How did you lose a stone?

[Allatsea1980s]

Just that really. I don’t need to lose loads of weight, but am upper end of healthy bmi, just felt better when I was a bit slimmer. Early 40s, not going to have any more children.
I just feel a bit…bleurgh. Clothes don’t fit quite as well, stomach is a bit podgy, feel my face is a bit fatter.
I have looked at joining a gym but so expensive and to be honest with two small children not sure I really have the time. I quite like running and walking. Yoga and swimming are ok.
I do realise there are far more important and concerning things going on in the world. But in an effort to try and ignore them I’d just like a few tips to try and follow, for vanity’s sake!

I noticed when using the Nutracheck app that a lot of my calories were coming from high calorie foods.. I.e not a lot of food!! Made some simple swaps that meant I could eat more and cut out alcohol entirely. I've got a very sedentary life due to arthritis that stops me moving around much so worked out my calories from that. Eat around 1400 a day (but some days this will be 1200, some days 1600. I tend to average over a week!).

So far steady loss and just hit a stone. Soup maker is helping a whole bunch! I also upped my water intake massively. Mostly because I was always so terrible at it. Turns out, if I drink enough I'm not actually as hungry!

Example for me was that I'd have two pitta breads and some hummus and pepper as a little mid afternoon snack if dinner was going to be late. Turns out that's actually more calories than I'd usually have for dinner itself! Meanwhile I thought it was a fairly low calorie choice. (Evidently I had zero knowledge about this stuff before I started...).

It's literally this.
Be calorie deficit of whatever is your maintenance.

I’m 43. Lost a stone last year over a couple of months. Went from 11 stone 11 to 10 stone 7. (Currently about 10 stone 10). I am 5foot 8 so like you wasn’t hugely overweight but didn’t feel great at all

I did (heavy) weightlifting 3x per week, under the supervision of coaches at a small group training gym. It was expensive but I learnt a lot so an investment. I learnt to properly deadlift , bench press, squat etc etc

I also walked everywhere (15-20k steps per day)

Didn’t need to massively cut calories but I hugely cleaned up my diet, ditched most UPFs, massively cut back on sugar, ditched most alcohol. Still ate bread, pasta, pizza etc!

You have pretty much described me! In my case I am totally incapable of cutting out / reducing sugar/food intake in general so it makes it really tricky.

So it is a bit drastic but I signed up for a half marathon! It forces me to get some training in and by just adding one long run a week I seem to be losing the podge without eating any less. First time in 4 years (when DD was born) that I feel happy with how I look.

1200 calories a day and walking for an hour a day.

Widely hated on MN...but Slimming World was a amazing for me. Lost a stone in 9 weeks. (And kept it off)

I walked more, a lot more.
Drank less wine
Calorie intake no more than 1200.

I lost a stone relatively easily by just cutting out the shit. Like stopping Random wine, chocolate on the sofa, big creamy bowls of pasta. Had soup, usually home made like lentil soup for lunch.

it was easy. But now still got a stone to go and that last one is much much harder. I resent the idea of calorie counting but it looks like the way to go.

Weight watchers!
I find logging food and keeping within my 'points' very motivating. It also makes you look at certain foods in a very different light, it stops you thinking 'oh stuff it, how bad can it be!' - you can see how bad it is😆
Of course I still cheat, I had takeaway pizza for tea last night but I will stay within my points today rather than just mindlessly eating whatever I fancy.

The long term solution at 40+ is you have to start lifting weights. Heavy weights. That's what changes your body composition. Yes a small but sustainable calorie deficit and increasing your cardio will contribute, but until you start to lift weights consistently, your weight is likely to yo-yo.

16:8 - took a couple of months but I’ve kept it off and I don’t find it hard at all.

After seeing it mentioned here I just started Diet Chef. I'll report back on how well it works....

I can have 1595 calories a day and lost loads of weigh.

I tracked every single thing every day and am 5months in - have lost 12ish lbs so far

also strength train at least 3 days a week at the gym - getting super strong as well so feels amazing :)

Stopped drinking alcohol.
Started exercising seriously - lifting heavy things three times a week.
I need to work on my sugar addiction though. It takes me out of my deficit and I could do to lose another stone.

Agree with this. I've fallen off the wagon and put on a stone in the last six months but it always drops off quickly when I don't eat crap

I did this too. I’m afraid you can’t outrun a bad diet. Look into volume eating if you felt hungry before. I bulk out all my meals with veg and have large portions for low calories. And agree with others that the more processed a food is, the higher calories and lower satiating it generally will be.

Soup is a good idea what about dinner ideas when you have the rest of the family to consider too?
I strength train but am nearing 50 and it’s getting harder to lose the weight.

I agree, I switched to 100% real food and low sugar and the weight fell off. When I tracked calories once out of interest I was eating around 1800 a day and never felt hungry or that I needed to deprive myself. After a while my taste buds adapted so real food tasted really amazing. Win win.

I never eat UPF and have just recently taken nuts out of my diet to lose a few lbs. In reality though, real food is main solution as it’s hard to over eat - except nuts maybe 😁

I lost a stone fairly quickly on Michael Moseley's blood sugar diet, a month or so. But I had about 2.5 stone to lose. The first stone came off easily and I've got the last half to come off.

I normally cook from scratch so it wasn't UPF, I was just eating too much of the nice things!

I just started cooking from scratch so I knew exactly what was in my food and got a walking pad. I hate gyms but found it easy to get in the routine of using the walking pad every morning and evening.

I simultaneously started exercising more aiming for 10K steps a day, cut out all or most of my excess snacks, started logging food in myfitness pal (the free version). I was motivated by some social events I was going to and I weighed myself regularly. But I had a lot to loose.

I could have written your op, I put on just over a stone with DC1 and it's still there. My BMI before kids was always around 22 and now it's 25.4. I've just lost 3lbs in the last couple of weeks purely by cutting out junk food and eating more fruit etc. I feel a lot less hungry and am having fewer sugar cravings too, so it does seem to be true what everyone is saying about upf. When I've used my fitness pal / 1200 calories in the past I've done it by skipping breakfast. 600 calories for lunch and dinner is two reasonably sized meals so feels more manageable. I also find I can get away with an extra banana or handfull of nuts or similar in between too.

Cut out sugar, chocolate, butter, snacks switched to skimmed milk.