But what did you really do to lose weight?

daross16

Aemely wrote: »

azulvioleta6 wrote: »

daross16 wrote: »

insearchofcheese wrote: »

Let's see. 73 lbs in the last 10 months. For me I pre-log a week in advance, although I do make slight tweaks and changes as the week progresses. I exercise 6 days a week at minimum. This includes 3-4 days per week of kickboxing (real kickboxing with gloves and bags) and 2-3 days of weight training. I currently average about 1500-1600 calories per day. I am about 25 lbs away from goal. The most important things I've done to be successful are, not putting myself on a timeline and taking a break to maintain. I take a break every 12 weeks and work on eating at maintenance for no more than two weeks. I do this for the mental break it gives me and also to practice for when I do finally hit maintenance. Because I've managed to do this, I have a lot of confidence that I won't return to old habits when I reach goal.

Ooh. If I didn't have to sell my soul to get a gym membership, I would do kickboxing. Sounds fun.

Um...what?

Planet Fitness is $10/month. There are lots of options out there if you want to find them.

Here is the deep, dark secret that nobody will tell you: stop making excuses, stop being silly, do the work and MOVE your body.

Lots of smallish or rural towns don't have a affordable private club options (if they have any at all!), but YMCA or a local university might be available?

I actually live in a pretty dense city, just a really really really really really really really really really really really expensive city. Planet fitness is like an hour bus ride.

daross16

KickboxDiva wrote: »

There is no ONE answer. I've spent a lifetime chasing that miracle answer. I've lost a lot of fat and put on pounds of muscle in 2 years. (After being a lifetime dieter) There are 3 main componets to successful fatloss. Input/Output/Rest. The ratio will be different for each person and will not stay the same as your body changes. If you ate 2500 calories a day eating any type of food and your weight was staying the same then 2500 is your Maintenace calorie input. If you burned 250 calories a day by working out and shaved off 250 calories a day on your input you'd lose about a pound a week. But soon your body, being the miracle machine it is, adapts and what you are doing is the new normal and you maintain at that. So then you shave off another 250 calories and work out to 500 calories. The scale moves again and after a while your body adapts. This can go on a while until you get to an input/output ratio that is no longer sustainable. Too low calories, too much output = stress, hormonal imbalance, disturbed sleep ect. So the trick it to keep the diet in short period; Like 8-12 weeks with a planned time to slowly reverse and build back to a higher maintencne calorie level. The PROBLEM is that most diets go all or nothing. People go from 2500 calorie lifestyle right to 1200 with lots of output. They lose at first but once the metabolism down regulates and the low calorie/ high optput becomes the bodys maintenance point is right about when people get frustrated and either stay at that level wondering why they aren't losing any more or give up. The bad news now is that the body sees that new calorie level and activity level as maintenance and if they go cold turkey off that lifestyle then they are prime for a huge rebound gain. Not to mention if they dieted alone or dieted with cardio only and didn't lift weights and support muscle with proper food then a lot of that scale weight lost was muscle. Resulting in faster rebound gains and a person wondering if they are doomed to always be a yo you dieter and over fat. I've studied this every day for nearly 2 years now and at 44 years old I sure wish I had known it earlier. All the diet plans, and magazines are selling diets and no one tells you the truth but that's it. That said- I need to know exactly what I am eating to control that "wave" of calories and I weigh and track everything using a digital food scale and try to limit eating out and alcohol. I use guidelines for macros, not just calories and lift weights about an hour 4 times per week. (keeping my heart rate up to a high level by different methods like cardio moves inbetween) and I wear a fitbit HR and try to hit 10K steps minimum on non workout days. I run but not much, a few miles once per week for heart health or as a warm up a mile. I cook at home as much as possible and frequently "meal prep" for days in advance so I have something acceptable to eat in a hurry. Hope you find the answer that works for you earlier than I did!

THIS is a different , yet scientific answer. Thanks! In conclusion, I'm going to morph into a cat because it seems less complicated than being human. Lol.

AdrianChr92

daross16 wrote: »

This is best answered by women because men tend to lose weight differently.

