For those of you who are having steady progress losing weight, what techniques are you using? Counting calories? Points? Using a scale? Exercise?
I need to lose 5% to 10% body fat percentage, and I’m finally caving in to the fact that I can’t just do it through exercise like I used to. So I thought I’d start sort of a poll thread on the techniques and methods that are actually working for people. I am also trying to avoid mixing it up with the monthly weight loss “club” thread since that seems to be geared toward group encouragement rather than specific techniques.
For purposes of this thread, I ask folks to skip responses like “duh, eat fewer calories than you use.” This much I know, I’m looking for the best way to do that. Also let’s skip discussion of drugs/surgery… perhaps those have their place for some, but I want to avoid those unless worse comes to worst.
Nothing currently, as I’ve slowly been gaining back what I’ve lost but from 2004 to 2006, I dropped from 360 to 179 through simple calorie counting and portion control when I didn’t have a nutritional panel to consult.
Calorie counting has helped the most and I’ve been doing that a few years now. I lost a lot of weight but gained some back between commuting to school and studying on my butt all summer. I used to use fitday.com but I switched over to sparkpeople.com - it has more applications and a social format to it that I like (which is totally optional). I like it a lot better than fitday.com or their software. Just doing calorie counting has made me really informed about my nutrition and given me a much needed kick in the butt.
I’m also back to slogging a 25lb backpack (my husband refers to it affectionately as “The Portable Oxford Library of Classics”) up and down and all around a huge campus several days a week so I think I’ll lose my relapse weight pretty quick. Honestly just walking around more has helped me a lot already.
For my schedule and peculiar situation, I find SlimFast to be most convenient for breakfast and lunch. It gets me full and keeps my blood sugar up until I can get home for dinner. Although sometimes I will have a Kashi-Golean bar instead, or a mix of the two. Both have plenty of fiber and protein.
ETA: When I started fitday, I was 180 or so and I went down to 135. I’m 160 now.
Vegetables. I often have to make weight for my sport and my sure-fire method is to eat a third to a half a pound of vegetables before lunch and dinner. I don’t worry about how they’re cooked (not slathered with cheese but olive oil is totally fine), I just make sure to get enough volume. Followed by a smallish amount of quality protein (like tuna with some mayo or tofu) and a decent carb (like brown rice, an ear of corn, high fiber crackers, etc.) if I’m really hungry. With this diet, I’m not hungry, I lose the weight, and I don’t stress over the specifics of what I’m eating.
I’ve lost a little over 50lbs in the past year. It started with a bad breakup, which killed my appetite and produced the sort of rage that can only be run off. But continuing to lose once the emotional issues went away was surprisingly easy.
The most important thing is to get in the habit of exercising, if you’re not already. I work out at least four times a week, and I know now that even if I don’t feel like starting, I’ll feel awesome when I’m done. It makes it so much easier to get motivated.
I don’t count calories, and I eat whatever I want, I just make sure that I *really * want it. I won’t shove a cookie in my mouth just because it happens to be there (which I did far too often a couple of years ago). But if I really want the cookie, I have the cookie, and just throw in an extra work out. That means I get the cookie, AND I get that awesome post-workout feeling at least five times that week. It’s win-win.
In that other thread, you always have permission to ask about technique. It often looks like a group hug because we’ve already shared our techniques.
But this is working wonders for me. I have almost never backslid.
First of all I exercise every day. I don’t skip days unless I have a really compelling reason.
Food is three things. In theory, they are in equal proportions, but I like to ramp up the veggies a bit.
First of all is protein, three ounces of it. I don’t weigh it, but it’s about the size of a deck of cards. It’s also easy to do four ounces instead. Meat is often sold in pound packages, so just use 1/4 of it at a time.
In order of which is best, it’s
Fatty fish
Lean fish
Poultry
Buffalo
Red and pink meats
Next is carbs. Despite what some people think, the medical community says you need them. But they are loaded with calories. For women, half a cup is plenty. For men, a bit more is fine. Make them whole grain whenever possible. I think that whole grain pasta is delicious, but some people don’t. White potatoes are evil. Sweet potatoes are great.
Lastly is fruits and vegetables. Go nuts. One to two cups with a meal is fantastic. That’s what should fill you up.
Other than that, vegetable oil is a good thing, but in moderation. Eat some nuts every now and then. Make water your favorite drink.
And for Og’s sake, treat yourself to something naughty every once in a blue moon.
But when you do, do it right! Like if you like chocolate, spring for a few pieces of the good Belgian stuff instead of a Hershey bar. This technique has worked out really well for me, anyways.
Oooh I should add that I have a few times where I allow myself to go a little crazy and not count my calories. Those days are: Thanksgiving, Christmas, my wedding anniversary, my birthday, and the first day of my period (apologies if this isn’t applicable - but you can always just have a once-monthly splurge). The thing is though, that since I’ve been watching my portions and making better choices and feeling better because of them, I have far less tendency to go on a crazy 3500 calorie bender. It’s more like the 2200 range.
