agreed, it has to be something that you can reasonably stick to for the rest of your life otherwise you’ll be yo-yo-ing
Indeed. And that’s why a thread like this one, with lots of suggestions, might be helpful—not because the OP (or anyone else looking to lose weight) needs to do all the suggestions, but because hopefully they can find at least one or two that will work well for them.
One thing that seems to differ from person to person is whether it’s easier to cut down or cut out something that isn’t good for them. For example, for some people, the idea of “no soda ever” seems horribly restrictive and depressing, but they could easily cut down as long as they could still enjoy it once in a while. But for other people, having the occasional soda will make them crave more and obsess about it, while cutting it out completely means you don’t think about it and don’t miss it. It can be helpful to know which of these categories you fall into.
Great point. And you may find that for some things, “cut out” is easier than “cut down” while for other things it’s the opposite.
I’ll opine there’s a third option that may be better yet: “crowd out”. e.g. If you can switch from sugary soda to flavored fizzy water, you can still have the oral & habit satisfaction of drinking the stuff, but you’ve crowded out the calories & nasty chemicals because the water is just as effective at bulking up your stomach to a feeling of fullness.
Best of all, you’re not “doing without”. You’re “doing instead” and that is a much much more positive way to frame the change. When you get to the place where the instead activity is as or more desirable to you than what you had done before, you’ll have achieved a long-term stable change. “Instead” isn’t “instead” any more. It’s become simply what you want to do. That is super powerful.
I'll also direct the OP to this current thread on an allied topic by somebody else fighting some ingrained bad habits. https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-started-walking/983575?u=lslguy
My 2 cents: a huge part of eating is the satisfaction of fullness. Not all, but it’s a big component. Just like what LSLGuy pointed out above - crowding out.
So if you want to feel full, but still not take in so many calories, then you should drink lots of soup. Watery, yet highly tasty, soup. This is my go-to advice for any sort of weight loss diet, too - lots and lots of hot, watery, but good, soup.
The heat prevents you from slurping a lot at once. The wateriness means it won’t have many calories. So you get yourself the fullness. It’s way better than any diet that involves having an empty stomach and just is hunger misery.
I have struggled with my weight for 20 years, and have tried many, if not all, of the suggestions so far. About a month ago my doctor prescribed Wegovy (different brand name of Ozempic). It has been a godsend so far (though I do acknowledge its only been a short period). If you are not morbidly obese, you may not qualify, but it is worth at least talking to your doctor about. There is a thread from about a month ago of people taking it. Basically I am never hungry, so I am better able to make good food choices. Before when I was coming home from work, I would be “starving”, so I would stop and get fast food. Now, after work I have no real need to eat, so I go home and make something healthy.
This is certainly true.
It’s also true that when you become used to eating large meals it takes a large meal to feel full. When you become used to eating small satisfying meals, it takes a small meal to feel equally full.
Bulking up on relatively low-cal soup is a crutch. A useful crutch, but a crutch nonetheless. Over time adjusting to simply eating less volume and feeling satisfied with that smaller volume will pay massive dividends while letting you gradually abandon the crutch.
The OP, or any of us in fact, slowly worked their way up to eating large meals and several of them. They can just as slowly work their way back down to smaller meals if they have the will to do so.
I personally did the @robby maneuver when I became diabetic. And shed useless blubber equal to 1/3rd of my then maximal weight. I also shed about 30 years of subjective age. That was a transformation I will never forget. It is a very motivating thing to experience. And all you have to do is decide that you rule your spoon; it does not rule you.
That “all” is admittedly a tall “all”. But IMO/IME it is doable somewhat for everyone and fully for at least some folks. Our OP has taken the gigantic first step of admitting they have a problem they want to fix.
Now a dozen years later when at home I still eat all my meals off a salad plate and use a salad fork in lieu of a larger dinner fork. It makes portion control and size-of-bite control that much easier. Although I’m not consciously managing my portion sizes to be less than what I “want”. What I want coincides with what fits on that small plate & small fork.
At the groc store I simply don’t buy what I ought not eat. It’s much easier to avoid temptation at the store (especially if you eat a meal just before going) than it is to avoid temptation when it’s parked in your fridge and pantry just begging you to do something stupid and counter-productive.
Rule your spoon or it will rule you.
I must respectfully disagree. The best way to lose weight is to exercise, and calorie restriction alone is ultimately futile.
Now, by exercise, I’m referring to muscle development, not merely running: as muscles get stronger, they rev up the metabolism, such that a more muscular person at the same weight will burn more calories just by sitting there. Whereas, with calorie restriction, your body will fight your effort to lose weight by slowing down your metabolism to last through the apparent famine it presumes you’re enduring.
Having said that, I can appreciate that the OP doesn’t like to exercise. To quote Caillou’s dad, “exercise is just another word for play.” Try and find fun things to do. Take your dog to a park and chase them around. Have you heard of pickle ball? Join a meet up. Do you like music? Go to the gym with big ole headphones and blast your favorite songs while you move weights (that’s what I do).
And don’t be intimidated by a gym - watch YouTube videos for form and routines and you’re set. Wear a baggy t-shirt and soccer shorts and nobody will pay attention to you.
As for diet, my advice is similar to others. I’d suggest you focus on satiety, feeling full, so you aren’t delirious with hunger while you try to lose weight. Two ways to do that are to stay well hydrated (if you don’t like water, or get bored with it, you can substitute tea) and to consume a diet rich in protein and fiber - what that amounts to is eating lots of fruits and vegetables (don’t worry about sugars when it’s in whole pieces of fruit - the fiber content will usually offset the sugar rush) and nuts and seeds (which contain both protein and fiber), and tasty protein (fish, chicken, small cuts of beef, eggs).
