Weight loss plans

[jbell1981]

Anyone have good recommendations for weight loss plans that worked for You? I need to loose about 80 pounds and need something a little structured to keep at it.

I tried weight watchers a few years ago but hated the food diaries and counting points. I just looked into Medifast but that is pretty expensive. I coworker did Seattle Suttons and it worked for him but it was also very expensive and I don't think it would work for a large family unless I eat dinners separately from the rest of the family.

I am thinking of trying slim fast as it seems pretty straightforward.

[delcecchi]

You need to have some sort of thing where you control and count what you eat so you don't eat too much. Weight Watchers is as easy as anything that doesn't involve pre-packaged foods.

Jenny Craig, etc are the pre packaged route. It is easy since you just eat what you are provided. But the transition to real life might be difficult.

[upnorth]

I have not lost 80# but have lost about 35#. Mostly plain old common sense.

We don't eat potato chips, doritos, or the like.

We don't eat cake or cookies at least not regularly.

We don't buy and try as best we can to refrain from eating white bread.

We don't eat and try to avoid white flour pasta.

We eat very little potatoes.

We don't buy and refrain from eating candy.

We rarely use processed sugar.

We eat lean meats.

We eat lots of veggies.

We eat lots of fresh fruit.

We don't buy canned fruit or veggies, but rather fresh or frozen.

We steam our veggies.

We do eat some wheat pasta.

We do eat whole grain breads.

Snacks are fruits, nuts, veggies sticks, whole grain crackers and cheese.

I more so than my wife(but she still does some) walk at least 2 miles a day with a goal of 4 miles or more per day not including the to and from the car stuff.

We don't use elevators or escalators if we can avoid them.

I try to work with weights at least a couple times a week.

I could still use to drop a few pounds but @ 58 I feel I more fit than most people 20 years my junior.

Best part is------I feel really good, better than I did when I was in my early 40s for sure.

[Big Dave2]

I lost about 55 lbs this last year and what works for me is a very low carbohydrate diet. I am diabetic so it not only helped me lose weight but helps me cut down on insulin usage and still keep my blood sugars in check.

I try to keep carbs under about 20 grams/day. That means all the stuff that Upnorth said above but I take it a bit further.

No bread at all

No Milk

No potatoes

No sweets

No pasta at all

No crackers

Very little processed food

I eat mostly fresh meats and vegetables. A typical day might be:

2 fried eggs for breakfast

A Salad for lunch

A meat and vegetable for supper, like chicken and broccoli.

If I want a snack I eat cheese or lunch meat.

The key is to not worry so much about fat but keep the carbohydrate count down. It's amazingly easy once you get used to it.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Spot on. I keep around 100 grams of carbs per day.

If you REALLY want to lose weight, I think there is no other way than to track every single thing you eat (and exercise), at least for 4-6 months. MyFitnessPal is a great app, and it takes about a minute to enter your meals. Once your foods are in, they stay in, and make it even faster. Calories in needs to be less than calories out. Sounds simple, and it is, but most people just don't get it.

Two recommendations I have:

1) Fed Up (movie). This will help you understand why everyone is overweight.

2) The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. This will reinforce the "why", and show you how to fix it.

[upnorth]

The key is to not worry so much about fat but keep the carbohydrate count down. It's amazingly easy once you get used to it.

The starchy carbs are a double whammy, they are both really high in calories, and they tend to weigh you down and drops your energy levels making it difficult to motivate to exercise.

[jbell1981]

Thanks for all the info/tips.

[upnorth]

Spot on. I keep around 100 grams of carbs per day.

If you REALLY want to lose weight, I think there is no other way than to track every single thing you eat (and exercise), at least for 4-6 months. MyFitnessPal is a great app, and it takes about a minute to enter your meals. Once your foods are in, they stay in, and make it even faster. Calories in needs to be less than calories out. Sounds simple, and it is, but most people just don't get it.

Two recommendations I have:

1) Fed Up (movie). This will help you understand why everyone is overweight.

2) The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. This will reinforce the "why", and show you how to fix it.

The trailer from "Fed up"

[deerminator]

Ditto on many of these posts. Lean meats with veggies and salad is the way to go. I did WW and liked it because of the accountability. No meetings for me, just the tracking. If you like any sort of tracking or scoring like in sports, it can actually be kind of fun. Seriously. I didn't feel like paying the $20 or whatever it was a month anymore so I bought iTrackBites app and its about the same as the WW app and even better in some respects. Plus its a one time fee.

