Loosing weight methods?

bowdlill

Hello everyone,

I am aiming to loose some weight over the holidays and was wondering if I could get suggestions on diet types and or exercise that will help. What foods should I restrict, disregarding of course processed foods high in sugars. Also are there foods which will help me loose weight, such as I have heard egg whites and celery. Can you add to that list?

Thanks in advance

estherdragonbat

When it comes to weight loss, it all comes down to a calorie deficit. There are no foods that will make you gain or lose weight, it's about overall taking in less than you burn.

What you eat matters for health (you want to make sure you're getting the proper nutrition and taking in enough protein) and satiety, but that varies by person.

The only foods you need to restrict are

• Foods you can't control yourself around
• Foods that squeeze out more nutrient-dense choices.

For some context: A cherry turnover from my favorite bakery is 600 calories. I'm on 1360 before exercise. If I have the turnover, I'm going to really have a hard time getting enough nutrition from the remaining 760. Now, I could have half, but 300 is still a pretty big hit. I could have a quarter, but I know that if I do that, it won't be enough and I'll want another quarter. So I usually pass up the turnover. But a 90-calorie cookie? I can fit that in nicely and I've got plenty of room for more nutritious options.

I don't buy potato knishes anymore. If I had a dozen in the house, I could eat them at one sitting. I guess I could just buy one, but I still worry that if I did that, I'd want to run back to the store and get another one. It's just better for me to avoid them altogether.

The best diet? Is the one that you can stick to long-term, that has you eating more or less the way you want to eat for the rest of your life.

mph323

There really isn't any special diet or exercise plan that works for everyone. The basis of all weight loss is eating fewer calories than you expend. Put your stats into MFP and you will get an estimate of the number of calories to consume to lose weight.

Think about the foods you like to eat, and how you would fit those foods into your calorie goals. Sadly, there are no foods that will speed up weight loss (and no foods that will prevent weight loss as long as you don't exceed your calorie goal). Getting adequate nutrition, enough sleep and some form of exercise will also contribute to your health and well-being as you progress.

MsBaz2018

Hi @bowdlill
Losing weight is about consuming less calories than you burn. It's also about time. Losing weight over the holidays means what exactly? You are looking for a crash diet for the next two weeks? Per MFP forum guidelines you won't have any recommendation to undereat here.

Your question doesn't provide ANY context at all so it's hard to even begin to make suggestions about foods to eat. For all I know you could be living in Estonia or Vanuatu and I don't know what type of foods you have access to there.

If you have used MFP and logged maybe a week or two then maybe we can have a look at your food diaries and start from there?

If you haven't started logging, put your stats into MFP and see how many calories it recommends. What I would suggest is for you to log in advance what a normal day would be for you, and then from there you can substract things that make you go overboard (extra cheeses, sauces, sugary drinks, anything that you consider extra)

callsitlikeiseeit

eat less
move more


works every time

Machka9

Eat fewer calories than you burn.

Unknown

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Dilvish

most people have pointed out the obvious, eat less, burn more.

My advice is this...make it all count. Fad diets may help you lose weight but rarely do they help you keep that weight from coming back. Upwards of 85% of people who opt for a fad diet usually gain some or all of the weight back within a year.

Losing weight and keeping it off means a lifestyle change rather than a diet. Diets alone simply don't work. Period.

So, scrap the crap food (essentially anything in a package or can), skip soda and fruit drinks, eat more non starchy vegetables, Low GI fruit and high quality sources of protein and keep your carbohydrates low meaning cut back or eliminate things like bread, rice, potatoes and pasta. Aside from saturated fats and high carbohydrates, most packaged foods contain too much sodium and sodium causes water retention. Aim for 1600-2200 mg of sodium per day.

Find an exercise that you can enjoy (mine is walking in chest high water at the pool for an hour a day) and stick with it. If you don't have any heart or lung issues start with weights/resistance training. Muscle burns 3 times more calories so the more you have the more calories you burn when you exercise.

estherdragonbat

Dilvish wrote: »

most people have pointed out the obvious, eat less, burn more.

