Give Me Your Best Weight Loss Advice

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

without opening your diary, we can not give specific advice.

if you are binging you are likely undoing any good you HAVE been doing.

Some people are able to moderate, some are not. if you can not, do not buy the foods you cant control yourself around. I don't buy peanut butter cups or the nutterbutter cookes (the wafer kind). I will eat it all in one sitting. most things, I can control.

I have sweets of SOME kind almost every day. I make room for them and log them. Oreos are my favorite. If you look in my diary, you will see 3 oreos on the agenda for tonight

I did have a week or two when I did not log due to power outages and a back injury (if you go past a couple of days you will see my logging stop for a bit) but go back further and its there. Complete with bedtime cookies I lose weight consistently and am in no hurry to lose (I lost 130 pounds, maintained for 3 years and then regained about 50 over the past year). I typically eat around 1400/1500 calories. I work out 3-4 times per week and am relatively sedentary otherwise (despite the fact I live on a farm LOL)

goal06082021 wrote: »

You almost definitely don't need to be restricting to 1200 calories. The people who actually need to eat that little in order to maintain a safe, sustainable calorie deficit are little old ladies with five pounds to lose who spend all day watching Maury and do no appreciable exercise whatsoever.

Go through the guided setup again, set it to lose 1lb per week and mark yourself Sedentary. Log your intentional exercise and eat those calories back, to keep your net intake at whatever level the app sets for you. For context, I'm three inches shorter than you and five pounds lighter, and my budget is 1990 net calories per day.

lgfrie wrote: »

First. you are not not losing weight on 1800 calories. TDEEcalculator.net says your maintenance level is 2205. So you are eating more than you think you're eating; you'd lose almost a pound a week on 1800. Step 1, tighten up the weighing, counting, and logging. You need to have solid, accurate knowledge of how many calories your consuming, and, for what it's worth, the formulas out there suggest that currently you're underestimating by quite a lot.

Couple of suggestions.

- don't think in terms of 100 pounds. Just focus on losing a pound this week, or 4-5 pounds this month, or other simple, doable goal that you can give yourself a gold star for achieving in the near-term. You'd be amazed how actually achieving a modest, short term goal can increase confidence and lead to more success, but first you have to get that "I have to lose 100 pounds" voice out of your head.

- trying to have 1200 calorie days and then gorging on snacks as night is classic binge and restrict behavior. It never ends in a good place. Binge-and-restricters rarely lose that 100 pounds and NEVER keep it off. Go to the MFP Goals tool, enter your age, gender, height, weight, and 1 lb per week as the goal, or if you reallllly want to be ambitious 1.5 pounds per week. However many calories it tells you to eat, eat that many, not less, not more. For you, at your TDEE as per TDEEcalculator.net, it'll probably be right around 1450 for 1.5 lbs per week and 1700 for 1 lb per week, and either will give you a much better chance of success than 1200. 1200 is not enough food for most people, especially people who like to eat and have a habit of overeating. No wonder you are binging at night, you are not getting enough food.

- maybe save yourself 100 or 150 calories for eating at night, and get yourself some snacks that are pretty good but not great, which fall into those caloric parameters. Something in between "chocolate cake" and "carrot sticks". Then throw out or donate all the junky snacks you love and can't resist. You can't eat what isn't there. For me, I got rid of allllll the cookies and ice cream and chips, and replaced it with things like 130 calorie packs of goldfish and 100 cal packs of popcorn. I like those, but I don't crave them, so I tend not to binge them.

- don't take off days, cheat meals, etc., for a while. Later on, when you're on a solid footing and have 10 or 20 pounds in the rear view mirror, sure. For right now, just focus on living within that MFP calorie target every day.

steveko89 wrote: »

Disclaimer up front: Not a doctor, formally trained or have any credentials in health & fitness. Basically some dude on the internet who considers themselves at least reasonably well-versed in a common-sense approach to weight management and fitness.

I'm going to try and break things up to cover everything you laid out and put my overall recommendations at the end.

JustaNoob wrote: »

My biggest struggle is night-time eating and too many sweets. I keep trying to be a "normal" moderate person and allow for sweets in moderation, but in all honesty I end up eating them all up in a night.

