weight loss question

[chrisT]

Anyone here who is trying to lose weight, would like to lose weight, or has succeeded in losing weight?

I am overweight and want to lose about 5 stone. I started eating less than 1 month ago. So far I have lost 10 pounds.

Any tips for losing weight are welcome. Especially specific tips for disabled people as it is definitely harder when you can’t get out and exercise whether that is because of psychological reasons or physical reasons.

It is also harder I guess in this so-called “lockdown”, in part because of restrictions on going out but also because when boredom sets in the temptation to eat gets greater.

[Ombrax]

Welcome to the forum, Chris.

Regarding weight loss, I think of it this way:

1) You get your biggest bang for your buck getting the pounds off by managing what you're eating, and basically taking in fewer calories. I don't bother with "special" programs like Keto, and stuff like that, but some folks swear by it. Portion-control and no snacking are the two most important factors IMO.

2) Exercise (and rowing is one of the very best for this sort of thing) if you keep at it, and push yourself to improve, will give you results, but that takes a long time. IMO the single biggest benefit or regular exercise is that it helps you feel better about yourself and your body - much more so than simply losing weight via a diet. You will see the results in the mirror, but not overnight.

3) Combining 1 & 2 you do get a bit of a reinforcing cycle that motivates you to continue with both efforts.

Good Luck

Caveat: I'm no expert, and not a nutritionist

[Erik A]

i will apply the same caveat as Ombrax.
but i have a similar amount to lose as yourself. i find that dropping sugars and being a bit more diligent on portion control seems to work ok for me. i have dropped 10 or so kg and have another 30 odd to go (5Stone) i slacked off a bit recently and while i havent gained any back i can feel it getting ready to jump on my guts so will be taking a bit more notice on what i eat. softdrinks and chocolate are my vice and if i cut them out i drop weight by about 1kg per week. currently walking between 10 and 30km per week and about to add in erging to the mix when my erg arrives tomorrow.

[GlennUk]

be honest with yourself is a big plus.

I needed to lose c.2.5stone(ish), i had been following the 5:2 diet, it doesn't really fit in with my training regime so well.

I started to look at ways to remove calories and i turned to my snacking. Turns out that just because it comes form the fruit bowl doesn't mean the calories are insignificant, or that is natural (mixed dried fruit and nuts) that the calories aren't signfciantly.

I mostly skip dessert Mon-Thur, and skip snacks (which includes reducing from 2 bananas/4-6 tangerines, to 2 small tangerines a day), then Fri-Sun allow myself limited snacks, but do have the odd treat. Low/zero alcohol beer ( i no longer drink alcohol in any meaningful sense).

Since Feb end of i have lost just under 9kgs, and to be frank it has been relatively easy, some weeks its a pound or two others nothing, when its noting i can mostly understand why and don't beat myself up over it. Other weeks i cannot but still dont beat myself up about it.

Being honest about where the calories come from, and on the weeks i dont follow my plan, helps me enormously.

[chrisT]

Thanks, everyone for the kind replies...

[Rick]

Anyone here who is trying to lose weight, would like to lose weight, or has succeeded in losing weight?

I am overweight and want to lose about 5 stone. I started eating less than 1 month ago. So far I have lost 10 pounds.

Any tips for losing weight are welcome. Especially specific tips for disabled people as it is definitely harder when you can’t get out and exercise whether that is because of psychological reasons or physical reasons.

It is also harder I guess in this so-called “lockdown”, in part because of restrictions on going out but also because when boredom sets in the temptation to eat gets greater.

Is there any chance you could share something about what your specific physical or psychological limitations on exercising might be? It would be helpful to those who would like to suggest options that will work for your needs and ability.

You’re certainly getting first things first… what you’re eating is of paramount importance. You can’t out-row your fork. Once that’s in hand, or at least in process, exercise is the next thing for increasing calorie burn, hence weight loss.

Might I say at this point that, if you want permanent change in your health, you need to incorporate changes that can be maintained… real lifestyle changes. Crazy diets and Spartan physical regimens will work, but you won’t sustain them. Reasonable diet modifications and a sustainable exercise program is the way, and either can be modified to a greater extent as need and capability indicate. Yes, it takes longer, but it’s a steady climb instead of a roller coaster.

