What's your way to make weight loss successful?

Laviegurl25 wrote: »

What rules do you set out for yourself for successful weight loss?
I'm not new to losing weight, but am looking for new ideas! The ones I have and still follow to ensure success are;
Drink at least 8 glasses of water
No eating past 8
If I want a sweet snack I buy the 100 cal snacks so I don't over endulge
I work out 5-6 times a week. Weights at least 3 times a week
I try to have a salad everyday.
Stay within my calorie intake.

Lots of pre planning, weighing food, logging, and making sure I meet my calorie goals.

Wow, thanks internet for acting up!

i too plan meals as much as possible
work out 20 min per day 5 days a week(minimum)
don't bring chips pop or other high cal snack foods into the house
pre plan my meals out if possible

The simple answer for me is just staying at a deficit.

A more in depth answer:

Pre-logging my days - this is the single most helpful thing I've done. It lets me play around with my food before I eat it, to make sure my day is balanced (and it allows me to have ice cream, like I did tonight), and full of food that I enjoy.
Weighing and measuring my food.
Only eating my exercise calories back if I feel hungry and only then half of them.
Getting and staying active.

Enjoy my food. There are days I feel like eating polenta with shrimp, onions, green peppers, and mushrooms. There are days that I want a McDonald's cheeseburger or Popeye's fried chicken. As long as I fit my calories and macros, I don't let myself stress over either.

Eat my calories. I've had people tell me that I "need" to drink fruit juice with my breakfast or that I "need" green shakes or protein shakes. Nope. I need to savor the taste and texture of my food as I chew it. When I drink my calories, I am sad because it's over too quickly.

Weigh and measure mostly everything. I've gotten to the point where I can guesstimate the proper amount of mustard and ketchup on a hot dog to make a teaspoon or a tablespoon. Every so often, even if I can eyeball them, I measure again to make certain my guesstimates are staying fairly accurate.

Make my exercise practical instead of habitual. I can't handle going to the gym on a regular basis. I find it boring, which I might not if I took classes or had a workout buddy. I compensate by taking my dogs for walks or doing yardwork or cutting brush for my goats to eat--things like that, which I find useful. Someday I'll find heavy lifting more entertaining, but right now, that's the best place for me to be. I am going to try to get a membership to Anytime Fitness, but not to do heavy lifting.

Avoid letting people dictate what I want or need to eat. Going back up to the eating calories example, I've also had people tell me that I "need" to stop eating one thing or another because it's unhealthy. Then they trot out Mercola or PCRM and it's all I can do to avoid hurting myself rolling my eyes. When I mentioned using artificial sweetener to someone, she suggested stevia and so on--and when I said I disliked stevia, she stated she was just "trying to help [me] find healthy solutions" to my sweetener use. I thanked her for her concern, but said there was no problem, so no solution was necessary. My body--my responsibility.

Be honest. If I go over my calories or have an otherwise "bad eating day," I log it. Once in a while I have a day during which I have no dinners listed. 99.9% of the time, I really didn't eat dinner. Then there are the occasional days upon which I've already exceeded my calories to the point that I just shrug and wonder why bother any longer. Those days are few and far between, but they exist--and part two of this rule is to not beat myself up when I'm not honest with MFP but honest with myself that the day is just better left behind for a fresh start in the morning.

- get plenty of exercise so that I can eat more and accomplish the same goals...
- be consistent
- tortoise and the hare...slow and steady wins the race
- recognize that I"m never going to be 100% perfect and recognizing that having a bad day doesn't mean I need to "start over"...it means I had a bad day and tomorrow is a new one and in the grand scheme of things it's irrelevant so long as I'm otherwise being consistent.

-Weigh daily and measure weekly, even if I don't expect any losses.
-Refrain from restricting my calories too much, because it only leads to burnout within a few months. (1500 may only be a little more than 1200, but lemme tell you, it makes a serious difference in my mind.)
-Eat whenever I want - I'm hungriest at night and will invariably go on a midnight binge if I don't eat after 9 on a work night. I don't listen to that bizarre claim that diet gurus make that says you'll "store fat" if you eat before bedtime (whatever that means).
-Go to the gym at least 5 days a week. Not so much for the calorie burn, but because working out keeps me on track and tends to curb my evening appetite.
-Focus on strength training, because it's more fun than cardio and gives far more satisfying results.

What has been helping me is pre-planning my meals before hand (in the morning usually) so if I want to fit a little snack or sweet in I can. Lifting every other day, cardio 2-3 times a week. Waking up with a good attitude and keeping it throughout the day is really important! Don't let the cravings win, but there is nothing wrong with having a little bit of what you love in moderation.

1. Weigh your food (I have been doing this for about 2 months now and it has been amazing!)
2. Don't be miserable, if you are eating on the lower end of recommended calories and you are hungry/cranky/dizzy, re-evaluate and add more calories. Nothing bad will happen if you slowly increase to where you are happier and still losing.
3. Find the foods that make you full and the ones that make you hungrier. I don't eat bread products right now (nothing is wrong with them, if someone wants them they are fine) because they make me hungrier and make me a bit bloated so I don't feel as great.
4. Exercise at least a little, everyone is going to do something different, but for your heart health and muscle maintenance it is really a good idea.
5. I weigh myself every day to keep myself accountable and remind myself what I am working for.
6. Log bad days. I was awful at doing this and I think I would have been more successful earlier on had I just sucked it up, logged, and kept on going.
7. Don't listen to everyone (most people) on the internet.