Changes made in your diet to manage your weight

[DavideFitbit]

Hello everyone! 

Many people struggle for a long time to learn how to manage their weight properly or to loose some of the excess weight. The most important thing is the negative health outcomes as well, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and greater risk of heart disease.

I invite you to share your experience with this, What changes did you make in your diet/life to manage your weight? 

I personally had to read a LOT about healthy eating habits, because I was very used to eating junk food and not counting calories at all. Once I starting counting the calories and I became aware of how much damage you can cause to your body with certain foods, I felt like I finally had the tools to change my diet and lifestyle to be more healthy.

I started by removing all fast food, at least for the first few months, and I decided to follow a diet that I knew I was really willing to commit to with healthy food I actually liked. Many times we follow the first diet we find online and this didn't really work for me, I always ended up giving up, but I decided to stick to this diet (approved by nutritionist) and I lost 30 pounds in a few months. I can't say everything has been easy, but fortunately I haven't had any problem to maintain by weight ever since. 

I'll just tag a few of you so we can start off the discussion, but we'd love to hear experiences from everyone in the Community!! 

@SunsetRunner @Odyssey13 @MAmaral @medas2005 @jaclin @realmanpwns @Shadowsforbars @EleanorNC @Baltoscott @RachelShrinks @reszy @ElaineJ27 @Cele21 @MargaretG139 @CJ_Here @Katrin. 

[realmanpwns]

 I previously tried the juice reboot diet in 2014 and lost 77 lbs from a weight of 339 to 262. but gained it all back plus 😞  I decided to try again losing weight on March 31, 2018. This time I only had juice for lunch and the other meals I just counted calories. I did it for 100 days then I switched to calorie counting only and no juicing.

This is when I bought my FitBit. I also started walking, eventually doing as much as 8 miles in the morning. I log all my food intake with the FitBit App. I've gone from 402 to 263 at my lowest this time. Right now I'm hovering between 263 and 270. I've seemed to plateau.

I've now started running to see if I can break this plateau. I went from 3 Blood Pressure Medications down to 2. I feel much better about life. I now understand that there is no ending the diet, only transitioning into maintenance mode. Hopefully I can get to my goal of 190.

Thanks, FitBit! 🙂

[reszy]

I have stopped adding sugar to my coffee. No soda. A portioned breakfast. Keeping busy smaller dinners.

[Julia_G]

I think trying to give up fast foods is a great idea, but for me the important thing about any “diet” is that you must not feel deprived!

For example, if you love donuts better than anything, if someone tells you you can never eat donuts again - or even if you cannot eat donuts for six weeks, or until you have lost x pounds, or whatever.

My best advice is tell yourself that you cannot eat donuts (nachos, Big Macs, fried chicken, potato chips, wine) whatever your trigger is TODAY.  If you need to, if you really want it, you can eat it tomorrow.  And promise yourself that, and keep that promise.

Mostly you will find, as soon as a food isn’t forbidden, it’s just delayed for a day or two, you can manage.

And if you really want it tomorrow, have it!  Teach your body (and more importantly your mind) that you weren’t lying. Then the next time the craving comes, try again... Not today, tomorrow, but only if you really want it...

Once it isn’t forbidden, many people find that they can wait, for a day, a week, or even longer.

But be sure to treat yourself sometimes, even often, as long as you remember the treat doesn’t necessarily have to come today.  Did you ever read that dieting makes you fat?  It does, for all sorts of reasons. 

[Baltoscott]

I spent most of my adult life in the ‘overweight’ BMI range (25-29.1), around 180 or 185 lbs, and occasionally sliding into the low obese range (202 lbs; I am 5’10”). I wound up losing around 45 lbs over the first half of 2017, and have kept it off, motivated in part by the many great stories of weight loss documented in the weekly weigh-in thread here.  It really helps to know that other people can do it, and I especially like seeing posts from people who have kept it off after hitting their goals.  Sadly, posting on that thread has dried up, but it had a good run (over 2 years).

