What worked for YOU?

Habit. It has been the bedrock for any successful weight loss endeavours. Stripping away the bad habits like one would peel an onion, replacing them with better, and tackling another layer when I'm ready to do so, has worked a charm. Everything else has just been window dressing for me

I should also note, whenever I've failed, and regained weight, it has also been through habit, where the bad has reached critical mass eventually, and the weight crept back on.

What worked for me is using the 21 Day fix containers. I stay with in the paramenters and I lose. I know it is measuring but it so simple.

It was a whole host of things first I had to deal with the emotional issues around my eating. I comfort ate which means I basically dealt with any stressful situation by reaching for food. Usually junk food. I cultivated better coping mechanisms and slowly removed food as a crutch. If you rely on food to get you through the day then cutting back is impossible. You can't simply resist your only effective coping mechanism. So don't try until you have others. For me I got into painting and physical activity in a big way.

And yes physical activity. A lot of people say you can lose weight without exercise. This is correct. However it is both the harder and the unhealthier way to do it. It is far better for your body to eat a sensible amount of calories and sweat it off than it is to simply try and starve the fat off. In fact quite a lot of solid research is coming to the conclusion that much of the health conditions we previously thought where linked to being overweight are actually more to do with a lack of activity. I believe that being skinny doesn't make you healthy and being a bit chubby doesn't really make you unhealthy either. Exercise is the big thing to get into if you want to be fit and healthy. Your body needs that stimulation. It's a system designed to adapt you to your environment. If you lift heavy weights it grows big muscles, Diet allowing. If you run long distances it grows efficient at distributing energy and optimizes your running gait. So tell me what would such a system optimize you to do if you do nothing? Yep that's right. Nothing. Regardless of calories or fat or anything a still body WILL atrophy. Obviously there is a limit. Nobody is saying the 500lb whale in that YouTube video is healthy. The human body can only take so much. The human body may be an adaptive system. But elastic stretched too far will simply snap.

I believe by far the best approach is simply to eat a sensible diet and really push yourself physically. Set aside an hour or two a day for your bodies necessary stimulation. And don't just be happy with an hour on the elliptical. Those machines are bunk. They never did anything for me at all. Hit the weights. And run,walk or play a sport to get your cardio in. You will be surprised how quickly activity can escalate too. 8 Months ago I was 338lbs of pure fat and had difficulty getting off the ground on my own. My heart would sometimes beat so fast i thought I was going to have a heart attack. Now I lift heavy 3 days a week and run 10km 3 times a week and walk 2 hours to the gym on my lifting days. Oh and I weigh 226lbs. And look fairly muscly. Not like a bodybuilder. I've still got some flab and some loose skin and some of my muscles are still underdeveloped. But I look like a strong healthy guy. Not someone who lost all his muscle on a crash diet. This last month I officially came off my diet figuring it wasn't really reasonable to retain a deficit for more than 8 months straight. Time to give things a rest. I am eating 3500 a day now. I put on about 1.5lbs last month. And look better. And lost another inch off my waist.

Scale weight is totally overrated.

I am thinking of upping my running distance soon. 10km is getting easy.

You can totally Do this. And you really really don't have to starve yourself. Diet's don't work in the long term they have a 95% failure rate. Being active is the magic ticket.

Owning the gains as well as the losses is what's working for me.

Obviously it's not as simple as losing weight then purposely gaining some again, there's a lot of hard work to be done in the gym and the juggling match (not always successful) to get the macros on point but it certainly beats months of dieting, forgetting about it, noticing your clothes are too small then months of dieting again (effing up your body a tiny bit more every time).

A realistic calorie deficit definiltey has worked for me. But i have a few key things that work for me.

Quit sweets.
Address mood issues and stress by seeking counselling support.
Not relying on exercise.
Focusing my diet around vegetables fruit, lentils, beans and chickpeas and full cream dairy. Using nuts and seeds, cheese and mainly olive oil to keep my food tasting good so eating these foods in appropriate quantities. Eating a diverse range of foods (though i don't' eat meat, only fish).
Cooking nearly everything from scratch.
I still eat pasta, rice and bread but much less. A serve of past for me now is 50g. At the beginning of the year when i began my diet it was 80g. Prior to this diet, i ate pasta about 4 times a week, sometimes more. Now i eat it about once a week. A serve of rice is usually 1/2 cup cooked but sometimes one cup. Bread, I do not eat it every day and when i do it its often a pita bread to go with hummus and other bean type foods.

