Success stories for losing by mainly portion control

I think you will find many (if not most) MFP people are losing chiefly through portion control. Since no one food or eating schedule correlates with weight loss improvement over the long term, this is a site wherein most of us are simply using "calories in/calories out" as our philosophy.

If I do portion control, I lose weight. I do this by entering what I eat in the food diary and limiting my calorie intake. There are some foods I am eating less of because they are high calorie and provide little satisfaction. For example, mashed potatoes have pretty much gone by the wayside. That's not to say I couldn't eat mashed potatoes if I wanted to and if they fit within my daily calorie allowance.

My numbers won't work for you because I am a five-by-five, pushing 70 y.o. couch potato. I was eating 1550 calories a day (recently dropped to 1525) and am walking about a mile a few times a week, slowly, pushing a walker. I've lost 15 pounds in the last 5 weeks. I don't expect that rate of loss to continue because the less you weigh, the harder it is to lose. I still have well over 100 pounds to go though so the pounds should continue to fall off as long as I control my eating.

My diary is open. Bear in mind that I live in a community where we have our dinners delivered and so some of my items are "best matches" done with a scale and guesses about how the food was prepared.

I'm not at goal yet but I've lost 50lb as if this morning by portion control and walking. Nothing has been dropped from my diet. I had cookies and milk for a snack today, a rum and coke yesterday. I just fot it into my day's calories and the weight has been steadily coming off.

I never followed any eating plan and always ate what I wanted when I wanted... just not as much as I wanted so I lost by using portion control. I actually ate plenty of “fast food” and “junk foods” while losing, just staying within my calorie allowance. I lost 43 lbs and have kept it off for 6+ years. I still eat whatever I want, which includes “healthy foods” and “junk foods” and “fast food” and I’ve been able to maintain my goal weight within a few pounds of buffer zone. I eat back all of my earned exercise calories and try to stay as active as possible. If I can do it, you definitely can too!