How did you lose your weight and how long did it take?

[Lastchancesaloon1]

I need to lose about 20 pounds, I'm 11 stone, about 5 ft 4 and just feel sluggish and clothes are not fitting anymore. Just want to see how people lost their weight and maybe I can see which method seems to be the most common.
I love junk food, pizza , cake etc and I have no willpower. Which is why I'm still carrying the extra weight despite trying to lose it for 3 years.

At the start by cutting out all added sugar, processed food and most carbs (for another reason than weight loss, I thought I might be sensitive to gluten). I was bigger than you, though, so as you have less to lose my method my not work for you.

Now I'm closer to my ideal weight I'm doing intermittent fasting. I am seeing results with it. There's a thread over on chat about it.

This is the thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4830731-intermittent-fasting-please-talk-to-me-about-it?reply=126997411

What have you tried so far that didn't work?

I waant seriously overweight but at the upper end of a 'normal' BMI. I lost 10 LB without even trying by committing to eating healthily. A book recommended by a friend proved to be a revelation: The Sugar Solution, by Dr Mark Hyman.

What I did - and it was so easy, I still can't believe it:

Intermittent fasting
No UPF and virtually no sugar (other than fruit)
2 meals a day, consisting of mostly lean protein (chicken, fish, eggs mostly) plus LOADS of vegetables/salad
Virtually no alcohol - not drinking calories

I also upped my exercise regime. 45-75 minutes a day - mostly weight bearing (Caroline Girvan) plus some cardio (Growingannanas HIIT). Working out with heavy weights/8-15 kg dumbbells was life-changing for me.

I'm in my late 60s and feeling better and fitter than twenty years ago.

Slimming world and exercising 5-6x a week.

Exercising consisted of weight training, hill walking & cycling and the odd spin class.

Took me about 2 years to get to a shape where I was totally happy. Went from a 18 to a 12 and was toned and confident.

Now 2 years later I'm pregnant with my second and gained it all back and then some 🤣 can't wait to start the journey again although the training might not be as much as before!

I lost 30kg (approx. 4stone 10ibs) between Oct 2020 and March 2021, so 6 months. Down from a size AU18 to an AU10 (I think UK sizes are the same).

I didn’t do any of the following: Calorie count, cut carbs, weigh food or excessively exercise. Doing these things in the past has NEVER worked. It’s unsustainable, puts too much pressure on and the idea of doing on a “diet” insinuates that it has an end date.
I don’t even own a bathroom scale. I just weigh myself when I happen to be at the doctors.

You genuinely have to change the entire way you think about food. Have reasons other than weight loss to fuel your goal: Being healthier, moving more easily, extending your life, being around for your kids etc..
Losing weight is unpredictable and has moments of plateaus. That’s okay. That’s the way it SHOULD work.

No one ever likes to hear this but it really, really is just lifestyle changes. Get aquatinted with appropriate portion sizes so it’s easy to eyeball (eg: a serving of cooked pasta is 1 cup).

Focusing on 3x portioned controlled meals per day with a balance of protein, carbs and fat - focus the bulk of the meal on vegetables. I limited snacking, but I never deprive myself. If I really want a McDonalds cheeseburger then I’m going to have it. I’m just not going to have it in a large meal with coke and I’m not going to have it every day. Or if it’s a friends birthday then I will absolutely be having a big slice of cake and a glass of wine!

I have kept all of this weight off since and not even had to stress about it. We rattle off plans and regimes like there’s some magic fix and honestly I cringe inside every time. I’ve started down that round countless times and driven myself to crazy obsessiveness. It’s not worth it. You don’t need it. I needed to learn how to eat normally and listen to the signals my body was giving me. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m not!

By working out my TDEE, reducing calories by 20% to find my daily calorie target, and then logging all my food & drink on My Fitness Pal.
3 stone off, and kept off for the last 4 years.

@rileyy that sounds amazing, congratulations.
It sounds like you did something similar to intuitive eating? So you actually didn't count calories, you just tweaked things a bit?

@waistchallenge thanks for the link to the thread. Can I ask what sort of intermittent fasting do you do? Is it 18:6? Do you also drink coffee with milk and have zero sugar drinks while fasting? I can't do fasting if I have to have just black coffee and water when I'm not fasting

@waistchallenge sorry meant to say fasting is really hard if I'm only allowed water and black coffee during it, I like to be able to have tea or coffee with low fat milk

@Outofthemoonlight congrats on losing the weight, I will definitely look up the book . I'm a sugar addict unfortunately. Don't think I could not have sugar

@CheckEngineLight that's brilliant , did you just use any TDEE calculator off Google?

