baldilocks

I will apologize in advance for the length of this. I have a new (to me) strategy for trying to loose weight. At one point I was fasting in the evening and lost a good 20 lbs. I would have no solid food after 3:00pm and would instead drink things that satisfied my craving. v-8 for pizza, beef broth for a steak or juice for something sweet. The thing is, that isn't sustainable. So what I've been trying to do lately is take smaller portions of meat and starches and cut my food up very small. What I've found is that it gives me the sensation of eating a-lot. I get the ongoing flavor while allowing my brain to realize i'm full. I still believe in the old saying eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper, but it's nice not to feel deprived. Unfortunately people will look at you strangely when they see you pick up one pea or piece of corn, but the complements that other people make about your weight loose will more than make up for it. So far It's about 10 lbs. The other nice thing is it helps you to slow down. Part of the reason for my current weight is that I could and did wolf stuff down. I hope this might be a help to someone else and please share any of your methods for loosing weight.

NYMXer

Two years ago I weighed 255 and said to myself, that's enough, it's time to do something. I cut out all alcohol, no after dinner ice cream and started walking the dog. At first, I walked her about 3 miles a day, then 5, and then as fast as we could walk (over 5 mph). The whole time, eating what I wanted but less of it and not late at night.

Then, I bought a mountain bike and started riding it, real mtn biking. I was getting thinner and fitter each week. To mix it up, I bought a road bike and joined a club. There are 250+ members in our club and now, 5 months into riding and near the end of our season, I am in the top 15% as far as speed and endurance go.

Losing weight is easy, expel more energy than you ingest. Exercise in a way that is fun for you and do it often. Mix things up so you don't get bored. Find new friends that enjoy those activities and learn from them. A calorie is a calorie, but so are healthier than others, so eat more salads, yogurt and lean meat. Eat till you are no longer hungry, not stuffed full. Exercise and get involved in life. Never just sit on the couch and do noting.

When you start doing these things, keep track of your measurements and take monthly before/after pics and compare them. The results will keep you motivated and help your weight loss be more successful. I'm at 215 now and have been maintaining that weight for over a year. I can't seem to get below that but it was my target weight and seems like what I should be.

Good luck, I hope I gave you some advice that you found worth trying.

Tundra_Man 

I've been doing the 5:2 plan for the last nine months. Five days of eating normally (normally = sensibly, not stuffing yourself silly) and two days of "fasting" (< 500-600 calories.)

The "plan" says you can split up the calories on fast days in whatever way works for you. For me, I usually save most of my calories for the evening meal. Sometimes I'll have a big plate of lettuce or raw veggies at lunch. Supper is a small portion of whatever the rest of the family is having. The first couple of weeks were pretty rough while getting used to not eating anything all day, but it got easier and easier as time went on. Now that my body has adjusted, I'm hungry on fast days but it's no worse than I am on a non-fast day when mealtime is approaching. My mantra when I was feeling the intense hunger pains was, "You're not going to die by skipping a meal. You're not going to die by skipping a meal. You're not going to die..."

I still ride my bike to work and home every day, and often tack on extra miles just for fun/exercise. I haven't noticed any loss of energy on fast days.

Another trick I've discovered is to brush and floss my teeth immediately after supper rather than right before bed. Evenings are when I'm most tempted to snack, but if I've already brushed that's usually enough to keep me from eating anything because I don't want to go through the hassle of brushing and flossing again.

Lost about 50 pounds so far from 255 down to 205. Looking forward to my yearly cardiology appointment. Last year the doctor told me I could "stand to lose about 30 pounds." I looked at him and said, "30 pounds? Probably more like 60." He replied, "Well, I'll take what I can get."

Edit: Today is a fast day. A big plate of meat, cheese and crackers just appeared in the break room. I find it's a lot easier for me to tell myself I can't have any than it would be to say "I'll just have a little." For me, a little will cause a little more, and then a little more, and pretty soon it's a lot. When I'm fasting I have to say, "none" and I don't snowball. Pretty soon the tray will have been picked clean by others and the temptation will be gone.

Jarrett2

I lost 153 lbs primarily by counting calories (Lose It or MyFitnessPal) and in some small part, riding the bike, but I've plateaued.

Lately, I've been trying to kickstart it again with this:

Primal Blueprint 101 | Mark's Daily Apple

I've dropped a little weight since starting, but feel a lot better on this plan. Tough to get any plan rolling around the holidays.

Things I have learned:

You can't exercise weight off. Weight loss is all about what does and does not go into your mouth.
Cycling is great for cardiovascular health and general fitness, but you don't have to over do it to reap the benefits. There is a point where it can be too much.
No matter how many miles you ride, you still need to do some resistance training as well.

DMC707 

Tundra Man, Are your fasting days sequential? As in Mon and Tues, Or do you break them up, like Mon-Wed

if that saves 2500-3000 calories a day thats close to 2 lbs/ week right there plus whatever you burn- it would seem like since its only 2 days a week tha would keep the metabolism from crashing as well

Tundra_Man 

Generally they aren't sequential, but you can schedule them wherever you want. I usually do Mondays and Thursdays. One week I had other things going on (lunch meetings, birthday party, etc.) and I did both of them back-to-back. Got pretty hungry by the end of the 2nd day, but I survived. But generally I would prefer not to do that. Also, I (and lots of other people who do this diet) will sometimes throw in a 3rd fast day. I did that for the two weeks prior to Thanksgiving knowing that I was going to completely cut loose over the holiday weekend. On those weeks I'd fast Mon, Wed, Fri so I had a day of break between them.

Ultimately the diet works, as you pointed out, because it reduces the number of calories you take in over the course of a week. Most people lose around a pound a week, which seems painfully slow but is a good safe rate of reduction. Also, it's interesting that the diet was originally developed to prolong longevity, as there have been studies that people who fast on a regular basis live longer. The weight loss was a fringe benefit to the eating plan.

One nice thing is that eating this way doesn't exclude entire categories of food. If I want to have a brownie, that's fine. Just do it on a non-fast day and make sure I make other smart choices on that day so that I'm not completely undoing the caloric deficit my fast days cause.

baldilocks

Thanks to everyone. Its good to know that other people have had the same issues and succeeded.

RubeRad

That sounds pretty good, maybe I should consider it. A while back I started kind of something like that, where I would mostly fast Sundays and Mondays; no Sunday breakfast, salad with the family for "sunday lunch", no sunday dinner, no breakfast or lunch Monday, and then regular dinner with the family Monday night.

I was able to stick to it ok for a month or two, but then things came up and I abandoned it. Maybe I should try something more like your 5:2. 255-205 sounds pretty good, I'm a lot like you (before), at 250 right now, my doctor said it would be helpful if I could drop 25, and I was thinking 'really I could stand to drop 50'.

Another thing I've read a bunch of people do is just never eat lunch at work. It's a good idea, really, but I don't know if I could do it in terms of willpower.

When I feel hungry, my mantra (which hasn't been all that effective, frankly, but that doesn't make it wrong) is: "if you never feel hungry, you're not waiting long enough between eating"

VCSL2015

This reminds me of a study i heard on the radio that showed if you put halloween themed paper plates in with 4th of July plates the people that used the Halloween plates put less on their plate. I think its subliminal but works.