I find I need to track - both points for food and steps on my fitbit, or I don't lose weight. Even when just watching it, I may maintain but don't lose weight. I need to score myself. I don't find it cumbersome, it just becomes habit and after awhile, you just know approximately what points foods are. Most veggies and fruits are 0 points on WW btw. Even fruits with sugars because they figure no one ever got fat on apples or bannanas. lol

[deerminator]

To give you an example btw, I'm about 200 pounds (was 230) and get 44 points a day. On a typical day, I'll have steel cut oats for breakfast (one cup cooked plus 2 tbsp brown sugar = 8 points) along with coffee and half/half (another 2 points). For lunch, I might have a salad that rings in about 10 points (tons of veggies, feta cheese, crutons, meat of some sort and 2 tbsp dressing), yogurt and granola along with an apple in afternoon for snack (4 points), and a sirloin steak (8 ounces = 8 points) plus asparagus (no points) and a roll with butter (4 points) for dinner. A beer or wine that night (4 points) and then a snack of some sort (another 6 points or so). And I'm looking at 46 points. Now if I've excercised, got my 10,000 steps, that's minus six points. So I'm good. I could even have an extra drink! And if you look at the food I ate that day, I really don't think its depriving myself. It was at first because I wasn't used to eating healthy like that. But after a while, you're like, that's a good amount of food!

I also get like 40+ "extra points" a week. So that allows you to go out with the buddies and have a few beverages on the weekends.

And when I do this, I lose weight, might be half a pound a week but I do. Otherwise I don't. At least that's my experience.

[tacklejunkie]

For those that don't drink milk, how do you get your calcium and Vit D3? 

[delcecchi]

Sunlight and supplements for the D3,

Green Veg, Cheese, Nuts, for Calcium. 

 

http://nof.org/articles/886

[Sandmannd]

I had a gastric bypass ten years ago a shed a lot of weight then put some back on. I wanted to loose more weight but already ate little. So without changing eating habits how do you loose weight? A few of us at work started working out. We did P90X and in those three months I dropped a little over 30 lbs without watching what I ate at all. I loved the results and worked out more and lost some more. Then I got busy and lazy for a little over a year and put some weight on. Now I'd like to loose 20-25 lbs. I just started Body Beast. Working out 5-6 times a week will drop fat. You may not see as much weight come off as muscle weighs more, but you'll feel much better and look much better and the fat melts away. I think too many focus on food alone and don't do the physical activity. Of course you should watch what you eat but don't forget to get out and walk or bike at the minimum. 

[fishersofmen]

I have a hard time keeping weight on in the summer. I get a lot of exercise at work and go to the gym. Usually eat out once or twice a day and have still dropped 10 pounds in the last 2 months.

[nofishfisherman]

Losing weight is generally a simple matter of consuming less calories than you burn during the day. The size of the deficit will in part determine at what rate you lose weight.

There are a million ways to track calories in versus calories burned and its seems like many were covered.  You can go the program route such as Weight Watchers or similar programs or you can do it yourself.  Different things work for different people so you just need to figure out what works for you and helps keep you motivated and accountable.  

While I think the paid programs you can join have their time and place self tracking has never been easier with the activity trackers like the Fitbit and the calorie counting apps that are out there.  It is relatively easy to track your calories burned and calories consumed using these tools.  Most apps have features where you can simply take your smart phone and scan the bar code of the food you ate and enter serving amount and it will automatically track those calories.  You can also manually enter anything without a bar code. It only takes a few minutes a day to record everything you ate and see your calorie count.

If you want to go the self tracking route I would find and wear an activity tracker that has a corresponding app that tracks calories.  Spend a week or two eating normally but track all the food you consume so that you can get a good baseline for the number of calories you typically take in.  After you have that established you should be able to compare that number to the number of calories you are burning throughout a normal days activity based on your activity tracker.  If you are consuming 2500 calories but only burning 2000 then you know you need to cut 500 calories per day or burn 500 more per day simply to maintain your weight. Obviously taking a two prong approach by decreasing calories in and increasing calories burned will give you the results.  Its just a matter of knowing what your starting point is and what actions are needed to achieve your goal.

One you have that info you can start looking at your diet to see where are some easy places to cut calories or what sort of substitutions can be done.  You can also look at your activity level and see where you can add in more calorie burning activities.  I think once most people see the actual numbers and have numbers put to their goal its easier to stay on track because you have firm numbers to shoot for every day. At the end of the day you will be able to see in black and white whether you made strides toward your goal or if you set yourself back another day.

The real trick is sticking with it long enough so that the changes you have made become your new habit which make keeping the weight off much easier.

 

[delcecchi]

And remember that alcoholic and sugar beverages have a lot of calories.  

[Powerstroke]

At the end of the day, the only true way to manage your weight is control your food. If you gain wait in certain seasons or when you're not active, then you're overeating. Its important to know how much you are supposed to be eating everyday. Each person's number is different and there are only a few ways to get that customized number. 

