Ask Lemmy

I switched to one meal a day for blood sugar management. I fast all day eat dinner then normally have a snack before bed. you learn to deal with minor hunger and it does not effect you anymore. Food is also better in general. Delayed gratification etc

In my late 20's, I managed to cut to probably the lowest body fat percentage of my life.

I learned which foods I found to be satisfying despite a lower calorie count, and vice versa. In my case, it's water, fiber, and protein that are important for feeling full even when I'm not eating a lot of calories. That means lots of soups, lots of green vegetables, lots of lean meats and cheeses, and some member of the legume family in almost every meal (beans and lentils, and also things like green beans, peas, peanuts). It also meant a dramatic reduction in sugars, especially in beverages, and a big reduction in alcohol consumption.

I started running a lot. Some people say you can't outrun a bad diet, but running 25 miles (40km) per week goes a really, really long way and buys you a big buffer that allows you a few high calorie meals here and there.

I stopped keeping snacks on hand. Almost everything in my house required some degree of prep or cooking to eat.

Many of those I've kept up in the 20 years since, but I've re-added whole grains and fruit into my previously low carb diet because they have a good satiety to calorie ratio (probably because of the fiber). And I've stopped running but also tolerate a higher body fat percentage and higher overall weight in support of a significantly more muscular build (and a lot more measurable strength). Finally, I do keep certain ready to eat foods in the house, but mainly because I have kids and need to feed them without spending all my time on that task.

What have been working for me until the cold weather and the scale ran out of batteries is to weight every meal and count all the calories I consume. I eat whatever I want as long it fits inside the 2300kcal daily budget, the weight loss was slow but steady since summer. I could get faster results by exercising more and/or setting a tighter budget but I'm happy enough with the current rate.

This week I bought new batteries, so I'm good to go again.

I can't really recommend anything specific to weight loss, but as someone who hates spending more than 30 minutes cooking (and then cleaning up), I would recommend dishes that can be prepared in a single pot, such as stews, soups, or similar. These dishes can also be stored well for several days.

This is also a good alternative to processed foods in terms of time.

Fruit and veggies will fill your stomach up making it harder to eat anything else while being lower in calories, I drench them in steak fat, idc, about the extra calories gained there, if I dont eag vegetables I eat a ton of snacks, if my stomach is uncomfortably full I dont think about eating. It's just expensive (in my case I have limited fast food options, just restaurants) if you dont cook to get healthier options but you can save hella calories. Like keto bread instead of regular for hotdogs/hamburgers save me at least 100 calories a burger, coke zero instead of coke saves me like 600 calories a day drinking 4 cans (ik I should drink less soda but ive done much much worse to my body being fat and abusing drugs, this is fine in comparison so im sticking to it)

A big thing is don't buy junk food. Its much easier to not buy that bag of chips then to resist eating them at 2am...

Being overweight is a natural reaction to an unnatural food environment. Processed foods contain far too much energy and too little fiber (i.e., stuff that fills our stomachs but contains hardly any energy.

Exercise is important for keeping our bodies fit, but it is not the right choice to lose weight. It is much easier not to consume 300 calories in the first place than to burn them off through exercise. Simply eating less does not help either. If your stomach is not full, you are constantly hungry, and no one can keep that up for long. To lose weight in the long term, you need to change your energy intake, i.e., the type of food, not the amount of food. So you have to change your diet, there's no way around it. Move away from processed stuff and toward whole food, plant-based meals.

"Whole food" means:
Grown from soil, nothing good removed after harvesting and nothing bad added. Over time, your body and your gut flora will get used to it, your cravings for junk food will subside, and you'll be able to eat your fill of vegetables, fruit, legumes, and nuts every day cheaply, healthily, and with a clear conscience. And you'll still lose weight.

So: Keep the junk out of the house! Don't let that crap into your home anymore; if it's there, you'll eat it.

