Diet Tips that Never Worked For Me
cjsacto
Posts: 1,421 Member
For most of us here, this isn't our first ride on the merry-go-round of trying to lose weight and/or get fit. I wouldn't say anyone logged into MyFitnessPal and said, "Oh! You mean you eat less and exercise?? Wow, never heard that before."
I've been overweight most of my life and there are some diet tips I have been told over and over that I have tried and just didn't fit for me. Among them are:
"Just leave a bite on your plate at every meal."
This makes me unhappy. I do try to leave the last few bites if I'm truly full, but to deliberately waste that last bite... no.
"Close the kitchen after 6:00 pm (or 8:00 or other set time)."
Also makes me unhappy. I am far more likely to have cravings, eat more than I should, and feel bad about what I eat if I try to impose this on myself. Now I have a meal in my diary called "late snack" and I enjoy it very much and keep in my calorie goal.
"It's best to exercise in the morning."
I think that's been debunked and most people advise to exercise whenever you can, but I used to hear it a lot. I forced myself to get up early to exercise for weeks at a time throughout my life but I could never sustain it because waking up early makes me VERY unhappy.
"Reward yourself with your favorite food if you do well for several weeks/meet a goal, etc."
I still eat all my favorite foods that aren't terrible, so I don't feel deprived or focus on FOOD as a reward. Some stuff I've just had to cut out. If I were to reward myself for losing a pound with a trip to Taco Bell or a sugary cake I would backslide so hard I'd have whiplash.
"Only eat when you're hungry."
This one sounds very logical, but if I wait until I'm very hungry I don't make great choices. Besides, my hunger signals are pretty messed up. I've been watching the calorie count and eating small meals throughout the day to meet my goal; sometimes that means eating when I'm not hungry or before I really feel hungry. It seems to be working.
Anyone else have tips and advice that just didn't work for you?
I've been overweight most of my life and there are some diet tips I have been told over and over that I have tried and just didn't fit for me. Among them are:
"Just leave a bite on your plate at every meal."
This makes me unhappy. I do try to leave the last few bites if I'm truly full, but to deliberately waste that last bite... no.
"Close the kitchen after 6:00 pm (or 8:00 or other set time)."
Also makes me unhappy. I am far more likely to have cravings, eat more than I should, and feel bad about what I eat if I try to impose this on myself. Now I have a meal in my diary called "late snack" and I enjoy it very much and keep in my calorie goal.
"It's best to exercise in the morning."
I think that's been debunked and most people advise to exercise whenever you can, but I used to hear it a lot. I forced myself to get up early to exercise for weeks at a time throughout my life but I could never sustain it because waking up early makes me VERY unhappy.
"Reward yourself with your favorite food if you do well for several weeks/meet a goal, etc."
I still eat all my favorite foods that aren't terrible, so I don't feel deprived or focus on FOOD as a reward. Some stuff I've just had to cut out. If I were to reward myself for losing a pound with a trip to Taco Bell or a sugary cake I would backslide so hard I'd have whiplash.
"Only eat when you're hungry."
This one sounds very logical, but if I wait until I'm very hungry I don't make great choices. Besides, my hunger signals are pretty messed up. I've been watching the calorie count and eating small meals throughout the day to meet my goal; sometimes that means eating when I'm not hungry or before I really feel hungry. It seems to be working.
Anyone else have tips and advice that just didn't work for you?
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Replies
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The biggest "tip" that NEVER worked for me EVER was to starve myself. EAT MORE TO WEIGH LESS.0
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Waking up in the middle of the night for a protein shake for fear that my workout gains would somehow disappear0
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Cheat meals stop you from craving .. doesn't work for me.0
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Cheat meals stop you from craving .. doesn't work for me.
Same here. unless I eat a crazy amount of food and make myself sick... I only want more later! stinks!!!0 -
Sounds right, I thought it was me this whole time...lol0
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"Eat more to weigh less" has never worked for me. Not once.0
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-eat a big breakfast (great, so I can go from eating a small breakfast and a gigantic dinner to eating a gigantic breakfast and a gigantic dinner! Really helpful tip!)
-don't ever eat ______ (then I'll just want to eat it more)
-leave food on your plate even if you don't feel full (once food is on my plate and doesn't taste gross, I'm probably going to eat it. The main battle has already been fought if the food is on my plate)
-eat according to your hunger/eat whenever you want to (haha, nope. I have the appetite of a horse. If I ate whenever I was hungry I'd a) be eating constantly and b) be balloon-esque)0 -
Drink more water, it will make you feel full! Or, if you think you're hungry, drink water first because there's a good chance you're actually just thirsty!
Nope... I can totally tell the difference between hunger and thirst. And, my stomach will continue to growl, even full of water.0 -
You have do everything at once in order to be successful.
Nope, this time I'm taking the changes slowly and it's working.0 -
eat breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper, so stupid.0
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eat breakfast like a king and dinner like a pauper, so stupid.
