Rave: Weight loss

[Fat_Bulldog]

I'm working at it again myself. I lost 41 pounds a couple of years ago and gained about 25 of that back. I need to lose much more than that though.

For breakfast and lunch I am just eating fruits and vegetables. For dinner, protein and some veggies as well. I've lost 8 pounds in 3 weeks. Some days I'll drink a protein shake to curb hunger.

Every now and then I have to have pizza or breakfast but that's about it. If it's processed, I'm not eating it. And, I have cut way back on drinking - to almost none.

[JackofDiamonds]

Good work Fat. Nice timing too, pork futures are expected to climb, bacon prices through the roof, etc. etc.

Careful with the fruit, too much is bad news, lots of sugar. Mix some fruit in with some greek yogurt and a dry cereal/granola, you'll be healthier for it.

[lukethedrifter]

I once ran across a guy who weighed 960 pounds. His brother said he got that big because he was a 750 lb crackhead and quit.

[The Third Man]

I'm working at it again myself. I lost 41 pounds a couple of years ago and gained about 25 of that back. I need to lose much more than that though.

For breakfast and lunch I am just eating fruits and vegetables. For dinner, protein and some veggies as well. I've lost 8 pounds in 3 weeks. Some days I'll drink a protein shake to curb hunger.

Every now and then I have to have pizza or breakfast but that's about it. If it's processed, I'm not eating it. And, I have cut way back on drinking - to almost none.

I don't even know you anymore.

Just kidding, good luck. Though there's zero chance I cut back on my drinking, I just switched to pounding vodka sprites which are usually my hard drink of choice anyway.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Throughout all my dieting I never followed any specific diet, just tried to limit my calories as much as I could stand. I would always look forward to cheating and would just do it more and more often until I eventually gave up on the pretense of a diet. This time around I have had really good luck replacing breakfast and lunch with protein shakes. I mix in a healthy snack or two and that gets me to dinner just fine. I can eat just about anything for dinner within reason and still lose weight, especially with regular exercise. I guess it's because of the extra protein but I don't ever feel really hungry. I honestly don't even think about cheating much at all because it just makes me feel crappy. The last 10-15 pounds are really hard to lose but this finally feels like something I can stick with long term.

Minus the exercise, this is me to a tee. My diet would always fall apart because I'd cheat once and then it's like "Eh why not cheat again." I'm doing the same thing, shakes for breakfast/lunch and then ideally a chicken sandwich or something for dinner, but really at that point it doesn't matter. Like you said, you cut out that many calories and you can pretty much go hog-wild at night. I lost two more pounds recently despite the fact that I totally thought I was backsliding into my old habits. It's all relative I guess.

The only "cheating" I'm super-susceptible to is Chinese food, because mmm Chinese...

FWIW, I had some success with a "slow-carb" approach that has one cheat day a week. Load up on protein and vegetables and legumes during the week, and then one day on the weekend, go nuts. Eat pizza, ice cream, whatever you want in pretty much whatever quantity you want. Gives you something to look forward to so your willpower doesn't wane, helps keep your metabolism from slowing down, and sometimes that one day binge will turn you off to non-diet foods for several days. The big problem is making sure you get enough calories during the week without going to starches/carbs. My tastes are obscenely narrow as it is, and I can end up pretty hungry if I don't plan carefully.

[Richie Allen]

There are a lot of different ways to get to 2000 calories a day, or whatever amount you're shooting for, and I have found that if I cut out empty calories like soft drinks and sugary [expletive], I feel full at the end of the day. If I have a few hundred calories with no nutritional benefit, I find myself hungry and typically exceed my daily intake.

I like to get most if not all of my vitamins from food, rather than a food that has vitamins added to it. But I don't cut out any of my favorite foods. Just eat less of them. Three tacos instead of five. Three slices of pizza instead of six or seven. Basically, I don't eat more than 500 or 600 calories in one sitting and normally shoot for about 300-400. And on days when I eat pizza, pasta, tacos or some other food that is high in calories and low in vitamins/minerals, I'll make sure I spend a couple hundred calories eating a carrot, some broccoli, a kiwi, some cantaloupe, some sunflower seeds, etc, to make sure I'm still getting my vit C, E, A, which are harder to get than you might think. I also try to eat oatmeal instead of cereal and squeeze a salad in every day.

What's working for you guys?

[TimeForGuinness]

There are a lot of different ways to get to 2000 calories a day, or whatever amount you're shooting for, and I have found that if I cut out empty calories like soft drinks and sugary [expletive], I feel full at the end of the day. If I have a few hundred calories with no nutritional benefit, I find myself hungry and typically exceed my daily intake.

I like to get most if not all of my vitamins from food, rather than a food that has vitamins added to it. But I don't cut out any of my favorite foods. Just eat less of them. Three tacos instead of five. Three slices of pizza instead of six or seven. Basically, I don't eat more than 500 or 600 calories in one sitting and normally shoot for about 300-400. And on days when I eat pizza, pasta, tacos or some other food that is high in calories and low in vitamins/minerals, I'll make sure I spend a couple hundred calories eating a carrot, some broccoli, a kiwi, some cantaloupe, some sunflower seeds, etc, to make sure I'm still getting my vit C, E, A, which are harder to get than you might think. I also try to eat oatmeal instead of cereal and squeeze a salad in every day.

What's working for you guys?

Meth...my bathroom is spotless too!

[jim]

Why would you want to live eating 2000 calories a day? I'd rather bust my ass exercising so I could eat and drink what I wanted rather than starve myself. I personally think it's stupid to stop eating, because all you do is slow your metabolism. Exercise is more important than diet in losing weight imo. And when I mean exercise I mean exercise. If you are reading a [expletive] book on a machine you aren't exercising. You need to work harder than that if you can. I know age/health status etc make that not possible for some and walking on a treadmill is what you can do, I'm talking about otherwise healthy people that have just become lazy.

[The Third Man]

It's way easier for me to not do something than it is for me to do something extra. Working out suuuuucks.

[JackofDiamonds]

It's way easier for me to not do something than it is for me to do something extra. Working out suuuuucks.

That's fat people talk.

Working out is incredible. Don't feel attractive? Work out, you'll feel better. Don't feel healthy? Work out, you'll feel better. It's only hard because there isn't instant gratification.