I guess whether it’ll work long term remains to be seen but I’ve dropped 35lbs since April. I think the first ten were because we stopped ordering/eating out with the Covid stuff (and my wife never went into baker mode) and then I decided to capitalize off that start by eating healthier and taking walks. No full Keto/Atkins/etc but greatly reduced my carbs intake and processed sugars, eliminated a lot of snacking & fast food, and generally tried to be more aware of calorie counts when I eat something. I’ve gone from touching the “obese” section of the BMI chart to being just shy of the recommended range and figure I’ll get there in another week or two. Hopefully it’ll be manageable from there.
Only one diet I have tried works - the What’s That Diet:
Bread (including things like hamburger buns)?
Pizza? (except for “pseudo-pizzas” made with a spinach & parmesan “crust”)
Pasta?
Rice?
Beans?
Most fruit?
Dessert (except maybe something like “sugar free Jell-O”)?
“What’s that?”
Daily exercise helps as well.
I went from 220 to 165 in about six months - and lowered both my blood pressure and A1C while I was at it.
Just one warning: if you have a history of hemorrhoids, I suggest a stool softener - otherwise, the resulting constipation is going to make the situation worse.
Low carb (50g) per day. Been on it a month and lost 13 lbs so far.
I’m with everyone who says No to diets, Yes to lifestyle changes. Lifestyle changes are sustainable, diets (generally) are not.
j
The strongest and healthiest I’ve ever been was the 15-ish years when I was vegetarian, and didn’t eat on Fridays.
The biggest rule that helped me is, Don’t Drink Your Calories.
You could hardly be the Soup King if you didn’t drink some of them.
What’s wrong with beans?
eta: sorry, that was for the next post
I did Keto STRICTLY for a month and lost the 28 pounds I was told I would lose.
The diet is fucking miserable. No bread, baked potatoes, beer, most fruit. And you can’t cheat on it at all, whatsoever. If you go out of Ketosis the weight lose stops and begins to reverse. And the Keto flu that happens during the first 2 weeks or so is real.
But the diet works! If you can hack it for a month you’ll drop a pound a day consistenly.
But then you need a maintenance plan. Staying on Keto permanently is next to impossible and if you go back to your old ways you ‘ll balloon back up within 3 months.
I don’t post much, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately 'cause I just passed the one year mark in my own weight loss. I was… somewhat surprised, let’s say… when I stepped on the scale a year back and weighed in at 255. I knew I’d gotten fat, but I didn’t realize it was quite so bad - mostly from gaining the weight slowly over years, but also because I was still fairly fit. I walked for exercise all the time, and did 60 mile charity walks every year.
But as a trainer friend of mine told me several times, “You lose weight in the kitchen, you get fit in the gym.” So I started exercising a bit more seriously, but also finally dieted for the first time in my life… and found it surprisingly easy, actually. My diet is simply Low Carbs. Not no carbs - there’s no way I could sustain that. Just low. And while I don’t count calories, going Low Carb meant that by necessity I had to give up soda, and all the sugar that goes with it - so as TheKingOfSoup pointed out, I stopped drinking all my calories. Like, hundreds of calories a day. In fact, probably over a thousand calories a day on my worst days. I drank a LOT of soda. And I cut it out cold turkey - no diet soda either. Now I just drink unsweet iced teas, coffee (which has its own problems, but one thing at a time), and Gatorade Zero when I exercise.
It’s been a year, and I dropped from 255 to 175. I haven’t been in this kind of shape since college. Better now, probably, cause now I run more than I ever did too. And now that I’m in pretty good shape again, I do Sunday cheat days (without going overboard) and eat the occasional Oreo cookie.
I went Keto and lost 35 kilos. Two years ago, and I’ve kept my weight,
I lost about 40 lbs and have kept it off for 6 years, with these changes - lunches became soup or salad, dinners became about half the size as previous, and unlimited fresh fruit for snacking when hungry (no junk snacks). I still eat all my favorite foods, including occasional junk, but the portion sizes are smaller. And I still violate these “rules” about once every couple of weeks or so.