The last time I decided to lose weight, I basically cut out all sweet things after meals and avoided regular snacking. It took a while to get used to not having those things (he said, with enormous understatement) but nowhere near as long as it did to lose the weight, so the good habits did lock in for a while, and the weight did eventually come off.

I allowed myself low calorie drinks whenever. The more water in them, the better. Tea with sweetener not sugar is my usual poison, but I switch it up with squash depending on mood and time of day.

A change in medication and slow fall back into old habits has got the BMI back over 25 again, so I intend to employ the same tactics again in the new year. Once all the Christmas snacks I've been bought are gone, anyway. *cough*

If I wasn't snacking and still needed to lose weight, I'd probably try reducing my portion sizes. One less potato. Smaller chops. One less sausage. etc. but I can't vouch for that because I've never needed to go that far.

Depression and poverty are really good for losing weight. I've lost 10 lbs in the last few months.

Use foods with a low calorie density as fillings. Things like cabbage and other veggies are very filling leaving you feeling more satisfied

I'm on a flexitarian diet. Not intentionally, my tastes just change up periodically. So I eat a lot less meat and a lot more salad with evoo/vinegar and Italian seasonings for dressing. My bread intake is way down. Getting enough bioavailable B12 and protein without a supplement is challenging. I've been meaning to get nooch but every time I'm in a store that carries it, I forget, so I end up eating eggs, cheese and having whole milk and yogurt. And with unseasonably warm weather, I'm walking again, so the deficit is a lot easier.

The great thing about salad and fruits is they fill you up, the downside is it doesn't stick as long.

Are you on any meds? If so, see if they're a problem. I had some anti anxiety meds that made me hungry all the time. I could maintain healthy weight before them.

For me it helped to focus on small changes. If I just cut my calorie intake in half, upped my exercise, and other large changes all at once, it would overload my brain and I'd back slide. I started making oatmeal in the morning. One cup of oats, one cup of frozen blueberries, and a little [too much] sugar. The next was understanding what hunger means. Your level of hunger indicates how soon you should eat. Not how much. Start making a conscious decision to only have one helping for a meal. Try drinking a lot of water before meals. Like straight chug water until you feel like you'll burst. You can trick your stomach into feeling full quicker if water takes up some space as you start to eat.

You could try intermittent fasting.

Be efficient with your calories. If you overeat and then you try to cut to 1800 but are still eating ice cream, chips, Starbucks. That 1800 is going to go so fast and you'll still be hungry.

Eat lean protein, simple carbs a ton of veggies and drink lots of water. You can also reduce exercise intensity if you're feeling super drained.

Another thing is to not try and cut to fast. Doing a 1000+cal deficit for weeks is going to wreck you. Better to go slow with 250 or 500 and take extra time.

I started on this path a year ago. I homebrew beer and it's pretty yummy. Years of drinking a couple of beers a night got me over 100kg. That was my trigger. 1x beer about same as a Mars bar in calories. Stopped drinking weekdays. Only vape weed as a wind down now. Switched to whisky ginger ale on weekends. Buy less snacks Drink more water and tea and stopped having sugar in tea.10x teas a day is a lot of unnecessary sugar. Stopped eating lunch, have miso soup sachets. Breakfast is toast and marmite Dinner is full normal meal My stomach stopped complaining it was hungry, though it helped to have awareness that the hungry feeling is a good feeling and to embrace it as a sign of success. I don't beat myself up for a stumble. Sometimes I snack, sometimes I go out for midweek beers though rarely.

Over a year I dropped 25kg A quarter of my body mass I'm 52 It helps I'm adhd lol and eating has always been an afterthought But the main weight loss came from significantly reducing alcohol Unfortunately I've not made any beer for two years.. so there is a downside lol Anyway.. just my 2c Good luck 👍

Good luck. You got this. OK so 100lb is quite a lot. And please stay above 100lb body weight. OK now then. I lost around 30lbs give or take. And here are some tips:

• It's all about calories in and calories out. You'll probably have to adjust your diet every now and then. I say this because a big deficit is not sustainable. When I tried a deficit like this I didn't have the energy to exercise. So there's that.
• exercise is a bit easier. specially when you body is new to the exercise. Just make sure to understand the routing or without.
• please remove unhealthy foods specially instant noodles.
• cook your meals when possible.
• follow the service size.
• if after a month you haven't lost another pound, consider a meal journal.
• finally, gaining weight or losing weight is not easy. That's because the difference in calories for the target weight.
• maybe try a intermittent fasting to get a feel for the fake hunger and real hunger.
• serious make better diet. Make sure your diet is balanced and within your calorie limits.

