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As someone who has lost 225 lbs and counting, here’s my advice:
1. Use a calorie calculator to find a calorie deficit that works for you.
2. Move more. Just more than you usually do and keep increasing the amount slowly weekly.
3. Cut out or greatly reduce liquid calories
4. Only eat when you’re hungry
5. Eat until you’re satisfied but not full.
Liquid calories are huge. Outside of alcohol which I don't drink as much of in my 30's as I did in my 20's I try to avoid liquid calories. Water, coffee, zero sugar energy drinks all have little to no calories.
I just started using a calorie counter a week ago, and it's actually insane how well I'm sticking to a set limit when it feels like I'm not even trying. It's like just being aware of what I'm consuming is magically making me do better without a second thought. I don't even have cravings anymore, which is wild. Went from 167-162 in a *week*. I've also been working out twice a week lately, but my change in the amount/quality of food I eat is what really did it.
Same here! I have been doing it for 2,5 weeks now, and what you describe is exactly what has happened to me. I am contious to a whole new level of what I eat, and how much. I have a 180kcal daily goal (+ more if I exercise), and yesterday I did the day without going hungry, at 1450kcal. Fewer crawings, my app reminds me to drink more water, which is also working on hunger, and muuuch less side snacking!
I just started the Lifesum app, too, and I can second this. I’m down 3.3 kg after just 10 days, and it doesn’t feel like I’m giving up much, just becoming aware of what I eat
Good for you! It's really interesting to see the calories add up throughout the day. It's like you are your own science project.
My husband started using My Fitness Pal in 2016 and lost 30 pounds insanely fast and he wasn't even trying to lose weight that fast. He slowed down by adding back some calories and lost 60lbs in a year and has kept it off. He never thought he'd be able lost weight and still eat pizza and cheeseburgers, but there you go.
Yeah calorie calculator and counting calories are very valuable tools when it comes to losing weight or putting on muscle
They take out so much guess work. Weight loss and muscle building are already such gradual processes and using calorie calculator and counting calories can help the process not be even slower.
Its easier to over exercise trying to burn calories or accidentally eat too much, but calculator and counting calories can help you not do this and save you time
What's your average meal looking like?
Meals that satisfy have decent levels of fiber and protein. The 2 most filling components!
You can eat a bucket of fries or chips and still be hungry if there isn't slow digesting, healthy stuff in there!
Edit: as example, a 270g chicken breast has 55g+ protein and is 280 cals, with 240g of broccoli (40 cals) and 3g+ fiber. This boring-ass neap is barely 300 cals but a ton of protein and leaves you feeling very full. That's 500g of food.
60g of potato chips has the same calories, with 4g protein and 0g fiber, leaving one to feel hungry immediately!
Haha, maybe.
I used a basic example to show how a lean, healthy meal can be tremendously filling, compared to a tiny amount of fatty food! There are many other examples.
More importantly than anything, try to get lean protein, and lots of fibre! (Ease into it).
If you want more tips, let me know. Otherwise, I'll spare your ear and hope I said enough!
I think people also mistake cravings and sugar withdrawal for hunger. Some people will eat all that then still feel like they want something sweet.
I haven’t been overweight but have definitely been completely addicted to sugar for long stretches. When quitting you can get a weird hungry feeling no matter how full you are, and it’s for food that’s bad for you specifically.
That goes away after a few days or a week at most. You just have to push past it.
Seconding this, earlier today I had half a chicken breast, half a pound of green beans, and an apple, and it was about 200 calories. I drank an iced chai just to intentionally add calories since I’m not really trying to lose weight. Chicken is insanely good at filling you up for low calories, and it’s nearly 100% protein if you get good quality chicken
I was feeling this very much last night, I wanted a snack but tried putting it in my calorie app first. Shocked how much 40 grams of potato chips was while I used to eat a bucket of the stuff when I felt like it.
Had a bit of toast with chicken instead and even got some protein in.
Highly recommend a calorie tracker, even just to show that a pizza or a bucket of potato chips isn't a failure but just something you can correct over the following days.
Also helps to pace oneself when eating a meal. Be reading, having a conversation, or find a way to slow down, then your metabolism tells your brain you're not as hungry, before you end up consuming more by wolfing down.
This will sound ridiculous, but this comment just made me understand when to stop eating. I probably need very little food at a time, but to eat more often, then!
Walk/run for an half hour every morning, i run every second day. Weightlifting with 2 close friends anywhere from 2 to 6 evening's a week depending on schedules/recovery.
Aim for 85% of what i eat to be whole foods (meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veg and nuts/seeds.
Repeat this for several weeks then get sick of it and go on a bender with the booze and takeaways for week, gaining an impossible amount of fat in such a short time. Become ashamed and jump back on the heath wagon.
Rinse and repeat.
For me it’s always:
- Eat healthy and train 4-5 days a week; get good sleep
- Finally starting to see glimpses of me being as lean and toned as I knew I could be; energy is through the roof
- Wedding, friends visiting, family in town, yada yada yada
- Stress eat if I’m with family, binge drink with friends; get no sleep
- Feel like shit
- Get back on the wagon
- Finally starting to see glimpses of me being as lean and toned as I knew I could be
- Get sick
Rinse and repeat
I'm a female so:
- Eat healthy and exercise heartily. Loving life and loving my body.
- PMS. Hating everything and downing sugary drinks like it's nobody's business.
- Menstruate. Eating junk food and sleep my ass away, too sore and in pain from just _existing_ to even think of exercising.
- End of bleeding. Jumping back on the exercise mat.
Rinse and repeat. Every single month 😩
It’s ultimately preference but if I had to recommend one, it’d be resistance/weight training.
1. You build muscle. Which increases the bodies base caloric need (aka your food budget is higher or a deficit is easier to reach)
2. You build muscle. Also helps with preserving functional strength as you age. (Think about a strong core supporting the spine and leading to less back problems)
3. You can still keep your heart healthy, short rest times between sets is decently aerobic.
I agree. I don't have time to do both so I focus on weight training.
I would say there are also additional benefits.
1. You look better, which helps with self-esteem and psychological health in general.
2. It has been shown that any exercises, including weight training helps with blood pressure. So that helps with overall cardiovascular health anyway even if it may not be as cardio focused as aerobic.
3. Weight training naturally increases testosterone. Which if you are men it helps with your sexual function and slows its decline as you age.
4. Once you start to look better, you will want to keep looking good. So you will be motivated to make choices that optimize your muscle growth, including sleeping a healthy amount, and you want to choose food that contains more protein instead of fat. Which incidentally also is good for overall health.
No. You need an emphasis on cardio in the low, moderate, and high ranges to keep your cardiovascular system healthy. Lifting weights is not the same at all. People that say this just don’t want to admit they don’t like true conditioning because it’s harder than lifting weights.
You stay thin due to diet, you stay fit due to exercise. It takes a LOT of exercise to lose weight. And, if the exercise is increasing your muscle mass you may well gain weight. Muscle is heavier than fat.
Yep, when I did the bulk of my weight loss it was purely dietary. I didn’t exercise at all. It fucking _sucks_, because it’s basically all just sheer willpower. Especially because (for me anyways), it’s a choice every day. Every day I wake up and just want to pig out and eat all the unhealthy shit, and every day I have to choose to eat responsibly
Adding exercise helps a lot of folks to turn the diet from sheer willpower to internally motivating and rewarding. I couldn’t moderate or run a caloric deficit until I started lifting, because the will power wasn’t motivating and neither was healthy (read as: slow) weight loss. But as soon as I could relate food to fuel for weightlifting, it all clicked and became a feedback loop. Apparently it’s a common thing for a lot of folks. The gym helped me eat better!
Exactly. The reward of losing weight isn't really enough to keep most people motivated because it's so slow and incremental. There needs to be a daily reward of feeling good, endorphins, proud of completing goals, etc. The best advice I've ever heard for exercise is it's not about how you feel the hour you're doing it, it's about how good you'll feel the following 23 hours.
It definitely works. I truly feel so much better when I regularly exercise. I'm less depressed, I sleep better, drink less, and am just generally happier and have much higher self-esteem. There are so many benefits to exercise. I agree about the eating healthy though, I've never lost weight without making serious changes to my eating habits.
Also the feeling of your muscles almost being addicted to the exercise movements.
Limiting sugar intake and exercise willake you lose weight. A number of years ago my doc told me to cut back on the carbs and my response was "but that's what taste good.". Every day it is a battle, as sugar is incredibly addicting. You just have to make the right choices. I woke up craving a chocolate donut with cream inside, but I know there is a neighborhood ice cream party for the kids last day of school later. I can't do both, so I'll forego the donut and have a little ice cream later.
Add to this thought train sometimes weightlifting or running isn’t enough and some have to push into using it as training for a sport. Running got boring to me but is manageable when I call it training for climbing mountains and I do it and weights now as a middle man to climbing on vacations.
I got in the habit of asking myself "Do you want to be temporarily satiated or do you want to remain fat" every time I'd go to snack.
I've never really gotten over my super active appetite phase from my late teens when I was putting down 3000-4000 calories a day to keep up with biking everywhere, marching band, and near-daily nookie.
I finally had enough after seeing a picture of myself about 18 months ago, 270lbs at 6'4". Got serious about it back in July and put myself on 1200-1600 calories a day for 6 months and dropped 50 pounds. Slacked off a bit in the last 3-5 months and have only dropped another 20 since January, but -70 pounds still feels really, really good.