Although quitting sweets has been so vital for me, the most important thing that everyone trying to lose weight and improve their diet needs to do is eat a lot more fresh vegetables. most people on this site so far as i can tell, do not eat near enough.

I am almost at goal. I've eaten sweets about 6-8 times this year. That fits within my rules whereby i can eat them if i'm offered them outside the home. I don't really care now if i never eat them again. I"m so happy with my current diet. I've just stopped counting calories but you can look back through my diary.

I've only just taken up a physical activity. Tennis because its social and interesting.

I've been on and off diets all my adult life. I'm fed up!! So this is it! I have to make it work this time. My daughter lost weight, got fit and advised me to join a gym. I'm using her trainer. They both explained how the weight loss process works and how I can benefit from a mix of cardio and strength exercises. I am actually surprised at how it works. I guess learning about how it works is the first thing to know. The trainer told me not to worry about the scale, it's not what counts right now. He takes me for a round of cardio and strength exercises and i can feel the difference after 3 weeks. I go to him three times a week and work out for an hour and half. Half an hour is strength exercises. I am so determined to lose weight that the days I don't go to the gym, I am make sure to get at least an hour of exercise by either swimming or walking the treadmill.

My daughter and I are testing what works for us in food. We eat clean. I was so fed up of people telling me do this diet or do that one. I just eat clean. Even saying clean doesn't say much. But i'll tell you what is working for me. The first week I ate vegetarian, beans, fruits and vegetables. The only fat I eat is olive oil and sesame oil in my stir fry. I eat a quarter to a half a pita bread for breakfast with either beans or mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and garlic. Oatmeal works too. I'm still trying out new things. Before going to my workout, I eat a banana and when I get back home i eat my carbs. The trainer told me to eat carbs right after workouts. That's when they are most useful. I just do it. LOL I also watch my portion size and log everything I eat on MFP. Most of the time I don't eat my exercise calories. After lunch I don't eat till dinner and for dinner I eat fruit making sure i log in everything. I don't eat past 8:00pm. If I am starving and I mean I really need to eat, I go for a few almonds and i even had a bowl of popcorn once. I cooked it in olive oil. It wasn't too bad either.

I'm going vegan for a week and next week I'll go back to vegetarian. My daughter and I will be adding fish the week after. I just eat everything fresh and not processed. No sugar, no flour. You have to test what works for you, but stop eating processed food and soda.

I weighed myself today and I'm down six pounds. Find what works for you and enjoy the food you eat. I love broccoli and sweet potatoes now. Get lots of fibers in your body and eat fresh. Eating healthy doesn't have to be a punishment, it has to be a lifestyle change in which you find alternatives to fattening food you enjoy. Try baked sweet potato chips coated in curry powder or stir fry with rice noodles, broccoli, bok choy, carrots and oyster sauce. How about a salad with cucumbers, avocado, lettuce, a tablespoon of olive oil, wine vinegar and sprinkled with crushed almonds. I made my daughter boiled eggs cut them in half and removed the yolk which i mashed with avocado, mustard, lemon and a bit of curry powder. I told her they were deviled eggs. She loved them!! I make my own falafel at home which i cook in a tbs of olive oil. i make my own pesto with nuts and basil, yum! I used to throw the broccoli stems but now I bake them with herbs till they are crisp, they are a delicious snack and full of fibers. I found seedless dates on the market, I sometimes take a tbs of this paste and and put a nut in and roll it in sesame seeds, it's great when you want something sweet and it's all natural. I'm creating my own healthy recipes. I'll be adding chicken breast and fish to my diet soon, I like vegan but i only used it to detox my body. I feel I need more protein to be healthy. That is just my opinion.

Find what works with you and what won't bore you! Good luck!

I think nothing will work unless you are 100% on it. That said what also works is being consistent with watever you do. Count calories to T, exercise and drink lots of water. Also be kind to yourself if you cheat or fall off the wagon. Just get up and get going don't beat yourself up.
This is what works for me

So here's a tidbit for y'all. Not so much a diet method, but just something to keep in mind.