Years ago, I had amazing results with Atkins. But these days I have kidney disease and have to cut way back on animal protein.
Yes. On January 2, 1997 I went on the Atkins Diet. I’d had a full blood spectrum run in December so I had baseline numbers.
I stuck to it carefully and hydrated incessantly. I also started taking Tae Kwon Do. In 6 months I lost 48 pounds and kept within 10 pounds of that loss until September of 2000, when I broke my back and became temporarily disable, depressed and abusive of food.
I know it’s an unsafe trick to work on your body chemistry. But hell’s bells it works for me.
My Mom, the nurse, was crazy over this choice. In the autumn of 1997 I did another blood series. My Triglycerides were down. All other markers were normal. I sent her a photocopy. She didn’t believe it.
Here’s another one, that worked, decades ago. I felt I was gaining too much. I picked out one fatteneng food from my diet (I’ve even forgotten what it was now – maybe butter) and just cut that to almost zero. Otherwise, kept eating as usual. It really worked, and I didn’t even miss it. Wouldn’t work for 100 pounds, but was effective for maintenance weight.
I went on a catabolic diet once. It works, you drop about a pound a day. But because of the raw fruits and vegetables your stomach can be in constant uproar and your bowel movements can be a horrific event.
I tend to keep my weight within acceptable range, and if it creeps above that, make immediate changes so I never need to “diet” very long. The MyFitnessPal app has worked very well for me, by letting me log my calories for a little while so I can see where the issues are. The biggest benefit of it for me has been in recognizing what an actual serving size is.
I’m in need of dropping some pounds right now, but not sufficiently motivated to begin.
How often do you weigh yourself?
Curious because my gf steps on the scale daily. She’s done this her entire adult life, believing it to be easier to drop one pound than three. Meanwhile, I’ve been weighing myself weekly after going most of my adult life not owning a scale.
I weigh myself daily, sometimes several times a day! I don’t worry much about any fluctuations because I see they happen all the time, but I take notice of trends.
Almost any diet that restricts simple carbs causes me to lose a little weight. If I maintain it, my weight creeps up. If I change my diet’s emphasis at that point, I might lose weight again. What seems to work best for me is a Mediterranean-ish Diet emphasizing vegetables and alternating between vegan and occasional lean meats. Low grain (I have diabetes), some rice, very little bread. Low simple carbs (and earlier in the day when I can), low sugar, no diet drinks or sugar substitutes (except stevia and vet occasional honey. Low prepared foods, low preserved meat. Lots of water.
I lost weight on keto but my kidney labs were wacked out and my oncologist asked me not to continue. No WW-type plan or any diet that doesn’t restrict simple carbs works.
I just attended a professional continuing education course on dieting. Research says if it works at all, maintained loss is moderate. That said, if you’re drinking 5 Cokes a day, you’re likely to lose weight if you stop. The conclusion was to focus less on weight loss and more on health goals, for some of which changes in diet, activity level, and decreasing cortisol are productive.
That said, these large-scale studies report averages. Looking at ranges shows some people will lose more weight and maintain the loss. There is a lit we don’t know about metabolism, but we do know that “calories in/calories out” is a very crude model that doesn’t account for how bodies use food and exercise.
Also that said, I weigh myself every morning before I test my blood glucose. I graph these numbers so I can focus on trends rather than data points, but use the data points in the moment to adjust diet and exercise if either number bumps up. Sheltering in place had meant no muffins in the common room, no food prepared by friends, and no restaurant meals. Between that and the intention of being 95+% adherent to diet, nutrition, exercise, and meditation goals, plus playing with my Metformin dose (with medical aporoval), I’ve lost 26 pounds since early March. I average 8 km a day on the treadmill and pick up weights in an inadequate manner a few times a week. We’ve just bought a stationary bike so we can vary out activity.
I’ve found it helpful to track weight, FBS, and exercise. At this point, food tracking doesn’t matter much, but it can help if you snack or don’t have a good feel for the relationship between foods, nutritional profiles, and serving size. I’ve also found accountability helpful (WW, friend group), and virtual marathons have provided entertainment and a reward in the form of participant bling upon completion.