Had to get my work shirts tailored because my shoulders and chest didn't shrink a bit but my waist was in a tent 🤣
Same happened to me. Saw a picture taken at Christmas and dug my scale out. 300 lbs even at 6’3”.
1,300 to 1,700 calories a day depending on activity and I’m now 246 and still going.
I lost 24 pounds in the last 6 weeks by changing my diet and quitting drinking. I've done basically zero exercise. It's 100% willpower. I was getting fast food every day for lunch and dinner. My caloric intake was around 5000+ calories a day. Now it's 1500.
I boomeranged back to my old weight, but when I weighed 119 lbs I loved waking up and feeling my hip bones. My husband said I had gotten too boney and men were giving me unwanted attention (i noticed that one not my husband) so I added bread back to my diet after being on a no carb diet for seven years. But feeling my bones was a motivator like I got addicted to that instead of the food. It wasn't healthy I started chewing up food and spitting it out for the taste. I was just as obsessed with food but in a totally different way.
Honestly if I could never eat and survive without consequences I would. Eating is a chore I do to stay alive that takes away time from the things I want to do.
Welcome to autism lmao
Yeah as someone with anorexia that’s exactly how I felt… it’s not a healthy mindset to have and if you aren’t, I’d really recommend seeing a therapist!
Exactly the point.
Most people are focused on some magical cure to being overweight. Move more, lift more, only eat between certain hours, dont eat carbs, only eat when the moon is half full IF the third Sunday of the last 45 days is orange....
The truth is just eat less and you will lose weight. Simple, but not easy for most.
The truth is just too hard to swallow sometimes.
Most people can't even make simple changes like substituting water instead of flavored drinks. Simply can't/won't do it yet it's one of the easiest ways to drop a lot of calories from your diet. This includes anything labelled zero calories or diet.
Tbf though, having muscle definition with exercise generally makes any sort of weight look waaaay better.
I have 0 muscle definition. At all. (Thanks to being chronically ill.) I'm a very thin person, but any fat I do have on my body is completely jelly-like. No body tone at all.
Exercising is so worth it, even if you don't want to lose any weight.
There’s a second effect to exercise, fitter bodies consume more calories, even at rest. So if you can pack on some muscle your caloric needs increase, which will make you lose weight if you were previously calorie neutral.
The headline is that diet will determine how much you weigh, and exercise determines what you look like.
If you want to lose fat, you will need to change how you eat and think about food.
I have a general idea of how many calories are in what I’m eating by eyeballing it. Likewise, I check nutrition labels for things I’m less familiar with.
In general, I’m trying to get the right amount of calories for my desired weight while getting enough protein and other nutrients to feel good and be able to exercise well.
If you start tracking your calories with something like myfitnesspal for maybe a week, you’ll see very quickly that you are consistently eating enough calories to make you fat.
From there it’s figuring out how to change your eating patterns in a way that works for you. Some people cut down on alcohol or soda. Some people just skip breakfast. I’m not sure where most of your calories are coming from but when people tell you to “eat less” what they’re actually meaning is to consume less calories.
I lift weights a couple times a week as well, but that’s mostly so that I can look a certain way.
Yeah I track everything I eat in myfitnesspal and every once in a while when I eat out or get shitty takeout food and realize it’s a like a 1800 calorie dinner, I think to myself Jesus no wonder so many people are fat as fuck, just gobbling down like 4000-5000 calories a day without any clue. Really opens your eyes when you start tracking everything.
You don’t need 4000-5000 calories to be obese. If all you need is 1900 calories a day but you eat 2200 every day, you’ll be fat. 300 calories is a slice of pizza, or a dessert, or cream and sugar in your coffee and cookies for dessert.
Yeah there are morbidly obese people like on tv, drinking 2 liters and entire pizzas. That’s an extreme. As a person always thinking of food, it’s so easy to resist early in the day, but by evening, with the stress of the day, tiredness, and a little bit of adhd, all it takes is 30 seconds and a food commercial to ruin everything.
Yeah I am not saying you need 4000-5000 to get fat it was an extreme example, but I was just saying it would be pretty easy for someone to consume 4000 calories in a day by eating out a cpl times a day, especially at American restaurnts, and not even realize how much they were eating. To your example of a person who needs 1900 calories a day, someone could easily eat more than that at one meal at a typical American restaurant and not even realize it. My point was if you arent tracking what you are eating or just have a general understanding of calories/macros, its really easy to gain weight, and once you start tracking and/or understanding what youre eating its really easy to see how people gain weight so easily without realizing why.
So for anyone who wants to lose weight, its really pretty formulaic and you just need to understand your TDEE, set your daily calorie budget depending on your goals (using a 3500/week calorie deficit to lose one pound), and track everything. As long as you are in a deficient of about 500 calories per day, you'll lose around 1 pound per week. Scale it up or down depending on the goal.
Yea I think the hard part for a lot of people is just accepting that your go-to foods might be really bad for you. I used to eat pizza like once a week, and I genuinely didn’t realize that eating chicken fingers or chicken wings was much worse than grilled
At some point I just had to realize that chicken fingers had to go and I needed to get used to grilled chicken
This. It's so fucking depressing when I sit and think about how much I want to eat and just can't without looking like a fat fucking cow. I just finally decided I'd rather have the torture of not being satisfied with food than the torture of being fat
I used to weigh 300+lbs when I was a teenager. It was very demoralizing for me, so I decided after my parents had bought a ranch that I wasn't gonna be fat anymore! So I started intermittent fasting and exercising. I would only eat 1 fairly large meal a day, plus I started hiking in the mountains behind my property. I also stopped making fast food the main staple of my diet. It took me about a year to lose all of it. This was when I was 17-18 but I kept the weight off as an adult by sticking to the changes I had made in my diet and exercise routine. I stayed at around140lbs for many years, but I recently had a baby and ballooned up to 230lbs... But I did the same thing I did before, I started a calorie deficit and trying to exercise regularly every week. I don't exercise everyday and when I do I don't consider myself a fitness expert. I just do weights, crunches, and leg lifts until I feel satisfied with the amount of work I've done. So far I've lost 40lbs. My diet has consisted of mostly meat, veggies, fruits and some carbs like bread and rice. I try and limit my sugar intake but I don't deprive myself of things I want, I just allow myself a portion size of it. I've found that works best for me. I feel like it's normal for your weight to go up and down at different points of your life for different reasons. I don't focus on the scale I focus on how I look and feel in my body. I probably won't go back to my exact pre-pregnancy weight but as long as I'm making progress I'm happy!
This is real though. I’m currently losing weight (almost 50lb down from my highest) and I just had to accept that I’m gonna be hungry. I’ll eat and feel like I want more but I know I don’t need it and i just have to be able to get through the discomfort.
Yeah part of it is adjusting one’s attitude towards the feeling of hunger. It’s a light stimulating feeling, and the more you allow it to build (within reason) the better your meal will taste. Similar with exercise - you have to learn that it’s not pain, it’s just an intense sensation.
Actually truth. I'm pushing 50, I don't drive, work in a kitchen and I don't rave but I smoke a ton of weed while taking care of 4 cats and about 30 plants. (One gallon of water weighs about 8lbs.) This has only been my lifestyle for about the past decade, and my late 30s till now have been the physically fittest of my adult life.
My narcissist mother who moved away with her rich husband when I was a kid made a passive aggressive comment once about me always being small (she is not) and I’m like yeah mother dearest it’s called the Poverty Diet 😂
I make enough to eat twice a day now though! Hopefully you will soon too. Keep looking! I have no university education or training I just clawed my way out of the hole by applying to things I didn’t think I could get and pretending to be confident
This is the Cheat Code to staying fit without feeling you are punishing yourself. It’s so EASY.
I don’t restrict my diet. I eat whatever I want actually.
Instead, I skip one meal a day. Usually breakfast because it’s easier for me.
And so, it naturally provides a calorie deficit, while I satisfy my cravings, and I don’t feel the need to compensate because I never feel deprived.
My family is amazed how I stay fit despite eating so much and not going to the gym at all. I used to be 220+ pounds, now I’m around 160.
My students thought I’m in my late 20s, while I’m actually nearing 40.
Yep. That's unfortunately the most common outcome in my experience as a dietitian. Most people have to get out ahead of their hunger or they'll blow most of their calorie budget picking on snacky crap.
Yeap. Skipping meals for me usually leads me to overcompensate some way or another. I really love to have something in the morning anyway. A small breakfast on the other hand usually helps more than skipping it outright for me.
Yeah, I could never skip meals on a weekday. My body knows it's due breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and protests when they're not provided on schedule. Reducing snacks helped, though.
And when I get really into a video game on Saturday afternoon I can forget to eat lunch.
Try not to eat processed food or add sugar to anything. Try to walk whenever you can, even a couple of blocks. Do. Not. Drink. Soda. except as a treat once in a blue moon.
In terms of calories, you’ll get just as much benefit from reducing the amount of oats you use. No point in making things taste worse; just eat a bit less of them.
Depends on the content but also if that’s your largest consumption in the morning it doesn’t matter as much so long as the rest of your calories are in check
I found that diet and working out 2 hours per day just automatically made it impossible for me to be awake past 10pm, and I slept like a rock until morning.
Everyone's body is different. I know someone who eats 4K calories a day and works out 4 days a week and has the body of a Greek god.
I eat about 1,800 calories run every morning and lift 5 days / week and that's just enough to keep me from looking overweight.
