to think eat less, move more isn't as simple as it sounds

[starshaker]

People say to lose weight you need to use more calories than you eat. This is obvious. However metabolism plays a big part too. How do you know how much calories you actually burn so you can work out how many to eat? Ive never been slim and yes, i probably need to exercise more but i have so much other stuff going on that getting the chance to isnt that simple.

So AIBU in thinking that its not as simple as what people say

This is roughly my philosophy/method. Works me for. Might also work for some others who are struggling to lose fat?

• Look at yourself naked, to make sure that you ARE too fat/need to lose weight. (Cos kgs/BMI not the always best measure.)
• If you think that you ARE too fat, weigh yourself naked & check that weight each morning, to see which way you are heading.
• Learn to feel good about being (a bit) hungry each day, cos that means (there's a good chance) you are using some of the calories stored as fat (which is what you want to happen)
• Walk as far as you can/as fast each day, as this is a good/easy way to burn cals.
• Eat 'proper'/good food ie mostly unprocessed. (Just less than usual.)
• Avoid most "diet" foods!
• If you must have something sugary (eg cola, chewing gum) opt for a sugar-free version if possible. (Ideally you shd avoid all sugary crap & artificial sweeteners.)
• When hungry, just about everything tastes so much better than when not hungry eg plain veggies with a small amount of oil or butter can be delicious. So you will probably learn to enjoy/love simple/healthier foods which maybe didn't appeal as much before, when you were getting more daily calories?
• Oils like butter/olive oil/soya oil are fine to consume in reasonably large quantities, (esp in winter as they keep the body warm), as long as you are losing weight. (Otherwise, cut back on these more.)
• Go easy on cheese. (But a little bit is fine.)
• Plain yog/fruit = good as dessert.
• Wholefoods/extra fibre = good, so I sometimes add bran to salads/yog etc.

I find it easier to eat one large meal per day ... so I have mine in the evening. I like to have something to look forward to, (all day), and then I can enjoy it and go to bed feeling nicely satisfied.

• Most people have to feel hungry at some point in the day in order to lose weight/stay thin. Accept this.
• It isn't a big problem to feel hungry, as you will get used to eating less and then you will eventually feel less hungry. (The opp is also true ie if you are used to eating bfast/lunch/elevenses at certain times, you miss these a lot, and if you have been over-eating in the past, you will feel hungry and unhappy even if you are now eating the correct amount. Hence morbidly obese people feel very hungry all the time, when in fact they could easily go for weeks on very little food/just water?)
• It's OK, (if otherwise healthy), to feel/experience hungry. In fact it's good for you. (See the all research/results for IM - "intermittent fasting".)
• Some problems can be improved by fasting (eg type 2 diabetes) but obviously if you have some medical problems you need to be careful/check with a doctor before you make diet changes.
• I think it is easier to control your calorie intake if you have stick to ONE (biggish/main) meal, rather than lots of smaller ones. So save all your hunger for one meal?
• If I eat bfast/lunch, I tend to feel hungry/tired afterwards, whereas I usually feel fully alert and happy with just coffee/tea & milk until supper time.
• Do drink thru the day, even if you don't eat. (Water, tea/coffee etc. Avoid juices/fizzy stuff.)
• Semi-skimmed milk's fine for tea/coffee. (It helps stave off hunger.) But avoid using too much milk per drink (eg 100% milky coffee) and avoid sugar/cream.
• Use limited fresh fruit for snacks, if you need to, or a boiled egg, or small amount of nuts, or small piece of cheese. (Not roasted/salted kind of nuts.)
• Eat slowly and with a lot of pleasure when you have your main meal. This enjoyment will helps you to feel motivated to (semi) fast another 24 hrs till the next meal, & improves your mood. (Important as depression makes some people over-eat.)
• No need to weigh/measure food. Or eat 'special' foods. Just eat as well as you can reasonable afford & things you enjoy. (The scales will tell you if you are still eating too much.)
• No need to spend a lot of money. Cheap veg (of any kind) and salads are great. (I love baked potatoes with baked beans & tinned tuna salad ...2 separate meals.)
• If your weight is NOT going down after a few days, then you are probably still eating too much. (So eat less.)
• Once you DO see weight going down, you will have probably understood what works, so continue doing it.
• When the weight is NOT going down, you do need to eat less, to re-start the weight loss.
• Obviously, don't get carried away to the point of anorexia, but there are lot more people in the UK who are damaging their health and happiness by being over-fat than there are those in danger of anorexia. So embrace intermittent hunger & get rid of any excess fat. Try to be alert for any signs that could be getting too obsessed, to the point of heading towards anorexia.
• Mild exercise is really good (eg walking/stairs) but extreme exercise can be counter-productive. (Can makes you more hungry and/or make you feel more entitled to eat something calorific!)
• Keep using a full-length mirror to let you know when you have reached where you want to be. Then maintain that weight ... by using bathroom scales regularly and visual checks.
• In my case, if my weight goes up by a few kgs, I tend to try to eat less until I am back down at my ideal weight.
• When I 'free eat' (eg on hols) I often gain weight as I relax & I might be eating more than usual, as other people usually have 2 meals a day rather than one like me. This is fine. I am not obsessive. I just cut back immediately after the hols. But it's good not to go over-board on hols as it might undo a lot of self control which you need to stay slim.
• Make staying slim a way of life. (No crash diets ... just find where out how much you can eat and stick with that for life.)
• Accept you might not be able to eat the same things/amounts as some other people if you want to be/stay slim.