I also agree with how ridiculous that statement is. Forcing myself to eat that way just made me miserable - and it didn't take the weight off any easier, either.0 -
The last time I was an active member (recently re-joined), eating back exercise calories seemed pretty counter productive. I lost weight on my own at about 1500 calories per day, then I started here, ate back my exercise calories (and not even all of them) and gained 3 pounds.0
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to work out hungry, i cant do jack squat when im hungry0
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Eat less and burn more!!! FAIL!!! I gained weight, and loss my hair. Now I Eat More To Weigh Less and guess what I DO WEIGH LESS!!!!
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Good one! I used to hear this one at Weight Watchers all the time! Now, when I hear that, I want to scream. It is so NOT TRUE!0
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Eat less and burn more!!! FAIL!!! I gained weight, and loss my hair. Now I Eat More To Weigh Less and guess what I DO WEIGH LESS!!!!
You are eating under your TDEE. Doesn't that mean that you are actually eating LESS to weigh less? Didn't you gain the weight in the first place because you actually ate MORE? I don't get it.0 -
"Just make small lifestyle changes, you'll be surprised how easily you lose weight."
For years I have cut out soda, taken the stairs, not had mayo, parked at the far end of the parking lot, ordered dressing on the side, packed half my entree to go, eaten fruit and veggies, haven't had much alcohol... and I'm still fat. I mean, maybe it helped me not to gain much more, but weight didn't magically fall off. (I'm not suggesting I didn't overeat at all.)0 -
"Eat whatever you want in moderation and JUST use willpower" never worked for me. If I was able to practice moderation and willpower on my own I wouldnt be here in the first place.0
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"Eat whatever you want in moderation and JUST use willpower" never worked for me. If I was able to practice moderation and willpower on my own I wouldnt be here in the first place.
Isn't that the truth!?0 -
Drink more water, it will make you feel full! Or, if you think you're hungry, drink water first because there's a good chance you're actually just thirsty!
Nope... I can totally tell the difference between hunger and thirst. And, my stomach will continue to growl, even full of water.
ME TOO! It frustrates me when someone says that. I know when I'm hungry and when I'm thirsty. Plus if you drink all that water and then eat because you are hungry it slows down the break down of the food. NO GRACIAS!0 -
- Don't eat white carbs (pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, etc.)
- Eat breakfast/Breakfast like a king, dinner like a prince, supper like a pauper
- Drink a big glass of water before every meal
- Don't eat sweets/desserts
- Eat back your exercise calories
- If you're craving something, drink water because you're really thirsty0 -
Lots of the same ones mentioned already -
- When you're hungry, just drink water! (this makes me "full" for about 15 minutes, if I'm lucky, then I just have to pee. I will say that drinking more water seems to take the edge off strong cravings for certain foods though.)
- You must work out in the morning on an empty stomach. (I'm not a morning person and getting up and ready for work by 8 am is enough of a struggle. Working out at night fits my natural rhythms better so I've decided to just work with my body instead of against it. Also, working out hungry means I get dizzy and can't go as hard or fast. I need something on my stomach first).
- You must not ever skip breakfast and it should be the biggest meal of the day. (I tried this - again - when I first started here. Turns out, no matter how much I eat at breakfast, I will still feel half-starved by the evening. I do need breakfast, I wake up hungry, but I don't need a big one. Eating more of my calories at night has not affected my weight loss).
- You must eliminate food 'X' entirely from your diet. (All this does is make me crave and obsess over food 'X').
- You must only eat "clean" and get rid of processed foods entirely. (I believe this is important for maximum health and it's a goal of mine to eat as clean as I can, but it hasn't been necessary for me to lose weight).
- Carbs are evil, never eat carbs. (I love them in all their forms and I feel better when I eat them. I've had no problems and no weight loss stalls eating them. I try to keep my macros balanced and carbs around 250 g or less).
- For exercise, all you need to do is be 'more active', like, park further away, take the stairs, etc (All this stuff helps, of course. The more active the better. But for a real calorie-burn, this stuff doesn't cut it for me. And if fitness, not just weight loss, is the goal, a good workout program is essential. Plus, a good workout program lets me eat more and get away with it, and I like that).0 -
I heart this thread <3330
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"Eat anything you want in moderation."
This may be great advice for some people - perhaps even most people - but it doesn't work for me. I don't know if it's because of a lifetime of ED, or because I'm allergic to about 80% of things on the planet, but my system is really super-sensitised to certain foods. I eat things like potato chips and milk chocolate once and then try not to eat them for a while, and it sets up cravings, complete with tremors, palpitations, insomnia - the whole spectrum. A lot of people don't understand this, because that's not how their bodies work. My mom is constantly saying, "why can't you just have a bit? I don't understand..." And it's true - if you don't understand, then you probably never will. It's not about self-control. I can force the self-control, but I'm miserable and feel really ill for a week or more. So as far as things like chips are concerned, my choices are a) eat them as often as I want, feel fine physically, but reconcile myself to being fat and unhealthy; b) eat them in moderation and be on an endless cycle of spiking and troughing body chemicals; or c) not eat them and feel a little wistful sometimes but basically fine.