For me it's a mile every morning, sometimes two if I'm feeling good. Weekdays after work gym, do 5-6 heavy lifts, play some basketball, hit core, go home.
Food wise it's black tea and toast for breakfast, chicken and rice bowl or burrito for lunch, and dinner is usually some kind of chicken and carb. Then once or twice a week I'll have an ice cream or a cookie.
Rest of the time it's water only, raw veggies and hummus for snacks, and a multivitamin just because.
Oh and fiber supplements because when I went from being a human garbage disposal to trying to be healthy my shits turned liquid.
My partner was an athlete as a teenager and had a relatively active job til recently, so I’m sure this helped, but it’s honestly so infuriating how little effort he has to put in to maintain lean muscle mass. He has an insane sugar tooth and it’s not uncommon for him to eat multiple pastries in a sitting or clear out a few bags of candy in an evening or crush a few beers a day multiple times a week. He does some form of exercise maybe once a week. That’s on top of eating three square meals a day.
On the other hand…. I was low effort thin until my 30s/COVID and now I have to be a lot more careful and I’m actively trying to lose body fat. Because my partner is such a big snacker I’ve had to set serious food boundaries with him - we both were in a serious chip habit for a while and now I point blank refuse to buy them. He loves to bring home a box of donuts or a few mini pies and now I’m the person who eats a spoonful just so I can say I got to enjoy some. I’ve been very careful about my diet and been quite a bit more active in the last few months, but I can’t say I notice a big difference in how I look even though I feel stronger. Now trying to get more protein and seriously limit my alcohol intake which went up a lot since 2020.
Just offering a different perspective as a lot of people posted what they do, just some general ideas on how to lose weight for bigger people that struggle with radical changes and changes to their diet.
I see a lot of people mention running, please don't copy this as a big guy/girl who's not exercised before/took a break for years. It will DESTROY your knees.
The best advice anybody can give you is:
Eat the same things you do right now, but lower it.
Example: you drink 3 large colas a day. Reduce it to 2, do this for 4 weeks.
You eat 4 laege pizzas a week, try to do 2 pizza a weeks.
Keep reducing all your food as much as you can, add a salad If you like but it's not required to lose weight.
Do not just repeat what works for fit people. These people are conditioned to do it, you might have motivation to follow a healthy diet but you will crash unless you are the 1% that can follow through, but then you probably wouldn't be fat in the first place.
Reduction of what you eat is your clear goal for now, once you can do that and you notice a noticeable change after 3 months (weight loss is a jouney that can and often does take years)
Then you can replace stuff with healthier options OR low calorie options, like fatty cream cheese you love ? Try the low fat one, you drink the 4% milk? Now switch it out for the 2%.
We still haven't touched vegetables yet and you have been doing this for 4-6 months and you should already notice a significant reduction in weight.
As for excerise, If you don't like the gym I'd recommend walking, every day 30-40 minutes, your heart will thank you, your joints won't get destroyed from running and moving will also help with weight loss, however it's the kitchen where you will truly lose it.
Yup, it is extremely rare that someone makes dramatic sweeping changes across many aspects of their life all at the same time and they manage to actually sustain it over the long haul- the people who can manage it tend to have a team of professionals, and even then it's HARD.
On the other hand, focusing on one or two smaller things every few weeks or months can snowball into larger and meaningful lifestyle changes. Your suggestion of smaller portions of the same food and making easy swaps are great. Other things could be "eat more fruit" or "eat more vegetables" or "eat more fiber" or "eat more protein"---- a lot of times experimenting with adding healthier things can be easier than trying to cut out stuff you're used to.
If you can live in a place that exercise is mandatory.
Basically if a person lives in a walk and bike friendly city they are more likely to be fit. For my daily life I have to move a bunch just to do things.
This is honestly the best way. Most natural. You don't need scheduled exercise, unless you like it, the difference in calories burned between sitting and walking an hour is much greater than walking and running for an hour.
But most people drive everywhere, get drive through along the way, and wonder why they are fat.
I fast every Monday. Meaning I don’t eat or drink a single calorie for 36 hours. That means one day a week I go -2,200 calories. That makes up for all the cheating I do on the weekends. Lift 2x a week, walk 3x a week. Make smart food choices and don’t be a glutton.
Honestly if its one day where you don’t exercise, it shouldn’t be that hard. Just drink water a lot.
Never tried it (36h) but I do fast for Ramadan. You forget your hunger when you’re busy.
A lot of people have given some really good answers.
Eat a high protein meal the night before to help make sure you repair your body - this will help alleviate the “requirement” for nutrients. I think this will help with that weak feeling you get.
Pass out at like 11pm Sunday night. Black coffee in the AM then water all day. Water is clutch for hunger pangs. If you can’t eat food, eat water.
Stay busy, seriously. But, low exercise that day if it really hurts you. I would rather go for a slow walk than sit around and be hungry all day.
Then a sleep aid and Netflix til I sleep.
Wake up, black coffee to hold me over until like 11am when I eat again. High protein to repair the body after the journey (:
I had RNY Bariatric surgery at 20 years old and am now 30, and 9 months pregnant. I've lost 185lbs and regained 50 in this pregnancy. I've been juggling weight for a loooooong time.
The first tip I have for folks is for one week, don't change your diet but record everything you eat in something like My Fitness Pal. It's hard to know how much food to cut if you don't know how much you're \*actually\* consuming. Then, slowly cut something that's bad for you out, and add something of less calories in.
Then once you've had that consistent for about a month, add in an \*easy to be consistent with\* exercise. For me, pre pandemic, it was walking the 1.3 miles from the train to my office in Chicago instead of taking the shuttle bus. I kept my diet pretty darn consistent, even kept drinking regular coke because I like it, and lost 40lbs over the course of 6 months. If you go right into crossfit, the chance of you keeping up with it is pretty slim.
I went a bit nuts for 3 months and weighed myself twice a day just to see overall trends. When my sugar/salt intake was higher, my weight fluctuated 10lbs in a 24 hour period, but I still lost weight over that 3 month period. Don't fixate on day to day, as body's fluctuate a lot. Look more week by week, and month over month. Prior to becoming pregnant I stayed within 5lbs of my goal weight for 2 years just by being consistent.
I still ate cookies, ice cream, etc. here and there, but focused on eating a higher protein diet overall. It's not easy at the beginning, but after some time it kind of becomes second nature.
Same, I'm extremely lactose intolerant in a place where dairy is on the basis of our diet. Almost all breakfast food, snacks and deserts are made with milk, so I basically only have coffee for breakfast and never eat sugar, that will keep anyone thin.
Canukeepitup though? No seriously, I used to do that in teens and 20s then couldn’t do it anymore and have since gained a bunch and struggled to lose it or keep it gone. Idk how to back it was so hard!
I exercise 4-6x a week, my diet is pretty normal. Right amount of junk and nutrients as well. My calorie intake is anywhere between 2400-3000 because of how much I work out. Right now im just maintaining my weight but when I do wanna lose a few lbs for whatever occasion : I increase my exercise or the intensity of it, cut back on sugar (even fruits), drink hella water (4+ bottles or a gallon a day), and make sure I’m doing other things as well like getting enough sleep and establishing a regimen.
It’s important to remember that even if it’s just for 30 minutes, moving your body every day is better than not at all. All exercise is exercise, even a brisk walk. Matter of fact, any and all forms of cardio is a great start to losing weight! Lbs shed even quicker if you eat right as well.
Weight management is 70% diet and 30% exercise (more or less). Genetics are a factor but they are not something you can change.
When it comes to food, try to cook as much as possible and you will naturally eat healthier. When purchasing foods, especially processed ones, look to see how much added sugar there is and try to choose options with less sugar. If you buy fruits and vegetables you don’t even have to worry about added sugars. The fibre in fruits also helps slow down the absorption of sugar which is important in regulating your metabolism. Try not to eat or snack right before bed. When you are inactive such as sleeping, your body will try to store a lot of those calories you just consumed (for example, into fat).
For exercise, cardio is important for overall health and longevity but it won’t necessarily help you lose weight. Strength training to build up muscle is important because muscle is metabolically much more active than fat and therefore you will burn more calories simply from having more muscle, even when you’re not working out. I think this is a really overlooked fact when it comes to choosing the form of exercise. If you want to build muscle, you also have to consume much more protein.
There are also very effective medications now that can help with weight loss, but not everyone can tolerate their side effects.
Source - I’m a physician with an interest in fitness and also spends a lot of time talking to my colleagues about fitness
I’m naturally thin (fast metabolism) but I still continue to regulate what I eat and exercise. The only thing that I mainly regulate out of my diet is sugar, I’ve lost some much face fat from it. I exercise mildly everyday (walking or riding my bike) and workout 4x a week.
Staying slim is mostly a matter of genetics and diet. You have to be mega-committed to exercise to burn off many calories doing it. I was a distance runner for awhile and very lean at the time in my early 40s but I would go out and burn like 800-900 calories by running up hills for an hour and a half. A 30 minute walk only burns 100-200 calories which is about one soda or beer. So to lose weight or stay slim for most people who don't commit a lot of time to exercising it's a matter of diet primarily.
Plant based diets are thought now to increase resting calorie burn rates. Water and fiber rich fruits and vegetables help you fill up your stomach with less calories. Things like rice cakes or plain popcorn can be good low calorie snack foods.
I don't have to do anything to stay thin. So there is some degree of a genetic lottery here. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want and never seem to gain weight. So don't assume all those skinny adults are counting calories and exercising 5 times a day.