Hope my thoughts/experiences can help someone. (But there are many ways to successfully lose weight I am sure! So each to his/her own!)

I've found the most effective thing is to think in terms of body composition and not weight. A thin person can have little muscle mass and too much visceral fat around their internal organs, which can cause insulin resistance and diabetes etc. They may appear to be slim, but they aren't healthy.

On the other hand, if you chuck out the scales and concentrate on building lean muscle mass and losing fat, you will be much fitter. You will also beb more toned and shapely and will look much better. You do this with resistance training and high intensity interval training, there's no point in mucking about with jogging and the like!

This will crank your metabolism right up and you can eat more of what you fancy, without gaining weight. Within reason, of course.

Jeez riceburner I was with you until about half way down when you said only have one meal a day. That's seems a bit extrem. I'm not against IM, but the 5/2 way seems more reasonable than only having one meal a day. That would have to be one hell of a meal to contain enough calories to fuel you properly!

One meal a day is VERY common on a worldwide basis
but
I tend to have one small and one medium meal a day (and of couse just the one small one on fast days)

Yes, in places where poverty and malnutrition are also very common.

That criticism of Rebecca Adlington's diet is actually quite funny in parts.

Who knew that a cheese, tomato, and ham sandwich could lead to "fuzzy thinking"? Now I understand DH better

I hate diets, I have just completed a week of average 550 cals and I have lost one pound. I have been to the gym every soddiing day bar Sunday and have completed 4 gruelling walks. Bah!!!!

Really Pessary? On 550 cals a day (unless you've been advised by a medical professional) I'd think your metabolism would slow down to a stop, especially if you're exercising as well. Double that at least and give it a couple more weeks, then you should see results.

Worra, of course people have always had hormones - what they haven't had is tonnes & tonnes of cheap sugars & refined carbohydrate to eat.

There was research done about the Pima Indians early twentieth century to try and understand how they had gone from being a healthy, lean population to very unhealthy & fat. Turned out that once they had all been herded into a reservation and could no longer hunt to nourish themselves, they also started to receive government rations of flour, sugar, coffee & some tinned foods. All of a sudden they got fat & malnourished, even though alot of them were involved in hard manual labour.

The point here is that our bodies were never designed to cope with the level of sugars & carbohydrates that we ingest nowadays. Our bodies have developed over hundreds and thousands of years & for the majority of that period we ate animals/fish and fruits, seeds, grains, leaves & tubers etc when they were available - which would have been for fairly short periods of the year. The most nourishing source of food was from animals & fish.

So, that is what our digestion & hormones have had hundreds of thousands of years to learn to cope with. It is only in the last 1000 years that modern agriculture & farming has really taken off & it is only in the last 100 years that industrial farming has become available, making wheat & sugar as cheap as they now are. If you look at statistics the consumption of sugars, high fructose corn syrup & wheat based products has trebled or more in that period!

This is why we create the hormonal disorder that leads to over storing fat. We chuck out bucket loads of insulin to try and keep our blood sugar stable every time we eat all these sugars & carbs & insulin is the primary fat storing hormone/chemical in the body - so - we get fat!!!

Hi itsaboatjack,

• I prefer to eat well (have a good amount & feel full) once a day rather than to have several mini-meals where I feel only half-satisifed
• obviously, what I eat (even if only 1 meal a day) is quite enough for me as I feel/look fine/healthy.
• people have been brainwashed into thinking 3 meals a day is 'normal', but I don't think it has been normal throughout our (long) evolution process?
• a lot of people are shocked when I say I only eat (properly) once a day in the evening
• I reckon that we just need enough calories to keep us going, and number of meals is irrelevant
• calorie intake can be averaged out per day or even per week?
• if someone is very physically active (sports or work) they probably will need to feed more often than once a day
• I do eat bfast or lunch if on a hiking hol or something like that where I am using more energy than usual
• most people eat too much/wrong sort of food hence they have weight/fat issues
• we shouldn't measure our eating compared to what other people are doing, as each of us needs a different amount of food. And some of us need/like different types of foods.
• I wish people would try not to see one meal a day as weird? (For many people it is fine as a strategy.)
• if I ate 3 times a day, (while not being very physically active), I think I would not be able to happily keep slim. (I am 55.)
• I find eating once a day (ie saving up my calories to the end of the day) really works for me (after many years of struggling), so might work for others? Maybe cos I am a night person/not a morning person?
• I think it doesn't matter how many times a day you eat as long as total is OK.
• for me, each "eating event" (ie meal) is a temptation to over-eat, hence waiting till evening to eat means there's only one event to control.
• one (good) meal a day means I feel I deserve my meal and I really enjoy it.
• enjoyment when you eat I feel is quite important, otherwise you will feel deprived/unhappy and this can make self-control harder
• I can eat anything I like in the evenings but I generally choose healthy things
• I never feel deprived
• I enjoy the feeling of (almost) real hunger before I eat
• I hate meeting people "for lunch" if they will badger me to eat (with them) for social reasons, even if I am not hungry
• hardly anyone in the UK (including me) knows what "real hunger" feels like? (We generally only ever feel "peckish"?)
• eating when it's not necessary is why most of us are fat?
• like smoking and drinking, I think we should each be free to decide when and what to eat, ie not have to eat for social reasons/not to offend or make others feel awkward

