also get more fiber.

I found cutting carbs to be a big help. I eat massive amounts of protein and little to no carb and I've been losing a lot of weight that way

Hey, so I dropped weight casually and all I did was:

• Limit snacks. Best to zero, but minimum to one a week.
• Your food portion? Cut it in half. Fat folk tend to eat big portions, I know I did, cut it in half.
• Don't eat constantly, predefine 3 times you are gonna eat, that's it. For me it's breakfast, second breakfast (at work) and dinner.
• Drink water when hunger is too big.

You will be hungry, a lot for some time but shortly it will stabilise and you'd mainly feel hunger around food time.

After time, my body stabilised around 15kg lower than I were when I began, and that's with me breaking it quite often xD

Track everything you eat. I use the Energize app becasue it's private but there are lots out there. Eat the correct balance of carbs, protein, veg, etx. Get your daily calorie limit from your doctor..

Exercise as regularly as you can but remember you can't outrun your fork.

Hydrate.

That's it. Everything else is pretty much smoke and mirrors. It is not easy.

Mainly, cook your own food. Stop eating out.I found the America's Test Kitchen Skillet Recipes and Best Soups to be amazing.

Track everything you eat, even when you're in a good place, keep tracking. I have ADHD so I've found it best to treat it like I do financial tracking, it becomes habit very quickly and apps like waistline make it super easy to enter, especially if you're in the habit of weighing everything.

I have to minimise the smacks kept in the house, and what we do keep tends to be "better" or at least less calorie dense. I don't deny myself cravings, but I'll follow servings and budget for it in calories. Waistline averages out calories over a configurable period so I don't sweat going over one day, all balances out over the long term.

Therapy helped a lot, if only to help me have a healthier relationship with food, my therapist has a lot of experience with addiction & substance abuse and food can absolutely be a drug (which is not acknowledged enough imo). Between that and getting treatment for ADHD I've managed to get back down to one of the lowest weights I've been as an adult. I've tried to make it a lifestyle change which I credit heavily to success as well. My partner having a health scare that forced them to review their diet also helped tbf, but we were already on that path, was just some extra push.

What you eat can help too, fibre being a big one. Make friends with legumes, add them into your cooking. I like chickpeas and lentils, will add them into a lot of dishes I cook. Use seeds too, ground flax tastes great and adds a lot of good fats, sunflower and pumpkin seeds go well in salads. I like to do meals that can serve leftovers, stuff like soups & stews are great because they don't have a lot of active cooking (you throw stuff into a pot and let it simmer for a while). Higher quality calories are helpful, tell you that personally I'll feel fuller longer eating some porridge with flax and fruit in the morning than the occasions I'll grab a McMuffin or something.

You need to track your calories and macros. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. You can go overboard sometimes, but you still need to track the calories. Someone else has recommended https://tdeecalculator.net/ which is a great starter point to set targets. Eat whatever you want, but follow your macros targets: I'd recommend a macros target high in proteins.

Make soup (from veggies and beans). Eat fruit for your snacks multiple times a day. Always go for whole grains (bread, pasta, rice, etc.). Eliminate cheese entirely (seriously, it is terrible for you). Replace milk with soy milk (doesn't have the saturated fat or sugar). Reduce or eliminate meat consumption. Avoid added sugars when possible.

A good rule of thumb that I find helpful is that the majority of ingredients in all meals should naturally contain non-negligible amounts of fiber. The things you eat should also mostly have plenty of water in them already for bulk and digestion. Dry foods (including oil-based foods) are far too easy to overeat.

These are relatively simple rules that leave tons of options for variety but force you to have a fairly healthy diet. They are easy to implement in a lifelong diet with no need for calorie-counting.

Cut out the sugars (including pasta, potatoes, corn,...) and ditch that addiction. You'll not only lose weight and be healthier, but the cravings will also stop.

I think you're on a good track. Some tips i've picked up though: Switch the milk you use with cereal/tea/coffee to soya milk, i found that it helps. Also don't underestimate the power of a short stroll if you've been sitting down for a lot of the day - prompts the body to be in fat burning mode rrathee than fat building mode.

Estimate your total daily energy expenditure:

https://tdeecalculator.net/

Eat in a caloric deficit. You will need to weigh your food and track calories, at least for a while.

Weigh yourself and see if the weight is going in the right direction and not losing too fast either. Adjust calories as needed.

It's way harder than just these steps but this is the foundation. Personally I found the food weighing and calorie counting massively stressful but I got a good sense of how much to eat from doing it from a few weeks. Now I check the scale and log weight and make sure it's going the way I want it.

Also talk to a therapist. I needed one to get over certain mental barriers and to re-evaluate my relationship to food and my body image.