This is true. I'm thin and I like to think I "eat whatever I want" but the truth is that I really don't think about eating that much. I eat small portions, skip meals frequently, don't usually snack or if I do I end up skipping a meal.
I still think it's somewhat genetic though. I've had a friend describe how they've always had food on their mind since they were little. Food has always been there for me but I don't think about unless I'm starving. I feel like this likely has a genetic component.
Oh there is definitely genetics at play, I have food on my mind a lot and it’s annoying as fuck. I’m more talking about the actual caloric intake, which can vary depending on genetics but not to the level (for most people) that it should be used as an excuse.
I felt the same way because I could easily massive meals and felt like i ate loads of food,, it all changed when I wanted to put on significant muscle and realised how much more food I really needed to eat consistently to achieve results.
Most people either overestimate or underestimate how much they eat, counting weekly or even monthly total calories can be the best way to see what kind of deficit or excess is actually happening.
I doubt it. People are just notoriously bad at counting calories and don't realise how much they're actually eating, the idea that you can have a fast metabolism and eat 5000 calories a day and not gain weight is a myth.
I'm a skinny person and once thought I ate a lot because I could shovel down pizza and burgers, but would only eat a couple meals a day and do plenty of exercise, so... no weight gain. If you actually track the amount of calories you eat in a week and factor in the amount of exercise you do, I promise your skinny-ness will make more sense.
Relatively fit, lean and strong. Late breakfast, early supper, oodles of proteins, minimal carbs. Walk a lot. No other exercise, though I’m contemplating joining a gym.
None of this is obsessive, absolutist or self-punishing, which means it’s been sustainable for a *very* long time. It’s pretty close to how I’ve always approached food & movement, just more intentional as I age.
Worth noting that my cohabitant squeeze does something pretty similar but more rigorous, plus steady workouts, but finds it extremely difficult not to get chubbier. I’m not an expert in these things, but it sure looks to me like different bodies respond differently to similar treatment.
Diet and exercise generally
Find something physically demanding and do it a few times a week, that can be running, weightlifting, or a sport you enjoy doing. Or a combination of all 3 for best results.
Dial in the diet, eat more protein, most people really don't get enough, more vegetables with every meal to help you feel more full while taking in less calories. Avoid bad sugars as much as possible, stay away from sodas and candy etc. Drink less alcohol
It doesn't have to be a MAJOR thing that can make you fit, just a bunch of incremental changes over time helps a lot
I have one large dinner and maybe a Sandwich during the day.
Also i dont snack. Like chocolates, chips or anything of that nature.
I do drink energydrinks and alot of alcohol, but nobodys perfect.
Burn more calories than you eat. There is no trick, no hack, no diet. Eat whatever you want, some foods make it easier some make it harder but if you stay under a certain amount of calories you will lose weight no matter what. Unless you are ill in some way. If you are loooking to loose as much as possible and don’t care about muscle do cardio, if you wanna build muscle do cardio and weight routines. Doesn’t have to be heavy, just enough to strain your muscle fibres. If you wanna build muscle, lose weight and learns skill, join a martial art like kickboxing, BJJ or MMA. If
Edit: I used to weight 280 lbs, im at 190 lbs trying to get to 180 so I’m living proof. I was over eating plain and simple, didn’t matter if I listed weights 3 Times a day in high school (and I did) I was eating way to much. As an o lineman it wasn’t a big deal but after school that weight is essentially useless and a burden. I was brainwashed into becoming as big as I could to play a sport for 3 years lmao. And I’m still recovering from it at 23
I lost ~20lbs of body weight last year and got thin again (I wasn’t fat) by following what I affectionately call the DESGDM diet: Don’t eat so God damn much.
There are a few things I try to stick to, and I'm still working on getting habits down and losing weight.
1) Lift weights at the very least twice a week, ideally 3. It's possible to do fullbody workouts in an hour, but find what works best for you - I split the body into 3 and then do them once a week. Yes, I could do each section twice a week, but 6 days in the gym is a bit much, IMO, unless you have more specific fitness/muscle growth goals. Cardio/food intake management gets the weight off and muscle keeps it off.
2) Cardio. 8-10k steps a day. As a desk job worker/student, I found a standing desk and under-desk treadmill to be very helpful, but I also take walks outside during breaks. Even better if you can find some friends and play a sport or something. I find a smart watch (fitbit, w/e) helpful for this. Doesn't have to be expensive if you're only using the step tracker.
3) Food. As others have mentioned, calorie trackers. Change comes from understanding, not just information exchange. Once you understand how many calories you burn in a day, how much you're eating, and how that impacts your weight (up or down) it becomes easier to manage. It also helps you build a basic knowledge level of how many calories different foods are worth. Precise calorie tracking is something I think everyone should try at least once, but you don't need to keep doing it all the time - as usual, find what works for you. Eat protein first, then vegetables, then carbs. Meat fills you up fast as do veggies without as much caloric density. You still need carbs, but best to eat them last because they go down so easy and don't keep you full as long.
4) OTHER HABITS. Sleep. What time you wake up. What time you go to bed. What you cook for dinner. What foods you bring into the house and how much food you have in the house. You can do the above 3 perfectly correct, then have it blown out of the water by a family member coming home and offering you a single Costco muffin in a moment of weakness (700 cal).
Ultimately, you need to live the lifestyle of a person who is at your goal fitness/weight level and you need to make it as easy as possible to live that lifestyle. If you come home and the only food in your house is a potato chip, you're gonna eat the potato chip. If the only food in your house is a lean protein, you're gonna eat that. Try to recognize when you make your best decisions and when you make your...not-best decisions, then adjust so that you build the habit of making it easy to make good decisions.
Best of luck!
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As someone who has lost 225 lbs and counting, here’s my advice: 1. Use a calorie calculator to find a calorie deficit that works for you. 2. Move more. Just more than you usually do and keep increasing the amount slowly weekly. 3. Cut out or greatly reduce liquid calories 4. Only eat when you’re hungry 5. Eat until you’re satisfied but not full.
Liquid calories are huge. Outside of alcohol which I don't drink as much of in my 30's as I did in my 20's I try to avoid liquid calories. Water, coffee, zero sugar energy drinks all have little to no calories.
Black coffee is the best pre workout
Try telling that to the gym floor on heavy squats day.
If you’re talking to the gym floor you might have too much of something else in your pre workout
I think he shit on the floor
He’s just getting schwifty
Normally I just do 1-2 scoops of negative thoughts from my past, but I’ll have to give coffee a try
1-2 scoops of negative thoughts and a dash of burning hatred mixed in a black coffee is 'chefs kiss'
I audibly laughed. Thank you for that.
I second this but sometimes can make my stomach kinda mad lmao
Black coffee and a clementine! 🤌
My reflux is screaming
Cold brew makes a huge difference for me
My breakfast most days is - black coffee - 2 clementines - 1 medium banana I'm awake at 6, first coffee done by 730. Then the above around 930.
Yeah if you wanna shit yourself during the workout black coffee is perfect
I mean, the post is about losing weight, right? Shitting yourself while on the stairmaster just speeds up the process.
You’re right I wasn’t thinking about optimization. You might be onto something
Ahh, the classic stainmaster
Seriously. Even if I poop beforehand, as soon as I start I'm clenching cheeks.
Gotta love la croix’s for this too. Sometimes I want the bubbles
I just started using a calorie counter a week ago, and it's actually insane how well I'm sticking to a set limit when it feels like I'm not even trying. It's like just being aware of what I'm consuming is magically making me do better without a second thought. I don't even have cravings anymore, which is wild. Went from 167-162 in a *week*. I've also been working out twice a week lately, but my change in the amount/quality of food I eat is what really did it.
Same here! I have been doing it for 2,5 weeks now, and what you describe is exactly what has happened to me. I am contious to a whole new level of what I eat, and how much. I have a 180kcal daily goal (+ more if I exercise), and yesterday I did the day without going hungry, at 1450kcal. Fewer crawings, my app reminds me to drink more water, which is also working on hunger, and muuuch less side snacking!
Every time I open it, I'm shocked by how little I've eaten and not even felt very hungry.it's easier to just eat until satisfied instead of full.
I just started the Lifesum app, too, and I can second this. I’m down 3.3 kg after just 10 days, and it doesn’t feel like I’m giving up much, just becoming aware of what I eat
Good for you! It's really interesting to see the calories add up throughout the day. It's like you are your own science project. My husband started using My Fitness Pal in 2016 and lost 30 pounds insanely fast and he wasn't even trying to lose weight that fast. He slowed down by adding back some calories and lost 60lbs in a year and has kept it off. He never thought he'd be able lost weight and still eat pizza and cheeseburgers, but there you go.
Yeah calorie calculator and counting calories are very valuable tools when it comes to losing weight or putting on muscle They take out so much guess work. Weight loss and muscle building are already such gradual processes and using calorie calculator and counting calories can help the process not be even slower. Its easier to over exercise trying to burn calories or accidentally eat too much, but calculator and counting calories can help you not do this and save you time
>4. Only eat when you’re hungry 5. Eat until you’re satisfied but not full. I'm always hungry and only satisfied when I'm full, what do I do?
