Who has successfully lost weight and kept it off long term?

[Watchkeys]

I'm just curious. I'm a PT and am interested in what's worked for people. I have my own thoughts about weight loss, but it's good to hear actual stories about actual successes. Everyone I meet is at the beginning of their journey, rather than at the 'long term' part of 'keeping it off'.

Intermittent fasting works for me. I have got into a 16:8 lifestyle and find that I don't have time to eat too many calories if I stick to an eating window.

Me!

I was over 15 stone in my early 20s. I lost 5 stone over 20 years ago doing WW. I yo yo-ed up and down the same couple of stone for the next 10 years and was in the diet mentality/binge-restrict trap.

Once I had my children I was incredibly motivated to heal my relationship with food and my body.

I found exercise that I loved (weight lifting) and read a lot about breaking the cycle of restriction/binging.

For the past 8 years I've been a healthy weight consistently. I workout because I enjoy it not because I'm trying to change my body. Best of all, I feel free around food and I can model this to my children.

me, I wasn't that big but I am short so it was noticeable. Lost about 2.5 stone I think. Kept it off for 10 years.

First I reset my attitude to food by reading / listening to Marissa Peer's 'You can be thin' which really helped me think about what I was eating and when. I think most over eating / weight issue are emotional in origin.

Then I did paleo for a month and the weight fell off. Now I stay slim by exercise, a low carb, doing one meal a day. I am lucky that I don't like cake and choc but I do like a drink so that is my poison.

I credit the low carb, especially just NO bread, with reducing my asthma and generally boosting my immune system so I am never ill. Had covid twice, in the early days! And shrugged it off.

Great to hear success stories, thank you. Were you going hungry when you lost the weight? I'm on another dieting thread and people are seemingly starving hungry, and still not where they want to be. Seems unhealthy to me.

My mother lost over two stone in around 1985 at the age of about fifty by “going on a diet”. She cut out sweet stuff (her weakness) completely and ate smaller meals. She also started going to aerobics three times per week.

Once slim, she reintroduced sweet treats in moderation but kept up with the small meal portion size and the exercise classes - she loved those classes and they had became an enjoyable routine. She continued with the aerobics until she was in her early 70s at which point she bought an exercise bike and step machine for home use.

She lived to the age of 85 and was never overweight again. So, 35 years of being slim.

My mother dropped a couple of stone in her mid 20s and 40 years later she is maintaining

Do you know how she did it?

Love your Mum's story, @Trees6 - great that she found that her weight loss efforts a) worked and b) found her a new hobby!

I've had a big weight loss in the past, it's not the more recent one I'm referring to in my other threads, it happened when I was much younger. The thing was I was kind of addicted to sugary drinks like tea with sugar and fizzy drinks (pre-sugar tax). I used to eat healthily but wreck it all with sugary drinks and I was really, really big as a result. I think there's more awareness about sugary drinks these days so I don;t know if you will see people in the same situation, though.

I was slim until I had kids, then piled on 4 stone and kept it on for several years. I lost 3 stone fairly slowly I guess - over about 18 months. I wasn’t on any special diet but I ate less - smaller portions, fewer snacks - and cut out a lot of processed crap other than occasionally.

I didn’t do any exercise at if I’m honest, although I’ve always been a walker and easily do 10,000 steps a day.

I’ve kept it off for 10 years so far.

I

I started 16:8 intermittent fasting during covid lock down because I had put on weight and was almost as heavy as my hubby, im 164cm he is 182cm.

I lost 10 kg in a few months, and kept my weight around 60-61kg until now. I dont follow it as strictly as I used to but I do weigh myself every morning, if the number goes up continously for a few days, it gives me alarm and I will try to follow it more strictly in the next few days.

I dont exercise and during the 8 hours I eat whatever I feel like, so far, it works well for me, I cant do keto or any other diets, cant commit to sports either.

I also dont eat any fat reduced food, for me taste is very important. However, my sugar consumption is quite low. I dont have a sweet tooth like most British people do, in fact I cant stand most snacks here, way too sweet for me.

I lost 2 stone through calorie counting and walking in 2020 and have maintained but it's up and down and I think not freaking out about that is important to avoid giving up. I eat everything in moderation, I don't want to feel restricted. And volume eating is huge for me. I pad out all my meals with finely chopped vegetables for example. And I keep walking 5 miles twice a day.

My weight crept up very slowly during my 30s and 40s and I was a good three to four stone overweight on my 50th birthday. I'd never found any sort of physical activity that I enjoyed but my DDs persuaded me to take up running and I kick started my weight loss with Slimfast, which really worked for me. I initially lost two and a half stone and kept that off by regular running and healthier eating habits (only occasional sweet treats, smaller portions etc). Five or six years later I joined Weight watchers online and lost the last one and a half stone. I'm now in my 70s and if I do gain a couple of pounds over Christmas or on holiday etc I know what to do to shift it. I can't run any more but I love walking and usually cover about 40 mikes a week.

Meal replacement from 20stone to 11 and kept off with healthy eating and walking. Starting to feel like I need to introduce proper exercise.

@NutellaEllaElla What do you think you mostly had to cutback on when calorie counting?

going hungry when you lost the weight

The benefit of low carb for me is that it got me off the sugar rollercoaster which I had otherwise mistaken for hunger.