I dropped about 35 pound not focusing on weight loss, but on being healthier. Then I added some resistance training to boost my diminishing muscle mass (I’m in my 60s, it happens) and put back on 10 of those pounds, but in good old solid, calorie burning muscle. It’s been about a year and a half, but as I see it this is a work in progress that won’t be done until my life ends. Steady wins the race.

[jamesg]

Theoretically, weight control starts with control of what goes into the kitchen (cook's domain), and why.

[GlennUk]

Might I say at this point that, if you want permanent change in your health, you need to incorporate changes that can be maintained… real lifestyle changes. Crazy diets and Spartan physical regimens will work, but you won’t sustain them. Reasonable diet modifications and a sustainable exercise program is the way, and either can be modified to a greater extent as need and capability indicate. Yes, it takes longer, but it’s a steady climb instead of a roller coaster.

Absolutely second this, for me cutting out snacks has been relatively easy, balancing that with the ability to incorporate treats has worked very well for me, you need to find what works for you.

Somehnitng you can stick to happily.

I dropped about 35 pound not focusing on weight loss, but on being healthier. Then I added some resistance training to boost my diminishing muscle mass (I’m in my 60s, it happens) and put back on 10 of those pounds, but in good old solid, calorie burning muscle. It’s been about a year and a half, but as I see it this is a work in progress that won’t be done until my life ends. Steady wins the race.

Its important to remember that when we say we want to 'lose weight', typically we mean we want to get rid of excess body fat, weight is just an easy measure. For me a big part of my' measure', is how my clothes fit and how i look in the mirror.

If you haven't exercised regularly over a period of time, it is possible that weight loss wont perhaps be as quick initially due to gaining muscle tone, despite loss of some excess body fat.

I have come back to erging after a lay off of c.10years where the only exercise i used to get was walking up the stairs to my office. Now erg 3-5 times a week typically an hour or more per session. I have found that as well as losing body fat, my muscles have improved tone and may even have regained some definition, even if they havent i can dream

[Autoland]

Similar to Rick, I lost 50 pounds focusing on living healthier. The weight loss just came along for the ride. Being healthy and being thin are not necessarily related.

- Learn about nutrition, and know what food science indicates provides health benefits to most people
- Experiment a bit to find what does and doesn't agree with you
- Eat when you're hungry
- Drink mostly water
- Limit alcohol
- Don't completely exclude things you really like
- Find fitness activities that you like, be consistent, and allow yourself adequate recovery time
- Keep learning

I'm not an expert. These are just some things that have worked for me.

[sailortodd]

If you haven't exercised regularly over a period of time, it is possible that weight loss wont perhaps be as quick initially due to gaining muscle tone, despite loss of some excess body fat.

One note on this, one phenomenon that can be a bit frustrating that I experienced when recently reinvigorating my training after two year period off (during which time I slowly accumulated 20lb/9kg of fat, probably more factoring in loss in muscle mass during my hiatus), I dropped ~10lb/4.5kg through an adjustment in diet and commencement of a fitness routine in about a month, then plateaued a handful of weeks ago as muscle mass began to accumulate again. I know or suspect that fat loss is continuing because my wardrobe, which had steadily shrunk in size over the last two years, is magically growing in size again, and that the plateau is a balance in fat loss and muscle gain. In other words, there's a small lag between commencement of a new fitness routine and muscle growth, so there's a chance of a quick dip and then plateau like I've experienced.



To add notes from another element of my journey to improved health, beer is my vice and the biggest reason I accumulated 20lb of fat over two years, so I did some math a couple of months ago - I was a 3x beers daily drinker, mostly of the 100-200cal varieties (session IPA). 150x3 was 450cal per day x 7 days was just shy of a pound worth of calories per week. Reducing that to 2-3xbeers 2xdays/week has reduced my calorie intake from alcohol by a significant amount (2000cal+/week). As my erg centric fitness regimen reaches a steady state I'm considering tying my beer allotment to the number of meters rowed per week - initial thought is allowing myself 1 beer per 10k rowed. With my daily avg of 4500m so far this season, that would be about 3 beers a week. If I want to drink more I need to row more first...

