What diets have you tried - worked and didn't

[WhatWillSantaBring]

Just curious - no judgement. For me:
Worked
Weight Watchers (age 22) - lost 2st in 9 months
WW (age 26) lost 1st in 4 months
Calorie Counting - weight loss resources set at 500cal a day deficit (age 30) lost 1.5st
Calorie Counting (my fitness pal) to (age 33) lost 2st in 6 months
Meal replacement/800 cals a day (age 41) lost 3st

Didn't work
WW (age 33 and again at age 39)
Calorie Counting (various attempts between age 38-41)
Davina McAll
14 Day fat busting diet
Total cleanse detox
Whole 30

Calorie counting has always worked best for me, but takes a while to get into the mindset and get used to just being hungry all the time.
Joe Wicks bodycoach program also worked well for me.

Low carb didn't work, boring and easy to eat too much. I lose a lot of bloat in a few days so useful before an event but that's it.

Low carb didn't work for me, I found it too restrictive. I was eating sausages and boiled eggs and refusing fresh new potatoes and carrots that had been dug up from the garden that day.
For me instead of dieting I concentrate on 3 nutrient rich meals, smaller portions, limited alcohol and at least 30 mins, usually an hour of rigorous exercise. I've lost a stone since February doing this without any pain.

What hasn’t worked: Weight Watchers, exercise, my fitness Pal, macros.
What has/is worked: A Programme called Metabolic Balance, combined with a very similar program called The Human Being Diet- there’s a book. It’s basically 5 hours between meals. No added sugar. All natural foods. It’s hard at the beginning but stops blood sugar rises and craving and I love it.

Surely if you’re asking then none of them really worked, not long term?

You’ll get people on here telling you xyz worked for them and they kept it off but those are the exceptions, not the norm. Many women are on and off the diet treadmill their whole life. Spending so much money and feeling miserable in the process.

If you’re not one of the exceptions (many of whom are happy to log everything they eat for the rest of their lives) then you need to teach yourself how to eat a sensible amount, find an exercise you enjoy and make sustainable healthy eating part of your day to day.

@Carrotcakey just being healthy doesn't work for losing the weight. I've never been overweight, never had a BMI over 25 so have never been that unhealthy. But I still have about 10-12 lbs I want to lose after a period of working 12 hr days every day and being very sedentary for the last year. At this weight, just eating healthy and being active doesn't work for me, I need to be in a real deficit to lose weight. So I need to resort to a diet...

And the point of diets is losing weight, maintenance is another different question

I tired everything - low fat, low calorie, cabbage soup, Beyoncé’s stupid cayenne pepper lemon water, weight watchers, slimming world, Rosemary Connelly, Whole 30. Nothing worked.

I lost 8 stone with keto 💁🏼‍♀️

maintenance is another different question

True. I kept my 8 stone loss off for 4 years so far using a combo of keto and carnivore.

Okay so diets can work short term. It is the maintenance that is the hard part but that is surely an indicator that the diet is actually part of the issue?

Of course a calorie deficit is important to lose weight but it is possible to do this without going on a diet as such if you understand the concepts of basic nutrition and do a decent amount of exercise. Eat lots of lean protein and veg, don’t eat many treats etc... The issue with this is it will likely take a lot longer. So if someone says you could lose that 10-12lbs over a year your unlikely to take that approach but if someone tells you can do it in 8 weeks by eating 1000 calls a day you will more likely do that, be miserable for the short period of time, enjoy the brief elation of being at your goal weight and then eat your way back up again.

I’m sorry but if diets did work long term then most of the women in the western world wouldn’t be on them pretty much permanently.

@Carrotcakey OP asked a question and asked for there to be no judgment. This is a forum for women trying to lose weight to help each other, not one for telling them they're all doing it wrong and they should have been healthy to begin with. And most women are not on a diet most of the time, that's bollocks.

I find the basic principle of 16:8 best for maintenance because I'm prone to mindless evening snacking.

Most effective for weight loss was the "go cold turkey on all your meds and inadvertently kill your appetite stone dead" diet. Lost five stone in four months. Not recommended.

@WhereamI88 am not judging anyone. I am telling people what my opinion is after a million years of dieting myself. And every diet under the sun.

And maybe it’s just the women I know but a shit load of them are on permanent diets (in between regaining the weight and then some). Why do you think the diet industry is a multi billion dollar industry? If people understood that diets weren’t a long term solution then a lot of rich people wouldn’t be quite so rich.

Slimming World is working fine for me, without attending classes so no cost. Really is just healthy eating, so should be easy to find a maintenance level when I've finished losing my 10st. Halfway there since March, aged 38.

Didn't work over last couple of years
Low carb (i live for carb. I am from carb nation...)
Fasting

Did work
Portion control through calorie counting. Who knew I didn't need 100g of edam on my already way over recommend size portion of pasta. My fat arse didn't.
Just ove 30kg down now. Not hungry, actually enjoying it! These are normal human portions so I am basically just le learning that I don't need 4 slices of bread and 2 cans of tuna for lunch....

First diet for me was slimming world in my late 30'a, I lost 4 stone and maintain it for many years. Then I broke my back and a stone came back on, couldn't get back into SW so have been using 5:2 since. Lost half the stone and been maintaining happily since up until lockdown. Now back on 5:2 and starting to lose again.

Slimming world if done properly. Three meals a day, third of the plate vegetables, and only snacking when I'm actually hungry.

None of this making a cheesecake out of quark that could feed the five thousand and eating it all to myself because it's "free".

Weight Watchers didn't work for me, was constantly starving. Couldn't stick to the Cambridge diet, diet pills made me feel nauseous all the time and "trying" to eat three meals a day didn't work. I now only eat when I'm hungry and I'm very mindful of what I do eat. I also took up weight training in July. I recently started walking more too. I still enjoy my few drinks and crisps at the weekend. Its working for me. I've lost 2.5 stone in 4 months.

@Carrotcakey

Surely if you’re asking then none of them really worked, not long term?

You’ll get people on here telling you xyz worked for them and they kept it off but those are the exceptions, not the norm. Many women are on and off the diet treadmill their whole life. Spending so much money and feeling miserable in the process.

If you’re not one of the exceptions (many of whom are happy to log everything they eat for the rest of their lives) then you need to teach yourself how to eat a sensible amount, find an exercise you enjoy and make sustainable healthy eating part of your day to day.

I think I was using "diet" in a very limited sense in the question, as in "eating a particular way with the aim of losing weight " rather than "eating a particular way". I know that losing weight is only quarter of the battle, and for me, clearly, maintaining that weight loss is a bigger issue. I don't think that you can teach yourself to eat a sustainable, healthy way to maintain your weight at a stable level if you are overweight (particularly if you are very overweight, as what you can eat and maintain at 15st is very different to what you can eat and maintain at 10st).

There is enough evidence to suggest that rapid weight loss is sustainable if you see it as a two stage process (i.e. don't go back to your old ways when you've lost the weight).

The ones that have worked for me are low GI (lost 2 stones) and calorie counting (lost 1 stone a couple of times). As for you OP, maintenance is an issue. I’m short and I love food...