Those of you who have successfully lost weight...

[Howmanyflippingstone]

How have you done it?

Posted this thead yesterday but something funky happened to my op (half of it vanished) so MN deleted it.

Basically, I had a baby at the the start of lockdown, and between homeschooling the older kids/working full time and general stress, I've been eating shittily and struggling to shift the weight. Been swinging between WW and SW, which definitely isn't helping. My job is stressful and fairly sedentary, though I do get out for a 3 mile walk daily and am trying to get back into running, though it's hard to find the time and motivation.

I have a few friends who had success tracking everything they ate on mfp, and I gave that a go and it worked to an extent, but it was so time consuming that I couldn't keep it up.

I'm determined to get sorted in the new year but need some inspo and guidance

I lost 10 stone a few years ago. I’d tried and failed loads of times before, then decided I’d had enough. Firstly, I didn’t eat cakes, sweets, ice cream etc etc for a year. I had zero self control with them, so it was easier just to scrap them completely. And secondly, I made sure at least half my dinner plate was vegetables - salad or steamed. This ensured I ate smaller portions of the other bits. That was it really.

After I lost around 6-7 stone, I started to exercise (jogging), and started to gradually increase treats again. I do have to watch myself more now though as I still have a lot of trouble moderating them. I’ve maintained my weight loss for 3 years so far though (5 years since I originally started), through stressful life events, Covid lockdowns, and major surgery, so hopefully will stay this way.

I lost 3 stone this year having gone through a stressful period and lockdown etc etc.
But it was terrible and took so long lol.
It was all in steps, once I was comfortable with one change I would introduce another.
Like you I started a daily walk / run, I found that trying to make myself run actually stopped me from doing anything at all and wrapping it in a nice activity like walking helps me actually get out every day.
Then I introduced intermittent fasting, only eating between 12 and 8, eating only high protein snacks. The next step was to cut out all snacks, and anything sweet including sugar! I still drank low calorie drinks like black coffee, miso and diet coke.
Each step took a while to get used to - I am still doing this all now and actually don't feel hungry!
It took about 2 weeks for the intermittent fasting to feel okay and only a few days to quit all sugar.
I cook from scratch anyway and still have one takeaway per week. Cooking from scratch isn't necessary healthy though 😂

@Thriwit

I lost 10 stone a few years ago. I’d tried and failed loads of times before, then decided I’d had enough. Firstly, I didn’t eat cakes, sweets, ice cream etc etc for a year. I had zero self control with them, so it was easier just to scrap them completely. And secondly, I made sure at least half my dinner plate was vegetables - salad or steamed. This ensured I ate smaller portions of the other bits. That was it really.

After I lost around 6-7 stone, I started to exercise (jogging), and started to gradually increase treats again. I do have to watch myself more now though as I still have a lot of trouble moderating them. I’ve maintained my weight loss for 3 years so far though (5 years since I originally started), through stressful life events, Covid lockdowns, and major surgery, so hopefully will stay this way.

That's amazing - I'm in awe of the ten stone and especially the maintenance which is the hard bit!

Several times, I am up and down thanks to meds. I find MFP or previously, old style weight watchers are best. No real
restrictions to food groups, just limited calories (although I always find myself doing low carb simply as it's more filling). Intermittent fasting also helps. I find it takes a week or so to adjust, so whatever you do, the very initial stages are really just a case of pushing on but it should quickly get easier.

Following the principles in 'Why we eat (too much)' by Andrew Jenkinson - I have lost more than 3 stone.

I’ve lost about 4 stone over 16 months using mfp (weight loss slowed to about half a stone every 3 months now, which is fine). It works for me because:
I don’t like being told what / when I have to eat - I’d rather have a calorie budget to ‘spend’ as I see fit

At first I was weighing everything, but once I learned how many grams of butter I put on my bread etc I just input that amount and checked occasionally that it wasn’t creeping up

I input what I’m planning to eat at the start of the day and then pretty much stick to it - only takes a few minutes and it gets quicker the more you use it because foods are in your history

I do log my weight every day (I know this isn’t for everyone) because at those times when it creeps up I can look back, see how that happened before and know if I trust the process it will soon start dropping again

I like cooking from scratch and I still do this - I cook big pots of stews, curries etc entering all the ingredients as a recipe and working out how many portions I need to divide it into to get about 400 cals a portion. Then it’s there to add to my diary as I eat it.

Key to making a long term difference for me is having planned breaks - Christmas, holidays, birthdays. I stop logging what I’m eating, enjoy the cheese, chocolate, wine etc, accept that I’ll put on a few lb, and then get back on track as soon as the break ends. Currently looking forward to a Christmas break having just scraped under BMI 25.

I've successfully lost weight many times. I'd like to know how to keep it off!!

Have lost four stone and keeping it off. For me, calorie counting has worked. It hinges on diet for me- exercise gives me psychological benefit and a bit of toning but the actual weight loss is all diet for me.

The thing that stood out to me from your post was you saying it was too time consuming to do MFP.

Any of the plans will work if you stick to them, but the reality is with more than a stone or two to lose, it is going to need to take a bit of time and headspace in your life. Direct question, and sorry if it seems harsh- if logging a few lines in MFP seems too time consuming, are you REALLY committed to losing the weight?

