Your diet history.

lemurcat12

RidaKhalifeh wrote: »

What types of diets have you tried in order to lose weight/fat?

None, really.

I lost weight years ago just by making healthier choices, starting to cook for myself most of the time, and watching portions. Oh, and most importantly, by getting active again.

I regained some years later (stress, depression, stopped being active, but still mostly eating a pretty good diet and cooking at home mostly, just eating too much for my activity level). This time, I did do a paleo thing briefly to see if I would feel any better (and because I don't care about most foods with grains that much, so I figured it might be an easy way for me to address mindless eating) and found it was not difficult and I enjoyed how I was eating, but a bit of a pain, I missed dairy, and I couldn't see why legumes or whole grains were something I should cut out of my diet so I decided it was silly and went back to my old way of eating, but exercising more mindfulness about choices. The main change is I mostly don't snack.

Oh, and I got active again.

I think the reason losing weight has been pretty easy for me both times I did it, and maintenance was easy so long as I was active, is because I never got into the yo-yoing frame of mind or experienced dieting as a super unpleasant or restrictive thing. I've always thought I should like how I'm eating and eat in a way that I want to for a lifetime.

williams969

Just MFP. Well, I actually used a similar calorie counting website for the first two weeks, but same premise. Create a sensible weight loss goal. Eat according to the goal. Repeat.

kgirlhart

I lost about 40 pounds 20 years ago by doing low fat. I ate as many carbs as I wanted and measured all my food so even though I wasn't specifically counting the calories, I did eat in a calorie deficit. I gained that weight back after I became pregnant and I quit counting fats. That was also before they really started to differentiate between saturated fat and non-saturated fats so I was limiting all my fats. It did work well for me and I wasn't really hungry doing it, but I always felt deprived. CICO is working much better for me. It is easier to count calories now with the mfp app. I didn't have a smartphone 20 years ago. lol I didn't exercise at all back then, except I was a stay at home mom with a toddler. Now I work in an office and sit on my butt all day long so I have started exercising this time. It gives me a few extra calories a day and I feel better being more active. I was more active in my 20's than in my 40's but I am trying to change that. I've lost 26 pounds so far and my goal is 60 so I'm about halfway there. I think I'll be more successful this time. I did pretty much eat what I wanted last time if it fit my fat goals, but it was too hard fitting cheese and avocados and things like that in so I usually skipped them and ended up feeling deprived. Now I eat whatever I want that fits my calorie goals and it is much easier and I don't feel deprived all the time.
This time I don't really feel like I'm dieting at all. I'm just paying attention to what I eat and trying to be more active.

Sredster

Oh jeez. I'm not sure I can even remember them all over the pas 10 years. Lets see...

• Personal Trainer before school in the AM.
• Personal Trainer after school in the PM.
• Atkins diet
• Vegan diet
• Vegetarian diet
• Pescetarian diet
• Joining a sports team
• Starvation
• Throwing up

I know there is more. Now I am on a eat in moderation every couple of hours to meet my calorie goal. And do 60 minutes of cardio 5 times a week.

Need2Exerc1se

Eat less and/or exercise more. It's worked every time, which is many times.

Sabine_Stroehm

I've only tried once. I lost, and have kept it off 14 years. I try to eat nutrient dense, high fiber foods, and limit my heavily refined, nutrient poor carbs. It made it easy to lose, and I believe it's helped me keep the weight off, along with being pretty active.

Clobern80

Low Carb dieting lost me 150 pounds about 5, but the only reason it worked was because of CI/CO.

chaoticdreams

I've been fat my whole life so......

1. as a stupid teen, I tried starvation. Made it three days then ate all the things
2. bean and rice low fat diet, pretty much says it, beans and rice. Made it a month, lost 10 lbs, refused to eat beans for a long time after
3. cabbage soup diet Yuck
4. grapefruit diet, yeah and no
5. did the whole phen phen thing, didn't work, glad I'm still alive
6. slimfast, yuck
7. Atkins back when it first became trendy again late 90's, worked, really liked it, then went to college. Can't afford steak on a cheap pizza budget and mom and dad were no longer footing the bills so yeah, that ended
8. WW's during points plus, really liked it, worked extremely well, got to the lowest size I'd ever been in my adult life, lost 65 lbs in 4 months (my workout schedule was insane though and I was a little obsessed)
9. Some kind of weird drink thing a coworker was selling, was gross, tore my stomach up, and yuck Did lose 10 lbs that was promptly regained
10. Good old fashioned CICO here on MFP - works great, easy to stick too, lost 30 lbs in three 1/2 months

Currently doing keto on Dr.'s recommendations for type 2 diabetes and some other issues, but it's all CICO at the end of the day. I still count calories and keep my bacon binges to a minimum. I'm now down a total of 58 lbs. Got a ways to go, but I'll get there.