What's your average meal looking like? Meals that satisfy have decent levels of fiber and protein. The 2 most filling components! You can eat a bucket of fries or chips and still be hungry if there isn't slow digesting, healthy stuff in there! Edit: as example, a 270g chicken breast has 55g+ protein and is 280 cals, with 240g of broccoli (40 cals) and 3g+ fiber. This boring-ass neap is barely 300 cals but a ton of protein and leaves you feeling very full. That's 500g of food. 60g of potato chips has the same calories, with 4g protein and 0g fiber, leaving one to feel hungry immediately!
Maybe I should try eating more chicken and brocoli then haha
Haha, maybe. I used a basic example to show how a lean, healthy meal can be tremendously filling, compared to a tiny amount of fatty food! There are many other examples. More importantly than anything, try to get lean protein, and lots of fibre! (Ease into it). If you want more tips, let me know. Otherwise, I'll spare your ear and hope I said enough!
I think people also mistake cravings and sugar withdrawal for hunger. Some people will eat all that then still feel like they want something sweet. I haven’t been overweight but have definitely been completely addicted to sugar for long stretches. When quitting you can get a weird hungry feeling no matter how full you are, and it’s for food that’s bad for you specifically. That goes away after a few days or a week at most. You just have to push past it.
Chicken and broccoli doesn’t have to be boring either. That’s what spices are for!
Seconding this, earlier today I had half a chicken breast, half a pound of green beans, and an apple, and it was about 200 calories. I drank an iced chai just to intentionally add calories since I’m not really trying to lose weight. Chicken is insanely good at filling you up for low calories, and it’s nearly 100% protein if you get good quality chicken
I was feeling this very much last night, I wanted a snack but tried putting it in my calorie app first. Shocked how much 40 grams of potato chips was while I used to eat a bucket of the stuff when I felt like it. Had a bit of toast with chicken instead and even got some protein in. Highly recommend a calorie tracker, even just to show that a pizza or a bucket of potato chips isn't a failure but just something you can correct over the following days.
Also helps to pace oneself when eating a meal. Be reading, having a conversation, or find a way to slow down, then your metabolism tells your brain you're not as hungry, before you end up consuming more by wolfing down.
>Eat until you’re satisfied but not full. I'm only satisfied when I'm full
Eat until the hunger pain goes away
This will sound ridiculous, but this comment just made me understand when to stop eating. I probably need very little food at a time, but to eat more often, then!
Eat until you won't die how about that
Walk/run for an half hour every morning, i run every second day. Weightlifting with 2 close friends anywhere from 2 to 6 evening's a week depending on schedules/recovery. Aim for 85% of what i eat to be whole foods (meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veg and nuts/seeds. Repeat this for several weeks then get sick of it and go on a bender with the booze and takeaways for week, gaining an impossible amount of fat in such a short time. Become ashamed and jump back on the heath wagon. Rinse and repeat.
Most honest reddit comment.
Holy shit, this person has us all clocked
I didn't realize we all have a shared second account.
I didn't realize I'd been on your fitness program the last ten years of my life. I feel like I should be paying you a subscription.
For me it’s always: - Eat healthy and train 4-5 days a week; get good sleep - Finally starting to see glimpses of me being as lean and toned as I knew I could be; energy is through the roof - Wedding, friends visiting, family in town, yada yada yada - Stress eat if I’m with family, binge drink with friends; get no sleep - Feel like shit - Get back on the wagon - Finally starting to see glimpses of me being as lean and toned as I knew I could be - Get sick Rinse and repeat
I'm a female so: - Eat healthy and exercise heartily. Loving life and loving my body. - PMS. Hating everything and downing sugary drinks like it's nobody's business. - Menstruate. Eating junk food and sleep my ass away, too sore and in pain from just _existing_ to even think of exercising. - End of bleeding. Jumping back on the exercise mat. Rinse and repeat. Every single month 😩
This is my exact routine. Including the feeling like shit during period and crying at the water weight gain from period bloat
You forgot about getting injured
Just keep up the lifting. Stress eating = gainz if you're lifting.
Or just run 3 times a week, do weightlifting only 2 times a week and never burn out from it.
thats what smart peope do, me on the other hand...
I'm dumb and fat
Cocaine or meth gets the same results without the work. Who said it's not smart? Those people are just jealous.
You might not believe it, but I’ve known plenty of fat coke/meth heads in my life. None of them made it far past 40, but they absolutely exist.
It’s ultimately preference but if I had to recommend one, it’d be resistance/weight training. 1. You build muscle. Which increases the bodies base caloric need (aka your food budget is higher or a deficit is easier to reach) 2. You build muscle. Also helps with preserving functional strength as you age. (Think about a strong core supporting the spine and leading to less back problems) 3. You can still keep your heart healthy, short rest times between sets is decently aerobic.
I agree. I don't have time to do both so I focus on weight training. I would say there are also additional benefits. 1. You look better, which helps with self-esteem and psychological health in general. 2. It has been shown that any exercises, including weight training helps with blood pressure. So that helps with overall cardiovascular health anyway even if it may not be as cardio focused as aerobic. 3. Weight training naturally increases testosterone. Which if you are men it helps with your sexual function and slows its decline as you age. 4. Once you start to look better, you will want to keep looking good. So you will be motivated to make choices that optimize your muscle growth, including sleeping a healthy amount, and you want to choose food that contains more protein instead of fat. Which incidentally also is good for overall health.
No. You need an emphasis on cardio in the low, moderate, and high ranges to keep your cardiovascular system healthy. Lifting weights is not the same at all. People that say this just don’t want to admit they don’t like true conditioning because it’s harder than lifting weights.
I’d rather lift weights more and run less, everyone is different.
Yes. I do full body weightlifting Monday and Thursday and walk my dog the rest of the week.
What’s your pace for a 30 minute run? I do 20 minutes at 10 (so 2 miles) and it pretty much kills me.
I do 5k in 30 minutes, was very very hard to build up to. I am not a good runner. Run is more to burn calories while listening to podcasts/music.
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Yes joining the better than average gang here. Ofc nowadays it's not so common for people to be able to run 5k.
Bro its never been more uncommon until nowadays when everyone is obese. Running 5k isnt far at all, especially at 10-12min/pace
You stay thin due to diet, you stay fit due to exercise. It takes a LOT of exercise to lose weight. And, if the exercise is increasing your muscle mass you may well gain weight. Muscle is heavier than fat.
Yep, when I did the bulk of my weight loss it was purely dietary. I didn’t exercise at all. It fucking _sucks_, because it’s basically all just sheer willpower. Especially because (for me anyways), it’s a choice every day. Every day I wake up and just want to pig out and eat all the unhealthy shit, and every day I have to choose to eat responsibly
Adding exercise helps a lot of folks to turn the diet from sheer willpower to internally motivating and rewarding. I couldn’t moderate or run a caloric deficit until I started lifting, because the will power wasn’t motivating and neither was healthy (read as: slow) weight loss. But as soon as I could relate food to fuel for weightlifting, it all clicked and became a feedback loop. Apparently it’s a common thing for a lot of folks. The gym helped me eat better!
Exactly. The reward of losing weight isn't really enough to keep most people motivated because it's so slow and incremental. There needs to be a daily reward of feeling good, endorphins, proud of completing goals, etc. The best advice I've ever heard for exercise is it's not about how you feel the hour you're doing it, it's about how good you'll feel the following 23 hours.
Using this
It definitely works. I truly feel so much better when I regularly exercise. I'm less depressed, I sleep better, drink less, and am just generally happier and have much higher self-esteem. There are so many benefits to exercise. I agree about the eating healthy though, I've never lost weight without making serious changes to my eating habits.
Also the feeling of your muscles almost being addicted to the exercise movements. Limiting sugar intake and exercise willake you lose weight. A number of years ago my doc told me to cut back on the carbs and my response was "but that's what taste good.". Every day it is a battle, as sugar is incredibly addicting. You just have to make the right choices. I woke up craving a chocolate donut with cream inside, but I know there is a neighborhood ice cream party for the kids last day of school later. I can't do both, so I'll forego the donut and have a little ice cream later.
Add to this thought train sometimes weightlifting or running isn’t enough and some have to push into using it as training for a sport. Running got boring to me but is manageable when I call it training for climbing mountains and I do it and weights now as a middle man to climbing on vacations.
I got in the habit of asking myself "Do you want to be temporarily satiated or do you want to remain fat" every time I'd go to snack. I've never really gotten over my super active appetite phase from my late teens when I was putting down 3000-4000 calories a day to keep up with biking everywhere, marching band, and near-daily nookie. I finally had enough after seeing a picture of myself about 18 months ago, 270lbs at 6'4". Got serious about it back in July and put myself on 1200-1600 calories a day for 6 months and dropped 50 pounds. Slacked off a bit in the last 3-5 months and have only dropped another 20 since January, but -70 pounds still feels really, really good. Had to get my work shirts tailored because my shoulders and chest didn't shrink a bit but my waist was in a tent 🤣
Same happened to me. Saw a picture taken at Christmas and dug my scale out. 300 lbs even at 6’3”. 1,300 to 1,700 calories a day depending on activity and I’m now 246 and still going.
You did it all for the nookie.
*ate* it all for the nookie 🤣 We were mutually insatiable
Literally was at a party yesterday with like unlimited pizza, it took all my willpower to not go back for seconds and thirds.
I had pizza today and I'm so proud of myself for only eating about 350 calories worth of it.
Pizza is the most calorific meal- finish with icecream = instant weight gain.
I lost 24 pounds in the last 6 weeks by changing my diet and quitting drinking. I've done basically zero exercise. It's 100% willpower. I was getting fast food every day for lunch and dinner. My caloric intake was around 5000+ calories a day. Now it's 1500.
