The Secret to Weight Loss

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Replies

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited May 2021
    I agree OP. However, I'm a believer in habits rather than discipline. Discipline can start you out right and put you on track, but for me, it eventually runs out. If I have the habit structure set up in that time frame, I just switch over. I now run on autopilot after 8 years.

    I think this is interesting, because in my mind habits are just evidence of very strongly developed discipline. It takes less effort because you've ingrained it in so well. Discipline is harder at first because you're making order out of chaos. It's much easier to keep things in order than it is constantly clean up chaos. That's the lesson that I think is really hard for many of us, for healthy eating and exercise or other good habits.

    So I wouldn't sell yourself short on being disciplined at all!

    Yes/no.

    The thing is, you can do a lot of changes to your environment to make the path of least resistance the habit. Ie: I don't do in person grocery shopping - ever. I do online order and pick it up. This started because covid, but it continues because my 'last cart' list is the healthy stuff, and if I am using online pages with catagories there's no walk past the bakery. Any 'treat' I pick up I have to choose and seek out. I need to exercise some discipline not to choose that, but it's way less than walking past fresh made brownies or whatever.

    Same thing at gas stations where the former habit was going in and buying a candy bar. Now I pay at the pump and keep going. Again, I have to use a little discipline not to go in, but not nearly as much as white knuckling it past picking up the snack that's at the register.

    All my 'snacks' that I do buy are pre-portioned and put in either the freezer or with the canned goods, depending on what they are. They don't sit on the counter or the desk. So, I only have to use discipline in the 'put them away' 30 seconds, rather than every time I walk into the kitchen - or worse, I used to keep them ON MY DESK. If I want to go have one, I go get it and leave the room - again the discipline is in the pre-portioning and walking out on the room with one serving in a bag - not in gritting my teeth and stopping at one serving from an open bag in front of me.

    It is EASIER for me to go upstairs, grab an apple that IS out on the counter than it is to walk further to the pantry for a ziplock of chips or dig into the freezer and grab a frozen brownie and wait around for it to thaw. I CAN, but it's extra effort and meh. Then when I don't do it as often, because I am lazy, the habit of having that brownie kind of fades out and 'go to the fridge, grab the fruit and go' becomes the muscle memory and habit.

    Basically all these habits form from some discipline, sure, but in tiny little spurts not some big act of willpower all the time. It's only the willpower necessary to minorly inconvenience yourself. And because those little habits are LITTLE, it's easier to make it a habit. When you have to fight the big stuff, yeah, you're expending a lot of effort to make the habit a habit, but when it's the little stuff not so much.


  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
    @wunderkidking

    I think that's what I mean to say - I'm coming from a very particular POV on this that probably doesn't make sense to deep dive in on MFP of all places - I'm long winded enough as it is - that good discipline is not just "being able to do the extra hard thing" but also "recognizing our own weaknesses and setting ourselves up for success anyway." You have to be honest with yourself and know your weak points in order to improve upon them.

    The true discipline is actually in the little things, because those are the things that come with almost no instantaneous reward but we do them anyway. It's easy to pat yourself on the back for white knuckling it through some hard thing, but the long term success is going to involve a lot of very boring avoidance of temptation.

    That's probably the best I can do while being brief...at least for me, haha.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    edited May 2021
    While I don't disagree, I feel this is too simplified for many people. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I do think it's too stripped down for some.

    Getting a handle on calories out can be difficult, especially for people with extenuating health concerns. Managing calories in can be difficult, especially for people with mental/emotion ties to food, weight, etc. Not to mention that some have never seen anything resembling portion size/control... the constant messaging about "best" diets or demonized food or "3 simple tricks", etc.

    Yes, the answer is simple -- cals in and cals out -- but the practice can be very VERY difficult. There is context and nuance to these conversations that is important, and that can be hard to flush and flesh out in text-based formats, like MFP. IMO, saying things like, "it's easy, just manage your cals in and cals out" does a disservice to people trying to manage their weight, even though it is technically correct.
  • Terytha
    Terytha Posts: 2,097 Member
    Secret subsection A is: patience.

