Healthy weight loss instead of Awful diet advice

[Cluelessmouse]

Is it just me or is the diet advice here just awful.
every single thread someone’s suggesting a salad for lunch, like that’s going to make all the difference, or keep someone full after they’re used to eating well over their calorie allowance.
someone else suggests 800 or 1200 calories a day based on no other information than that is low or they’ve heard it before.
someone always tells the op to fast
often there’s a Cambridge diet ‘that definitely worked for me until I stopped and gained two stone back’ …so it didn’t work then.
there’s an op asking how many calories they’re allowed - but giving us no relevant info like their weight, height, activity level or diet
someone says ‘just drink water every time you feel hungry’ I would be peeing like a race horse!!!
and constantly there’s people failing at these awful diets or making themselves miserable or doing punishing diets like keto ‘that are ok after you stop having a headache’

no one ever seems to talk about how to eat lower calorie meals but still feel full. No one ever talks about the health aspects.
It’s all just how we can go through hell, to fit into a dress in 4 weeks, or go on holiday or whatever other goal we’ve left entirely too late.

i say all this as someone who also wants to lose weight, but I just find this board to be a fountain of misinformation and a lack of education on the body, nutrition and health. Which for me is really unsupportive and demotivating.

can we have a place to share healthy weight loss tips, how to eat nutritious filling meals that aren’t calorie dense, enjoyable ways to exercise, and generally healthy ways we may be trying to promote a healthy lifestyle instead of a gruelling punishment we must deserve for being chubby.

at the moment it all just reminds me of my mum doing a grapefruit diet or some other fad in the 90s and being miserable until she caved and ordered a takeaway.

You'll probably think I'm the same as all the others offering rubbish/faddy advice but I do swear by intermittent fasting, particularly 16/8. Ive now done it for about 5 years and it works!! I lost the weight I needed to and now maintain effortlessly. It's amazingly good for health (Google if you're interested - there are so many health benefits including reducing risk of cancer and early mortality). As for staying full it works for me. My appetite reduced significantly. I now eat what I want (no calorie counting or diet food) and really appreciate food. I am hungry by the time I break my fast but that's fine. The reason I continue with it despite having lost the weight is because I just feel so good! More energy, less lethargic etc. For staying full generally I tend to eat high protein and healthy fats. I do eat carbs too but smaller portions of carbs.

Hi @Cluelessmouse I am right there with you! I think a huge part of the problem is the vast amount of conflicting 'advice'.

My plan is...

1. Cut out refined sugar. (I've weaned down and am finally 2 days free! 😁)
2. Reduce processed food. (This is hard as this includes Quorn and flavoured yoghurts, but I think I can base enough meals on beans, tofu, and paneer to limit my Quorn intake to once or twice a week. I'll also need to give my head a good wobble to look at other things which I don't think of as processed.)
3. Cut out the artificial sweetener and look at where I can swap out high sugar fruit and veg for lower sugar ones. (This will be soooo hard! My snacks are currently apples and bananas, and I swear I put red peppers in almost every meal! 🤣)

I'm also really interested in the gut microbiome at the moment so have added in some kefir once a day.

My new mantra...

"Diets make you fat, do not give the diet industry any more of your money!"

@SallyWD if it works for you then great!
my issue is posters speaking as though its a fact that fasting is the best or only way to lose weight. Or even that it’s sustainable for most people. Or that the fasting itself is the reason it works. As though its a miracle cure - no you’re just consuming less calories because you eat less often! That’s fine too of course but it’s the misinformation.

I think cutting down on processed food and sugar are healthy choices.

I think drinking more water and eating more vegetables are healthy choices.

I think trying to exercise for around 30 minutes a day is a healthy choice.

And the carb police!

I’m doing a simple calorie deficit, calorie counting, eat everything, drink, exercise. As per the Fitness Chef or James Smith PT.

it’s a way of eating I’m in for the long term. I’m reducing my weight just now, when I’m happy I’ll maintain by increasing calories. I eat a lot of protein as it’s filling and good for muscle maintenance but anything goes, as long as within calorie and protein goals.