I've struggled with this sort of thing a few times and the best way to break the habit is to remove/avoid the decision point where you keep finding yourself making the choice you don't like.
- At one point I noticed I was torpedoing my progress by getting too many things out the vending machines at work, purely out of boredom. At the time the machines were cash/change only... so I stopped having cash on me. Eventually they added credit card readers to the machines but I'd curbed that habit such that it's not a high risk for me anymore.
- My wife and I are both big snackers if left to our own devices. We started keeping each other accountable to the kinds of things we bought at the store and kept in the house. It made a world of difference to how much we would snack. Again, we mitigated the habit to a point where it's not a calorie bonanza if one of us buys a pack of oreos or she makes a batch of cookies.
*Generally, the solution I've found is to start with restriction while training yourself to tolerate moderation for the long term.

JustaNoob wrote: »

I also struggle with not being prepared and grabbing food on the go. Some weeks my meal prep is on point, other weeks I don't do so well... or just straight up hate the food I cooked lol.

I am a HUGE fan of pre-logging as much as humanly possible. I also LOATHE leftovers so traditional meal prepping/batch cooking just makes me sad. The balance I've found is that I pre-log my day the night before. It starts with planning dinner with my wife so we can take something out of the freezer, etc. Once I know what's for dinner I can adjust the rest of the day to hit my macros accordingly. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are usually some combination of protein shakes, portable fruit, or reasonable pre-packaged snacks (especially during the week). Is it ideal? Probably not but it's what I've found that works for me and is way better than what I find myself doing if I don't plan. It will surely take some iteration but figuring out what works for you and fits your definition of "good enough" will be a valuable learning process.

Given the difficulty in accurately measuring exercise burn I'm partial to the TDEE model vs. MFP's NEAT+Exercise model. I've found good accuracy with Tdeecalculator.net with my own data. Given the stats you provided your maintenance level is likely somewhere in the 2200-2300 cal/day range.
*Source: https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=female&age=34&lbs=247&in=66&act=1.2&f=1

Based on some recent data from RP and their RP Diet app, the most successful dieters in their user base favored a loss rate of ~0.6% body weight per week lost, aka a starting loss rate for you of just over 1.5 lbs/week (750 cal/day deficit). For round numbers let's say your maintenance level is 2250 so to achieve a 1.5 lb/week loss set your goal at 1500 cal/day and see how that goes for about 6 weeks and re-evaluate based on your loss rate and adherence.

For macros, get 0.6-0.8 g protein/lb and treat that as a minimum rather than a limit so long as other macros aren't being neglected. Fat should be ~15-30% of your total calories and then you get the rest of your calories for carbs. Consider shooting for a +/- 15% range on macros and don't give too much thought to days you're a little off. You can drive yourself crazy obsessing on hitting the perfect macros.

A moderate loss rate and sufficient protein should help you hold on to muscle as you lose, though getting some resistance training in certainly won't hurt. The best workout program is the one you'll execute consistently. If you don't enjoy it, you probably won't do it (I know that's been the case for me).

As far as other tips are concerned:
- log everything as accurately and honestly as possible. Even if you have a day you're way over your target, the data is valuable to have.
- weight yourself daily and use a trending app like HappyScale to monitor your progress. You will see water weight spikes and general noise in your data. I've found nothing else to be as reassuring as seeing those ebbs and flows to really believe them to be true.
- Foster a positive relationship with food. There are no good/bad foods just recognize there are certain things you're probably not going to be able enjoy without consequence when restricting calories. There aren't any demon foods that will prevent you from losing weight, only quantities.
- It's less about motivation and more about habit and discipline. Do what you can to refine your process to remove obstacle and set yourself up for what you define as success. Plan meals, lay out workout clothes, block out gym time in your calendar, etc.
- Have patience and be kind to yourself. Losing 100 lbs is going to take some time and weight loss is never linear. You will have days you don't feel like following your plan, getting in a workout, etc. Avoid any sort of time limit or deadline and don't shy away from shifting to maintenance for a diet break if you start to feel some burnout. It's always better to hit pause than totally throw in the towel. Sustainability and consistency are going to be what gets you where you want to go, not some shortcut or fad diet. Get good at executing the basics and rest will get easier as you go.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

JustaNoob wrote: »

(snip)
Struggles:
My biggest struggle is night-time eating and too many sweets. I keep trying to be a "normal" moderate person and allow for sweets in moderation, but in all honesty I end up eating them all up in a night.