Here are what I think are some of the more important things I did.

1. I looked for the low hanging fruit.  At the time I was having about 2 beers or similar every night.  Tasty, full calorie, 200+/bottle good beers.  It adds up!  I didn’t drink at all for a month, and then when I went back I took every other day off.  Even now I have a ‘rule’ (that I adhere to 90% of the time) of not drinking on even number dates.  This is sort of a variation  the on @Julia_G  tip of putting your cravings off for a day, but not trying to pretend that you can eliminate something you really like forever.  Better to just come up with a systematic way to reduce it.
2. I tracked what I was eating (every day, as I ate it) on MyFitnessPal. (You can do it in the Fitbit app too, but I like MFP better and it is easy to link to Fitbit). You can’t lose weight unless you can get into a calorie deficit.  I did that for about 18 months because once I established the habit and started repeating a lot of what I ate (easier to log), it was easy.  For the past year or so I will log on MFT a day or two each week just to keep my awareness up.
3. Focused on getting veggies in at every meal; usually different varieties and usually at least half of what I eat; and generally had one huge salad a day.  Aside from all the nutrition-related reasons to eat veggies, they take up room and crowd out other less nutritious foods.
4. Put myself on a meal schedule (4x/day) and then stopped snacking outside those meals.  Since I already had eaten my breakfast at home, I was less hungry when the donuts/bagels and other goodies showed up at work meetings and it was easier to say no.
5. Weighed myself everyday; right after waking up.  The scale is an objective tool that helps you see what is really going on.  The key thing to know is that no single weigh-in tells you much because daily weight fluctuates a lot.  (Check the TrendWeight link in my signature to see how much I go up and down).  However, if you focus on your weekly average or a moving average like what is shown on TrendWeight, all the water weight issues average out and you can see whether you are really trending up or down.

[DavideFitbit]

Wow, thank you so much for sharing your experience and stories with such detail @reszy @Julia_G @Baltoscott.

It's very interesting to see different ways to approach weight management and how everyone has a unique story and action plan. 

I did the same thing @reszy, I stopped adding sugar to my coffe (I've gotten used to the taste now) and eliminated soda.  

That's a great way to put it @Julia_G! Certainly you must not feel deprived, otherwise you'll end up wanting to eat a certain food even more, that's what happens to me at least 😂. 

Than you for all the useful tips @Baltoscott! I found it very difficult to include veggies on every meal at the beginning, but I'm very happy this has become a routine for me, and I know our bodies will benefit so much from these changes. 🥕🍏

[WendyB]

For me I do not deprive myself. We go out once a week to either lunch or Dinner. I do get what I want. But I dont eat it all. What they give you as a serving in restaurants is absurd.

But if we go out for pizza I get a salad with dressing on the side to fill me up and then I eat one slice of pizza.
Keeps me happy. You Need to enjoy life but you need to find ways to make it work.

I log my food and exercise daily on Fitbit. I have tried many other apps but I like everything together. Some days I'm over like when we go out. But its the trend that counts

[WendyB]

@Baltoscott  Your side by side are unreal. You dont even look like the same person. Congrats! Ive know you for ever and did not see this. Thanks for sharing!

[MAmaral]

Hi Everyone!

so, What changes did you make in your diet/life to manage your weight? 

The trigger for me was an alarming medical report. After it, I started "my own" diet, basically being careful has to what I was eating and the amounts of it. Shortly after (about 2 months) I've lost 5kg, from 120kg to 115kg

This made me want more, and I finally decided I should do thighs right so I looked for help and started doing exercise with a Personal Trainer. This was really a game changer. I started losing weight fast. The Personal Trainer gave me really good advices on my diet. Main ideas are:

1) Eat regularly: I could wake up, have a coffee an eat nothing until lunch time. This was totally wrong. I started eating fruits, and even bread, with light cheese, and middle morning I eat fruits also. At first,  I really had to force myself into this, because It wasn't a routine and I wasn't ready at home (didn't have the food), at work (didn't use my breaks properly) etc.