I choose C most of the time. I have been eating those things over Christmas, with eyes wide open to the knowledge that I'll have an awful week in January when I stop eating them. (And no, for me gradually tapering off doesn't help, it only prolongs the pain.)
I'd never tell anyone not to eat foods they like unless they were suffering badly from even slight exposure, and even then I'd probably mind my own business. Bodies are different, and I know plenty of people do just fine with everything in moderation. But for me it's bad advice, especially when it's so frequently pushed - hard - by people who mean well.
"Maybe you should try overeaters anonymous."
This from my brother, who sees me eat one Christmas meal, one Thanksgiving meal, one birthday meal, and a couple more meals (like 4th of July, or my niece's birthday) a year. It would be an unusual year if he saw me eat more than half a dozen times. Yet I'm overweight, so I must be addicted to food and eat junk all the time, right? Um, no. Overeating is not my problem. Periodic starvation since I was five, interspersed with periods of attempting to eat normal amounts of food, are my problem. My brother's basically a nice person, or at least so says everyone else in his life, but he seems to have a blind spot where I'm concerned, and not just when it comes to food and exercise. These days I've taken to saying politely, "I'm sorry, my therapist doesn't like me to talk about food," just to get him to STFU. (A lie. My therapist likes me to talk about whatever I feel capable of talking about.)
And not exactly a tip, but:
"You just have to exercise off / burn off more calories than you put in."
Technically true. Yet what bugs me about this is that - and this may just be a fault with my high school and the medical system at my doctors surgery - none of my doctors or health teachers ever explained that "burn off" includes the calories you burn just staying alive. So I spent more than a decade trying to exercise off, in one gym session, a day's calorie intake. And failing to exercise off 1200 in one session. So dropping it (my intake) to 1000. And failing to exercise that off. So dropping it to 800. And not having the energy to keep going for an hour on the elliptical (which at my weight burns maybe 750-800 an hour). And then crying because if I couldn't exercise off 800 in a session, and I couldn't eat much less than 800, and I was supposed to burn more than I ate, how would I ever get the math to work?
Of course, now I know (a little bit) about BMR and TDEE (although I still have a lot to learn) I feel really, really stupid. I should have done more research as soon as I was old enough to pick up books and use the Internet, instead of blindly following what was taught to me by my (sick) mother and my (couldn't-care-less) teachers. The fact that I didn't find things out for myself until I'd done irreparable damage is my fault entirely. But I still want to rush back to my high school and interrogate the gym teachers to see if they're actually letting kids know that they don't need to do a 3-hour workout and starve themselves.
EDIT: Oh, and "If you want to be slim, never go over [eat more than] a thousand." I can't count the amount of times I hard this from my mom while growing up. Probably as many times as she heard it from her mother. She still believes it, no matter what scientific studies I give her. *shakes head* Amazing what we do to our children. (In my grandmother's case out of cruelty, in my mom's out of illness.)0 -
Eating when I'm hungry works for me
I feel muc more in tune with my body that way, and it makes it easier to stop before I'm full.0 -
My doctor once asked about my eating habits when I weighed 155lbs. I had lost 25 at that point and felt I looked good but wanted to maintain my losing trend. I told her that I ate when I was hungry and didn't when I wasn't. This was the strategy that had helped me to lose in the first place.
She told me that I should be eating regular meals and should try to drop the ten pounds to be in my ideal weight/height category. WORST. ADVISE. EVER! I stopped listening to my body (something I still fight to regain) and gained back the 25 lbs and an additional 5. Still fighting to regain self worth after that.0 -
Drink more water, it will make you feel full! Or, if you think you're hungry, drink water first because there's a good chance you're actually just thirsty!
Nope... I can totally tell the difference between hunger and thirst. And, my stomach will continue to growl, even full of water.
lol, same here.0 -
Eat breakfast - I just can't face food in the morning - if I force it, I feel a lot hungrier throughout the day
Go to the gym/exercise even if you don't feel like it, you'll be glad you did - nope, I will have a poor workout and feel shocking
Eat before exercising - anything more than a few sips of liquid in my stomach and I get really weak and sickly-feeling - I exercise best a couple of hours after getting up and before eating anything
You need an extra however many cals a day when skiing - only if you're expending a considerable amount of energy for a lot of the day - I find skiing less taxing than walking
Don't weigh everyday - weighing everyday works for me
Drink more water - I drink when I'm thirsty but probably only about a quarter of the daily recommended amount, and very rarely drink plain water - I've tried drinking more; I have to force myself, I find it unpleasant and I don't feel any benefit0 -
^Don't weigh every day. I agree. I am much more successful when I do weigh myself daily, although I admit it can be exasperating.0
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'cheating'. I'm an all or nothing person. If I make a bad decision, it tends to spiral out of control.
also eating small meals super regularly. no. you never feel satisfied and the thought of food is always there, which isn't a good thing.0
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