Save some calories for evening snacks, or consider whether your evening snacking is about something else.

Common examples:

* Inadequate sleep. Fatigue increases sweets cravings for most of us, and hits more toward the end of the day, can reduce ability to resist impulses.
* Stress. This also increases fatigue, plus calorie deficit increases physical stress so compounds the problem. If stress is high, seek non-food stress-management strategies (exercise, aromatherapy bubblebaths, meditation, journaling, prayer, whatever).
* Habit. Better to find a new non-food habit to replace the old one, not try to white-knuckle through.
* Boredom. Consider resuming an old hobby, or starting a new one; bonus points if it requires clean hands (needlework, sketching, musical instrument) or creates dirty ones (gardening, painting, carpentry).

If the problem isn't really hunger, the solution isn't food.

If your IR lets you eat fruits, consider trying to consistently eat several fruit servings daily for a few weeks. This is not universally helpful, but it's advice I got from a registered dietitian that worked well for me to reduce cravings for simpler sweets like candy, baked goods, etc. I've seen others here say it helped them, too. Could be worth a try.

I also struggle with not being prepared and grabbing food on the go. Some weeks my meal prep is on point, other weeks I don't do so well... or just straight up hate the food I cooked lol.

Brainstorm a list of foods you enjoy that require no prep. Ideally, some of them will be shelf stable. For meals at home, it could be commercial prepared frozen or shelf-stable packet meals. It could include pick-up snack foods like hardboiled eggs, 2% milk string cheese, whole-grain calorie-efficient breads (can be frozen), calorie-limited packs of nuts or soynuts, etc. Keep some of those brainstormed foods on hand all the time.

When you do cook, make a big batch & freeze some meals (or components, like cooked whole grains or beans or meat) for later use.

If you fall for fast foods under these circumstances, take a good hard look at the online menus of the ones near you (or near your work, etc.). Identify calorie-efficient, nutritious options, and keep that list with you. Most of the chains will sell you pieces (burger patty with no bun, for example). You can use those as part of a meal solution. Some of the chains have options in their online menus that don't show up on the menu board, or have calculators where you can mix and match parts to make a better overall meal choice. (Taco Bell has both of those options via their web site, for example.)

Figure out how to game your limitations/struggles, exploit your strengths and preferences.

JustaNoob wrote: »

goal06082021 wrote: »

You almost definitely don't need to be restricting to 1200 calories. The people who actually need to eat that little in order to maintain a safe, sustainable calorie deficit are little old ladies with five pounds to lose who spend all day watching Maury and do no appreciable exercise whatsoever.

Go through the guided setup again, set it to lose 1lb per week and mark yourself Sedentary. Log your intentional exercise and eat those calories back, to keep your net intake at whatever level the app sets for you. For context, I'm three inches shorter than you and five pounds lighter, and my budget is 1990 net calories per day.

Thanks... what about maintaining muscle? I saw a video where people who have dieted for a long time often have slower metabolism because they lose so much muscle over time. My fear is that some of my crash dieting mistakes of the past has lead to muscle loss and therefore slower metabolism.

If you've already lost muscle, that's water under the bridge, right? Forget about that, can't change the past, not worth hand-wringing about.

Now, you can do strength exercise to avoid losing more, and maybe even slowly add some muscle over the long haul. Get adequate protein, and general good nutrition, to support that.

Going forward, part of the way you prevent more muscle loss is by losing weight sensibly slowly, getting adequate nutrition while you do it. That, plus becoming more active and strong, is how you "repair your metabolism". (Mostly, it's not actually entirely literally metabolism in practice, but that's how people talk about it.🙄 It can include some metabolic functions, but also subconscious fatigue effects and habitual inactivity.)

As you lose weight, you'll find it's easier and more fun to add movement to your day . . . not just exercise, but increased daily activity of all sorts. Do that, consciously. Attack home projects, volunteer to help friends/neighbors with stuff, cook from scratch (it's movement, not just food), etc. Move while you wait for the dinner to microwave, while you brush your teeth, on your breaks at work. Just move more. Research suggests fidgety people burn a couple hundred or more extra calories daily, compared to very non-fidgety ones. I'm not suggesting you try to fidget, just saying that tiny changes add up.