[gvcormac]

When you get on in years, you need to be careful not to lose muscle mass in your effort to lose weight. Exercise (both resistance and cardio) help in this regard. However, as you build muscle mass and lose fat, you get slimmer but you don't lose much weight. At least not at first. It takes more metabolic energy to keep that extra muscle heated and active, and eventually you'll lose weight -- provided you maintain your food intake.

I think it is also the case that exercise can help you control your appetite. Have a glass of water and get on the erg. In 15 minutes you won't be hungry.

[Dutch]

My partner recently went on a 10grams of fat a meal diet. I decided to go on it with her as I wanted to drop weight of about 3 to 4 kg. I have never had to diet and have always been too lazy to want to try. She wants to drop about 2 and a half stone. So far in 2 weeks she has lost 9 pounds I have done about 6.
The main things we have dropped are pastries, chocolate, biscuits, crisps any other snacks. We now fresh cook all food, no oils on potatoes, more veg like beans, peas, lentils have been introduced, bit more fish and chicken. Red meat down to twice a week and if so just a small helping. More salads and soups. Just really basic cooking. Herbs, onions, garlic etc. It helps that the partners son is vegetarian and quite creative with foods.
We also stopped eating after 8pm at night. Exercise is part of the effort as well.
I now crave foods when I walk past a burger/kebab, chip shop from the smell of the food. I went down the fridge isle in Sainsburys and just stood and looked at the pasties and sausage rolls thinking wow I could really do with one. I never realised how addictive some foods are.

[badge48]

Remember it took a long time to get to be as big as you are. So therefore be patient to get it off. Don’t be in a rush. Aim to lose a kilo a week. Cut out the alcohol. No sweets. Lower portion sizes. Less carbs later in the day. No snacks. After dinner brush your teeth for a Walk and go to bed. That’s how I avoid the urge to snack. Good luck.

[Dalos]

Different for everyone, but may as well drop in what worked for me - tracking. Gone from 97kg to 83kg and working down towards 70-75kg. I use an app call 'mynetdiary' (just the free version) which lets you plug in your weight loss goal and body composition stats then calculates the daily calories needed to achieve that over a given time period, self correct as you weigh in. It has pretty much every food in existence for a quick lookup as well.

I thought I was doing pretty well just flipping my mindset to 'eating healthy' and it did help, but the app really highlighted issues with portion size and snacking that added up over the days / weeks. Logging everything to a limit made it clear. Even better I could make conscious decisions over when to exceed it and what the impact was likely to be so I never stressed on those days if I was out at a social meal or we got take away etc. I slip in the odd biscuit, sausage roll, etc. if a have the 'budget' for it. Also factors in calories burned exercising but as everyone noted, weight loss is in the k itchen.

Not for everyone, I'm the type that likes stats and recording, but hit my sweet sport and took the guesswork out, became a simple equation.

The below is just random thoughts I have in my head, the internet is filled with so much fluff like this but it's what I have somehow internalised. I mostly kept it simple and simply looked at a daily calorie deficit above though.

Healthy loss tends to be (from memory) no more than 1-2lb / 0.5-1kg per week if you want to retain as much lean muscle as possible (though can be faster at the start if very overweight).

I didn't really bother with all the fads / diets except just eating between noon and 8pm (but I'd been essentially doing that all my life anyway) which is 'intermittent fasting 16/8' now as someone pointed out to me and (%) 30-40-30 carbs, protein fats or 40-30-30, always one free day a week where I didn't care if out or wanted a beer etc. The 5-2, 48 hours fast and / or complete days not eating just seems like overkill and not needed for steady loss. Make it as easy to stick to as possible. Surface goggling does seem to indicate there's something decent limiting your calories intake to a 10 hours period or so just with how your body functions / changes when the first cals are introduced. Might be worth a lookup if having such a structure helps but YMMV.