Private poll upcoming: basically I wanted to gauge how hard or easy it is for you to diet, as in, when you really apply yourself to a no BS/no excuse weight loss program, how well can you do with losing those pounds?
Easy.
I lost 30 lbs with even trying to, just by changing what I ate.
I have to smile because of course the unsaid implication is that many of these people have had lots of experience losing that weight easily, that same weight, over and over again!
For me, losing weight has always been trivial (with the exception of ‘cutting’ while weight-lifting, during which it’s very difficult for me to shed more than two pounds, but that’s a different matter, so whatever). I’ve never been fat and I don’t have much of an appetite. In the past, I’ve lost fat simply because I didn’t feel like eating.
The sticky part is this:
When someone once asked Bach about his amazing organ playing, he is reported to have replied: “There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself.”
I’m currently getting into the exercise / diet thing in a sort of serious way for once, and sure, it’s easy, if…
*If *I create a big enough calorie deficit. Which means eating a lot less. Still, however, to get a big enough deficit without starving to death, I’ll need to do an hour of cardio every day, four or five days a week, as well as lots of walking. Plus, to make my body lose the fat instead of my muscles, I also have to add an hour of strength training to that. Of course, to do that stuff, I have to build my fitness up gradually to a good enough level. And learn about things like muscle groups and nutrition. And completely rebuild my diet. And go through a bunch of injuries from running. And be hungry a lot. If I want to avoid being hungry *too *much, I have make sure that I keep track of what I eat, and make sure that the calories are balanced out during the day, which means sticking to proper meal times. Which means making sure I keep a regular schedule. Of course, in order to keep all this stuff up over the long term, I have to keep myself motivated. Which means learning about positive thinking. And motivational techniques. And… and…
So yeah, sure, it’s just a matter of doing all that and some more, and then it’s dead easy! No problem. Of course, you could argue that precisely doing all that stuff is what makes it hard.
I guess I hadn’t really expected the… *holisticness *of it all. I just wanted to lose these man-boobs, and by now I have a complete lifestyle change on my hands. Cut out one part of the whole picture, and none of it works.
That’s it - you are officially off the Christmas Card list. :mad:
I voted ‘other’ because I can lose weight if I put my mind to it, although it has become a bit harder with age. Sadly, I can regain the weight even faster.
I lost 75 lbs almost 7 years ago. Maintaining my weight loss is pretty routine, but every now and then the scale does go up. I’m currently trying to lose 5 holiday lbs but I’m pretty confident the weight will come off quickly when I return to weight loss mode.
While I was a moderately fat kid (we shopped “huskies”) I’ve never been fat per se as an adult. Wrestling in High School helped I think. Mind you when work gets extremely busy and I both fall off of my usual exercise routine and start snacking on crap more I can put on 10 to 20 pounds over my normal baseline. But I don’t “diet” to take it off, I restart my usual lifestyle (exercise and food choices) and I settle back in over the next two to three months to my usual body shape. It just happens if I follow my usual habits.
Glory congratulations on your long term success!
Just wanted to clarify that I’m not really complaining about this. Doing a complete lifestyle change and getting results beats the pants off doing only one thing and frustratingly getting no results. I’m a pretty happy camper about the whole thing.
I can lose 3-4# a week without doing much. And I mean that literally. Normally I run and work out much of the day. Then I really eat well. If I have an injury that extends over a few days/weeks and don’t work out as much, my weight drops precipitously even though I seem to have the same appetite and calorie intake. I realize this is counter-intuitive, but it has been this way for years so I know it’s not an aberration or miscalculation. Lucky me. I’ll be on the road in the morning.
Very easy. It’s not a huge lifestyle change for me- I eat well and stay fairly active anyway. But if I do start feeling jiggly, I’ll make an extra effort to be careful with what I eat and to work some activity into my days. Now and then I’ll notice that I put on 5-10 lbs. It takes a few weeks of paying attention to get myself back into good form.
I think a lot of it is where you are starting from. “Normal” for me is a fairly healthy lifestyle. I gain weight when I deviate from that by working a sedentary job or eating too many big dinners out. To get back to my starting weight, I need to return to “normal,” which isn’t some horrible burden because it is, after all, “normal.”
Yeah. “Normal” for me was eating a lot more than I should and never exercising. The thing is, I could actually do that for most of my life and never gain weight. Until a certain age, when… oops, I suddenly couldn’t anymore.
Last option, as I’m one of those ‘hard-gainers’. I work to keep my weight as high as it is - but at this point it’s a lifestyle, just part of my normal routine.
IMy body settles naturally at about 98 lbs if I eat what I like and am not very active (as was true until about 3 years ago), all I’d have to do is stop stuffing my face and doing all this strength training. However I doubt I’d get much skinnier than that unless I deliberately went hungry.
I feel that losing weight is very hard for me. I feel any caloric deficit keenly. It’s very tricky for me to play things just right so that I can create a deficit and not go crazy with hunger–absolutely no alcohol, no refined carbs, and only small servings of complex carbs. It is impossible for me to live a normal life while losing weight. Eating out and eating other people’s cooking is impossible.
When I do everything exactly right, I lose less than a pound a week.
10 lbs, every five to ten years…I’m not sure if the actual molecules are the same. Need to loose it again now and the last time was seven years ago.
It has become harder with age.
I can lose weight fairly easily, but that’s not to say that I could get down to high school shape easily … if at all. But I tend to hover right around the 180 to 190 mark, so when the belt gets a little tight, I drop pounds pretty quickly just by monitoring what I eat.
I lose weight pretty easily if I have willpower. I lost 35 pounds over 20 weeks just by cutting out the useless calories. Unfortunately those useless calories are fun yummy calories so I gained back gradually once my willpower went away. I cut out soda booze snacking at work etc. I’m back to trying that tactic again. Hope I get the same results. I’m detirmined to keep the willpower up this time. It’s important. I can’t afford to get bigger. I’m currently pushing 270 and I’m not quite 6 foot high.
I had to vote other because it can vary some.
I’ve been overweight and struggled for years to lose it. I lost and gained the same 30 pounds numerous times and was just disgusted with myself. And then I turned a corner. I quit dieting, did some research and changed my lifestyle. I’ve managed to keep to within 10 lbs of my ideal weight ever since, but I know that I could easily revert to a poor lifestyle if I am not careful.
The difference now though is I know how to get the extra weight off quickly when I allow those 7 or so pounds in the winter.
It really depends on what you mean by “hard”. Do you mean “How close of attention do you have to pay to your lifestyle to lose weight?” The answer is: very close. I have to weigh everything, record everything even to maintain my weight. If I wing it, I gain weight.
If you are asking 'How hard is it for you to pay close attention to what you eat?", the answer is “pretty easy”. It’s in my nature to weigh and measure and record. I like discipline and routine. I don’t mind saying no to pleasure if I have a plan: it’s not a huge struggle.
If you are asking “If you are doing everything perfectly, how easily does the weight come off?”, the answer is “very easy”. I both gain and lose fat very quickly.
After spending over 20 years of my life dieting (and not eating when I ws hungry) and binging (and eating when I ws not hungry), I decided to spend a year eating only when I was hungry, eating whatever I wanted, and walking outside at least an hour every day.
The first two months were hell. At the end of nine months, you couldn’t get me to go back to “dieting” if you put a gun to my head.