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A family member used Jenny Craig to give her body a kick start from a LOT of weight gain due to medications. Long story, but it worked for her and now she is so holistic and anti so many meds as she's been thru hail and back.
Pretty much this. download a fitness app, find out how many calories you should consume to lose (try to stay below budget). try to sync food consumption with actual hunger (not thirst, boredom, etc.) Do not use the calories burned through exercise as a reason to eat more, despite what the apps say. if you are alotted 1600 calories, stay within that range whether you exercise or not. Drink plenty of water. It's what you do over time, not a few days or even a week. Good luck.
Exactly. The 40 pounds didn't go on overnight, and they're not going to come off overnight. Focus on making healthy, sustainable changes, and be kind to yourself.
Even if you elect to go with an alternative weight-loss strategy, understand that all of them ultimately only work because they generate a sustainable calorie deficit.... all of them! There are no magical formulas or special foods that accelerate calorie consumption, those are effective because they're part of an overall successful strategy and their role is mostly incidental.
Good luck and check back frequently to let us know how you're doing.
Yes. There really is no special, magical diet that's going to give you any more dramatic weight loss than the other. They ALL achieve loss due to a caloric deficit. You just need to do some soul searching and figure out what type of consumer you are and your tendencies when it comes to food. This is often found out through trial and error. Personally, I am a grazer, who tends to eat every 2-3 hours except for when i go to bed, so I craft my day food-wise around that. I eat about 200 calories for breakfast (usually a protein shake because I'm on the go), a snack totalling (200 calories), lunch (250-300 calories), snack 2 (100 calories), dinner (450-500 calories), dessert (170 calories). I tend to eat a lot of legumes and whole grains. I like basmati, jasmine and wild rice, couscous, whole wheat pasta. I'm not a big meat eater, so meat is probably no more than 4-5 oz, twice per day. Vegetables are about 2-2.5 cups per day, cruciferous and colored veggies being favs. I also eat a fair share of evil processed foods like Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice, because they are pre-portioned and I work in a hectic office environment that dictates the need for ready made heat and eat food. I just aim to find the lowest sodium entrees. I love fresh fruit, and dairy in controlled amounts. I hate skim milk, so it's 2%. I eat a Nestle Skinny Cow chocolate bar as one of my snacks, and a Nestle Skinny Cow ice cream cone for my dessert. I love sweets and I'm not going to give them up, ever. I just control the amount that I eat. If get to be really serious about exercise, then you quite simply will not eat total crap or overeat. I am not a super health nut, but I try to eat decently. From an exercise standpoint, nothing fuels my workouts better than carbs. When I am doing cardio (about 40 minutes), glycogen/sugar is the preferred fuel. No way would I eat fatty meat before working out. You'd be surprised at how quickly your body can deplete those stores.
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Originally Posted by fleetiebelle
Exactly. The 40 pounds didn't go on overnight, and they're not going to come off overnight. Focus on making healthy, sustainable changes, and be kind to yourself.
couldn't say it any better. be kind to yourself. there's a reason why dieting has such a high failure rate. it's not just about the number on the scale. its a life commitment. if you can't see yourself eating that way for life, then re-evaluate. because once you hit that magic number, then what? are you going to look longingly at a slice of cheesecake? or are you going to learn to modify your behavior so that you can take a small sliver of cheesecake and move on? eat a kid's size burger? etc.
I think that if you have a regular medical clinic you might ask to see your dietitian and they have some great suggestions for meals, and diet and plenty of resources. That would give you good start.
Limiting your carbs/sugars will help a lot. For example less or no breads, less/no pasta, eat raw veggies and fruits for snacks, drink lots of water.
Walking is healthy exercise, even if you live where it isn't easy to walk, go to a mall or shopping center and walk. A pedometer will tell you how many steps you have taken.
For instance, eat less than 45 carbs for each of your three meals....eat your red lean meat, or chicken. Between meals eat an apple, or a carrot or whatever veggies or fruits that you like.
Wow!!! Thank you for all the information! It’s very helpful.
Today, I signed up for a gym membership and I paid extra to have a trainer go over my measurements and to suggest what foods I should be consuming. That trainer will also provide 4 private sessions.
A friend was headed to diabetes and she took MAJOR control of things and her 5 foot body was about 262 yep that much...she eliminated ALL WHITE FOODS, protein, veggies, water, gym and lots of walking. She dropped about 80 lbs over 6-8 months and staying with her new life and body.
