Lessons gleaned from wrestling with a weight problem

martintanz

In more or less chronological order that I figured these things out.
Stop eating cheap sweet and salty snacks.
Sweet, salty and fatty. Watch out for foods that combine two out of these three things. Consider never eating foods that combine all three.
Combine modest calorie restriction with regular exercise. (After being overweight just about my entire childhood, I managed to take off 35 lbs in a summer just cutting out sweets, chips and french fries, Riding my 10 speed an hour a day, and practicing martial arts 4 days a week.)
Jogging is the gold standard for cardiovascular exercise.
Lifting weights is important.
Lifting weights is no panacea, and you can get fat lifting weights if you eat too much.
Eat simply for breakfast and lunch, preferable something homemade.
You can lose weight eating carbs, if you watch the total calories and especially, the fat.
That being said, you cannot lose weight if you drink a lot of beer.
Home made protein shakes are your friend
You cannot exercise away all the restaurant food that looks good to you, at least not if you eat out regularly.
Eating lunches out is one of the biggest diet killers.
So is snacking out of boredom in an office or participating in birthday/wedding or baby shower festivities, also in an office.
Come to think of it, working in an office is pretty deadly for weight loss, combining boredom, stress, cheap processed snack food, and lunches out.
If you are injured and cannot exercise, cut back on the food.
Logging food is important.
There is no absolute limit to how much weight I can gain if I just throw caution to the wind.