Well, it seems like I've been on a diet my entire adult life. I've done pretty good staying at a healthy weight, but it does tend to go up and down. Especially now that I've gotten older. Last year I slipped real bad and gained about 30-40 pounds, so once again, I'm on the diet roller coaster, going down thankfully. I've lost 25 pounds, and would like to lose another 20-30. I've found good old fashioned "counting calories" and watching portion sizes to work best for me. I'm also cutting back snacking - which is really, really, really hard - can you hear that chocolate cake calling me?? Anybody else struggling with this? Tell me about your successes and set-backs.
I lost forty pounds in a month on NutriSystem. Then the amount of weight loss slows considerably, and the food gets boring, I start cheating, and it no longer works. I did well on Atkins (the old Atkins diet), then I went off of it over Thanksgiving and Christmas and, even without cheating, it didn't seem to work anymore when I went back on it. Not so dramatically, but I can lose weight, and certainly keep from gaining more, when I eat soup at least six days a week, with normal food on Saturdays.
Ken I also eat soup to help control my weight, and I find it easier to just eat soup than always looking for something for dinner. Do you make your soup or are you eating soup out of a can? I make my own soup with lots of vegetables and what is in the refrig.
I used to be relatively normal sized - up until two years ago I was bike riding 11 miles a day and 33 on weekends... then I ripped a tendon in my ankle, but didn't quite know what it was... Went to the doctor, who told me I had gout... gave me pills to take... which did nothing, obviously since I didn't have gout... It took me a year to find a foot specialist who knew what it was right away... For a year, my "doctor" kept telling me it was gout and to keep taking the pills which did nothing... even when my tests showed I didn't have gout... by that point I had permanently damaged my foot and ankle and had become disabled because of their misdiagnosis.... I've been trying to find a lawyer to sue the doc for medical malpractice, but so far none of em wanna take it... not enough money in it for em... I haven't been able to ride my bike since, and can barely walk a block... gained about 50 pounds and am struggling to get rid of it... ughhh
I make my own, and it's kind of fun. I'll make a very large pot of soup, refrigerating what I don't eat. It actually tastes better the second day, and I'm not generally fond of leftovers. I've made all sorts of soup. Sometimes I'll start out with some sort of a plan, or recipe, but I abandon that pretty early on. Within reason, of course, it doesn't seem that I have to control the amount that I eat so much if I'm eating soup.
I see people all the time go on these crazy diets that simply do not work. What it comes down to is the calories like you said. You can literally eat anything you want and as long as you don't eat over your daily limit of calories you will not gain a single pound. At one point in my life I was very heavy and decided I needed to change. I was tired of being overweight. I began to count my calories and exercise and it did wonders for me. Some days it is still tough to not over eat but for the most part I do very good and have kept the weight off for quite some time.
I know it sounds counter intuitive, but when I raise the amount of certain fats and oils in my diet my hunger and weight both go down. This includes things like olive oil, coconut oil, etc. Even butter has the effect of killing hunger for a lot longer than any carbohydrates. A new trend now is to put butter into coffee which I found to be pretty tasty and can use it to go a whole day without a meal if necessary. I'm not recommending that, but I have lost weight doing it.
I'm more concerned about having a nutritionally balanced diet than counting calories. I know I will be more resistent to disease and less prone to tiredness if my diet has all the right nutritional elements. This means that I don't want to consume 'empty calories' in cakes, cookies or candies and would rather eat fruit, vegetables, proteins and the sort of fats and carbohydrates that are necessary for me to stay in good health.
I am really, really discouraged about trying to lose weight. Especially in the last few years, my metabolism seems to have slow down to almost nothing. Back in 2012, I counted calories (about 1,100 a day) and I was able to lose 1.5 pounds per week. So a couple of years later, I tried to do the same thing and NOTHING happened. I increased my exercise, still nothing. Last summer I was able to lose 14 pounds but have gained about half back already. To make a long story short, one of my indoor cats got fleas so I spent the ENTIRE summer sweeping floors, mopping floors, vacuuming upholstery, laundry, etc. Once I stopped doing that in the fall, the weight loss stopped. Right now, I have no idea what else to do to try to get the scale to move again except to repeat what I did last summer. I just cannot get motivated to do nothing but vacuum for 3 months again in order to get the scale to move. Life is short, I don't think I want to spend the rest of my life vacuuming and do nothing but that.
I've been dieting several years but last got semi-serious about it.. Since last September I've lost forty-four pounds. I'm hoping to lose a few more pounds.I'm no longer counting calories but i do have a sense of the calorie content of many foods. I'm just backing away from the table sooner. What works for me won't necessarily work for any one else. Worker works is the way I'd goat it. I going to try to lose weight and will weigh in weekly, I guess on Saturday mornings and will record it somewhere on this dieting forum. I hope some of you will join me. Or I can join you in losing a few pounds.
I am never successful in dieting because hunger gets me all the time. With the help of my colleagues in the office, we launched the so called cracker challenge where lunch is crackers only. I lost some pound with that but it's too difficult to maintain that lifestyle particularly when I am invited to a lunch meeting (usually held in a restaurant). My only way now to lose weight is to eat little but when the food is good it is so hard to abide by that, hahahaaah.
My diet is to eat less and to back away from the table rather than keep eating. Once in a while I skip the evening meal but I usually have fruit or a small bowl of soup in the evening.
That's what I got to learn is to push away from the table. Doctor's order's loose 6 pounds when I go see her in Feb. and luckily it's towards the later part of the month! Wish me luck for the doctor's visit!
Dieting, well.......no! We still eat pizza, fries, burgers, hot dogs and the such, but definitely watch our sugar intake. We are both Diabetic II and now only buy No Sugar Added canned fruit, Sugar Free flavored coffee creamer, Splenda in coffee and over real fruit. No cakes, very little-to-no candy at Easter, Christmas or Valentines Day, same goes for cookies. I knew a lady, back in the later 80's, that went thru Nutri-System and lost 35 pounds. Only problem was, a family crisis happened, she got emotional and gained it all back. Funny thing is, there are people in Hollywood who have the finances to lose weight and haven't. Don't know how Tom Hanks looks now, but I have seen him when he was "puggy" looking. Same goes for Alec Baldwin. Unfortunately, gaining weight and having a hard time losing it, just seems to go along with age. I was pretty skinny up until I turned 50 and then the weight started coming and not leaving. A supervisor I had back then, pointed it out to me. I thought, "thanks dude!" (saying that to myself, very sarcastically). I'm 6'1" and weigh 232. I don't lose and don't gain over that. Heck, I remember, when I was in my 40's, wearing a man's size 26 Slim Fit Wrangler jeans. Of course, back then I was working full-time in a warehouse, square dancing and had a horse.