Does anyone have any tips/strategies for weight loss. I started exercising again for the first time in a year recently. I’m at home for the minute but might go to the gym when they reopen in my area. I’ve improved my eating but I still wouldn’t call my eating ‘good’.
Want to feel healthy ya know haha
Muscle mass also increases daily calorie expenditure, so it can speed things up.
If you still drink soda or juice, cut that out ASAP and switch to exclusively water. Easy 15 lbs right there.
I’m not a big soda person but I drink a lot of coffee, I take it the same rules apply. Thank you :)
Generally coffee is okay as long as you're not loading up on cream and sugar. Black coffee has been a total life saver for me because it's a good hunger suppressant when you're starting out a new diet.
Its a pain in the ass but tracking your calories is useful. I dont sweat it tho, like im ok if i go over my caloric budget per day but without tracking it's difficult to know by how much you are overeating in the big picture and it helps a lot to know so as to be more mindful the next day in the small picture
Somebody else has already mentioned this, but intermittent fasting has been a game changer for me. The usual way to start doing it is what's called 16/8, which means that you have a feeding window of 8 hours, in which you're allowed to eat, and you fast for the remaining 16 hours of the day. You're free to choose when the window starts. Some people even go further and do 20/4, skip entire days or do OMAD, which stands for one meal a day. I feel like 16/8 is the sweet spot, though.
I started with a 12pm-8pm schedule, but I work evenings and was often cheating a little bit because I had trouble being consistent about dinner timing. So I changed things around and now I start at 7-8am, and it's been much easier.
There's some literature that indicates that IF provides several other health benefits, but if your main goal is to lose weight, it can help in the sense that, with an 8-hour feeding window, you'll naturally end up skipping one meal, normally either dinner or breakfast. That'll definitely make a dent on your caloric intake, if you're disciplined and eat healthy stuff for your remaining meals. As most other comments have pointed out, there's no secret for losing weight: it's calories in < calories out. Putting that into practice consistently is the hard part!
Like everyone here has said, it's calories in, calories out. You want to be in a caloric DEFICIT. To do this, eat a little less/healthier (i.e, eat a well balanced diet of protein, carbs and healthy fats), and also exercise to build muscle. GET A BATHROOM SCALE, if you don't have one already. Track your weight every week. If you're not losing weight/making progress, eat a little less, or do more cardio. If you're losing too much weight too quickly, eat a little more, or do less cardio. Cut out sugar to the best of your ability, if you have a sugar tooth. For weight loss, I think the healthy amount is about 1% of your bodyfat should be lost per week, but I could be wrong. For example, if you weigh 170 lbs, and you are 25% bodyfat, that's 42.5 lbs of fat, so you should try to lose around 0.4-0.5 lbs a week. Food wise, just be sure to get your fruits and veggies, and don't try to abandon carbs and fats from like meats, oils, and nuts and such because you still need those. Hope this helps. Good luck comrade!
Other people have said it, but a calorie/food tracking app is very helpful. Just through use of one, and counting daily calories, I've lost about 50 pounds since mid-June.
Not necessarily a tip, but don't be stressed out if you lose weight but gain some of it back for example. If you're working out, you're probably gaining muscle which "weighs" more than fat but is ultimately better.
I posted this in another thread:
My, totally non expert, advice is that you should just start by making sure what you eat is healthy (good macronutrient balance, not too much sugar or refined carbs). Don’t worry about exercise or how much you eat, as long it’s the right stuff.
Once you’ve settled into eating healthier foods, count calories for a while, to see how many you’re getting. You may already be getting a good amount. If not, consider whether you should adjust your portion size or meal timing. Less carb-heavy foods don’t hit you with that full feeling as quickly- often you’ll eat, still feel hungry when you’re done, then half an hour later you’ll realise you’re not hungry any more. So don’t wait until you’re ravenous to eat. Experiment with eating less and see if you’re still hungry
At that stage if you’re getting too many calories you probably need to do the hard steps- exercise and/or cutting down further on meal sizes spending significant amounts of time hungry. Bad, but remember it’s not permanent- once you’re at your target weight you can start eating at your maintenance level.
How difficult it all is depends a lot on your psychology and physiology, so good luck.
Subsequently found this site, which has really good articles (unfortunately with a lot of clickbaity salesy ones mixed in): https://www.precisionnutrition.com
Thank you! I’m going to try and count how many calories I eat and adjust accordingly, I have managed to cut out a lot of snacking recently which is cool.
Website looks like it has some good stuff on there when you sift through. I don’t like reading about health online normally, it usually ends up with some man with his top off trying to sell me his ‘unique’ fitness plan haha
Try just limiting when you eat instead of just what you eat. It's a lot easier to eat less when you eat less frequently. I personally like eating a small breakfast, then no food untill dinner, then I just eat untill I'm stuffed (don't do this fatty/sugary/processed foods obviously), just by doing that, I went from 155 to 135 and have maintained that for years.
For me the biggest factor was drinking less beer, especially because I tend to eat lots of chips and other snacks while drinking