It’s also a better idea to “graze” on food than binge. That’s not an excuse to eat more overall food, but smaller meals more frequently is a better path to a faster metabolism than binge eating just once. It will help you from getting huge cravings, too (going hungry should not be your goal!)
Another thought on cravings: I find that eating a lot of fruit helps me stave off of sugar cravings. Another help is chewing gum. But if you just really can’t live without something, then give yourself a cheat meal once a week. Life’s too damn short to always stick to a diet.
This is very true. A couple weeks ago I had several days of a serious ice cream craving (it coincided with reading this article: Could Ice Cream Possibly Be Good for You? - The Atlantic). But I didn’t actually eat any, because there wasn’t any in the house. The craving passed.
You can’t eat what you don’t have.
Blech. I managed to re-programmed my brain sometime in my 20s to find the idea of eating fast food to be unpleasant. Whenever I thought about stopping, I’d remind myself that I always feel a bit ill after eating that stuff, and that it wasn’t particularly delicious, and eventually I started having a visceral negative reaction whenever I’m out and hungry, and think about going to McDonald’s. That’s been really helpful, if a bit of a surprising result.
Agree w Moriarty.
You need to lead with muscle-development exercise then slightly under-eat versus your ever-growing metabolism. But eating the right stuff, not the junk that the obese version of you had taught yourself to not only crave, but to live on and what’s far worse, to live for.
Conversely, leading with calorie restriction is a recipe for weakness, misery, depression, and weight gain. Doubly so if you don’t alter what you eat versus your current obesogenic fare.
In that vein, @tofor’s comment’s about McD’s just above are spot-on. And are certainly not limited to McD’s per se; they’re just a handy exemplar of the class.
If you think of McDs as a treat you’re sabotaging yourself. If you think of it as the disgusting indigestion-provoking garbage it really is, you won’t have nearly the desire to stop there. Again it’s “crowding out”, not “doing without”.
When I drive past an e.g. McDs I don’t see it as food. It may as well be a drycleaners for all the thought of eating it triggers. In a late night crisis when I need calories or I’ll pass out, and it’s the only place still open, then sure I’ll stop there. But with the same reluctance I’d bring to stopping at the DMV to renew my license plates. It’s no treat, but it is a duty I must occasionally perform that will leave a bad feeling in my stomach when I’m done.
This is a mental game. Get your mind right and your body physiology will follow. Fail at the mind game and you’ll fail at the body game too.
Last summer I played weekly pickup Ultimate Frisbee. I’m not great at it, and being badly out of shape and older than many of the players I was one of the slowest on the field. But, being forced to run back and forth (I hate the way running makes me feel, but I like playing Frisbee), even slowly, every week made me want to eat better food, and ultimately less food. I wanted to eat more salads, and I did not want to eat so many potatoes. I lost 10-15 pounds on the Ultimate Frisbee diet, but it was not the calories I burned on the field, it was the way it made me feel and the food it led me to eat without having to “try eating better”.
Which brings us back to the first suggestion:
Definitely do that.
You know what? This thread is making me hungry, and lunch isn’t for almost another hour.
Yes, back when I lost 30 pounds over a few months about a decade and a half ago, one of the things that helped was starting dinner with a lower calorie soup (something like vegetable, cabbage, chicken, minestrone – just something without tons of cream) and that would help me control portions for the main course. Also, in the main course, I would double up the portion of vegetables I like (broccoli, cauliflower) to add bulk and a sensation of fullness.
Yeah. My late first wife was once a personal trainer. it’s a truism in sports medicine that:
You can’t out-train a bad diet.
The exercise and the better diet are both necessary conditions. Fortunately they are mutually reinforcing. Unfortunately, their opposites are also mutually reinforcing. To baleful effect.
Getting off the down escalator towards disaster and onto the up escalator towards health isn’t an easy transition. But once reoriented to face the right way and begin moving, it quickly gets much easier to make progress.
Take the stairs instead of the esclator.
And it doesn’t have to be fast progress. I once heard my brother in law say that his doctor told him he should aim to lose 1 pound a month. “When I’m on a diet, I get upset if I’m not losing a pound a day!” he said, as though anything less were an absurd suggestion. And I said to myself, “And therein lies the problem”.
Another old-school recommendation I’ve heard is to eat five times a day no more than will fit in the palm of your hand.
My metaphoric point was the automatic self-powering nature of doing things the right way. You don’t have to perform the change in diet purely through willpower; it’ll happen semi-automatically as you start exercising. As will the desire for (mild) calorie reduction. You need to move, but it will help. Conversely, trying to walk up to weight loss & health while standing on the down escalator of bad diet is futile.
An even better metaphor than an escalator is the moving sidewalks in airports. Most people walk on them to speed them to their goal, not treat them as a chance to stop and rest. Do both for quickest easiest progress to the destination.
But yes, finding mild exercise where you can is another great habit of mind. Use stairs, park further away and rationalize that it’s really to protect your car from door dings, carry multiple grocery bags on your arms rather than use a cart, etc.
All little things that bring a small benefit of exerting mild effort.
That sounds like a diet, not a sustainable lifestyle change for most people.
Recommended by and for older people (over 50).
A glass of water with lemon before a meal cuts my appetite.
It may be difficult to stop eating until fully stuffed. I deal with that with pizza. There’s Just one more piece in the box. The desire to eat naturally deminishs about thirty minutes after a meal. I remind myself that the urge for that extra slice or two will go away.
The worst thing our parents did was demand kids empty their plate. I still fight that training 50 years later.
Portion control and limited snacks works for me. Other people use different methods.