Really need to lose a stone quickly

[bojosquiff]

How? Once I've got the first stone off I will try and find more sustainable ways to maintain and be generally healthier but honestly right now I hate myself and need to do something quickly. I'm 39, 5'7 and 12 stone. Size 14 although if I want to be comfortable it's sometimes a 16 now. This is the biggest I've been. I know if I get down to 11 stone I'll see enough of a difference to be happy and then can work on gradually losing the other stone I need to be really content.
I'm a greedy eater. Massive portions. Too many carbs. Associate food with comfort and reward so a takeaway and a bottle of wine at the weekend is my treat. But the alcohol is creeping into other days too.
Sedentary job which doesn't help. Any tips?

Threads like this are miserable. Faddy diets and UPF bores just adding to this mindset that food is the ‘enemy’.

Your height and weight doesn’t make you desperately unhealthy. You have to balance out what makes you happy and that doesn’t just mean a slimmer physique. Some days I eat much less, some days I’m in carb heaven. I don’t deny myself anything, I occasionally ask ‘do I need to eat this’ about a snack and I only have a few drinks on the weekend. I could lose at least a stone but it would mean missing out on other pleasures of life and it’s simply not worth it for a number on the scale or clothes labels.

The easy win would be to stop drinking wine, it’s just empty calories!

I would concur - plus, alcohol buggers your resolve.
I look bloody gorgeous after a few wines!!

For starters a SMALL plate! That will solve the portion size issue. Then no snacking other than salad bits (cucumber, carrot, tomato, lettuce, pepper).

Drink plenty of water (you'll feel full).

Do 15k steps a day.

If you're an evening snacker then go out for a walk instead.

Dont go straight to one of the fancy diets
Write down what you eat now and work out the calories. fat, fibre etc associated with it, weigh the portions you have, dont guess or estimate. A spreadsheet is useful for this, you will soon discover where all the bad stuff is and how much you are eating.
There are lots of web sites giving calories fibre etc for all foodstuffs/proprietory brands.
Then pick a sensible calories per day target, try around 1500 for starter. It may be a small reduction from what you on now but it soon adds up. The diets recommending 800 a day seems way too drastic to me.
A pound of body fat is approx 3500 calories, recommended intake for a woman is 2000, and 2500 for a man.

Good luck

I've actually felt this way for a while. My life is hard work at the moment. Work, young kids, no opportunity for a break or fun. So I use food and wine as a way to unwind and have some me time. And honestly I don't want to give it up. But I saw a photo of myself today and really didn't like what I saw. I've noticed my clothes getting tighter for a while and overall I just know I'd look and feel better about myself if I could get at least a stone off.

Threads like this are miserable. Faddy diets and UPF bores just adding to this mindset that food is the ‘enemy’.

A cording to the British Heart Foundation:
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/behind-the-headlines/ultra-processed-foods

Ultra processed: Ice cream, ham, sausages, crisps, mass-produced bread, some breakfast cereals, biscuits, carbonated drinks, fruit-flavoured yogurts, instant soups, and some alcoholic drinks including whisky, gin, and rum.
Why are ultra-processed foods bad for us?
Ultra-processed foods often contain high levels of saturated fat, salt and sugar and when we eat them, we leave less room in our diets for more nutritious foods

In addition to being loaded with sugar, saturated fat and salt, UPF contain a lot of industrially produced non-foods that have zero nutritional value. This results in 2 things:

• Because they are not nutritious, the body craves more and more food in an attempt to get the nutrition it needs.
• The high sugar, fat and salt content batters the taste buds; as a result, people can no longer appreciate the more subtle flavours of vegetables.

Combined, these factors result in a viscous cycle - forever chasing a state of satiety whilst consuming more and more crap UPF.

Given that many people now get a majority of their calories from UPF, I would not consider the idea of limiting them to be 'faddy'. It has been shown that cutting out added sugar is a key factor in stopping cravings for UPF.

Fast 800 is brilliant. The food is nice, healthy and plentiful

Another vote for Fast 800. It really isn't a fad diet, it has changed the way I eat. It's been great to as can make it work as part of what we eat. So will make a meal and just add extra bits for the children. Not had any bad carbs for 10 weeks, no sugar - the odd g&t. Lost 2 stone, 6 cm's off my legs and stomach. Sleeping better, no jumpy legs, no mid afternoon crash. Feeling so much better in myself and realised I was comfort eating and drinking - and really hated how I felt.

Do you think denying yourself the few things that are simply yours to enjoy in terms of food and drink will help with all the other parts of life right now? I’m not saying don’t make changes, but there has to be some acceptance that a changed body and diet is not untypical for someone in your situation. Look at some of the advice here, the intensity over calorie counting, being very precise about what you should and shouldn’t eat, just stop drinking - will that genuinely make life better for you? There has to be a balance between what you need and what you want because to lose a couple of stone when you’re not unhealthy in weight does mean being as obsessive about food as previous posters here are.

🥱

I agree. My motto is “don’t start anything you can’t continue for the rest of your life”. Keto, fast 800, grapefruit diet etc is all well and good but as soon as you are off, you pile the lbs back on.
Loosing weight is important for health but, for a lot of people it is just about moderating what they are already eating and fitting it within their lifestyle. Carbs aren’t the enemy, fats aren’t the enemy, sugar isn’t inherently dangerous for the vast majority of people, alcohol is OK in moderation. It is an easy win to make portions 25% smaller, it’s an easy win to go from 3 glasses of wine to 2 or walk extra 10 minutes at lunch. It will be miserable to never eat another slice of cake ever again.

Fast Keto 800.

I lost 19lbs my first 4 weeks.

I agree if you go back to pizza and icecream it will go back on but it opens your eyes to sugar and carbs and if you can control them you can maintain

I'd agree with this except to say that if you keep up with your electrolytes (I think 1200mg tablets of magnesium - not oxide) and 1 tsp of good quality salt - not table salt and not electrlyte tablets) will prevent keto flu.

Walking! I’m on maternity leave and doing so much walking and I’m already a stone down on my pre pregnancy weight.

Unfortunately the only thing that has help keto flu for me is practice, I now get a mild 12 hour headache on day 2 and that's more or less it. Very different from the first time over a decade ago.

i've been fasting for 16 hours a day every day just water. literally the weight melted off. i ate what i wanted within the 8 hour window but found i didn't want or need much.

honestly a game changer and my mind is so sharp and i feel so so well and energetic.

it feels like i've you get through the morning with no effort the weight goes. my period menopause belly went working two weeks and i have defined muscles

Low carb.

While exercise is great for many reasons, the amount of it you have to do to make even a small difference to your weight can be demoralising so don't put any reliance on exercise for weight loss.

I'm a greedy eater. Massive portions. Too many carbs. Associate food with comfort and reward so a takeaway and a bottle of wine at the weekend is my treat. But the alcohol is creeping into other days too.
Sedentary job which doesn't help. Any tips?

Surely you've answered your own question here?