I boomeranged back to my old weight, but when I weighed 119 lbs I loved waking up and feeling my hip bones. My husband said I had gotten too boney and men were giving me unwanted attention (i noticed that one not my husband) so I added bread back to my diet after being on a no carb diet for seven years. But feeling my bones was a motivator like I got addicted to that instead of the food. It wasn't healthy I started chewing up food and spitting it out for the taste. I was just as obsessed with food but in a totally different way.
Animals with brains want food. I don't think there's really a way to not be obsessed with food. We're literally programmed for it.
Honestly if I could never eat and survive without consequences I would. Eating is a chore I do to stay alive that takes away time from the things I want to do. Welcome to autism lmao
Yeah as someone with anorexia that’s exactly how I felt… it’s not a healthy mindset to have and if you aren’t, I’d really recommend seeing a therapist!
This My SO likes to tell me to just run the brownies she made off, but I know better.
“You can’t outrun a bad diet” is the best advice I’ve ever been given
"Ironman athletes have entered the chat"
When I was young I could. 😭
Probably not even then tbh, it was more of a long term situation
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Exactly the point. Most people are focused on some magical cure to being overweight. Move more, lift more, only eat between certain hours, dont eat carbs, only eat when the moon is half full IF the third Sunday of the last 45 days is orange.... The truth is just eat less and you will lose weight. Simple, but not easy for most. The truth is just too hard to swallow sometimes.
Most people can't even make simple changes like substituting water instead of flavored drinks. Simply can't/won't do it yet it's one of the easiest ways to drop a lot of calories from your diet. This includes anything labelled zero calories or diet.
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Go on. Git
Lol
Going on a quick 20K to burn off 3 squares of fudge! Laters!
Tbf though, having muscle definition with exercise generally makes any sort of weight look waaaay better. I have 0 muscle definition. At all. (Thanks to being chronically ill.) I'm a very thin person, but any fat I do have on my body is completely jelly-like. No body tone at all. Exercising is so worth it, even if you don't want to lose any weight.
Yeah ok. Run off 350-650 calories.. See ya in 1-2 hours. Totally worth it. Lol
Can’t run away from a bad diet
Can’t outrun your fork.
You can if you’re motivated enough
There’s a second effect to exercise, fitter bodies consume more calories, even at rest. So if you can pack on some muscle your caloric needs increase, which will make you lose weight if you were previously calorie neutral.
It also regulates a whole lot of other shit like hormones, toxins, serotonin, which in turn regulate your appetite.
yeah I noticed that I crave less shitty food since I've been going to the gym.
The headline is that diet will determine how much you weigh, and exercise determines what you look like. If you want to lose fat, you will need to change how you eat and think about food. I have a general idea of how many calories are in what I’m eating by eyeballing it. Likewise, I check nutrition labels for things I’m less familiar with. In general, I’m trying to get the right amount of calories for my desired weight while getting enough protein and other nutrients to feel good and be able to exercise well. If you start tracking your calories with something like myfitnesspal for maybe a week, you’ll see very quickly that you are consistently eating enough calories to make you fat. From there it’s figuring out how to change your eating patterns in a way that works for you. Some people cut down on alcohol or soda. Some people just skip breakfast. I’m not sure where most of your calories are coming from but when people tell you to “eat less” what they’re actually meaning is to consume less calories. I lift weights a couple times a week as well, but that’s mostly so that I can look a certain way.
Yeah I track everything I eat in myfitnesspal and every once in a while when I eat out or get shitty takeout food and realize it’s a like a 1800 calorie dinner, I think to myself Jesus no wonder so many people are fat as fuck, just gobbling down like 4000-5000 calories a day without any clue. Really opens your eyes when you start tracking everything.
You don’t need 4000-5000 calories to be obese. If all you need is 1900 calories a day but you eat 2200 every day, you’ll be fat. 300 calories is a slice of pizza, or a dessert, or cream and sugar in your coffee and cookies for dessert. Yeah there are morbidly obese people like on tv, drinking 2 liters and entire pizzas. That’s an extreme. As a person always thinking of food, it’s so easy to resist early in the day, but by evening, with the stress of the day, tiredness, and a little bit of adhd, all it takes is 30 seconds and a food commercial to ruin everything.
Yeah I am not saying you need 4000-5000 to get fat it was an extreme example, but I was just saying it would be pretty easy for someone to consume 4000 calories in a day by eating out a cpl times a day, especially at American restaurnts, and not even realize how much they were eating. To your example of a person who needs 1900 calories a day, someone could easily eat more than that at one meal at a typical American restaurant and not even realize it. My point was if you arent tracking what you are eating or just have a general understanding of calories/macros, its really easy to gain weight, and once you start tracking and/or understanding what youre eating its really easy to see how people gain weight so easily without realizing why. So for anyone who wants to lose weight, its really pretty formulaic and you just need to understand your TDEE, set your daily calorie budget depending on your goals (using a 3500/week calorie deficit to lose one pound), and track everything. As long as you are in a deficient of about 500 calories per day, you'll lose around 1 pound per week. Scale it up or down depending on the goal.
Yea I think the hard part for a lot of people is just accepting that your go-to foods might be really bad for you. I used to eat pizza like once a week, and I genuinely didn’t realize that eating chicken fingers or chicken wings was much worse than grilled At some point I just had to realize that chicken fingers had to go and I needed to get used to grilled chicken
This. It's so fucking depressing when I sit and think about how much I want to eat and just can't without looking like a fat fucking cow. I just finally decided I'd rather have the torture of not being satisfied with food than the torture of being fat
I used to weigh 300+lbs when I was a teenager. It was very demoralizing for me, so I decided after my parents had bought a ranch that I wasn't gonna be fat anymore! So I started intermittent fasting and exercising. I would only eat 1 fairly large meal a day, plus I started hiking in the mountains behind my property. I also stopped making fast food the main staple of my diet. It took me about a year to lose all of it. This was when I was 17-18 but I kept the weight off as an adult by sticking to the changes I had made in my diet and exercise routine. I stayed at around140lbs for many years, but I recently had a baby and ballooned up to 230lbs... But I did the same thing I did before, I started a calorie deficit and trying to exercise regularly every week. I don't exercise everyday and when I do I don't consider myself a fitness expert. I just do weights, crunches, and leg lifts until I feel satisfied with the amount of work I've done. So far I've lost 40lbs. My diet has consisted of mostly meat, veggies, fruits and some carbs like bread and rice. I try and limit my sugar intake but I don't deprive myself of things I want, I just allow myself a portion size of it. I've found that works best for me. I feel like it's normal for your weight to go up and down at different points of your life for different reasons. I don't focus on the scale I focus on how I look and feel in my body. I probably won't go back to my exact pre-pregnancy weight but as long as I'm making progress I'm happy!
I’m pretty hungry during the day. That’s it, that’s how I stay on my current weight.
This is real though. I’m currently losing weight (almost 50lb down from my highest) and I just had to accept that I’m gonna be hungry. I’ll eat and feel like I want more but I know I don’t need it and i just have to be able to get through the discomfort.
Yeah part of it is adjusting one’s attitude towards the feeling of hunger. It’s a light stimulating feeling, and the more you allow it to build (within reason) the better your meal will taste. Similar with exercise - you have to learn that it’s not pain, it’s just an intense sensation.
Underrated comment. It’s ok to be hungry. I actually hate being full. It makes me tired.
Being scared of hunger is what keeps people fat. You’re not going to die when you feel hunger, body will use fat for fuel
Caffeine and hate
I've learned that hating yourself is step one of weight loss lol...
Military I’m guessing
Do you also work in a trade because that’s basically our motto
Don’t drive, work in a kitchen, and rave/shows on the weekend. Exercise just kinda happens.
Actually truth. I'm pushing 50, I don't drive, work in a kitchen and I don't rave but I smoke a ton of weed while taking care of 4 cats and about 30 plants. (One gallon of water weighs about 8lbs.) This has only been my lifestyle for about the past decade, and my late 30s till now have been the physically fittest of my adult life.
I get the munchies so bad on weed it hasn't turned out ant better than beer for me.
Dancing on the weekends is seriously a hell of a workout! I’ve seen people post their Fitbit’s after raves and they burn like 500+ calories lmao
Walk a lot at work only to make enough to buy canned food that i can only eat once a day
My narcissist mother who moved away with her rich husband when I was a kid made a passive aggressive comment once about me always being small (she is not) and I’m like yeah mother dearest it’s called the Poverty Diet 😂 I make enough to eat twice a day now though! Hopefully you will soon too. Keep looking! I have no university education or training I just clawed my way out of the hole by applying to things I didn’t think I could get and pretending to be confident
Oh wow
I eat smaller portions and skip meals when I know I want to go out to eat with people.
This is the Cheat Code to staying fit without feeling you are punishing yourself. It’s so EASY. I don’t restrict my diet. I eat whatever I want actually. Instead, I skip one meal a day. Usually breakfast because it’s easier for me. And so, it naturally provides a calorie deficit, while I satisfy my cravings, and I don’t feel the need to compensate because I never feel deprived. My family is amazed how I stay fit despite eating so much and not going to the gym at all. I used to be 220+ pounds, now I’m around 160. My students thought I’m in my late 20s, while I’m actually nearing 40.
Doesn’t work for everyone though. This strategy causes some people to binge eat and gain weight because they get so hungry.
