If you have successfully lost weight how have you done it?

[Ihatejanuary78]

Not injections, I don’t qualify.
thank you

Calorie deficit. It is really just eating less calories than you use. I lost 4 stone in. Six months with no exercise. I ate pretty much what I wanted but I just stuck to my calories. No fad diets.

I stuck to 1700 calories, had three meals a day and snacks. I’m 45 with peri and 4 stone fell off. I’m now on 2100 and still have 3 meals a day. Typical day:
breakfast oat so simple with milk, coffee
lunch varies but mostly sandwiches
dinner protein like chicken, steak fish, potatoes and veg.
snacks are fruit, crisps, ice lollies, biscuits, chocolate but in moderation to fit my calorie goal.

Pretty much what I’m doing. Still got a stone to go but I’m fine if that takes a few months. What I’ve lost already is staying off. More protein stops me snacking.

Honestly, through bariatric surgery and weight loss injections.

All the insistence of 'eat less, move more', or 'calories in, calories out' is a fallacy for a lot of us. My default weight was 5 stone overweight. Diets just didn't work. I could (and have done repeatedly through my life) cut down to 400 or 500 calories a day, gym 4 or 5 times a week, and would only lose up to a stone. I was prediabetic and my GP diagnosed that I was in all likelihood insulin resistant.

Bariatric surgery, in addition to making your stomach smaller, causes a change in hormones temporarily which makes weight loss easier (my surgeon explained this). But a few years after I'd lost my excess weight this way, I had regained 12lbs. So went back to my surgeon and got weight loss injections. Contrary to popular opinion, they don't reduce my appetite much, BUT the element of them that is used for diabetes (I'm insulin resistant remember) has enabled me to lose the extra weight. I don't eat less (although I've always only really eaten a normal calorie intake for a woman of my age) but I slowly lost on average 1/2lb a week.

It isn't always this.

How long did you stick to Zoe for and what did it teach you that a CGM wouldn’t have? I ask because I was discussing Zoe with a couple of women who had found the monitoring really helpful but the whole programme too expensive.

It actually is unless you are defying science.

Calorie counted everything. I lost 5 stone in a year.

I stopped focusing on weight loss. Started exercising because I wanted to get strong/be able to run for half an hour. Changed my eating habits but from a health perspective not a weight loss one i.e. I will eat better because I want to reduce my chance of being unwell in later life/I want to eat new things. I didn't obsess over food. Healthy and sustainable weight loss does not happen over night... I noticed changes after about 6 months and now after 3 years there are definite changes to my body shape and to my fitness and general health. Generally people who lose huge amounts of weight in 6 months do not keep it off... new habits must be sustainable!

I am on the injections and previously prescribed WL pills from a private WL clinic. However, I've lost 3st by changing my way of eating (cravings/ food noise disappeared by the meds) and changed my shape by exercising. I love bread but now I have it once a day for breakfast/ lunch and I have 1 wholemeal seeded slice instead of 2-4 white slices. Generally don't have bread or potatoes after lunch.

My meals are normally
B: collagen coffee
L: homemade veg soup and bread or meat/ cheese salad sandwich.
D: flavoured fish/ meat and veg. Ie lemon salmon and green beans/ bbq chicken thighs and mixed veg/ Chinese pork steak and roasted broccoli/ smoked haddock with cauliflower cheese.

I don't deny myself anything, I'll have some pizza but I won't have a whole pizza to myself in one sitting. I try to eat real whole foods most of the time.

What’s collagen coffee?

Really? Well, I'm no exception. But a year and a half of dieting, 400 to 500 calories a day, lost 18lbs. Managed by my GP. Insulin resistance.

But I guess you know better than my GP who has kindly (kind because he could have just dismissed me as fat and lazy) supported me in my struggle to become a healthy weight.

Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98% of attempts to lose weight fail and that two thirds of dieters gain back more than they lost. In 1969, research showed that losing just 3 percent of your body weight resulted in a 17 percent slowdown in your metabolism – a body-wide starvation response that blasts you with hunger hormones and drops your internal temperature until you rise back to your highest weight.

Freshly brewed coffee with 2 tablespoons of collagen powder in it (can't taste it.)

Doing this at the moment hence the name. It's working well, just requires some discipline. I saw an analysis of diets - keto, low carb, intermittent fasting etc. They all worked and they worked for the exact same reason. Consuming fewer calories.

I lost 31lb in 18 weeks (at the age of 51).