I had braces put on my teeth about six months ago and I lost almost 20 pounds in 4 months. It was not healthy and wasn't sustained because after a few months my teeth didn't hurt as bad and now I've gained back about six pounds. I basically lived on soft foods, ate next to nothing, had no energy, etc. (typical crash diet stuff).

HOWEVER!

One thing I have kept doing since my mouth has healed, is I cut EVERYTHING up with a knife and fork.

I know this sounds time-consuming. I know it sounds silly. It seriously works. Imagine, for instance, not having the ability to shove food in your face in front of the TV, or while driving, or anywhere.

Tortilla chips, crackers, bite-sized foods I break into pieces if they aren't fork-friendly. I never eat a chip in one bite anymore. Also, lots of water. When it kills you to try to even put mashed potatoes in your mouth, water is your friend. This whole braces thing really helped me realize what HUNGRY is, and what "I'm bored" is!

Just FYI, I'm also someone who has tried everything and, prior to this new food-to-mouth revelation, the only thing that remotely worked for me was starving myself and diet pills (NOOOOOO!!!!!), and the weight would always come back.

I encourage you to try this for, like, 30 days. It made all the difference in the world for me, and maybe it would be a small change that would help you out, too.

Good luck!

Logging in what I eat, and intermittent fasting. I do a fasting window of 20 hours, and a feasting window of 4 hours. Being able to pack away ridiculously satisfying meals of a variety of foods to match my recommended calorie intake within 240 minutes, keeps my cravings at bay, and has kept me going for many months.

So far I have lost a total of 12 pounds and have about 55 to go. I have struggled with losing weight for a while now. In the beginning September after seeing an aquaintence who used to be over 300 pounds and then lost enough weight to weigh less than me along with a person I don't care much for whom is losing weight just for an event and I'm sure will gain it all back once the event is over I decided now was the time. I decided if the aquaintence can do it (even if she had weight loss surgery) I could do it on my own and keep off the weight, in turn showing the yo-yo dieter that losing weight is a lifestyle change and not something you do temporarily.

I decided that I would set a goal of losing about a pound a week. So, far I have been able to do that. I don't deprive myself but still try to be healthy most days. I convinced myself that if I want it bad enough then there shouldn't be any excuses. I won't eat junk just because but either because it has been at least one week since my last indulgence or a special occasion. I gained my weight because I had a daily fast food habit where I had it once a day most days and two or three times a day on others. I would maybe skip a day or two and not eat fast food here and there but nothing worth weight loss. If I do get fast food now I try to make good choices or at least better. I also convinced myself that this is going to be a battle but the end result, even if it takes a while to get to it, will be better than feeling ugly and depressed because of my weight. A few months is nothing compared to the years of pain I have felt and would continue feeling if I didn't do something about it now.

ParamoreAddict wrote: »

It wasn't any gimmick or specialized diet plan. I just knew that I needed to lose the weight and it all started with eating better. I started reading the bags of everything I ate. Noticing the calories, the macros, etc. The biggest hurdle of all for me is staying away from fast food. It takes a lot of discipline when you've been eating that stuff constantly for years. I've re-lapsed on my journey but dusted myself off and came back again. Will power, eating good food (my diary is open if you want to see what I eat) and exercise daily. That's been my plan. Works pretty awesome if I say so myself

Do you put your ticker in manually? Mine disappeared when they did that overhaul of the forums a while back.

Here is what I do...consider:
I address 2 areas that make up my health and fitness program.

1. Food Intake - I eat clean as defined by lean meats, fresh fruits and veggies, nuts, whole grains, beans and raw dairy.
If man makes it, I try not to eat it.
2. Exercise - both cardio and strength...and I try to engage routines that employ training I enjoy like biking, swimming, calisthenics, hiking and MMA

I train about 3 hours daily with an occasional day off. I eat around 4000 calories per day.
That's it.

For me: taking myself seriously. Considering myself worthy of looking fantastic. Which mean: not sabotaging myself. Not slipping into old habits. Doing this for me and forever because I want to treat myself the best way possible.
[/quote]

This

Eating what I want in moderation