I switched to one meal a day for blood sugar management. I fast all day eat dinner then normally have a snack before bed. you learn to deal with minor hunger and it does not effect you anymore. Food is also better in general. Delayed gratification etc

Good luck. You got this. OK so 100lb is quite a lot. And please stay above 100lb body weight. OK now then. I lost around 30lbs give or take. And here are some tips:

• It's all about calories in and calories out. You'll probably have to adjust your diet every now and then. I say this because a big deficit is not sustainable. When I tried a deficit like this I didn't have the energy to exercise. So there's that.
• exercise is a bit easier. specially when you body is new to the exercise. Just make sure to understand the routing or without.
• please remove unhealthy foods specially instant noodles.
• cook your meals when possible.
• follow the service size.
• if after a month you haven't lost another pound, consider a meal journal.
• finally, gaining weight or losing weight is not easy. That's because the difference in calories for the target weight.
• maybe try a intermittent fasting to get a feel for the fake hunger and real hunger.
• serious make better diet. Make sure your diet is balanced and within your calorie limits.

Good luck. You got this.

• Daily long walks.
• Eat less.
• Eat better. I quit stuffing myself with industrially processed food, best decision ever. Even better than quitting smoking (which I did some 20 years ago). BTW, eating better helps a lot in eating less.

Edit: some improvements made to my (severely) lacking English.

I know Lemmy thinks everyone that avoids carbs must be carnivore, but you can use your head and avoid sugar/starches and lose a lot of weight. Fruit is tough to drop but apart from a few blueberries or something, fruit is pure sugar, and juice is as bad as pop. Don't think because something is "healthy" that it's not loaded with sugar.

By the time you get full eating things like pasta, you've eaten way, way too much. Fats will make you feel full. I used to eat a 16 oz steak with potatoes and vege and still want dessert, and now 6 oz of something fatty like brisket with some broccoli or brussel sprouts will fill me up.

And you can't outrun a bad diet. Exercise will tone you, but you can't exercise enough to work off a cup of mashed potatoes without giving up the rest of your free time.

Start by cleaning the house out of that shit, don't bring it back in, and use something like Carb Manager to figure out the sleepers that are putting weight on you.

I personally use a calorie counting app, like Waistline, and when I start getting into that routine of eating less naturally without actively counting, I stop using the app.

When I fall off, I go back to it for a bit until I'm back in the rhythm.

I also exercise a few times a week and try to do at least one walk a day. 

Wearables like Garmin also do great calculations of calories burned. If you don't like the idea of your data being sold, which you shouldn't, Garmins are often compatible with this FOSS app: https://f-droid.org/packages/nodomain.freeyourgadget.gadgetbridge

I think it's pretty simple. Eat less. But it is not easy for some.

I eat a single meal a day at about 1800 cals. About to hit 100lbs down.

You're obviously getting a lot of specific nutritional advice regarding what to eat, avoid, and how to behave.

My biggest recommendation is to find support in creating a healthy relationship with food. No individual or category of food is "bad" but our behaviors and views can support or sabotage our progress.

I highly recommend the podcasts In Moderation and Showing Up Anyway with Coach Adam. Also social media - I know they have accounts across platforms but on YouTube look for The Plant Slant, ScottyKFitness, Adam Wright Fitness, and Hybrid Calisthenics.

Most people can force themselves into a box and create a habit for a period of time, but making long term changes stick needs healthy support and education.

It's easier to use your will power to not buy snacks at the grocery store than it is to not eat them once they are at your home.

Track your calories. Eventually you get skilled enough at it that you don't necessarily have to journal everything to have a good idea of how many calories you are taking in. If you can eat the same things day after day without getting bored, that helps a lot.

Learn to cook well. Chicken breast doesn't have to be dry and bad. Veggies can be dressed up and made tasty without adding too many calories.

Sugar snap peas are a tasty, crunchy snack and you can eat a lot of them without blowing out your daily calorie limit.

If you drink alcohol, stop, at least mostly. Even a shot of vodka with no mix is ~60 calories. In fact, try not to drink calories in general.

I've lost more than 70lbs of fat and have not kept it off for about 4 years. I've previously lost more than 50lbs, but then regained the weight later. What is different this time is I have a much better understanding of the forces at work and have made fundamental, sustainable lifestyle changes that will help keep me fit over the long term.

