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

Cut out meat and dairy and the weight fell off

think (unhelpfully) that what works is very individual to the person.

This. It is 5:2 for me. I lost 25kg on it (85 down to 60) over a year, and am now on it again to lose the baby weight I gained in my pregnancy. Very easy to follow and easy to stsy motivated because I know I can have whatever treat tomorrow when I’m not fasting. Started about a month ago and have lost 3kg of the 10 I’d like to lose.

I lost 10KG of baby weight earlier this year using Slimming world online. Not a terrible inspirational or motivational amount of weight, but took me 5 months of sticking to a plan. No added sugar Alpen & fruit for breakfast, snacks of Babybel light & skyr yoghurts, chunky soups for lunch then just tried to mitigate the damage at dinner time. I went from a coffee & pastry every day to one per week and had a load of fruit on hand which I could sadly eat while everyone else was knocking back the chocolate buttons. Weighed myself weekly, put a £1 away for every lb I lost, also started a “couch to 5K” but realistically got about half way through so spent 30 mins every so often walk/jogging around my local streets which probably did nothing for the weight loss but made me feel motivated after I’d done it.

I feel like I got into the zone after a while - at the start I literally had to hold my hands to stop them from grabbing a bag of sweets and pouring them in my mouth but after about 6 weeks and some slow weight loss progress, I could happily restrict myself to just the one handful

@greatape - you can read more about it here. It was recommended by my GP: www.secondnature.io/
I’m paying for it (£10 a week for initial programme of 12 weeks, so not particularly cheap) but now understand that some people get it on referral from doctor (might be worth looking into, not sure if discretionary or if you have e.g pre-diabetes or similar health issues to qualify for it being paid for).

It is all online. You are part of a chat group on an app, which is headed by a coach. They check in every day to answer questions and give updates. You get an article each day on a different theme and each week has a different focus. At the start, they send you a pack of recipes and overview of the programme. You could do all of it yourself, really, but the group aspect and their guidelines and coach give you a bit of a handhold and structure through it all (also the recipes are actually really good!).

I found it really helped in giving me the direction to get started - hopefully will embed some good habits that I can build on. I lost 4.5lbs in my first week but they do say it will likely slow to 1-2lb weight loss. The first week is also a reset, where you don’t eat added sugar / ultra processed food and try not to eat out - then they build those things back in but as mindful treats / on occasion.

SW to start with - which I followed carefully, not doing stupid things like eating bread and sugar as someone on another thread posted as a reason to avoid SW.

Now I've lost the weight I keep it off by doing a sort of fast each day, so the last thing I'll eat at night is around 7pm and I'll have breakfast around 10-11 the next day, plus I limit my carbs and fat, and during the week I have cut back massively on the sweet stuff.

P.S. I’m loving the Doctor’s Kitchen (Dr. Rupy) short clips on iplayer at the moment for great healthy recipes!

@Yazoop Please can I ask you a bit more about Second Nature? I had a look on their site and like how it appear to address the psychological issues that go alongside obesity. I'm not looking to change anything until after Christmas (we'll be spending a full 8 days either on the road or in someone else's house, nightmare for sticking to your guns and that's before you add in my MILs obsession with beige food! 🤣)

How much is it after the free trial?
Does the free trial start right away, so better to look at it more in depth and a couple of weeks?
Is it aimed at people who can cook? I already cook my evening meals from scratch and I found SW really patronising with it's presumption that I ate ready meals and take aways every week.
Does it actually help you with feeling hungry? I eat because I'm hungry... all the time! When I get hungry I feel sick, dizzy and like I'm going to faint, not just ooh I feel a bit peckish 🤣
Also I really struggle to excercise, I hate getting hot and sweaty, could never do that out where people could see me, but don't have enough space to swing a cat in my flat (one compact 2 seat sofa only and even then it's a squeeze to open the front door! 🙄)

Basically do you think the psychological support enough to help me get over myself?! 🤣

MyFitnessPal to track, and eating in a slight calorie deficit (I'm talking 100-200 calories below your TDEE, not the generic 1200 calorie recommendation that mfp spouts out to everyone).

No foods off limits- just stick to the calories. I've had two children since the start of 2020 (v close age gap!) and weigh less now than I did at the start of pregnancy number 1.

Don't cut out anything you enjoy. Don't rely on exercise (unless you do a LOT of it). Just work out your TDEE and eat ever so slightly under it. You'll never feel hungry and the weight with slide off over time.

No worries, @BellaBella1984.

It is £10 a week and the programme I’m on is 12 weeks. The way I understand it, you pay your tenner a week from the start but if you change your mind within 2 weeks they’ll refund your money. So it is slightly cheeky to say that’s a free trial but it does give you the option of backing out without losing money if you think it isn’t for you.

I would say, yes, it does assume you can cook. The recipes they provide are not difficult but assume a base level of understanding. They focus more on the beginning on the types of nutrients you are eating - eg half veg, quarter protein and quarter complex carbs - as the basis for varied and tasty recipes.

On the psychological front, I’m still early on but get the sense that they cover a variety of things throughout the programme, from getting better sleep to meditation / stress management. It is all done through online reading and chat with the group, so it is not like the dedicated support you might get from e.g. a therapist, but it is a good way of starting to factor in the many lifestyle factors that are often ignored in weight management. I think it is a good start but incumbent on you putting the work in to understand your own personal challenges and thinking through ways to overcome them, if that makes sense.

Exercise hasn’t been part of things so far - although the app does sync to your phone’s step counter. I think they come on to exercise later, though, I sense more in the wider benefits activity brings to your mental well-being and health than just on weight loss.

I don't think anything works until you're head is in the right place.

I've lost 3 stones over the summer by just not eating unless I was hungry (so skip breakfast often, or lunch if I've had breakfast) and when I do eat just eat something healthy.. lean meat, veg, salad.

I used to drink too much and I've cut out alcohol and I also started walking. Like a pp c25k is too hard and I hated it so now I walk about 20 miles a week as fast as I can.

I feel so much better.

@Yazoop Thank you, that's really helpfull. Good to know about the cheeky "free trial", definitely worth waiting until I'm ready to start!