Cutting carbs is big and I know some don't agree but I believe it helps. I got rid of breads in my life about 10 yrs ago and eat a good protein breakfast daily. I read yrs ago about this protein for the start of the day vs the toast, bagels, etc the SAD foods most people do...cereals etc. I'm much older and can't work out like I did for years, so gotta control what goes in the mouth.
Good luck.
This definitely works. I went stringently low carb for a year and I felt great. I only lost 11 pounds though, so it isn’t ALL you must do.
Now I have very few carbs, but I do eat them, and the key is portion control. If I want a sandwich, it’s on very thin bread, or I only eat 1/2. I eat as many vegetables as I want, including the higher carb ones. I have whole fruit, but not juice. I don’t eat many desserts. I only eat certain things if they are really good. For example, there are very few French fries that are worth the calories, but if they are, I’ll have some. Always have salad dressing on the side and dip my fork in it before each bite. You’ll have dressing on every bite, but you won’t use the whole serving. Use a small amount of protein to curb hunger...an ounce or two of meat or cheese or nuts will fill you up.
In other words, I’ve arrived at a compromise that works for me.
It depends on how complicated you want to be. I lost a little over 60 pounds. I joined Weight Watchers and felt I got a lot from that approach which encourage healthy eating and portion control. I tend to eat lowish carb. Not really low carb but not high carb. I limit added sugar.
That said, here's the thing. Losing weight is all about the calorie deficit. If you have a calorie deficit you will lose weight. If you don't you won't. There are a lot of ways to create a calorie deficit. My main recommendation is to find a way of eating that you can be happy with forever. Yes, at goal weight I can eat a little more than I ate each day while losing. The operative word there is little. Since I way a lot less I burn fewer calories than when I started out so maintenance level eating is not that different from what I ate when I started out losing.
As for how many calories you burn, there are a few ways to figure it that may be more accurate that online calculators. I have done all of these. First, I have a Fitbit and get some idea of how many calories I burn from that. I wear it all the time.
Second, recognize that calorie burn depends a lot on your body composition. People with high body fat burn fewer calories than same size people with less body fat. I got my tested with a dexa scan. Usually you get an estimate of how many calories you burn at rest (your RMR) when you get the results.
Third, you can actually get your RMR tested. This was fairly inexpensive (I think $75) and gave me my actual RMR number.
Might be more expensive, it is where I am. DexaFit or what not does it, but I think it's ~$150 or was the last time I thought about getting body fat measured. They really want you to buy into subscriptions though. Four test subscriptions which could be any combination of DEXA/RMR/VO2 max were around $75, basically buy four for the price of two.
RMR formulas aren't highly accurate (roughly +/- 375 calories with 95% confidence intervals, although some estimate skew low or high). But everything with calories is fairly inaccurate. Calories in food is by the Atwater method (4-9-4). Atwater itself is an estimate. One gram of bacon fat has more calories (by direct calorimetery) than a gram of milk fat. Not a huge difference, but a difference. Plus there's variance from individual to individual. I may get slightly more energy from milk fat than you do. We're talking less variance than in RMR but it's still variance. Two packages of 15% hamburger won't have the same calorie content per pound either as they're not completely identical. But the biggest error comes from that people aren't actually very good at counting/estimating calories going in. Then there's more variance/error in calories from exercise.
Not to say it's hopeless, but looking at trends on the scale and treating the numbers as what they are (estimates that will never be 100% accurate) is ultimately where you end up. Good estimates get you closer. Getting an RMR test done, using the kitchen scale to weigh everything... those get you better estimates. They're still estimates though.
1. Limit/eliminate carbs and stay away from lowfat foods. they are loaded with sugar. Full fat is better, calorie measured because you will feel fuller longer.
2. If you slip up, consider it a slip up. Don't over compensate the next day, don't get angry with yourself. Just get back on track the NEXT MEAL.
It's been fun to read the responses to this as there are so many different ways to lose weight. Some does depend on your age also. I found when I hit 40 - losing weight was way harder than in my 30's and calorie limiting yielded very slow results.
I started eating a plant based diet in November 2017 (no meat, no dairy) and lost 25lbs without even really trying. This was also in tandem with running almost daily (had a milage target for 2017).
Good luck with your goals - try to break it down into smaller goals (10lbs at a time) so it doesn't seem so overwhelming.
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