I lost 20 kilos (approx 35 pounds) with low carb.

Then I lost another 15 kilos for no apparent reason. Turned out it was type 2 diabetes. I'm low carb for the diabetes but the 15 kilos found me again. My dietician and my GP both say it looks like my body has found its set point and I'm resigning myself to that being a thing as cannot be arsed to work really hard to reset my set point.

Rejigging the food pyramid (as a rough rule of thumb) worked for me

Wow well done to all of you, some fantastic and inspiring results here!

On the mfp/no time thing- I don't have a problem with the daily logging, but the weekly meal planning/calculations to make sure everything was within allowance was taking me around 3 hours each weekend, which unfortunately was not feasible. If anyone can give me a quicker way to do this then I'm all ears!

And that 3 hours was outside of the time I had to spend doing the meal prep for the week ahead to make sure I stayed on track. I actually don't mind doing the meal prep, but the planning prep/calorie calculating etc was a step too far. And I say that as someone who normally meal plans without any hassle.

Noom. It has honestly been life changing for DH and I.

But you don't need to meal prep and pre-calculate everything. I've used MFP many times and never do that. Just log what you eat when you eat it. And if you have already eaten x number of calories that day and don't want to go over the limit you have set, eat a smaller portion for dinner. Or eat something else entirely. That's the benefit of MFP that you can be flexible and don't have to stick to a pre-determined meal plan. Or did I misunderstand you?

I lost my baby weight through WW; I liked that I could still have treats and I wasn’t hungry. I did have to plan out meals but that was quite simple

I do my meal planning an prep at the weekends as I work up to 15 hours a day during the week, so how I was using mfp was by planning my meals at the weekend as usual, but also working out the calories of each meal, to ensure that I wasn't going over on any given day. I'm literally so times trapped during the week that it's impossible to cook meals on the fly, and if/when I have done that it always ends up in unhealthy and convenient choices.

Is Noom any good? I tried to sign up for a trial but they wanted me to charge for it, and they're so secretive about what it actually entails so it's difficult to know whether it's worth it. I've heard some poor reviews of it tbh and it's very expensive.

@ArblemarchTFruitbat

Following the principles in 'Why we eat (too much)' by Andrew Jenkinson - I have lost more than 3 stone.

Me too

Basic principle eat what you want as long as you make it from scratch and it doesn’t contain sugar.

I’m in a similar situation to you OP. I’ve read some things about looking at the “why.” I’m going to start to write a journal/list of why I want or need to lose weight. I think those reasons need to outweigh the easy stance of just staying as I am. I’m hoping this will keep me on track when I start to fall of the wagon. I’ve often thought I need “motivation “ but actually I think it’s more self discipline that I need! I’m going to calorie count with Nutracheck as I like the app & it’s easy to follow.
Good luck OP.

Also, I would tread cautiously with Noom. They get you yo sign up to a monthly payment of almost £100 I seem to remember & people often report the support isn't there, like they promised. If you want to sign up to a group support thing, maybe look at some individual PTs that do it online.

Exercise is good regardless, but the walk isn't achieving anything really regarding noticeable weight loss. It's 90% diet.

And basically, by diet, it's restrict/stop eating. And once you get in your head, that not eating in a controlled way is fine, it's quite a powerful thing. We're told, "you can't just not eat, it's not healthy....starving yourself will get you nowhere" and so there's this big stigma around it.

You'll see from PP that intermittent fasting has worked. Fasting simply another word for not eating, but "fasting" is socially acceptable.

So, work out what works for you. It's a lot easier to not eat than restrict your food. If I have no breakfast, that's fine. If I'm meant to just have a poached egg on toast, I'll be hungry, and probably make another round.

Something that has really worked for me, is the 12hr concept. There are 12hrs a day you can consume food, and 12hrs you can't. If you wake up and have breakfast at 7am, the last time you can eat food is 7pm. Because it's typically not our breakfast/lunch/dinner that is the problem, but all the evening grazing.

Like anything, if you eat 3 gateaux a day on the justification "well it's in my approved 12 hours" it's not going to work. But you can eat pretty normally. And you're asleep for a large chunk of the 12hrs where you don't eat.

Also, how much are you drinking? Every time you feel a bit peckish, do you have a cup of tea first? I drink a tonne of hot blackcurrant. It doesn't fill me up, but if I'm getting a bit hungry, and I have a hot drink, I tend to last another hour before I need to eat something.

For me, low carbing really really worked and I found it easy to follow and stick to. It's just a bit limiting but once you get used to that it's fine.

I lost 3 stone really quickly with it which helped my mindset - don't think I could do slow weight loss as I needed the encouragement of losing it at a decent pace. I have another 3 stone to lose now (after another baby) and plan to start in January. Hoping to be slim by Easter.

I just logged calories on MFP, and avoided bread.

I lost it and and have kept it off by pretty much removing processed food and drinks, and doing more exercise (which doesn't have to be hardcore - walking and yoga are easy enough).

Bariatric surgery and starving was the only thing that worked for me as an older person.
As a younger person I used to be able to lose weight doing 1000 calories a day.
Eat normally and I just get fat. I'm sick of it.