Also, I think to try and enjoy cooking. I know for many of us when we get home from work and are tired, we don't really feel like cooking, so it's easier to heat something up. But, making the effort to cook from scratch is such a healthy thing to do and not as much effort as all that.

OP you've now said:

...based on no other information than that is low or they’ve heard it before.

And:

As though its a miracle cure - no you’re just consuming less calories because you eat less often! That’s fine too of course but it’s the misinformation.

Fasting isn't just calorie deficit though, the benefits are more complex and include improved hormonal regulation of eating and metabolism. OP you’re dismissing approaches readily and in the absence of evidence which isn't any different to others supporting them (which you seem to be critical of).

I agree that there’s some very unhelpful advice on some of these threads, as well as a lot of competitive “hardship”.

For what it’s worth, I’ve lost 27 kg in a year by sticking to 1800 calories a day and eating mainly whole foods. I’ve had people tell me that there’s no way I could have lost all that weight on a high calorie and relatively high carb diet. Well, I did 🤷‍♀️

The reason why I managed to do that is because I’m neither average height, or moderately active. That’s where I think a lot of the advice on this site goes wrong. People either assume that others are exactly like them, or that they’re dealing with an “average person”.

I feel I’ve really found a way of eating that works for me. 1800 calories is a lot of food if you don’t eat too many “treats” and I rarely feel deprived. 15 months in I’m still losing, albeit it slowly. As I’m well in the healthy BMI range now that’s fine by me.

I thought a study was published recently that said that fasting wasn't effective for long term weight loss though.

Honestly, all the people I know who have lost weight long term have taken up some sort of exercise, running, cycling, gym, whatever. Yet, people say exercise isn't effective for weight loss.

I think there needs to be less people giving out extreme dieting and calorie advice and more people encouraging people to make healthier choices and be more active! The simplest way to lose weight.

A lot of the diet advice here states that there is little benefit to exercise as well. I don’t believe in endless cardio as that’s boring, but finding a good PT and getting into an exercise routine you enjoy is important.

Trying to eat healthier helps too, but quick weight loss is not healthy and fad diets just a way of making money. Any diet where you have to buy loads of new ingredients is t going to last, there’s a reason SW and WW keep people paying as it’s not sustainable.

@Baystard but I’m not.
it works for @SallyWD so great for her.
my issue is that posters announce it as the best possible or the only possible weight loss option. ‘You mustn’t eat past 8pm’ type advice. 8pm is arbitrary, and not universal advice. The advice is not informed, the op is not educated or helped really. a lot of the advice here is misinformed or misinterpreted, or becomes rules to live by, with no understanding of why.
Do whatever diet you like, I just want to live a healthier life, and post after post telling me to cut to 1200 calories or even 400 calories, that I must fast, that I must walk 10,000 steps a day, whatever it is, for me is demoralising and makes me lose faith in the advice of posters, because it appear to just be parroting punishing advice. Women remain uneducated on their own bodies.

thank you to the people who’ve posted what they’re trying.

Oh yes!
but why?!?!

most people can not explain why or how this is important, or in fact apparently key to weight loss
…is it because you love bread and pasta and now you can’t eat it? I suspect if you cut any food group you may lose some weight!!

This is what I’m trying at the moment
to enjoy cooking again, to take some time (which I’m lucky to have) to try different ingredients, to enjoy food again and see it for its nutrients instead of exclusively for its calories

I think there's some truth in that but I think it's more of a postive cycle effect - I find when I'm in a good place training or exercising regularly I make better food choices and consequently maintain my weight more easily.

Having spent a lot of time in Asia, where the diet is mostly rice based but people are really slim, I also don't see the harm in carbs. But, in many Asian countries, the Western Pattern Diet is on the increase and weights are rising. It's also why I can't get all outraged about bananas!

But, if you read about Western Pattern Diet, it tells you a lot about why people in the West have a real problem with obesity. It's not just weight, but a huge assortment of medical problems that go with it.

@TigerLilyTail I'm lucky in that I love cooking, but as there's only two of us putting the left overs in the freezer for a midweek ready meal is easy. The thought of having to make 8 portions of bolognese/chilli/stew/curry is a bit more daunting!

Planning and measuring have been key to reducing food waste, as well as helping with portion control.