There isn't an instant fix. I learned that the hard way. I'd be skinny by now if life and stupidity hadn't interfered.

sunfastrose

Lost 50 pounds using Weight Watchers; have maintained 95% of that loss for over 15 years. Currently doing CICO to get back to 100% loss. 1.2 pounds away from goal.

melonaulait

• Weightwatchers when I was 16, lost 40-50lbs so it definitely works (gained back + more)
• started my pescetarian diet right around that age too, was happy with it for 8+ years (no help with weight loss though)
• now vegan and losing weight with CICO (-30lbs so far and not looking back)

Pandawdy

Tried nutrisystem a few times. Lost 40 pounds the first time. It gets old after a while but it works.

Asher_Ethan

Oh goodness where to start.

2003 - low carb for a month for Cheerleader pictures in college. Lost 10 pounds, gained it back after pictures.
2004 - took every single diet pill imaginable. Lost 10 pounds. Put it back on as soon as I stopped taking the pills.
2006 - very low calorie diet (probably 1000 a day) because a weight requirement was placed for college cheerleaders at my school. I'm 5'9" and I had the same weight requirement as the 5'1" cheerleaders. It was stupid. Lost 30 pounds, gained 60 because I got pregnant a year later.
2009 - weight watchers - pretty much starved on that. Lost 10 pounds.
2009 - paleo - lost 40 pounds put on 30 when I started eatingnormal again.
2012 - military diet - lost 7 pounds in a week, put it back on the week after.
2014 - paleo again lost 15
Jan 2015 - whole30 gained 5 pounds.
Feb 2015 started MFP and been on it ever since. I will do this forever.

ZombieSlayer

Only ever done calorie counting + more movement.

starwhisperer6

Nothing ever with any seriousness. I have used meal replacement shakes but find that while I enjoy them as a drink I want a meal with them (that doesn't work fyi) I was at my very happiest weight/size when I was obsessive working out. But I was a stay at home military mom at the time with access to lots of free gyms and lots of spare time. Now I work two jobs as a single mom so I can't be doing all that. I am back to that weight just counting calories and trying to make sure I walk a lot at work.

duddysdad

Did Atkins in the 90s, lost weight then gained it all back. Did WW in 2007, lost weight, gained it back. MFP last year, lost weight, haven't gained any back so far (a little holiday weight, it's gone).

ElizabethOakes2

For serious fitness and weight loss?
Singer/Dancer in College: boiled chicken breast, apples and carrots and No-Salt Triscuits.
Not recommended. I struggled to keep my weight at 120 or less, because "Only the skinny girls got leads". Then I realized as long as I was only 5'4", I was never going to get a lead, and stopped dancing and started eating real food. Best. Decision. Ever.

10 years and a failed relationship later:
Calories in/Calories out and added a daily run/walk in addition to managing a busy bookstore. Best thing ever.

Hypothyroid Diet: Doctor puts me on levothyroxine and tries to 'adjust my thyroid levels through diet'- It was big at the time, but has since been debunked.
1000 calories a day, only fruit until noon, protein for lunch, light dinner with no more than 2 grams of protein, a glass of soy milk at bedtime. This was how I discovered I can't digest soy. Two weeks of throwing up in the middle of the night, and I'd lost the thyroid weight, but no one should ever try that. Went off stupid diet.

Currently? Calories in/Calories Out, added exercise, Working beautifully. I'm almost as fit as I was before my back surgery.