My advice is this...make it all count. Fad diets may help you lose weight but rarely do they help you keep that weight from coming back. Upwards of 85% of people who opt for a fad diet usually gain some or all of the weight back within a year.

Losing weight and keeping it off means a lifestyle change rather than a diet. Diets alone simply don't work. Period.

So, scrap the crap food (essentially anything in a package or can), skip soda and fruit drinks, eat more non starchy vegetables, Low GI fruit and high quality sources of protein and keep your carbohydrates low meaning cut back or eliminate things like bread, rice, potatoes and pasta. Aside from saturated fats and high carbohydrates, most packaged foods contain too much sodium and sodium causes water retention. Aim for 1600-2200 mg of sodium per day.

Find an exercise that you can enjoy (mine is walking in chest high water at the pool for an hour a day) and stick with it. If you don't have any heart or lung issues start with weights/resistance training. Muscle burns 3 times more calories so the more you have the more calories you burn when you exercise.

Not everything in a package or can is "crap". I'm not sure where my cooking would be if I left out all the canned tomato products. Also, I'm vegetarian. A lot of my protein sources (veggie dogs and burgers, Gardein, tempeh) come packaged. I do make my own seitan, but only because I can't find a kosher-certified version where I live. I snack on Fiber One bars and roasted chickpeas or string cheese. It's really not a binary "all whole foods are good/all packaged food is bad" thing. Just look at the labels and figure out if you're getting what you want/need from them.

There's no reason to lower carbs if you'd prefer not to. I've dropped 107lbs and counting on MFP's default macro split of 50% carbs/30% fat/20% protein. Most days, it's more like 55% carbs, 25% fat, tbh, though I really just focus on protein and let the rest fall where it falls. And if you don't have a medical reason to lower sodium, it's not something you need to worry about when you're just starting out. I regularly exceed my recommendation and I've still seen my blood pressure drop from borderline hypertensive to the low end of normal.

cheryldumais

You have tons of good advice already here but I'll add my two cents worth. There is no magic. Permanent weight loss is a journey. Find foods you can live with for life and eat those in smaller quantities than you need to maintain the weight you are currently at. Forget about quick weight loss, it rarely works or lasts if you manage to drop some. I count my calories daily and have been doing so for three years. I am at maintenance and I still count every day. I lost over 100 lbs that way and will never gain it back. One of the problems out there is that we think that someone has the magic formula to lose weight and then we can go back to eating whatever we want. We try for a while and when we realize we hate it and we're miserable and we quit. You must change your lifestyle and in a fashion that fits you so make sure you change it to something you can live with. Find something active you enjoy and do that 5 or 6 times a week. That will give you some extra calories. Myself I took up walking daily. That's it. No 3 hours at the gym because I knew I wouldn't stick to it. I'm just now starting weight training because I WANT to not because I have to. Take your time and learn something along the way. Good luck and I can tell you it's true... Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.

quiksylver296

@estherdragonbat's comment is spot on. Not much to add to that.

jjpptt2

Machka9 wrote: »

Eat fewer calories than you burn.

This is really the crux of the conversation. What you eat has no direct impact on weight loss... only how much you eat (or more accurately, how many calories you consume vs how many calories you burn).

However... what you chose to eat can play a very significant role in your ability to manage how many calories you eat. Some people do better eliminating certain trigger foods, others prefer to moderate the foods they love. There is no 1 right answer, and for most there is a lot of trial and error involved.

Similar can be said about workouts/exercise. If your goal is basic weight loss, then what you do matters very little. How it impacts your cals in vs cals out matters a great deal.

SVZee

Dilvish wrote: »

most people have pointed out the obvious, eat less, burn more.

My advice is this...make it all count. Fad diets may help you lose weight but rarely do they help you keep that weight from coming back. Upwards of 85% of people who opt for a fad diet usually gain some or all of the weight back within a year.