-some foods are quite addictive (eg crisps, choc, fresh bread?) so better avoided

• I have fruit or a small portion of protein as a day-time snack (if needed) which at least is good for the body

-drinking tea/coffee (with milk) throughout the day definitely helps to stave off hunger until my meal time.

Has anyone else ever tried this way of eating/getting and staying slim & healthy?

For me, this way of eating has just evolved. It works well for me, so I have just stuck with it.

I know that one meal a day might sound harsh or controversial, so I am wary of telling people in RL! (They generally think I am very hard on myself, but it's honestly just the easiest way for me.)

Maybe one meal a day can work for others as well as it works for me? (Might not work for "morning" people, or people who are very physically active.)

The key question is "do you want to feel full/satisfied" once a day, (and a bit hungry the rest of the day), or "can you live with never feeling full/satisfed" in order to eat more often/avoid feeling a bit hungry during the day?

I stuck to 1200-1300 cals this week, ran about after the kids, walked the dog, walked to school and ive put on 1lb. Im seriously pissed off

Hi starshaker,

• maybe you are under-estimating the calories?
• have you tried increasing your fibre?
• don't give up!
• just eat a bit less each day, until the weight loss begins?

Best of luck!

starshaker walking isn't a great way of losing weight. It sounds as though you need a much more vigorous work-out.

Do you have/can you get a Wii Fit? It's a great way to exercise and a lot of fun too.

starshaker - don't starve yourself any further - head over to the low carb threads & you can lose weight & still eat plenty of food.

If im under estimating the calories then i cant see how i can do it any differently since i weigh everything.

Maybe my only option is to just stop eating anything since i am eating what i know is healthy but its not working.

Exercise! Seriously, it sounds as though you need to stop viewing simply walking as a way to lose weight.

I'd reduce the portions, make sure your drinks aren't high in calories (most alcoholic drinks are, change to water, tea and coffee with small amounts of fruit juice.). Walking doesn't burn many calories, it burns more than sitting down but not as much as many other forms and some dogs are very dithery and you'd be faster without them.
If you exercise enough and eat little enough you will lose weight but I agree with others that you have to get used to feeling a bit hungry initially.

How long have you been on the diet for?
Have you lost weight already, and you've stopped, or did you never lose?
And are you actually overweight?!

Might be worth having a look at the eat more weigh less thread

Change what sort of things you are eating?
Are you feeling quite hungry b4 you sit down to eat?
Increase your fibre!
Eat real food/lots of veg.
Avoid bfast cereals - porridge or a boiled egg better if you (must) have bfast.
Lots of tea and/or coffee to help you avoid snacks!

I can see RiceBurner's point. When not bfing (eating more at every meal atm else I feel faint) I eat a small light breakfast (like fruit and yogurt), a small light lunch (this one is often a sandwich or some salad and cheese) and a dinner which is bigger than the two of them put together. So I only have one "meal" and two "large snacks" as well as all the other snacks I scoff when not thinking.

Hi, It is really that simple I have lost 5 stone in the last 18 months by doing exactly that. I excercises for 30mins 5 times a week and I have smaller portions of food, I still eat the unhealthy stuff I just eat a lot less of it :-).

One thing I would say though is to not be fixated on weight alone, as you are exercising more you end up increasing muscle mass, and as muscle weighs more than fat you may not see much of a difference in weight, however you will notice a difference in the mirror. Also the more muscle you gain the more calories you actually burn whilst resting :-), I also found if I had something to eat when I got up (even just a smoothie) it actually made me start to feel hungry throughout the day so it did kick start my metabolism.

I dont drink alcohol, im 7 stone over weight, my dog is not dithery. Hes a cocker spaniel who is crazy. I am trying to eat lots of veg like in soups. Since last week i now cut out breakfast. U used to snack a lot and now i dont snack at all. I dont drink coffee or tea anymore. Ive even started just eating soup for the last few days.

I have been on this diet for 3 weeks now and have put on 1lb

To me a crazy dog is a dithery dog as it sounds as though it will dart off in all directions and not just go for a brisk long walk, in the direction you want to go in for at least 30 minutes.

What do you drink, if no tea/coffee? Just water?

i drink water mostly, sometimes fresh fruit juice but mostly water. My dog gets off lead once we are at the castle. Thats 2 miles walk and he is very eager to get there