Also did you still have carbs, chocolate etc as long as you counted it in your calories?

I am doing 20/4 but that's because I'm trying to lose the last bit before booking a tummy tuck operation. It's a bit extreme , I'd go for a different schedule if I were you.

I do allow myself a coffee with milk, but definitely no sugary drinks ever. And as someone pointed out on the thread, it's not true fasting as you don't get the benefits of ketosis etc.

Definitely no sugary drinks. Sugar is the enemy of good health, it is poison. In fact, if you're currently having sugar I'd say you don't need to follow any of the methods people have posted, just stop having it and you will probably lose weight. It's like giving up smoking, it will be tough and there will be cravings but once you're clear of that you'll be OK.

@waistchallenge oh that's great, well done on the weight loss.
Sugar is my drug and my absolute downfall. I've heard people say I need to give up sugar and go cold turkey. I bet the weight would drop off if I gave up sugar.
I've got so desperate that I bought a sugar blocker spray, you spray it on your tongue and it makes anything with sugar in it taste horrible . It blocks the sugar receptors on your taste buds.

Thank you! Yes essentially it ended up being that. I still check the calories on the back of packaged foods but not for the cal value but rather to compare if those calories are worth what I am actually getting nutritionally out of the food.

I think sometimes intuitive eating can be really difficult at the start when you don’t fully know or understand your own body’s hunger cues or what they may mean.
So I started off by backing off all snacks for a few weeks and really focusing on 3 main potion controlled meals (I would still have coffee and tea with a dash of skim milk throughout the day if I felt like it). It was actually amazing to discover that I very rarely needed snacks after all.

Meals don’t need to be boring you just have to get the balance right. For instance, if I was grocery shopping for dinner and made tacos from a kit, for guidance I would look at the back of the packet and stick to the portion size. So if it said 2x tacos are a portion - that is what I would eat. Anything I didn’t eat from that portion I would put in the fridge to eat later if I felt like it.

It is automatic for me now but you have to be patient with your body and give it time to catch up. Be even more patient with your mind!!! It’s the most important part! Be on your own side, eating better and losing weight is hard but it should not feel like a punishment ❤️

Do you think you could restrict sugar in some way without giving up totally? Maybe allowing yourself sugar on certain days only? 🤔

If you plan your meals around plant food and lean protein you will feel sated and not deprived.

Start the day with a mug of tea or coffee, with milk if this is your preference.
Have a 2 egg omelette with vegetables or a salad with boiled eggs or tuna or chicken at 11 am.
Some fruit and/or Greek yoghurt at 2 or 3 pm.
Evening meal of chicken or salmon (1/3) and lots of vegetables and/or salad (2/3) at 6 or 7 pm.
Herbal tea at some point before bedtime.

I panfry chicken breasts and boil eggs and keep them in the fridge. I also make a week's worth of salad dressing (lemon juice, white wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, EVOO + salt & pepper) at a time - so making a salad or a stir fry literally takes 5 minutes or so.

I always have herbs on hand to enhance the flavour and make the dish more interesting: parsley, basil, dill, coriander, mint.

Slimming World. I'm 5foot 5 and have dropped from 13 and a half stone to 10 and a half stone since Christmas. It's been easy - no calorie counting and I'm never hungry.

I have lost 10kg since February and body fat according to my scales has decreased by 6%. Honestly I have found it pretty easy. No calorie counting, I just cut out all ultra processed foods and cut down on starchy carbs and sugar. I don't crave food any more or get hunger pangs and eat 3 meals a day with no snacks.

Cut out:

All carbonated drinks including beer.
All bread and confectionary.
Eat x 3 meals a day - portion control.
Drink water to flush the fat out.

What do you think would happen if you couldn't get any? How long do you think you'd suffer for before you learned to live without it?

I went from 10stone 13 to 9stone 7 over 3 months- March to May.

I did calorie counting using an app to track my calories. Did very little additional exercise. I spend ages looking at very low calorie but high protein meals and that seems to have made a difference for me. I also spent time changing to almond milk from whol cows milk and finding low calorie snacks that I enjoy and get a treat from.

Lost about 10lbs in 2 or 3 months with 16:8 and cutting out junk/sugar. Sugar is very addictive for me, and I found it very easy once I was free of the cravings.

I lost 20lbs in two weeks. 3 day fast, then 4 days of eating fairly keto diet. Then another 3 day fast and then found my appetite and sugar cravings were reset and I've continued to eat more healthily since.

That's got to be a typo.

Nope. 10lbs each week. Total fasting with lifting weights to keep metabolism up for 3 days each week