Thanks for the replies… didn’t mean to sound as if I was bashing the other thread, I just thought it was better to keep things a bit separated.
I’m a little bummed because I have never counted calories in my life and it just sounds like such drudgery. I always just used to ramp up my running when I wanted to lose weight, but it’s hurting my ankles because I’m 15 pounds over my normal “must-not-exceed” threshold. Which is a shame because autumn is my favorite time to rack up miles. Ah well… I’m taking a good long hike tomorrow, which for me has been a proven way to carve off a few pounds.
Counting calories (I use www.calorie-count.com which is good for the calorie count but has truly horrible forums IMO), and exercising six days a week. I don’t know my weight because of issues I have with scales, but I’ve dropped five to six sizes and my doctor is telling me my BMI is completely perfect.
As an aside I have no idea why scales trigger bad eating issues for me while counting calories doesn’t–humans are so strange. OK this human is strange.
I lost 50 pounds in 6 months last year. My method? One hour of exercise per day, plus (and I think this is the most important part) I took my normal food portion size, and cut it in half. That’s how I did it. It’s very, very, very difficult to maintain, but it works. I just kept reminding myself that it wasn’t forever and it was worth it. Mental preparation for being continually hungry (especially after being continually full for years) and remembering the effectiveness and finiteness of the method, helped me a lot.
That’s what I didn’t like about Atkins. Thanksgiving without carbs? No way! With Atkins, repairing a bad day seems to take a lot of work. With a less extreme plan, you just carry on as if it didn’t happen.
Brain Wreck, I know you weren’t bashing the other thread. I’m just saying that questions like yours are very welcome there. That’s what it’s there for. And we’re not mean people. We don’t bite. Unless, of course, you’re slathered in butter and holding a sprig of parsley.
Scales are a very personal thing. Some people hate them, some people love them
I’m one of the latter people. I use a digital scale that measures in tenths of a pound. I like that because even a little progress still looks like progress.
And no matter what the scale says, it encourages me to keep on track. Or perhaps ramp it up a bit.
I’ve used the Mifflin - St. Jeor formula, apparently the most accurate, to estimate my daily calorie requirement. Subtracting 500 from that, aiming for a weekly weight loss of 0.5kg or 1 lb., gives a target of 2,000 calories a day for me, which I divide into 300/600/800/300 for breakfast/lunch/main meal/late snack. I’ve found that pretty easy to stick to for the last five months, although admittedly I’ve only lost 19lb over that period, a bit less than one pound a week. I have found that increasing the amount of vegetables I eat makes it much easier to stick to those calorie targets.
Meant to say, re calorie counting - yes it is drudgery, but I eat pretty much the same thing for the breakfast, lunch and late snack components, so the only one I have to calorie-count is the main meal, and I soon learned what 800 calories will get you. And with plenty of vegetables, it will get you a lot!
What **Usram **says is spot on - the counting is drudgery, but after a while you learn to “eyeball” things pretty well (thanks for the link BTW Usram!). And also the desire to eat large portions or empty calories diminishes over time, at least in my experience. YMMV obviously.
I’m having a little trouble interpreting that site… which figure is the one I’m supposed to consider my base to subtract from? What’s all that crap about the “control twin”? I never weighed as low as 148.5 even when I was in high school and had neither fat nor muscle to spare.
I know that’s how it works for most people. But for me, it’s a trigger to eat less–to the point of an eating disorder. The scale becomes a game–I know I can weigh less next time, and I do until I get to unhealthy weights.
I was VERY nervous about counting calories, and started doing it in July because my husband needed to lose some weight and appreciated that we both did it. But we had to have a good conversation about where my head might end up if the counting triggered the same behaviors as the scale.
It hasn’t, and wow what an education for me. I had no idea how many calories were in, say, a medium order of french fries, or in a serving of pancake syrup.
As Usram and Queen Bruin both posted, I have gotten very good at knowing what the counts are for typical things I like to eat. And I budget for the higher calorie things like ice cream or cocktails.
I just started calorie counting, it’s been almost a month now and for me, so far, it’s working because I’m more aware of how much I don’t need to eat.
Basically, I calculate the amount of calories I should need (based on weight and body fat percentage) and then eat that, instead of eating whatever whenever. If I were to exercise heavily, I might add more.
For me, exercise has not, in the past, been relevant to weight loss.
The number directly above the blue dotted line is the estimate of how many calories you burn a day given your activity level. Consume less than that and you should lose weight. To lose a pound a week, you should consume 500 less calories daily than you burn at that activity level.
The “control twin” seems to be a mockup of your same stats but at an “ideal” BMI (I got 127.9lbs at BMI 22 - I haven’t weighed that little since I was a preteen). There have been numerous threads discussing the validity of BMI; I don’t take it too strictly, being something of a beefy muscle chick myself. The control twin’s caloric expenditure is also listed - for me to maintain 127.9lbs with a BMI of 22, the calculator says I should consume about 1800 calories a day with my activity level. Seems to be handy as a guideline, but I try to keep it to 1500 when shedding more than a few pounds.