Weight Loss Help

Loganmmontgomery

Im 23 and nearing 180 pounds. I've gained about 20-30 pounds over the last 5 years or so.

What I'm looking for is help for long term success. I've done diets and exercise well for like a month or so and have lost up to 10 pounds but then it's back to bad eating and skipping the gym.

I'm looking for suggestions that have helped keep this a long term goal or life style instead of short term. What helps you? What motivates you? What tips do you suggest?

L1zardQueen

Don't diet, just less then what you normally eat. Find some form of exercise that you like to do, exercise should be fun. Get on your bike, find a trail to hike, take up wall climbing or try boxing.

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld

Stop seeing food as good or bad. Food is just food.

Eat a wide variety of fruit and veg, fats and lean proteins and you can fill in the rest of your calories with any thing you like.

You don't even have to exercise to lose weight. Just eat less than you burn.

If you have an event coming up save some calories from the days before to enjoy extra that day. Life is for living and you'll want to eat out at times. It is not failing on your diet it is just life. Get back to tracking the next day.

PrincessMel72

Within the MFP app, find your daily calorie goal for the amount of weight you want to lose. Stay within your daily calorie goal and you'll lose weight regardless of exercise. That's how this is set up. If you exercise - great! You get extra calories (but only eat back about 50% or so as the calorie burn estimates are overstated). This is a marathon, not a sprint, so it'll take time for you to lose the weight. Once you get to your goal weight, reset MFP for maintenance and follow the new calorie goals. You have a lifelong way of maintaining! Good luck!

jonchew

I think that what you're asking is a deeply-personal thing... what works for me may not work for you. That said, the things that have helped me to lose the
extra tonnage are:

1) Keep a food log... & be obsessive about it. I've found that as soon as I let the food diary slide, so goes my weight loss (& maintenance). The MFP mobil app is the most used app on my phone.

2) When grabbing that (insert foodname here), I take just a second to ask myself not whether it'll taste good-or-not (I already know THAT answer), but instead I ask how will this affect my food log (see 1, above)... I'll open-up my food diary & plug it in... to verify. If it's too expensive calorie-wise, I'll delete the entry & move on... if not - I'll eat it. I've found that just the small pause needed to do this will likely get you thru that initial knee-jerk munch-down.

3) WALK. Because of "my so-called-back", I'm currently in a position where I can't do any "real physical" exercises... I can walk, & I can bike (I know - go figure!) without pain - that's it.

3 years ago, I was in fairly decent shape, till I got injured during a run (I'm a klutz). The result; I ended-up gaining over 50 pounds, due to inactivity, frustration & binging (because of the injury/frustration). Five months ago, I started logging-back-into MFP, but didn't see much progress in shedding the tonnage, until I started to walk; for some reason, that's when the pounds started to come off. I've lost about 22 pounds since then. Walking is free... so's biking (if you have a bike).

I'm personally not a fan of "the gym", because I'm introverted & awkward. Once I realized I could bike without pain (due to the aforementioned injury), I spent "a year's worth of gym membership" on a BKool bike trainer/simulator, which keeps stationary bike riding interesting & challenging. Now that the weather has changed (I live in the frozen north), I can start riding outside. I know that I'm not going to look like Charles Atlas from walking and bike riding, but I do believe these activities will bring my weight back to where it needs to be for me to be healthy.

Baby steps.

Best of luck to you, in your journey!