What finally worked for me as a guy... So far

I've always been big for most of my life. I'm from that generation where your parents made you eat everything on your plate and now I find it hard to leave a scrap. I'm also a major salad dodger. Meat, meat and more meat is my thing. Maybe some sweetcorn or peppers.

Over the years i've tried them all. Weight Watchers (the meetings as a guy is just painful), lighter life, cambridge, crash dieting (no breakfast or lunch and a mouthful at dinner time), slimming world, atkins. I've done them all and there's the thing. Every diet works... if you can stick to it. And thats what ive found with commercial diets is you cant stick to them. At some point the boredom of eating plain meat or not certain foods sets in and you break. Commercial diets are also based on one simple fact, they exist to make the creators money. So they tell you "There's no counting calories (but you end up counting points)" or "Eat anything you like". All good at selling a diet, not good at actually working long term. Not for me anyway.

Anyway, I finally got fed up with the yoyo dieting and got to the last resort of hiring a personal trainer. I see him once a week for a beasting for 45 mins and then the other 6 days he gives us daily homework. This started off as just walking for 60 minutes a day before breakfast (so you burn more fat than anything else) then moved up to harder workouts.

As for diet he had one simple rule. No starchy carbs after 5pm. So no chips, potato, pasta or rice. The reason was simple. Starchy carbs give you a lot of energy and at that point in the day you don't need it. So load up on a lovely steak and pepper corn sauce with a side salad and a corn on the cob. Just no chips.

Or in my case make up a bowl of mexican spiced steak strips with some cheese, sour cream, onions and peppers. Basically a fajita without the bread.

Within a week I found something strange happen. I no longer get hungry. Not like usual diet hungry where your thinking about food and cant concentrate. I just don't seem to feel hungry anymore.

I use MFP to track everything I eat to make sure I make better choices. Not healthy choices. Like I said. I don't do salad. But just keep portions to a sensible size.

There is no doubt the exercise has an impact and it's only 45 minutes a day. I use a fitbit to keep myself motivated and push further each time but in terms of diet its really rather simple. No carbs after 5pm.

I think back now and I can see why I failed on things like weight watchers or those other diets which promise you can eat anything you like. I would get to the evening and get the munchies and see I had some points left so I would eat a bit of chocolate. Not something my body needs at the end of the day but hey, it was within my points. The truth I'm told is that you body wont burn that up so just stores it.

So far i've lost over a stone in weight but some of that is now muscle as I went from physical activity level of zero. My fitness is improved so much I actually notice it. I used to walk up stairs and would be gasping for breath, I now run up and dont notice it.

I'm not sure of the point of this post. I just wanted to share some words about whats working for me and how surprisingly easy I found it. Apart from the 45 minutes I work out which are hell on earth but i'm happy to spend that time for the results. And why havent you heard or clicked a link about the no carbs after 5pm thing? Because there is no money to be made in telling people something so simple.

I've got a way to go to hit my 76kg goal but now i've gone from 120kg to 110kg and i'm on the last notch of my belt.

So in short, no carbs after 5pm to reduce calories and curb hunger the next day. Use MFP to keep on track of what your eating. Do some exercise. Even if its just a 60 minute walk a day.