For many, that "desperately hungry got to eat" feeling is actually the coming down from high blood sugar.

The brain notices blood sugar dropping and interprets it as urgent need for more sugar, in response to which, the brain releases a flood of insulin, blood sugar drops and the rollercoaster continues in its precarious way.

Eating low carb stabilises blood sugar. Hunger becomes a whisper rather than that that overwhelming demand. If ignored, it comes back quietly, almost apologetically, it's a low gnawing rumble rather than the brains scream for sugar.

Game changer.

In combination with some help to untangle all the other, non food related reasons I had for eating, such as it's a mealtime, I might be hungry later on when there isn't anything suitable available to eat, boredom, loneliness, celebration, drowning sorrows, wanting to avoid uncomfortable feelings and, so importantly 'rebelling against restriction imposed on what when and how much I eat' just to prove I could overeat if I choose to do so.

Except it isn't really a free choice

Gillian Riley's approached helped me a lot with that non-food related aside of overeating https://www.eatinglessonline.comm*

I was 15 stone 10 at my heaviest, that was years ago, I'm now at a healthy BMI and have been for years.

I completely overhauled my diet and re-educated myself about nutrition and movement.

My PT really helped me a lot, she was life changing. She helped me learn about processed foods and what they do to us, how addictive they are and why. That was the turning point for me.

It didn't matter how much I tried calorie counting, fasting, and other fads, because the truth was that when I did eat, I was eating the wrong things for my body. I was addicted to processed wheat and sugar, basically, and I had no idea. I thought I was making healthy choices by buying things like Go Ahead bars and fruit for breakfast.

I also learned about my hormones and how they affect my body.

Weight loss is about so much more than going on a diet and I know the threads you mean where everyone is calorie counting and starving their bodies on 1000 calories a day, I find it really sad because it's not sustainable.

As soon as I stopped depriving my body and gave it good, nutritious food that it actually needed (including things like full fat milk and yoghurt, which was a bit scary but really helped!) my cravings and bingeing stopped, and the weight fell off. Combined with some strength training I felt amazing and still do :)

I lost three stone in a year or so and have kept it off for about five.

I love eating but I developed a love for cardio and that balances it out. As a minimum, I cycle a 20km round commute to work. I run and hike and bike long distances for fun. I have so much energy these days that I literally bounce about on my feet all day and rarely sit down.

I calorie counted to lose the weight, but I don’t count any more. Calorie counting gave me a good understanding of what foods fill me up and keep me full. I’ve learned that I like eating nutritious food as it fuels my body better for activity. I know sugar makes me feel shit and lethargic.

On weekdays, I try to stick to vegetables, proteins and wholegrains for the most part. So I’ll fill up on big main meals and try to avoid snacking too much. If I want the snack, I don’t weigh it, but I put some sweets or crisps in a bowl and put the packet back in the cupboard.

DH and I like being active together, so a lot of our social time is spent climbing hills and mountain biking. We eat quite a lot more at the weekends (meals out, takeaways, desserts) but almost always at the end of a whole day out being active.

Things that work for me are eating many many more vegetables and focusing on what my body can do rather than what it can't.

So I got stuck in a vicious cycle of being overweight, eating too much sugar, feeling physically drained and wanting to lose weight but not wanting to go back to the gym because I was too fat. I had this idea that I'd diet somehow and then when I'd lost some weight I would become more active.
Obviously that didn't work as I felt continually rubbish and hungry and had no willpower to just eat less. So I gave my head a wobble and just went to a martial arts class all fat and wobbly and actually everyone was lovely and nobody laughed and it was amazing!

After getting started, I found I didn't want to sabotage the effort I was putting in, so it was easier mentally. I also took the dietary approach of crowding out my diet with so much good food that there is little room for bad choices.

So focusing on positive actions (more exercise because it's fun and eat more variety and many more vegetables) rather than negative (burn calories to lose weight and don't eat this or that). This is a mindset that is sustainable for me as I'm focusing on my body being awesome - look at what I can do! - rather than being broken and needing fixing somehow.

I now have a much better relationship with food in that as a PP said, hunger is just "normal" hunger - a reminder rather than a panic inducing rage, and I am looking forward to trying new sports in my 50s to see what else my body is capable of

TL/DR - positively focusing on eating lots and lots of good stuff and finding sport that I really enjoy.

That thread is batshit @Watchkeys. There's some seriously messed up attitudes on mumsnet about food. The ozempic threads are a good example. I've just read that "real hunger" equals bad breath, nausea and feeling faint. I've got teenage girls and think it's important to demonstrate healthy habits and a balance in what we eat and the exercise we do.

@FinallyHere I agree about the attitude of hunger, and how it approaches us raging when we eat sugar, but quietly approaches when we don't. It's a fascinating hormonal thing, but I'm sure many dieters who have 'tried everything' simply don't get it.

It's not been one thing. I've been better informed so made better choices and can just ditch the things I don't care about, like drinks generally. I'm happy with water, I'd prefer to save those calories for something else. I've learned about when I can eat less and when I want to eat more so I plan my days around that. Volume eating is a game changer for me, I'm always bulking out meals with chopped veg.

I've given up sugar before and it's really unsustainable for me so, it's been a while since I've had a chocolate bar because you don't get much for your calories, but I've found better value sweet treats instead. I'll never give up dessert 😂