Asklemmy

60lbs. Calorie deficit. Aimed for 1500 calories, bled over with a reasonable margin to 1800 calories. Per day.

Can't afford to eat much, cuz SSI, rent increase. Kept having conversations in head, like "I can buy laundry detergent OR have food to last the month." I've lost 20 lbs past few months , after discovering how tasty white rice can be, with just a tiny bit of sesame oil, salt and pepper.

COVID. Lost 10kg.

• Dr. Ian Smith Fat Smash Diet (Except I kept the coffee in the first part)
• It don't happen overnight (Weigh in about once a week or so...)
• Stop all Fast Food (Seriously, when cheat days come along make your own with better ingredients)
• Pack lunches (& you will also save a ton of $$$)
• Large meal earlier in the day
• Exercise (I walk / hike allot now)
• Make good choices (It really comes down to this, there is tons of crap in the grocery store - don't take it home)

You can and will do it, but it will take time.

Ulcerative colitis

This might not work for everyone but this is honestly what I did:

• I made sure my health was in check. Were my Hashimoto's medications up to date? Did I have any deficiencies? etc

• Started eating filling food, without calorie counting. Both when I cooked and when I ate out I picked options that used nutritious ingredients and a variety of food groups, but also weren't absolutely fucking dreadful to consume. Getting rid of enjoyment from your diet completely is the fastest way to relapse into binge-eating and just generally isn't helpful.

• Started not just exercising, but also moving around more. Either alone to run errands or just with friends, we can just walk around and talk, see where the road takes us. (I understand this might be difficult for suburbia Americans though)

• Understood my goals. I wasn't sure initially if I wanted to just lose weight or gain muscle. I had some not-so-great experiences with the scale when I was an athlete that I only just started overcoming. I wanted to decrease my overall volume so I stopped looking towards the scale and just made sure to do the workout exercises that catered to my body's needs and checked for progress in the clothes that stopped fitting me.

Hope this helps! I've been a lot healthier and happier since taking my health into my hands and staying away from the disordered habits of my gymrat family 🫡

Eat raw veggies (salads)

In the first week or two you won't feel like it was a real meal since your body still craves sugars, fats and junk. But once you get past the cravings you find out that this huge meal filled with fiber is super filling but the calorie count is really low, and so you start losing weight

I started taking antidepressants

Stopped drinking beer and doing HIIT/circuit workouts regularly -- lost about 30lb so far

Low carb diet. I count carbs and keep the daily total below 70g and try to keep it closer to 30g per day. My peak weight was 235# and I am now at 172#.

I ate less by keeping snacks out of my home.

I've seen a few people recommending calorie counting here but haven't seen anyone mention Macrofactor, which seems weird considering how often I see people recommending Kagi. I draw the parallel because, while it's a paid product, I find it significantly better than the competition.

I started using it at the start of the year and have had steady progress. Foremost, it is extremely snappy and easy to log food. The database is fairly expansive without having poor quality user submissions. The real win of the app is the feedback loop. Rather than estimating calories expended using formulas meant to be accurate across a population (but not necessarily accurate to each person), it uses your calorie intake data and your weight data to derive your expenditure.

This, to me, helps reduce the stress of tracking significantly. Reason being, if you habitually do not track something like small bites during cooking or condiments, the calculation will take it into account and reduce your calorie target accordingly.

It also doesn't take into account data from activity trackers. Instead, your exercise is essentially smoothed over the following weeks. It helps psychologically to break from "I exercised so I get a treat" mentality, where you 1: immediately eat back whatever you've burned (or more) and 2: are telling yourself a reward for good behavior is calorie-dense food.

The website has a lot of data driven articles.

It also has a bunch of neat graphs. Anyway. Would recommend it. Obviously there's a LOT of different ways to lose weight, but for me it starts with understanding what I'm putting in my body. Can't outrun a bad diet.