    Takes a long friggin time to put CICO into use in a noticeable way.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,572 Member
    I'm happy for you... but CICO has never worked for me.... I find many on here who lose that way have to eat so very little forever to maintain or workout like crazy. Yet those who lose with CICO.. are like a strict religious sect who think they're the only ones getting into heaven. They also, can never explain the dreaded plateau. If CICO works like science.. one should never stall in weight loss. But.. they do!

    I eat more to lose more... I just eat the right things. I eat more often to lose and keep it off... and I exercise only for an hour at the most at a time. If not..over exercising works against weight loss efforts. I don't log. When I found the way that worked for me.. I lost all my weight so. much easier than the cico battle.

    So much wrong here (for others who aren't you) but, mostly, how in the heck can you say being in a calorie deficit doesn't work for you if you're not even attempting to count them? You could just be one of the lucky ones who eats under maintenance naturally. Not all of us has that luxury.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    I just want to hijack here for a minute and say, I didn’t find CICO a battle at all. In fact, I found it waaaaay easier than I expected. It was just a matter of paying attention.

    I feel a bit sorry for people who are armpit deep in keto, IF, or other challenging plans. It seems so much work to reach the same eventual goal.

    I guess I need more punishment or it’s not real.

    Compared to all the other things I tried over the years to manage my weight, counting calories is by far the simplest, most flexible, and least intrusive socially.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,088 Member
    CICO has been medical advice forever. Success rate, not so good, 99% or there about failure rate. Reason? You did it wrong. >:)

    Not always. There are some people that di have Issues. Some psychological and some physical. The research shows us that there is a compensatory drive to over eat post weight loss. So,yes CICO is king, but controlling one's appetite is a close second. 99% failure rate? Probably closer to 65% failure rate. Many studies use someone's lowest weight and count any regain as failure. Is it though?
  • GigiAgape1981
    GigiAgape1981 Posts: 64 Member

    I feel a bit sorry for people who are armpit deep in keto, IF, or other challenging plans. It seems so much work to reach the same eventual goal.

    Me too.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member

    I feel a bit sorry for people who are armpit deep in keto, IF, or other challenging plans. It seems so much work to reach the same eventual goal.

    Me too.

    Same . That said lowering my carbs came along for the ride with CICO (I don't like most carbs all that much, so the calories aren't always worth it for me and my protein used to be really low), and IF is kind of much the same - I am not interested in food before noon most days. So basically not eating things I didn't care for and when not hungry just sort of happened, anyway.

    But neither one of those was or is a hard and fast rule. They were just easy adaptations for me, personally, to cut out calories.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,811 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    CICO has been medical advice forever. Success rate, not so good, 99% or there about failure rate. Reason? You did it wrong. >:)

    Not always. There are some people that di have Issues. Some psychological and some physical. The research shows us that there is a compensatory drive to over eat post weight loss. So,yes CICO is king, but controlling one's appetite is a close second. 99% failure rate? Probably closer to 65% failure rate. Many studies use someone's lowest weight and count any regain as failure. Is it though?

    Yes, I agree some people get advice other than eat less and move more. Considering weight gain is moving up and not down I suspect that most are in the failure category. most studies I looked at were over 10 years but I haven't investigated that in quite some time. Maybe weight lose boils down to a math equation but I suspect there's some biology thrown in. cheers.
  • xxzenabxx
    xxzenabxx Posts: 935 Member
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    If you clicked on this post I am assuming you want to know the number one secret to weight loss. Is it a magic pill? Is it a special kind of diet? Is it fasting? Is it a particular eating schedule? WHAT IS IT!?!?!

    ok ok ok. The secret...is....CALORIES IN VS CALORIES OUT

    You need to burn more calories per day than what you consume. Your fad diet doesn't matter, your fasting doesn't matter, there are no magic pills, and unfortunately a lot of you have been misinformed!

    I have been at this for years. I can tell you the only thing you need to focus on is calories. All of your macronutrients are important, your body needs them all. Dont be scared of carbs, fats, and eat enough protein.

    SIMPLE.

    Yes but that’s just the physical part of it. We also need to look at the environmental, social, mental and emotional sides to weight loss. It’s much more complex than that. What about cravings and food triggers? I think it’s easier for some and harder for others. Some people can create an environment for themselves where it’s easy but some can’t. A lot of people are emotional eaters, especially women. There’s a lot of psychology in weight loss that people don’t address. And people also overestimate there calories out so that’s another issue in its self.