Losing weight and keeping it off means a lifestyle change rather than a diet. Diets alone simply don't work. Period.

So, scrap the crap food (essentially anything in a package or can), skip soda and fruit drinks, eat more non starchy vegetables, Low GI fruit and high quality sources of protein and keep your carbohydrates low meaning cut back or eliminate things like bread, rice, potatoes and pasta. Aside from saturated fats and high carbohydrates, most packaged foods contain too much sodium and sodium causes water retention. Aim for 1600-2200 mg of sodium per day.

Find an exercise that you can enjoy (mine is walking in chest high water at the pool for an hour a day) and stick with it. If you don't have any heart or lung issues start with weights/resistance training. Muscle burns 3 times more calories so the more you have the more calories you burn when you exercise.

Actually, statistics show that most people regain the lost weight, regardless of what plan they follow-'fad' diet or not. There's no one way that's been proven to have any more success long term, over any of the other weight loss plans out there. And that includes arbitrarily cutting out a list of foods, like you've posted here.

Maintenance is for 20, 30, 40+ years and is a completely different animal than the weight loss phase.

kimny72

Dilvish wrote: »

most people have pointed out the obvious, eat less, burn more.

My advice is this...make it all count. Fad diets may help you lose weight but rarely do they help you keep that weight from coming back. Upwards of 85% of people who opt for a fad diet usually gain some or all of the weight back within a year.

Losing weight and keeping it off means a lifestyle change rather than a diet. Diets alone simply don't work. Period.

So, scrap the crap food (essentially anything in a package or can), skip soda and fruit drinks, eat more non starchy vegetables, Low GI fruit and high quality sources of protein and keep your carbohydrates low meaning cut back or eliminate things like bread, rice, potatoes and pasta. Aside from saturated fats and high carbohydrates, most packaged foods contain too much sodium and sodium causes water retention. Aim for 1600-2200 mg of sodium per day.

Find an exercise that you can enjoy (mine is walking in chest high water at the pool for an hour a day) and stick with it. If you don't have any heart or lung issues start with weights/resistance training. Muscle burns 3 times more calories so the more you have the more calories you burn when you exercise.

This would never have worked for me. Rice, potatoes, and pasta are very satiating for me. Eating low carb leaves me hungry and fatigued. Not everyone does better on low carb.

Also some food that comes in packages or cans is "crap food" and some is rather healthy. I think learning about what you eat is far more important than eliminating things unnecessarily based on overly simplistic rules. Depending on where in the world a person lives, it might be incredibly prohibitive for them to avoid all packaged food.

OP, you haven't given us much to go on. There are no foods that cause weight loss, and different people find different foods filling. All I can suggest generally is pick a reasonable weekly weight loss goal, log accurately and consistently, and try to stay active. Many people find that filling their plate first with protein and veggies helps them reduce calories, and logging can really help you keep a handle on portion sizes. Without knowing how much weight you need to lose, what food you currently eat, and what has worked or not worked for you in the past, it's hard to get much more specific than that.

AnnPT77

I'd suggest this eating plan:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm

. . . and finding some way to move more during your typical day that feels fun and/or productive to you: It can be formal exercise, it can be active play (dance, games, tag with children, window shopping while walking at the mall, etc.), it can be purposeful inefficiency (take the stairs instead of the elevator, park at the far end of the parking lot, get groceries with a handbasket instead of a cart, etc.), or it can be useful labor (cut & stack firewood, paint the living room, clean closets, dig a new garden bed, shovel some snow, etc.), and it can certainly be a combination of a little bit of all of those.

You can lose weight without doing anything truly dramatic, and without making yourself miserable. It boils down to eating fewer calories and moving more. Being overweight is not a sin, so you don't need to do penance by going on some awful restrictive "diet" and doing unpleasant exercise. Just make some positive, manageable changes in your daily routine.

(Magic formula: Correct calories for weight management + well-rounded, balanced diet for nutrition + fun exercise for fitness = best odds of long term good health and attractive appearance)