• I cooked absolutely everything from scratch
• Reordered what I ate in a food diary to keep me accountable (you would be amazed how much those ‘little’ snacks add up)
• Stopped drinking alcohol (empty calories which lead to snacking)
• Started going to the gym 5 x per week (a mix of spinning & body pump resistance training)

To loose weight & keep it off you need to make significant changes.

Hi, how much were the initial costs? And do you have to continue paying monthly fees? Thanks x

The weight loss figures I have quoted are since early November. I plan to stick to it for the rest of my life because I am now eating what works well for my body.

I paid £300 for glucose monitoring for 2 weeks, a microbiome test (poo sample), blood fat reponse test, a year’s access to the app and their reporting. To do these tests they give you 2 meals, which obviously they know exactly what is in them and they measure your response to them. You then carry on eating normally and reporting what you are eating for up to 2 weeks.

Once all the reports are complete, you can look up any food in the app and see how good it is for your blood sugar, blood and gut health - and this is where it is brilliant because each person will have different scores. For example a banana is good for my gut health and blood fat but bad for my blood sugars and scores 38/100 and the commentary is ‘enjoy in moderation’ whereas for many people it will score something like 80 with the comment ‘enjoy freely’. Cherries and strawberries have scores in the high 70s. So I know now that cherries and strawberries suit my body better than bananas. I wouldn’t know all this if I just wore a blood sugar monitor.

in the first few weeks my grocery bills were high because I had to buy all sorts of store cupboard ingredients I had never used in the past but I’m using them regularly now and it is my new normal. Happy to continue with it as it has worked spectacularly well. I think now my food shopping is actually less because I’m eating so many vegetables and pulses.

Sorry to say I have lost and regained many times. Losing it is hard. But it's easier than maintenance for me.

Things that worked. Keto, Fast 800, Cambridge Diet, Slimfast, and now MJ.

Maintaining a calorie deficit. I really do believe that any diet will work if it puts you in a calorie deficit and you can stick to it. So it's about what works for you. I have found through trial and error that I do best when I have protein with every meal, skip breakfast sometimes and increase my fibre intake. That pushes me towards a lower (but not no) carb diet if I increase protein and hit my calorie target without having to think too much about it.

I more or less eat what I fancy; just in smaller quantities than before and have a list of easy lower calorie meals I know I will find satisfying. I love food and don't want to cut things out entirely but I have found I am not missing sweet things as much as I thought.

I have more or less cut out alcohol - maybe a glass of wine a week now.

I'm losing about 1.5lbs a week - I have a long way to go but this feels sustainable and much less joyless than previous attempts.

That is dieting, what you're describing is weight loss dieting

Why do people try to pretend the word 'diet' means something that it doesnt

Generally in this country we use diet in two ways. Diet is what you eat, no more no less
The second way we use it is to refer to the difference in what we're eating compared to what we need calorie wise, in order to lose weight. Thats what a weight loss diet is, it doesnt matter what or how you do it, whether you pay attention to the numbers or whether you just make 'lifestyle changes' which results in fewer calories going in or more calories going out, it is weight loss dieting.

OP what you need to ask is how people successfully lost weight and kept it off over 5 years ago

That is the benchmark I think that studies look at. Most posters here are referring to current or recent weight loss.

I had surgery 2 years ago, I got to target and am maintaining but wont consider a 'success' until at least 5 years. Its still hard work, no tool or method is foolproof or will 'fix' us and it continually takes concentration and focus and work to maintain whatever you're doing to ensure you dont consume more calories than you need

I think it was £300 for a year’s access for the app and all the initial testing and reporting. It’s good value to be honest.

Zero carb. Weight melted off me

I lost over 3 stone in 6 months in 2018. Low carb, portion control (calorie counting) intermittent fasting. And weight bearing exercises. Kept it off 2 years, yo-yoed half way up back down 2 years. Stopped paying attention and put all back on in 2024. (Still exercise)

I've yo-yoed in weight ever since I was 20 but this was easily my most successful weight loss. I think research shows that putting all weight (often more) back on 3 - 5 yes after diet is usual.

I'm 56 and think it's a bargain I can make. I'm on weight loss injections I intend to get weight down and give myself 5 years of more active living. See where I'm at at 60.

I’ve successfully lost weight twice on keto. Unfortunately I haven't succeeded in keeping it off though because the second I go back to a carb the weight piles back on. I can’t live permanently without a carb so keto, though very successful, is not sustainable for me long term.

It’s annoying because I don’t drink alcohol or eat chips or pasties or that type of food. I like Asian food so eat mostly rice and noodles type carbs. I like chocolate but don’t eat it everyday. I eat far less now than I did as a slim twenty something but my body is very unforgiving nowadays.