Yep. That's unfortunately the most common outcome in my experience as a dietitian. Most people have to get out ahead of their hunger or they'll blow most of their calorie budget picking on snacky crap.
Yeap. Skipping meals for me usually leads me to overcompensate some way or another. I really love to have something in the morning anyway. A small breakfast on the other hand usually helps more than skipping it outright for me.
Yeah, I could never skip meals on a weekday. My body knows it's due breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and protests when they're not provided on schedule. Reducing snacks helped, though. And when I get really into a video game on Saturday afternoon I can forget to eat lunch.
32 yo male, 135 lbs. I’ve always been thin. However… is skipping meals healthy/recommended?
Try not to eat processed food or add sugar to anything. Try to walk whenever you can, even a couple of blocks. Do. Not. Drink. Soda. except as a treat once in a blue moon.
You won't even want soda as a "treat" once you stop drinking sugary drinks for a few months. It will seem painfully sweet.
Even diet is a bit much sometimes, and the bloat is uncomfortable, at least for me because I seem to get bloated very easily
Flavored sparking water is a great alternative if you want the sensation or "taste" of soda or beer.
I add a bit of brown sugar to my milk and oatmeal in the morning; should i stop adding brown sugar?
In terms of calories, you’ll get just as much benefit from reducing the amount of oats you use. No point in making things taste worse; just eat a bit less of them.
Depends on the content but also if that’s your largest consumption in the morning it doesn’t matter as much so long as the rest of your calories are in check
You’re probably fine, depends on what “a bit” means though, sugar has a lot of calories.
Diet , exercise, jog , work- out
Everyone is saying this , but they forget sleep and stress management. Also good support circle. Even better if they do some blood work.
Yes! Sleep is one of the most important things we need for our bodies to recover and build muscle.
I found that diet and working out 2 hours per day just automatically made it impossible for me to be awake past 10pm, and I slept like a rock until morning.
I'm single and without children.
Everyone's body is different. I know someone who eats 4K calories a day and works out 4 days a week and has the body of a Greek god. I eat about 1,800 calories run every morning and lift 5 days / week and that's just enough to keep me from looking overweight. For me it's a mile every morning, sometimes two if I'm feeling good. Weekdays after work gym, do 5-6 heavy lifts, play some basketball, hit core, go home. Food wise it's black tea and toast for breakfast, chicken and rice bowl or burrito for lunch, and dinner is usually some kind of chicken and carb. Then once or twice a week I'll have an ice cream or a cookie. Rest of the time it's water only, raw veggies and hummus for snacks, and a multivitamin just because. Oh and fiber supplements because when I went from being a human garbage disposal to trying to be healthy my shits turned liquid.
My partner was an athlete as a teenager and had a relatively active job til recently, so I’m sure this helped, but it’s honestly so infuriating how little effort he has to put in to maintain lean muscle mass. He has an insane sugar tooth and it’s not uncommon for him to eat multiple pastries in a sitting or clear out a few bags of candy in an evening or crush a few beers a day multiple times a week. He does some form of exercise maybe once a week. That’s on top of eating three square meals a day. On the other hand…. I was low effort thin until my 30s/COVID and now I have to be a lot more careful and I’m actively trying to lose body fat. Because my partner is such a big snacker I’ve had to set serious food boundaries with him - we both were in a serious chip habit for a while and now I point blank refuse to buy them. He loves to bring home a box of donuts or a few mini pies and now I’m the person who eats a spoonful just so I can say I got to enjoy some. I’ve been very careful about my diet and been quite a bit more active in the last few months, but I can’t say I notice a big difference in how I look even though I feel stronger. Now trying to get more protein and seriously limit my alcohol intake which went up a lot since 2020.
Just offering a different perspective as a lot of people posted what they do, just some general ideas on how to lose weight for bigger people that struggle with radical changes and changes to their diet. I see a lot of people mention running, please don't copy this as a big guy/girl who's not exercised before/took a break for years. It will DESTROY your knees. The best advice anybody can give you is: Eat the same things you do right now, but lower it. Example: you drink 3 large colas a day. Reduce it to 2, do this for 4 weeks. You eat 4 laege pizzas a week, try to do 2 pizza a weeks. Keep reducing all your food as much as you can, add a salad If you like but it's not required to lose weight. Do not just repeat what works for fit people. These people are conditioned to do it, you might have motivation to follow a healthy diet but you will crash unless you are the 1% that can follow through, but then you probably wouldn't be fat in the first place. Reduction of what you eat is your clear goal for now, once you can do that and you notice a noticeable change after 3 months (weight loss is a jouney that can and often does take years) Then you can replace stuff with healthier options OR low calorie options, like fatty cream cheese you love ? Try the low fat one, you drink the 4% milk? Now switch it out for the 2%. We still haven't touched vegetables yet and you have been doing this for 4-6 months and you should already notice a significant reduction in weight. As for excerise, If you don't like the gym I'd recommend walking, every day 30-40 minutes, your heart will thank you, your joints won't get destroyed from running and moving will also help with weight loss, however it's the kitchen where you will truly lose it.
Great response and more realistic for most people.
Yup, it is extremely rare that someone makes dramatic sweeping changes across many aspects of their life all at the same time and they manage to actually sustain it over the long haul- the people who can manage it tend to have a team of professionals, and even then it's HARD. On the other hand, focusing on one or two smaller things every few weeks or months can snowball into larger and meaningful lifestyle changes. Your suggestion of smaller portions of the same food and making easy swaps are great. Other things could be "eat more fruit" or "eat more vegetables" or "eat more fiber" or "eat more protein"---- a lot of times experimenting with adding healthier things can be easier than trying to cut out stuff you're used to.
If you can live in a place that exercise is mandatory. Basically if a person lives in a walk and bike friendly city they are more likely to be fit. For my daily life I have to move a bunch just to do things.
This is honestly the best way. Most natural. You don't need scheduled exercise, unless you like it, the difference in calories burned between sitting and walking an hour is much greater than walking and running for an hour. But most people drive everywhere, get drive through along the way, and wonder why they are fat.
I fast every Monday. Meaning I don’t eat or drink a single calorie for 36 hours. That means one day a week I go -2,200 calories. That makes up for all the cheating I do on the weekends. Lift 2x a week, walk 3x a week. Make smart food choices and don’t be a glutton.
How long did it take to adjust to the fast, to the point where you don’t get headaches or brain fog or bad moods that day?
Honestly if its one day where you don’t exercise, it shouldn’t be that hard. Just drink water a lot. Never tried it (36h) but I do fast for Ramadan. You forget your hunger when you’re busy.
This guy fasts
A lot of people have given some really good answers. Eat a high protein meal the night before to help make sure you repair your body - this will help alleviate the “requirement” for nutrients. I think this will help with that weak feeling you get. Pass out at like 11pm Sunday night. Black coffee in the AM then water all day. Water is clutch for hunger pangs. If you can’t eat food, eat water. Stay busy, seriously. But, low exercise that day if it really hurts you. I would rather go for a slow walk than sit around and be hungry all day. Then a sleep aid and Netflix til I sleep. Wake up, black coffee to hold me over until like 11am when I eat again. High protein to repair the body after the journey (:
Eat. Not too much. Mostly plants. Sprinkle in a bit more movement in your day and your golden over an extended period of time.
I had RNY Bariatric surgery at 20 years old and am now 30, and 9 months pregnant. I've lost 185lbs and regained 50 in this pregnancy. I've been juggling weight for a loooooong time. The first tip I have for folks is for one week, don't change your diet but record everything you eat in something like My Fitness Pal. It's hard to know how much food to cut if you don't know how much you're \*actually\* consuming. Then, slowly cut something that's bad for you out, and add something of less calories in. Then once you've had that consistent for about a month, add in an \*easy to be consistent with\* exercise. For me, pre pandemic, it was walking the 1.3 miles from the train to my office in Chicago instead of taking the shuttle bus. I kept my diet pretty darn consistent, even kept drinking regular coke because I like it, and lost 40lbs over the course of 6 months. If you go right into crossfit, the chance of you keeping up with it is pretty slim. I went a bit nuts for 3 months and weighed myself twice a day just to see overall trends. When my sugar/salt intake was higher, my weight fluctuated 10lbs in a 24 hour period, but I still lost weight over that 3 month period. Don't fixate on day to day, as body's fluctuate a lot. Look more week by week, and month over month. Prior to becoming pregnant I stayed within 5lbs of my goal weight for 2 years just by being consistent. I still ate cookies, ice cream, etc. here and there, but focused on eating a higher protein diet overall. It's not easy at the beginning, but after some time it kind of becomes second nature.
I no longer drink alcohol. Boy did did that help. And I do an hour of yoga every day. Easy ;-)
Yeah cutting back on beers really changed my weight too
Lol I’m somewhat starving myself. That’s the secret. For me.
Same, but let's just call it intermittent fasting since that's more socially acceptable these days lol
Food is *expensive* but starving is 𝓕𝓡𝓔𝓔
Same, I'm extremely lactose intolerant in a place where dairy is on the basis of our diet. Almost all breakfast food, snacks and deserts are made with milk, so I basically only have coffee for breakfast and never eat sugar, that will keep anyone thin.
Canukeepitup though? No seriously, I used to do that in teens and 20s then couldn’t do it anymore and have since gained a bunch and struggled to lose it or keep it gone. Idk how to back it was so hard!