The saying is that "you'll never out exercise a bad diet," which is completely true, but even if the calorie burn isn't sufficient to put you in a calorie deficit, there is tremendous value in exercising. Muscle is an endocrine organ, and exercise helps produce things like brain-derived neurotrophic factor a protein that is vital for the functioning of your brain. Muscle is also a huge chunk of your metabolic overhead, so maintaining or increasing muscle mass makes it easier to manage your caloric intake and not be in surplus, adding fat. Something like 90% of people who lose weight gain it all back and then some, and among those able to keep it off, nearly all of them have adapted their lifestyle to increase their baseline level of physical activity. I've done it by using a bicycle for nearly all of my local transportation. I live in a warm climate and my city is fairly bikable (though there is definitely room for improvement!) This one change adds ~ 6-7 hours of additional cardio to my week.

When it comes to eating, whatever you do has to be sustainable. You can "go on a diet", but if you revert to your former norms once you've lost the weight, you're just going to gain it all back. Worse, if you didn't take care to boost your protein and do resistance training to maintain muscle mass while in a calorie deficit, you'll have lost substantial muscle mass as well, and you'll likely end up fatter and in a worse position when all is said and done. With strict caloric restriction without boosting protein or doing resistance training, about 40% of your weight loss will be muscle mass. Minimize the loss of muscle by boosting protein intake to around 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass, and doing some form of resistance training. Weight training in a gym is preferable, but you can do a lot with simply bodyweight fitness at home. Joe Delaney's beginner gym workout program is a useful starting point, and is what I'm doing now. However, I started with a basic bodyweight fitness program I put together from the info at reddit's r/bodyweightfitness, and it helped me a lot. Point is, something is better than nothing in this regard, and you need to do it as a matter of habit, like brushing your teeth.

As far as diet goes, there are lots of opinions out there and you have to find what works for you. If you have a lot of fat to lose, the ketogenic diet is helpful but restrictive. I did this for a while, and transitioned into what is more or less a Mediterranean diet. I eat whole foods, minimize highly processed foods, exclude highly processed foods with added sugars, and emphasize lean meats for protein and also fiber intake. I shoot for 160g of protein per day and 50-100g of fiber. If I consume carbohydrates, they have to come with fiber. Whatever dietary regime you choose, calorie tracking with a tool like myfitnesspal is vital. It is so easy to overlook consumption that if you don't strictly measure and log everything that goes into your mouth, you really have no idea where you're at with respect to being in a calorie deficit. After you've done it long enough you end up with a good grasp on your calorie intake and can relax the burden. No matter what dietary regime you select, it has to be a sustainable part of your life or the results will only be temporary.

Preperation. If my house is full of healthy food, I'm much less likely to impulsively order delivery food or head to 7/11. You have to learn how to cook without using highly processed foods too.

Edit: This includes flour btw, it's as bad as refined sugar, basically! There's nuance sure, but tell it to the ghosts of my flab rolls!

I once lost some weight not by focusing on what not to eat, but by making myself eat a large salad for lunch. I forget what order things went in, but at one point I was eating a lot of home made fermented vegetables (cabbage mostly with others things in the mix, so basically kraut) mixed with romaine to dilute the sourness. At another point I would buy the sort of thing I previously ate for lunch (like a sandwich) and eat only half of it, chopping it up and mixing it with my salad. I ate whatever for dinner.

I wasn't trying to lose as much weight as you, I realize. But I think for some people, not focusing of deprivation / but focusing on something I like "I will eat this quantity of these vegetables" and letting the fullness from that reduce the amount of more caloric stuff you eat, can work better.

Intermittent fasting worked for me. By setting a limit on the number of hours I can only eat, it effectively put me into a calorie deficit. There’s only so much you can eat within several hours.

The great part is I didn’t have to be selective with what I eat. I just needed to quit eating before my daily eating window closed. No need for overly complicated diets.

I've only crossed the "slight overweight" line now. But in the past 15 years I have monitored my weight while trying gentle changes: eat healthier, no added sugar, more exercise, build a small amount of muscle. Nothing has made a difference. I was gaining weight slowly, year by year.

Now I'm finally doing what I wanted to avoid for 15 years: stop eating while still slightly hungry. It was a psychological exercise: To focus on the feeling of hunger so I stay aware of it, so I don't automatically walk into the kitchen. To convince myself that I'm okay with it, this is how it has feel, no need to panic. There was some resistance, but in the end it was easier than expected. I mostly do this towards the evening, and not every day, and when I'm more than just a bit hungry I still eat.

The effect on my weight was almost a shock after the non-effect of all my previous attempts. I feel like I can keep this up easily. In fact I had to dial it back, losing weight faster than I intended. And I did keep my healthy habits from earlier: especially I try to be active one hour each day, and if I wasn't I usually go for a late walk.

Last time I got serious about weight loss, I just counted calories really aggressively. It worked.

But my diet was boring and eventually I got tired of depriving myself, so I stopped. I gained back some of the weight, but not all of it, so that's nice.

It also helps to not be constantly depressed and stress-eating through the fall of democracy.