Good luck. You got this.

GLP-1

Intermittent fasting is the way - read Dr Fung’s book

For me it’s just sheer discipline and the occasional motivational drop in weight to a new low. I set myself a clear goal I want to reach and stick to that plan, knowing roughly by when I will reach it.

Discipline: I just forbid myself any kind of sweets (no chocolate, gummybears, chips, cookies, etc for 3 months now) and try to eat as little as I can stick with. This is most likely not the most healthy way to diet, but I can take a strict discipline for a little time better than having to be only a little strict for a much longer time. Most days I only eat something in the evening, ideally some salad or cottage cheese with veggies. Drinking lots of water and coffee helps. Sometimes a zero sugar energy drink which helps soothe the need for something sweet.

Motivation: I track my weight using the app Happy Scale, but any spreadsheet to average out numbers will work. Basically I get on the scale every morning before drinking or eating anything, and log my weight. It will still fluctuate daily, but tracking a rolling average helps to see it go down overall. And if for some days in a row it doesn’t, I just have to stick to the laws of physics which dictate that my body can’t create energy out of thin air, so it’s most likely just water being stored more some days than others.

Eat less and count calories. If you're getting < 1000 calories a day, you'll almost certainly lose weight. And when I did it, it was a keto diet, but I couldn't say whether keto is a dumb fad thing or legit, just that that's what I was doing when I lost weight. Mostly because protein calories kept me feeling fuller longer. But that feeling of hunger is also the feeling of a calorie deficit.

First step is to meal prep. Make sure you always have healthy food and reasonable portions. A “deep freeze” freezer can help with this.

Also make sure you have healthy, low-calories options for snacking as you adjust to the new diet. Hard-boiled eggs are the best go-to under the sun.

You can also add psyllium fiber to your meals to keep you full and help your gut biome. Metamucil is the moat famous brand, but there are others.

Preventing yourself from feeling hungry is critical. So plan, make smart choices, and learn how to avoid hunger wisely.

Smaller plates genuinely helped me reduce portion sizes.

I'm not one to talk because I also need to lose like 50lbs, but I'm starting to think that weight gain/loss happens when I put the food on my plate.

Sometimes I just serve myself too much food, especially if it's something that I really like. So I think using a smaller diameter plate and making sure that self-control is on point at serving time is underrated.

Also, another thing I've been trying that at least feels good is parking farther from where I want to go. Here in the US I'm driving all the time, but I have found that I feel can get more walking in just by parking on the other side of the parking lot, or even in a different parking lot entirely, and getting some extra steps in.

Finally I need to learn to eat a little slower! 🤣

I make salad dressing from low fat cottage cheese. I use a strong immersion blender to make it the consistency of sour cream. Thin it with water and add ranch dip seasoning. Anytime I feel hungry. I just have a salad with protein ranch. Make staying full very easy. Also fake bacon bits are almost pure protein.

Throw out/donate junk food. Don't buy more. Ask yourself if your actually hungry before getting a snack. Often times I'm just bored or procrastinating. But ive found the most success with HARD REASONABLE RULES.

Example : 2023 was the year of zero alcohol. I did it for a year and gave myself permission to drink again after the year's end. I didn't. Stopped caring about drinking after a few months without it. I can count the number of drinks on one hand I've had since then.

Example 2: 2024 was the no Candy and no ice cream year. Candy was defined as "anything you could find in a Halloween bag"

Ive found a lot of success with HARD reasonable clearly defined rules.