 

A proper nutrition plan  is the key to gaining, maintaining or losing weight. Exercise serves two purposes, gaining muscle to increase the amount of calories burned every day (and improve strength and appearance) and to create a caloric deficit. Caloric deficit either helps you lose weight or allows you to eat more, depending on your goals. The key is to not over eat. Exercise does not burn as many calories as people think. Most workouts burn fewer calories than most healthy meals. A truly hard workout will equal a full meal and a snack depending on what you're eating. 

[DrJuice1980]

You'll never out-work poor eating habits. 

Drink LOTS of PURE H2O.

 

 

[tacklejunkie]

Another trap people get into is thinking that because they were careful with their eating during the week, they can splurge on the weekend. Maybe if you're at your ideal weight that might be ok but not if you're trying to lose

[andy33]

 

On 4/10/2015 at 3:28 AM, jbell1981 said:

Anyone have good recommendations for weight loss plans that worked for You? I need to loose about 80 pounds and need something a little structured to keep at it.

 

I tried weight watchers a few years ago but hated the food diaries and counting points. I just looked into Medifast but that is pretty expensive. I coworker did Seattle Suttons and it worked for him but it was also very expensive and I don't think it would work for a large family unless I eat dinners separately from the rest of the family.

 

I am thinking of trying slim fast as it seems pretty straightforward.

 

Have you ever tried drinking warm lemon juice with honey? Drink it in the morning before you eat or drink anything. This is one of the easiest and the most efficient ways to lose weight. 

[ozzie]

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2015 at 4:14 PM, tacklejunkie said:

Another trap people get into is thinking that because they were careful with their eating during the week, they can splurge on the weekend. Maybe if you're at your ideal weight that might be ok but not if you're trying to lose

 

In our local paper they highlighted a local that is an author and wrote a book on what he did for his weight loss...he would eat good for 6 days of the week and then have 1 splurge day where he could eat what he wanted and doing this reset his metabolism and he lost a lot of weight.

[Bear55]

Lost 40 a few years back. Forget diets, you need an entire lifestyle change. Think of food as either slowly killing you or helping you live longer and healthier. Just because someone is skinny does not mean they are healthy. Personally I stick to a lot of fruits, veggies and wild game, very little carbs, dairy, beef or pork. Not that I don't love ribs, steak & the like but it's not a regular meal. After a while you don't really miss the bad stuff because you feel so much better.

On ‎5‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 1:08 AM, CoraKramer said:

Best way to lose weight is to use natural dietary supplements.

 

Let me guess, you sell diet supplements in on of those pyramid scheme multi level marketer deals.

[jbell1981]

I'm down about 35 pounds (315 to 280) in 2 months. I've been doing the Keto ultra low carb diet with a goal of less than 20 grams a day and it has been working well so far. My goal is 225 so I still have a ways to go. 

[ZachD]

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2015 at 4:14 PM, tacklejunkie said:

Another trap people get into is thinking that because they were careful with their eating during the week, they can splurge on the weekend. Maybe if you're at your ideal weight that might be ok but not if you're trying to lose

Whole weekend cheats yes I agree even with ideal weight but one cheat meal a week I feel is ok

If you are maintaining your calorie deficit for everything else.

I feel like this is actually a good thing because when you are in a calorie deficit your bodies metabolism actually will slow down as your leptin levels drop to conserve energy. Having one cheat meal will temporarily raise your levels. 

Now your cheat meal should be sensible still something with carbs and protein think burger or philly cheese steak sandwich pizza with sausage two or 3 slices not the whole pizza.

 

Fasted cardio before your cheat meal is also recommended

 

 

 

 

Anyway like others have said before being in a calorie deficit is the way to lose weight

You need to find your calorie maintenance level then ideally cut 500 calories a day below that this will get you around 1lb of fat a week loss. Weigh yourself ONCE a week in the morning and track your progress give it 3 weeks before you evaluate and see if the calorie deficit you are at is right if you gained or stayed the same weight take more calorie off your daily intake.

Being in a 500 calorie deficit is the most important part exercise comes second when adding exercise this is going to add to the daily calorie you burn so if without exercise you calorie deficit to lose weight was at 2500 calories with exercise it might be 2700 calories a day.

 

When cutting or anytime really clean foods are #1 in my book if it doesn't spoil in a week I don't eat it

Think chicken, broccoli, green beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, green beans, turkey blah blah

 

You should also count your Macronutrients which are carbs protein and fat

Ideally when cutting  10-30% carbs, 40-50% protein, 30-40% fat

 

[Maxine_Partain]

Great information. I was also looking for some tips to burn fat. I don't take too much food but I am a little bit fat. What could be the reason? Help me.