AIBU to think I can lose 4 stone without going to SW or WW?

[WhatshouldIdo123]

I am in a mess. Been comfort eating for 7 months in the midst of terrible personal events. Feel so so low about my weight. I am 53. I MUST fix this now as my health is at serious risk. On AD's. Very limited in what I can do exercise wise due to knee injury. Has anyone done this? Any positive stories to spur me on as right now it seems a mountain to climb.

The fundamental basis of losing weight is a calorie deficit.
It does not matter what type of diet you follow (although some of them are generally more whole and healthy) but it does not matter as long as your calories out exceed the calories consumed.

If you google it you can work out your general calorie need for you age, sex, activity level etc but if you don’t even want to do that then just say 1600 a day to start.

There is NO way to lose weight if you eat more calories than you burn. It is the law of thermodynamics. Use either an easy calorie counter like My Fitness Pal or a piece of
Paper and pen and write down every single
Thing you eat.

Doesn’t have to be cabbage soup for 6 months. You can eat a balance of all foods WITHIN YOUR CALORIES

That's not quite strictly true, @Grumpos. A calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie!

A calorie of carbohydrate will be a lot more damaging than a calorie of fat.

So it's important, when looking at your calorie consumption, to also consider the macronutrients as well.

Keep the carbs low and the protein and fat high, for best results.

You can do it without going to SW or WW. You can do:
5:2 diet
Cambridge diet (which GPs now support).
Any low carb diet will enable you to lose weight.

Not everyone wants to go to groups and have a weigh in. I hate anyone else knowing if I'm trying to lose weight. I don't need people questioning me about how it's going or watching in case I slip up. You can definitely do it home alone. Good luck.

I've been doing keto since the 11th of November and have lost half a stone and gone down a dress size. It's crazy the amount of fat I have visibly lost and without counting calories either.
I'm doing intermittent fasting naturally because I'm not hungry at all in the mornings so tend to eat my first meal around 1pm.
Check out Dr Ken Berry's youtube videos and BIWI on here is incredibly knowledgeable.

Also meant to say there's no need to go to slimming groups and spend a fortune. I hate that dynamic anyway, weigh ins and group chat.

Wow this is all inspirational!!!

Yes, what Bogrod said. Of course you can do it.

I’ve lost 2 stone since summer without WW or SW, and I have another 2 to go. Just need willpower.

Thank you so much for the advice and inspiring stories. The self loathing I feel has actually made me even more crap... an almost impossible spiral of decline to escape from

I lost a lot this year doing Rebelfit, liberal low carb, and a bit of intermittent fasting. Look up The Obesity Code too.

MFP and just eat within your calories. 5 stone in 5 months after baby 2 for me. I ate anything I wanted within my calorie allowance. No low carb or anything like that, no need as far as I'm concerned.

I would draw a comparison between fasting and running: they're always hardest when you start off. I now fast at least 1 day a week and it was rubbish the first few times (I basically spent several hours just thinking about food). Now, after a bit of grumbling, my stomach gives up and it's completely fine.

Take a look at the mas2fit app, there is a free trial. Lots of high quantity low calorie food so you don't ever feel hungry. Exercise is only 15 mins. Good luck!

I’m mid 40s and lost 5 stone in 8 months on SlimmingWorld this year and maintained for 4 months. Gone from a 18/20 to a 10/12. I personally couldn’t have done it without group. I enjoy going. I do it as a healthy eating plan, you don’t have to have muller lights and loads of pasta on SlimmingWorld.

You can do it without buying into the diet industry bollocks of WW and the like. I've lost 6st 12lbs since the start of June doing low carb and counting calories. I use the NutriCheck app and log literally everything I eat every day.

You could be feeling so much in just a few short months, you really can do it!

I’ve lost 3.5 stone this year doing the fast800. I’m as amazed as anyone that it worked. Only felt hungry for the first 3 days and then it was like a switch. Takes dedication but it’s improved my health no end and there was no real exercise involved.

The only way to lose and maintain weight is diet and exercise. I think SW & WW have their place, as others have said, there’s a community. I feel they don’t necessarily focus on health as opposed to weight loss and I don’t like the idea that you have to constantly pay in to be successful. Personally, I’ve found the best thing for losing weight is to try and eat only ‘whole foods’ during the week and relax at weekends, I don’t pig out but have cake/ wine/ fast food if I want it. This involves a lot of prep for me and I batch cook and freeze meals. It does make it so much easier to have healthy meals ready to heat up. When I say whole foods, I still use lots of tinned tomatoes etc. I try to think about how many processes my food has been through between being grown and when it arrived in my plate, limiting processed foods.

People have already recommended My Fitness Pal. I use that. Just started... Again. I have very bad food habits / relationships. But lost just under 6lbs in 10 days, so far.

I'd also recommend looking at the community section on there. I like reading the success stories. It's inspirational and encouraging.

I used LoseIt (a calorie counting app similar to my fitness pal, just crashed my ancient phone less!) and the DDP Yoga app. Six stone down in 18 months and maintaining now.

I've lost 4.5 stone in six months by calories counting. I've done weights and started running but it's 95% diet. I've eaten 1200 calories per day. Tracked via MFP. It doesn't matter what those calories are from a weight loss perspective but high protein will keep you filled up and if you want to snack and keep to 1200 per day, you're going to have to sacrifice nutrients which is a bad idea long term. So I choose a healthy balanced 1200 calories per day and not 4.5 mars bars!

Can I ask if your AD’s are sertraline?

@Wobblywibblywoo Im on trazodone.... just started. I have tried others and gained a lot of weight although I dont want to place all the blame on those.

Anyone else used Noom? I’m seriously considering it as I don’t do well with just Myfitpal

I lost 4 stones in 7 months by drastically reducing carbs, calorie control and cutting out chocolate, sweets, crisps etc. I didn’t do any formal exercise.

@partyhatsoff I use Noom - it's been fantastic for me. There's a FB group called the unofficial Noom weight loss support group or something, and I would really recommend joining that.

You can do a free 2 week trial to see if you like it, plus there are lots of discount codes out there for up to 80% off