Those who have lost/are losing weight - please list your top ten tips

[motomoto]

most important first

1. Eat less
2. Move more

That's all you need.

1. Lots of exercise
2. No snacks
3. Plan healthy meals - and stick to them.
4. Limit potatoes / pasta / rice to 1 portion a week
5. Reduce portion size (use smaller plate if necessary)
6. Drink a glass of water 10 mins before you eat anything
7. Cut down on alcohol
8. Drink only water or low calorie drinks
9. Swap any red meat for chicken/fish (i.e. use turkey mince instead of beef mince)

10. Only weigh yourself once a week.

calories in < calories out

Re: Number 4 - what do you eat the other 4 nights???

1. Stop dieting and denying yourself food.
2. Eat breakfast.
3. Drink first - you might just be thirsty not hungry.
4. Be aware of eating when bored and stop doing it.
5. Cut down on the alcohol.
6. That's all.

1. Exercise
2. Eat healthily
3. Do not diet
4. Do not weigh yourself
5. Drink plenty of fluids
6. Treat yourself along the way for doing such a good job
7. Exercise
8. Eat healthily
9. Do not diet

10. Do not weigh yourself

A few things that have worked for me.. long term planning keeps off the pounds and you gradually get used to a new way of eating...

1. Cut down on sugar in your tea/coffee - over a year this will knock off a few pounds.
2. Only buy SMALL portions of the food you like but add on the pounds. It doesn´t matter that the family size bag of crisps is cheaper. You´ll pay the price on yopur hips!
3. Eat a healthy stodgy food like porridge everyday. You don´t have so much room for the junk food.
4. Decide how much junk food you want to eat in a week and WRITE down each time you have a portion. Cut down gradually, make it achievable. You might want to start with biscuits, then move on to chocolate etc.

Port... loads of veg, lean meat, fish.

Sorry I meant one portion of EACH per week, so thats only 4 nights without pasta/rice/pots.

oops, sorry that last post was directed at Portblacksandresidents question.... wasnt recommending port as a dietary measure !

amis .

Actually you can fit my entire 1-10 into the most important all encompassing point. Adapting to a way of life that is healthy, consistent and manageable. There's feck all point restricting your diet, exercising like a loon and weighing like an obsessive just to let it all go once you've reached an arbitrary number on the scales.

Lots of water
No packet meals
Limit carbs
Walk more
Have sex!

And setting yourself up to miss and crave certain foods is foolish.

Local Tesco has had a poster designing comp for primary schools, design a healthy living poster I think. All the posters are 'don't eat chips you'll get fat' and 'crisps are bad for you' and 'only eat fruit or veg' with lots of pictures of 'bad' foods next to 'good foods'. They're setting up a weird, unsustainable and and foolhardy dichotomy there.

I'm going to write a book. 'Food Is Not Evil, Diets Are Not The Answer, Little Colour-Coded Diet Wheels On Supermaket Produce Do Not Tell You Anything, You Can Do This and You Can Sustain It.' Page one: Eat healthily, moderate and exercise frequently. The bloody end.

It's more of a pamphlet really.

Quick, RedDeadFail, patent that idea, .

ignore advice to cut out healthy food such as potatoes & rice. it is a simple equation of calories in and calories out (thanks sorryi doknowyou). If you are breastfeeding you have to understand your body will want to hold on to fat, that's evolution for you. Go do some exercise and above all don't be too hard on yourself. this is all advice my ObGyn gave me when i asked him why i couldn't lose the rest of my baby weight.

I agree with portion control - I hate denying myself stuff but I found at 5'3 I was out eating my husband at every meal time and he is 6'1.

So here's my top 10 in no particular order:

1. portion control
2. make enough food for just that meal - so there are never any leftovers to have seconds.
3. snacking on nuts
4. exercise
5. drinking hot tea after a stodgy meal
6. yogurt if I fancy something sweet (I have a terrible sweet tooth)
7. not picking at the kids leftovers
8. limiting alcohol to just the weekend
9. set small goals

10. give your self a pat on the back over the smallest achievement

I would say 9. is my most important - I had my last baby in Oct 08, I weighed in at 80kilos my first goal was to lose 1/2 a kilo each week. Then it was to reach 75kilos, then 70, then 65 etc etc - I have gone down from a size 16 bottom to a size 10 since March. The doctor says I still have 10kilos to lose!

Good Luck.

Weightwatchers is working for me. I am an online member so it is really convenient. I log everything I eat and I can keep track wherever I am. Exercise is really important, and resisting alcohol (tricky one, that!).

Also, I love chocolate (who doesn't) but I now avoid the milk chocolate junk and have some good quality dark chocolate in the house at all times. Nice cup of coffee and couple of squares really hit the spot without wrecking the diet. I know coffee doesn't help, but there really isn't any point denying yourself completely, otherwise you are doomed to fail.

A healthy lifestyle to maintain your weight is great advice, but if you want to lose, you have to be focused - at least I do! I have managed to 'maintain' my weight for years with a fairly healthy lifestyle. Trouble is, since having children, I am maintaining more weight that I would like!

Good luck!

I have lost about 2 and a half stone since January:

1. Joined the gym (go 3 times a week)
2. Walk everywhere
3. Cut down on alcohol
4. NO snacks
5. Potion control (weighing rice, pasta etc)
6. Breakfast everyday (porridge is the best)
7. Herbal tea and water to drink
8. Get up and walk around at work
9. Get on scales only once a month

10. Look at calories and on packets

I've lost a stone and a bit oin the last couple of months. Here's how I did it:

1. Exercise
2. Exercise
3. Exercise
4. Exercise
5. Exercise
6. Exercise
7. Exercise
8. Exercise
9. Exercise

10. Exercise

After not appreciating my body before children, I now certainly appreciate the body that I used to have!

Exercise is the answer.

FULL STOP.

As much as I would like to loose a stone - if I actually was doing Davina DVD rather than mumsnetting that would help!

this is so helpful. I need to lose three stone and just don't know where to start - it seems too big a task, scuse the pun

I've lost over 3st on weightwatchers since the end of March and I think my top tip is that I don't deny myself anything
I have a little of what I fancy and I work it into my points for the day.

I also seek out low fat versions of foods I used to gorge on and I bulk out my meals with veg, I try to have at least 3 different types of steamed veg with my meals.

I have breakfast everyday and a little snackbar at around 10am, then a little snack at around 3/4pm which I find really helpful.

I'm cooking so much more now and I'm so much more aware of what I'm putting into my body and the results are obvious.

oh and I walk everywhere these days too.

sorry that wasn't in a numerical format lol