Ha. Just eat less

daross16

azulvioleta6 wrote: »

Aemely wrote: »

azulvioleta6 wrote: »

daross16 wrote: »

insearchofcheese wrote: »

Let's see. 73 lbs in the last 10 months. For me I pre-log a

Um...what?

Planet Fitness is $10/month. There are lots of options out there if you want to find them.

Here is the deep, dark secret that nobody will tell you: stop making excuses, stop being silly, do the work and MOVE your body.

Lots of smallish or rural towns don't have a affordable private club options (if they have any at all!), but YMCA or a local university might be available?

Sure...but the OP is in San Francisco and appears to be college-aged. I would guess that she probably has about 20 options for affordable gym access.

It costs like $4000 for a 2 bedroom apartment here. Grapes are $5 a pound. They charge you for plastic bags at the store. My roommate had a gym membership only because her mom would pay for it. Same girl has like two Michael Kors bags.
I wish I had that kind of money.

daross16

AdrianChr92 wrote: »

daross16 wrote: »

This is best answered by women because men tend to lose weight differently.

Ha. Just eat less

You know. I've never had success with just eating less unless I'm like deathly sick and I can't swallow anything anyways. So glad everyone can just eat less and be in good shape
But I need to move around a lot. And one of my favorite things to do is sit in the dark with all the blinds closed and play video games and complain. But I'm forcing myself to walk around outside, go down to the gym, wall places instead of take the bus.

samgamgee

The last ten months has been an interesting time. I've lost 20 lbs slowly but surely (half way to 120 lbs goal), and this is what has been working for me:

- weighing and logging food. There will be the odd takeaway which is difficult to quantify, but day in day out I weigh everything down to the ketchup on my plate and the milk in my tea.
- I am least hungry and therefore most consistent (and active!) when I have my calories set to lose about 0.5 per week. I can do 1 lb a week but I'm less capable of coping with life!
- not eating breakfast. I've never been a breakfast person and for me the calories are just not worth it.
- eating a small afternoon snack, a huge dinner, and a small evening snack. I'm hungriest around the end of the day and love big dinners so it makes sense for me to survive on coffee and tea til 4pm hits! I always get hungry at night no matter what, so need to save a couple hundred calories for snacking around 10pm or I will be miserable.
- snacking on cheese or meat keeps me a lot more satisfied than carby stuff.
- to start with I was doing half an hour on the exercise bike most days to earn more calories, then I got my fitbit and made the effort to get my steps in, often walking around the house at night like a lunatic. Buying my treadmill was one of the best things I've ever done, and it's prompted me to start Couch to 5 K. Running hasn't particularly influenced my weight loss so far but my body does feel stronger, fitter and more toned, and I just love it.
- Friday night is takeaway night! To start off with my partner & I had 'fat Friday' which would be a proper cheat day and we'd still lose as we were bigger, but now it's changed to just one excessive meal, possibly eating to maintenance. If I go over my calories with it a tad it's not the end of the world but you can get quite a lot of stuffed crust pizza and cheesy chips down you for 1850 calories! It cuts into my deficit a bit but it keeps me sane for the rest of the week.
- working out extra to earn my alcohol calories. I have been known to walk on the treadmill in front of a film on telly, glass of wine in hand! I have also made the switch from red wine as my normal choice to sparkling wine as I enjoy it just as much and it has fewer calories.
- I only eat what I love. Last night I sniffed a box of chocolate covered fudge and decided that a piece wasn't worth it, I'd rather have two Jacob's Cream Crackers for the same calorie amount.

That's basically it - I intend to do the same to lose this last 20 lbs this year and then continue beyond that eating this way but to maintenance for the foreseeable future after that. I think I've found a way of eating which is sustainable for my lifestyle, and am looking forward to being able to run a decent distance most days after I finish C25K.

carleyl1

Ate less counted the calories I did consume and kept to the goal also started to change the type of food and kept to a regular eating pattern making sure I ate 3 times a day stopped me snacking on rubbish was a lifestyle change not a fad and over 3 years on haven't looked back x