I'm trying to do a bit more with my slow cooker to reduce energy costs, but I am so far from being an expert with that! I'm much more comfortable with hob meals. I seem to be adding too much water and cooking for too long so that vegetables are mush, I might actually have to look at some recipes instead of just winging it! 🤣

Exercise has also been shown to have positive effects on mental health too, which I think is also important. When you are depressed, it's really easy to get into eating slumps where you just eat a lot of crap for no reason.

Yes I totally agree. Just some encouragement, recipe ideas for some lovely meals, or ideas on how to not comfort eat 😂 or anything on a more holistic approach to health and wellness, encouragement on trying to change my lifestyle for the better would all be more helpful for me than being told to eat 1200 calories a day (Which I would starve on)

@CrimsonAlligator well done!

we’re all different, one calorie count, one diet won’t work for everyone, and a lot of it won’t work for many of us. So many of these ‘diets’ just aren’t sustainable and are miserable! And as I said so much of the advice is coming from posters who don’t know why they have to follow certain rules

again if you love fasting, if you love eating loads but running for miles and miles, if you love low carb then great! I’m not saying your diet is wrong.

Everyone thinks they are giving healthy advice though, OP. Different things work for different people.

The carb thing is often explained, though, rather than being an ill backed-up, ill educated piece of advice. Carbs are readily available for us to use as energy straight after we eat them. They contain very little in terms of nutrients. We release insulin when we eat them, which prevents us from burning our body fat, until the carbs we ate ran out. So, the less carbs we eat, the better chance we have of a) being better nourished and b) burning, and therefore losing, our body fat.

I'm not the carb police. I eat carbs. But we have a hell of a lot of carb available to us (unnaturally) and when our body is used to using it as fuel, it can be hard to get it to use something else (ie fat)

ideas on how to not comfort eat

Cutting down on carbs is an idea on how not to comfort eat. A good experiment you can do is to have a carby dinner tonight, and a carby breakfast tomorrow. See how you feel at lunch.

Then have a carb free dinner, and carb free breakfast next day, and compare how you feel at lunch then.

You'll understand within 48 hours what low carb does to food cravings. Not suggesting that anybody stops eating carbs, but definitely suggesting that we all learn about our bodies better, and what makes us do the things we do, especially the things we wish we didn't do.

My main tips are things I retained when I did slimming world 8 yearsago - I wasn't particularly into the slimming world model but certain things stuck with me. I don't have anything snack wise in the house, no biscuits, no cakes etc. If I eat something that's nice but not slimming like M&S tempura chicken- will eat around 600 calories worth(almost a pack) but eat it with rocket and tomatoes- whereas if I eat a lot of carb- spaghetti, etc - will eat it just with a very simple sauce, no cream, no meat. I also buy a lot of M&S under 500 calorie ready meals if trying to lose a bit and steam up cauliflower/broccoli etc to bulk it out- that way it still feels like a good meal but I know it's under650 calories. I will eat a whole packet of ham- plus a handful of grapes for lunch etc- no bread.

I told my PT that I could never be thin, and he pointed out that there were no fat people in concentration camps. Told me I could be whatever I wanted to be! It was a revelation.

Calorie deficit will work for everyone. How people go about it is up to them. I personally enjoy being able to eat anything, have wine, and bread, and pasta, and still lose weight.

@Watchkeys I think there is a misunderstanding in my posts
i understand the positives to cutting carbs
I understand the positives to fasting
or the positives to lean meats
fast weight loss on Cambridge
whatever the diet is there’s positives or people wouldn’t do it.
i understand they’re all rooted in some science too. I’m not asking for the diets to be explained, saying that I don’t understand why they’re suggested or that I can’t see any benefits at all to them.
the problem is many of the posters suggesting it do not know why.
non of these things are a magic cure to a stone off in a fortnight or whatever the op wants.
many of them are not sustainable
many of them do not take into consideration the reason we are currently fat (emotional eating, misunderstandings of diet and nutrition, financial and time pressures to name a few)
and many of them have massive downsides, health issues, or conflicting studies. Non of this is ever considered, the advice is often given as though is scientific fact and simple. Which I think leads posters to feel guilt and confusion when they can’t just do it.