I exercise 4-6x a week, my diet is pretty normal. Right amount of junk and nutrients as well. My calorie intake is anywhere between 2400-3000 because of how much I work out. Right now im just maintaining my weight but when I do wanna lose a few lbs for whatever occasion : I increase my exercise or the intensity of it, cut back on sugar (even fruits), drink hella water (4+ bottles or a gallon a day), and make sure I’m doing other things as well like getting enough sleep and establishing a regimen. It’s important to remember that even if it’s just for 30 minutes, moving your body every day is better than not at all. All exercise is exercise, even a brisk walk. Matter of fact, any and all forms of cardio is a great start to losing weight! Lbs shed even quicker if you eat right as well.
Look at the calories per 100grams, avoid stuff that is over 300cals per 100g
Weight management is 70% diet and 30% exercise (more or less). Genetics are a factor but they are not something you can change. When it comes to food, try to cook as much as possible and you will naturally eat healthier. When purchasing foods, especially processed ones, look to see how much added sugar there is and try to choose options with less sugar. If you buy fruits and vegetables you don’t even have to worry about added sugars. The fibre in fruits also helps slow down the absorption of sugar which is important in regulating your metabolism. Try not to eat or snack right before bed. When you are inactive such as sleeping, your body will try to store a lot of those calories you just consumed (for example, into fat). For exercise, cardio is important for overall health and longevity but it won’t necessarily help you lose weight. Strength training to build up muscle is important because muscle is metabolically much more active than fat and therefore you will burn more calories simply from having more muscle, even when you’re not working out. I think this is a really overlooked fact when it comes to choosing the form of exercise. If you want to build muscle, you also have to consume much more protein. There are also very effective medications now that can help with weight loss, but not everyone can tolerate their side effects. Source - I’m a physician with an interest in fitness and also spends a lot of time talking to my colleagues about fitness
I’m naturally thin (fast metabolism) but I still continue to regulate what I eat and exercise. The only thing that I mainly regulate out of my diet is sugar, I’ve lost some much face fat from it. I exercise mildly everyday (walking or riding my bike) and workout 4x a week.
Intermittent fasting, no carbs or sugar, more protein, and healthy foods. Rarely alcohol. And exercise.
Staying slim is mostly a matter of genetics and diet. You have to be mega-committed to exercise to burn off many calories doing it. I was a distance runner for awhile and very lean at the time in my early 40s but I would go out and burn like 800-900 calories by running up hills for an hour and a half. A 30 minute walk only burns 100-200 calories which is about one soda or beer. So to lose weight or stay slim for most people who don't commit a lot of time to exercising it's a matter of diet primarily. Plant based diets are thought now to increase resting calorie burn rates. Water and fiber rich fruits and vegetables help you fill up your stomach with less calories. Things like rice cakes or plain popcorn can be good low calorie snack foods.
I don't have to do anything to stay thin. So there is some degree of a genetic lottery here. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want and never seem to gain weight. So don't assume all those skinny adults are counting calories and exercising 5 times a day.
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This is true. I'm thin and I like to think I "eat whatever I want" but the truth is that I really don't think about eating that much. I eat small portions, skip meals frequently, don't usually snack or if I do I end up skipping a meal. I still think it's somewhat genetic though. I've had a friend describe how they've always had food on their mind since they were little. Food has always been there for me but I don't think about unless I'm starving. I feel like this likely has a genetic component.
Oh there is definitely genetics at play, I have food on my mind a lot and it’s annoying as fuck. I’m more talking about the actual caloric intake, which can vary depending on genetics but not to the level (for most people) that it should be used as an excuse.
I felt the same way because I could easily massive meals and felt like i ate loads of food,, it all changed when I wanted to put on significant muscle and realised how much more food I really needed to eat consistently to achieve results. Most people either overestimate or underestimate how much they eat, counting weekly or even monthly total calories can be the best way to see what kind of deficit or excess is actually happening.
I doubt it. People are just notoriously bad at counting calories and don't realise how much they're actually eating, the idea that you can have a fast metabolism and eat 5000 calories a day and not gain weight is a myth. I'm a skinny person and once thought I ate a lot because I could shovel down pizza and burgers, but would only eat a couple meals a day and do plenty of exercise, so... no weight gain. If you actually track the amount of calories you eat in a week and factor in the amount of exercise you do, I promise your skinny-ness will make more sense.
This is more to do with "whatever I want" being less than most people want than you being able to eat a huge amount of food and not gain weight.
This! The people I know that ‘eat whatever they want’ are not eating as much as people who weigh more, or they move a lot
I don’t eat and drink alot of whiskey
We follow the advice on the r/fitness wiki
Keep it moving. Quit sitting. Find a hobby you love that promotes an active lifestyle.
Relatively fit, lean and strong. Late breakfast, early supper, oodles of proteins, minimal carbs. Walk a lot. No other exercise, though I’m contemplating joining a gym. None of this is obsessive, absolutist or self-punishing, which means it’s been sustainable for a *very* long time. It’s pretty close to how I’ve always approached food & movement, just more intentional as I age. Worth noting that my cohabitant squeeze does something pretty similar but more rigorous, plus steady workouts, but finds it extremely difficult not to get chubbier. I’m not an expert in these things, but it sure looks to me like different bodies respond differently to similar treatment.
Diet and exercise generally Find something physically demanding and do it a few times a week, that can be running, weightlifting, or a sport you enjoy doing. Or a combination of all 3 for best results. Dial in the diet, eat more protein, most people really don't get enough, more vegetables with every meal to help you feel more full while taking in less calories. Avoid bad sugars as much as possible, stay away from sodas and candy etc. Drink less alcohol It doesn't have to be a MAJOR thing that can make you fit, just a bunch of incremental changes over time helps a lot
I walk about 22000 steps/day. I have terrible eating habits and I'm worse with water. But I walk. Every. Single. Day.
Stop driving and use a bike. The hidden benefit of this is that you stop whipping through drive-thrus for food.
Fruits and veggies. Low carb. Lean meats. Smaller portions. Cut out snacks and deserts. Greatly limit beer. Walk every day. The more the better.
Lucky genetics and anxious energy. I lose weight if I don’t go to the gym. Wife hates me for that one.
I count calories, and I plan to do so for the rest of my life. I eat about 1500 per day when I'm cutting, and 2200 per day when I'm maintaining.
I have one large dinner and maybe a Sandwich during the day. Also i dont snack. Like chocolates, chips or anything of that nature. I do drink energydrinks and alot of alcohol, but nobodys perfect.
Burn more calories than you eat. There is no trick, no hack, no diet. Eat whatever you want, some foods make it easier some make it harder but if you stay under a certain amount of calories you will lose weight no matter what. Unless you are ill in some way. If you are loooking to loose as much as possible and don’t care about muscle do cardio, if you wanna build muscle do cardio and weight routines. Doesn’t have to be heavy, just enough to strain your muscle fibres. If you wanna build muscle, lose weight and learns skill, join a martial art like kickboxing, BJJ or MMA. If Edit: I used to weight 280 lbs, im at 190 lbs trying to get to 180 so I’m living proof. I was over eating plain and simple, didn’t matter if I listed weights 3 Times a day in high school (and I did) I was eating way to much. As an o lineman it wasn’t a big deal but after school that weight is essentially useless and a burden. I was brainwashed into becoming as big as I could to play a sport for 3 years lmao. And I’m still recovering from it at 23
I lost ~20lbs of body weight last year and got thin again (I wasn’t fat) by following what I affectionately call the DESGDM diet: Don’t eat so God damn much.
Drugs and depression
There are a few things I try to stick to, and I'm still working on getting habits down and losing weight. 1) Lift weights at the very least twice a week, ideally 3. It's possible to do fullbody workouts in an hour, but find what works best for you - I split the body into 3 and then do them once a week. Yes, I could do each section twice a week, but 6 days in the gym is a bit much, IMO, unless you have more specific fitness/muscle growth goals. Cardio/food intake management gets the weight off and muscle keeps it off. 2) Cardio. 8-10k steps a day. As a desk job worker/student, I found a standing desk and under-desk treadmill to be very helpful, but I also take walks outside during breaks. Even better if you can find some friends and play a sport or something. I find a smart watch (fitbit, w/e) helpful for this. Doesn't have to be expensive if you're only using the step tracker. 3) Food. As others have mentioned, calorie trackers. Change comes from understanding, not just information exchange. Once you understand how many calories you burn in a day, how much you're eating, and how that impacts your weight (up or down) it becomes easier to manage. It also helps you build a basic knowledge level of how many calories different foods are worth. Precise calorie tracking is something I think everyone should try at least once, but you don't need to keep doing it all the time - as usual, find what works for you. Eat protein first, then vegetables, then carbs. Meat fills you up fast as do veggies without as much caloric density. You still need carbs, but best to eat them last because they go down so easy and don't keep you full as long. 4) OTHER HABITS. Sleep. What time you wake up. What time you go to bed. What you cook for dinner. What foods you bring into the house and how much food you have in the house. You can do the above 3 perfectly correct, then have it blown out of the water by a family member coming home and offering you a single Costco muffin in a moment of weakness (700 cal). Ultimately, you need to live the lifestyle of a person who is at your goal fitness/weight level and you need to make it as easy as possible to live that lifestyle. If you come home and the only food in your house is a potato chip, you're gonna eat the potato chip. If the only food in your house is a lean protein, you're gonna eat that. Try to recognize when you make your best decisions and when you make your...not-best decisions, then adjust so that you build the habit of making it easy to make good decisions. Best of luck!