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All across forums and articles, there are hundreds of different weight loss tips. But they're not all equal in importance. Some are helpful, but many are completely unnecessary.
Wake up at 6am, drink a kale smoothie and write a gratitude journal. Never eat bread. Eat smaller plates. Never eat after 6pm. etc. (These are basically page-fillers.)
But the more stipulations you add, the more restrictive and overwhelming your regimen will feel. Focusing on changing 1 habit at a time is a good way to make a habit stick.
Also, if you focus on the very few big habits (like tracking calories), the little ones are non-issues anyway.
"Use smaller plates when eating" - If you're already tracking and weighing/measuring your food, you don't need to do this because you already know how many calories are in a dish. And feel free to use a big plate if you have less calorie dense foods like vegetables and lean sources of protein.
"Eat food slowly" - When I was overweight and trying to go on diets, I once believed I needed to chew food X amount of times and that people who eat. Now, ironically, I eat faster than friends/family who are bigger than me. I just eat less.
Just an anecdotal example. Walking 3 hours in a city. Order 2 slices of pizzas. Eat them both in under a few minutes. Walk another 2-3 hours. Eating quickly because you're busy and active is different from mindlessly binging massive portions of food.
I'd like to hear your opinions. Do you have other examples of unnecessary rules that people impose on themselves that aren't actually necessary for weight loss.
Hoity toity OP! IME, sometimes rules, technically necessary or not, create a disciplinary structure within which a person can progress toward a goal. They help take second guessing and rationalizations out of the equation. Rules tend to help break down broad, longer term goals into more manageable increments and most people learn that weight loss is incremental; meal to meal, day to day, month to month.
If technically unnecessary rules help someone achieve their goals why is that bad? Someone who is determined to lose weight probably knows the basics but for whatever reason finds knowledge alone isn't enough in practice. Last time I checked, there are lots of options out there. What works for one person may not for another. If you don't like lots of rules OP don't follow programs that impose them!
I try to avoid the "NEVER" mindset; that can lead to obsession. I "avoid" some foods, or choose not to eat them right now. If I can put it off today, I can put it off tomorrow, too.
And I sure don't count calories. I've done that in the past, and it just sharpens my focus on food. I can take obsession to impressive heights; excel spreadsheets of calories, grams of carbs and protein; bar charts of weight loss; line graphs of planned versus actual exercise. None of that actually helps weight loss, it's just another excuse to think about food.
Smaller dishes CAN encourage smaller servings. They lead to more mindful eating because you have to decide to serve yourself more food, instead of piling it all on and chowing through it.
Avoiding eating after a certain hour has done wonders for my heartburn. I used to keep Tums front and center on the bedside table, but had to go hunting for them the other day when hubby wanted one.
There is also evidence that intermittent fasting--including restrictive eating windows like 12-6--causes a positive chemical change in your body. And it's easy to do, you don't need any special foods or equipment. I'm doing OMAD today, having just one meal. But it's a family lunch at a Mexican restaurant, so I don't expect to lose weight
I agree that changing one thing at a time is far more likely to stick with you than those diets where you turn your whole life upside down. I particularly dislike the ones that have an induction period, where you are only "allowed" a super limited diet for a week or two. That usually leads to early weight loss, but is so restrictive that you give up quickly and gain it all back. Yoyo!
And I sure don't count calories. I've done that in the past, and it just sharpens my focus on food. I can take obsession to impressive heights; excel spreadsheets of calories, grams of carbs and protein; bar charts of weight loss; line graphs of planned versus actual exercise. None of that actually helps weight loss, it's just another excuse to think about food.
This is true, I've been reading more about intuitive and mindful eating, and one of the first things that they recommend is putting away scales and smart watches and deleting tracking apps, because they can lead to obsessive thoughts about food, to the point where you're not listening to your body's own hunger and fullness cues and you're not happy with a well-adjusted diet that works for you. It can be disordered rather than disciplined to not feed your body when it's hungry.
"Eat food slowly" - When I was overweight and trying to go on diets, I once believed I needed to chew food X amount of times and that people who eat. Now, ironically, I eat faster than friends/family who are bigger than me. I just eat less.
The reason for the rule is to give your body time to signal FULL. You can shovel it in faster than your body can react so by the time you feel full you may have overeaten. If you have the discipline to stop eating based on portion size, even if you still feel hunger, then you don't need this rule.
Everyone is different. Some people need rules, some do not. The key is to block out all the noise and focus on what works for you. If you want to eat slowly and input every morsel and bit of exercise into a devise so be it. If you need to weigh your food, so be it. If you want to stop eating simple carbs, so be it, If you want to wing it and be intuitive so be it.
Losing weight is hard - no question about it. Anyone who says it was easy for them to lose weight is lying.
The hard part is getting the mind able to deal with sacrificing and changing habits. It's a process of success, fail, success, fail, and then hopefully success for the long run.
Words like 'need', 'must', 'don't', 'avoid', etc... cause more harm mentally than being encouraging with people's choices.
Losing weight is hard - no question about it. Anyone who says it was easy for them to lose weight is lying.
In my experience, as someone who has struggled with my weight for over a decade, but finally succeeded and has maintained a healthy weight for years. It actually was way easier than I ever thought it would be. It only seemed hard because I was trying to do it the wrong way (or at least a way that wasn't right for me personally).
I found weight loss really easy when I did it through gradual changes (i.e. gradually reducing calories each month, and making tweaks to my diet). For example, eating 2 slices of pizza instead of 3. Or eating the burger but skipping the fries and soda.
People make weight loss hard because they essentially punish themselves. Let's say, for example, a person eats 2 slices of cake instead of the 1 they promised themselves would eat.
A lot of people in this situation would either:
a) Punish themselves by giving up on their diet and binge eating
or b) Punish themselves by promising they'll eat only 1500 calories of eggs/chicken/brocolli the next day.
In my experience, as someone who has struggled with my weight for over a decade, but finally succeeded and has maintained a healthy weight for years. It actually was way easier than I ever thought it would be. It only seemed hard because I was trying to do it the wrong way (or at least a way that wasn't right for me personally).
I found weight loss really easy when I did it through gradual changes (i.e. gradually reducing calories each month, and making tweaks to my diet). For example, eating 2 slices of pizza instead of 3. Or eating the burger but skipping the fries and soda.
People make weight loss hard because they essentially punish themselves. Let's say, for example, a person eats 2 slices of cake instead of the 1 they promised themselves would eat.
A lot of people in this situation would either:
a) Punish themselves by giving up on their diet and binge eating
or b) Punish themselves by promising they'll eat only 1500 calories of eggs/chicken/brocolli the next day.
I am glad you found a way to lose with relative ease. You have cracked the code for yourself. But don't kid yourself, losing weight is hard. You are not giving yourself enough credit. You are finding ease because you found what worked for you - but you had some failures before you got there.
There is no one size fits all with losing weight. Everyone is different. Weight loss is hard until you find what works.
A comparison I would make is interpersonal skills. Trying to fit in and make friends is hard if you're coming at it from the angle of how do I impress people, how do I conform, how do I be pretend something I'm not. Not only is this approach inefficient but it's more laborious and more boring.
But then it becomes way easier when you instead approach it from a standpoint of: Listening to other people. Ask them questions about what they care about. Understand their needs. Trying to form genuine connections with people.
I guess the point I'm making is that sometimes the best way is also the easiest way.
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