Nutritional Ketosis reversed my obesity and high blood pressure (after 6 months)

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/for-doctors (they have references just hover over the numbers)

Ketogenic: The Science of Therapeutic Carbohydrate Restriction in Human Health a scholarly book for medical professionals if you prefer heavy book medical texts 🦜⛵

There are many paths to metabolic health, this path worked for me. Because my insulin levels are kept low by avoiding carbs by body is able to self regulate hunger, satiation, and cravings. I no longer had to struggle to maintain my diet, it was no longer a impossible hill to climb. I found the hormonal model of healthy eating much easier to maintain then the calorie counting model.

The body is an amazing homeostasis machine, if you let it.

The hardest part was learning how to go out socially and eat drink on plan without hurting my social life. Bars: soda water. Restaurants: salad/eggs are always available. Coffee shops: black coffee, Americano. Clubs: Soda again, with a lime slice.

I rode an elliptical, lifted weights and ate healthier to lose 60lbs. Lots of water too.

I was never good at staying on a diet. I have really bad self control and go through phases where I get hooked on soda or energy drinks or smoking, etc.

Two things helped me finally lose weight and maintain a pretty healthy build (these days 90kg 183cm originally 110-115k).

First, I found I could lose weight in short periods when I had a concrete goal. I lost 10k in maybe 6 weeks. Plenty of it was water weight and came back. But after doing that 3 or 4 times I was down to a place I felt more comfortable with myself. During those cycles I was basically always thinking about my calories. It would get tiring in normal life but it was ok if I was trying to hit my goal.

Second, by focusing on my macros and trying to limit salt every day I ended up filling my stomach way before I went into calorie surplus. By going low sodium it eliminated any kind of fast food and most frozen foods. Getting rid of salt wasn't really for health it was just to lose water weight and hit my goal. But getting rid of salt ended up making my diet way healthier.

I also had some success by cutting out bread. I don't think bread is terrible for you or anything, but by giving myself that limitation I made myself choose better options

Carnivore. Went from 275 to 150 in a year of as close to zero carbs as possible.

This is not going to be helpful, but I started weight loss that resulted in about 35 pounds lost simply by going to a con and waiting for people to meet up to eat. Ended up with me not eating until like 8pm each day, so close to 24 hour fasts for 4 days in a row.

Once I was kinda used to it, I did shorter ones and started roughly calorie counting as well.

The four hour body by Tim Ferris

When I started wfh, I started eating more snacks, smaller meals (or not finishing after I was full), walking a lot while listening to podcasts (I had given up driving for taking rides hares before that was suddenly a danger).

Today, I live in a place that doesn't have a lot of natural beauty (downtown of my city) so walking sucks. I have a car again. And I work in the office 2-3 days per week. I have regained the weight.

Lots of physical activity, like lots. First I got into back country snowboarding. Then the snow at the resort was also really good, so I would skip lunch to ski more. Picked up running in the off season, did some pretty long trail runs. Back in snowboard season, lots of uphill in the mornings when I can. Running when it's warm. Cross country skiing when there's snow.

I also try to stay away from refined carbs, since they make me sleepy, and then hungry in a couple hours. Also eat lots of protein. Also quit drinking booze mostly.

Metformin. No other changes. Guess the better blood sugar levels make a difference. Still drinking coke and eating whatever I feel like and dropped 10lbs. The only reason I noticed was because my pants kept falling down.

I found out I was diabetic and had damage to my eyes. So I switched to a diabetic diet overnight and lost 12kg in a couple months. Kept it off too, gained a little back over Christmas (because Christmas is all about the food for me) but lost it by end of January again.

No sugar unless it's fruit, very controlled carbs portions and all wholemeal/ brown varieties. Some days no carbs only vegetables. I've not eaten potatoes since October. Snacks are nuts or fruit, deserts are yogurt and fruit with some dark chocolate every now and then to help with the sugar cravings. It's not easy but I really want to keep my feet and eyes.

I eat less for my main meal so now I don't feel hungry after it but not stuffed. I've also cut out added sugar and don't snack between meals - I make sure to leave the snacks on the supermarket shelves as I will eat them.

I also try and get a work in each day but walk harder not further, so usually at a pace averaging 110 steps per minute - walk harder not further.