'Confession Time:
I'm an author and I've been working on a book comparing health fads of today with health fads of the early late 1800s/early 1900's. Entirely in the name of research, I have:

Been a breatharian for... about two days. Stupidest idea ever. Breatharians who I talked to on this journey told me I wasn't having enough faith in my body. I'm okay with that.
Vegan: Tried for 2 two week periods, about a year apart. After a week, I felt sick and weak, partially because I can't eat soy or coconut, which are two of the staples in a vegan diet.
Vegetarian: Lasted a month before I felt sick and tired and a blood test showed my iron was dangerously low despite eating black beans and spinach every day.
Paleo: One Month. Trying to make paleo food gets expensive and it really didn't seem to make any difference in my weight, health, or well being.
The Jello Diet: You can eat anything as long as it's in jello. Yeah. That was... disgusting. Seriously, Tuna Jello is a thing. Who knew?
3 Day Cleanse: Yup that's a lot of poo.
Garcinia Cambogia/Green Coffee Bean: Not losing weight, but too caffeinated to care! WOOOHOO!
Atkins: I felt fat and bloated and sick. And I really desperately wanted an apple.
Raw Food: This was actually okay, but I really started to miss real properly cooked meat. I'm not a huge fan of sushi and it was hard to get all my protein this way.
The Werewolf Diet: You fast during the full moon. (Did it mostly so that when friends asked me why I wasn't eating, I could say I was a werewolf).
Soup Diet: This was a historical thing, Ladies would only drink broth for nutrition. After a week, even making my own broths from scratch, I needed real food.
Byron's Vinegar & Water Diet: Same as the 3 Day Cleanse, really. Anemia was a great look in the Victorian era, apparently...
Hydrotherapy: Ice water bath twice a day is supposed to 'induce a winsome figure and give you a perfect complexion'. It gave me goosebumps. And a cold.
Kellog's Corn: Kellog, of cornflake fame, actually ran a health spa where he encouraged a vegetarian diet. The hardest part of following his "New Dietetics" plan was giving up tea and coffee. (Especially after the green coffee bean diet). Apparently, you're also supposed to be abstinent from sex on this diet. Soooo not happening...
Corset: I actually LIKE wearing a corset once in a while. Not gonna do it more often than a couple hours once a week or so, though. I like my ribs and my guts where they belong, but I can see where wearing it until your body reshapes and you have no abdominal muscles left would make you a perfect, thin, fainting anemic Victorian lady.

Historical fads I have refused to try in the name of research include drinking radium (Because radiation makes your skin bright and your waist thin, and gives you radiation poisoning), swallowing a tapeworm (because OMIGOD GROSS!), arsenic in the tea, sulfur water twice a day, and Lizzie Hazzard's Tomato Broth diet (up there with breatharianism, I think...)
Research is ongoing, but the more I study historical health and weight loss fads and trends, the more I discover that there really isn't that much difference between the health fads of then and now. People want quick fixes and even the craziest insane suggestions get picked up and tried.

amusedmonkey

@ElizabethOakes2 That's really interesting! I'm glad you haven't decided to try "urine therapy" for weight loss (yes that's a real thing that has been once suggested to me)

elaineamj

@ElizabethOakes2 I totally want to read your book when it comes out! Completely fascinating stuff. Impressive that you actually tried so many of these "diets" in the name of research!

alohajls

@ElizabethOakes2 Interesting and fascinating project indeed! Whenever I hear about Atkins-type diets, I think of my grandmother who, when she was very young (probably 1940/50s), would go on the 'Steak and Eggs Diet' where she ate only (you guessed it) steak and eggs for weeks on end to lose weight!

glassyo

Some diet when I was a teen that all I can remember were the Mother's oatmeal cookies I was allowed to eat.

Jenny Craig - it more or less worked but I SWEAR one week I ate a cookie that wasn't on plan and gained.

Weight Watchers - I lost most of my weight on that, hit a plateau, put 30 lbs back on after changing up some things (like no more weight watchers since they changed the point system anyway, counting calories on a different website, drinking water, watching sodium - neither of those were the culprit)

Read about MFP in a Hungry Girl newsletter and decided to count calories over here instead of the other place for some reason. Also bought a fitbit and a bodybug (it seemed the bodybug wayyyyyy overestimated my calories burned so I paid more attention to the fitbit) and started losing weight again.

I eat a little bit healthier since before I started dieting but still mostly eat what I want, try to get the protein in, and exercise.

I will obviously never give up my cookies.