2) Drink water: I could be a full day with only 1 cup of water. I actually still struggle with this, I have to force myself to drink. I already bought a couple of reusable bottles, and my workplace has water fountains, but I really struggle to remember that I must drink!

3) Quantity and quality: I started making my plate at least half of it with vegetables or salad, really little hydrocarbons like rice and potatoes. Meat and fish always. I really didn't cut anything off, although obviously I don't have pizza or burgers as often as I did.

All of this, with exercise allowed me to keep loosing weight. After 5 months with this plan I had came down from 115 to 100, and I finally decided to buy my fitbit Versa. I could finally run, which I never really did in the past, so I started using the fitbit to log my exercises: running, workouts and swimming.

I never really tried the calorie log, partially because when I first looked into it, I found most items not to relate with the products I find in Portugal, and I never took the time to explore it deeply to understand if there are other products databases that I could use.

But my plan as been working for me, and after 6 months of the 100kg mark, I came down to 85kg, which I proudly maintain for the past 5 months.

If you decide you want to, then you will! Keep focused, celebrate small victories and stick to the plan!

Cheers everyone!

[Katrin]

I think everyone's comments here are really helpful - one of the things that I think is important is to be really honest with yourself. Lots of people have lots of advice but just because it works for them doesn't mean it will work for you.

For example, several years ago I read the book Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of our Every Day Lives by Gretchen Rubin. She's got a lot of interesting points in there but one of the things she looks at is your "tendency type." Some people do things like quit smoking for other people - because they are part of a support group or because they want to be around to walk their daughter down the aisle at her wedding, etc. Other people do it for themselves - because they want to feel fitter or they got a wake-up call at the doctors. You have to work within the framework of yourself.

I am a "questioner" and a "moderator." What this means is that I can be convinced to do things by facts and evidence and then making my own decision. No one outside of me can inspire any change unless facts are involved and then I'll still make my own determination. Also, the opposite of moderator is abstainer. For me, I can have a single perfect truffle after dinner and be completely satisfied whereas I know lots of people that if they have 1, they'll have the whole bag. Therefore, they need to abstain entirely. Here's the thing, I now know this about myself and can use it to my advantage.

The way I've used this to my advantage is definitely to track every single thing I put in my mouth, every time. It's a bit relentless but it's become ingrained. Sometimes I track things I intend to eat in advance so that I don't veer off course. I agree that I use MFP and love that it syncs with Fitbit. There have been times where something doesn't taste that great and suddenly I realize it's more trouble than it's worth if I have to track it so I decide not to eat it at all.

Also, I've learned to make compromises. I can have sushi but I don't get the tempura appetizer. I can have the steak but with a side of veggies instead of the loaded baked potato. Making these very conscious food choices actually has me feeling better after eating - more energized and alert. That alone helps me to make even better choices the next time!

[GraceGFitbit]

Hey everybody !  Read you all and see your results is really motivating.

I lived with a diabetic and so maybe this is why I'm concern about this disease. Like @reszy I stopped sugar but not just to coffee, to almost everything, not easy but I think I'm doing ok.

I'm agree with @Julia_G, I think it is very important to not feel deprived, in my case I avoid sugar most of the time but I enjoy an ice cream at least once a week (Sometimes twice 😅). 

[reszy]

I found once you cut your sugar intake ,the less you crave sugars. It almost a viscous cycle.more you have more you want.....

[Baltoscott]

That’s been my experience too @reszy.  I’ve also noticed that when I cut way back on artificially sweeten things like diet soda that naturally sweeten things like berries and fruits seemed sweeter and more delicious than before.  Added sugars or lo-cal artificial sweeteners seem to deaden my tastebuds.

[Glenda]

Grace,  I switched from regular high calorie ice cream to the lower calorie high protein version but that was still a 300 calorie treat for the pint.  Then I switched to frozen blueberries in plain fat free greek yogurt.    I sweeten it with artificial sweeteners.  That is lots fewer calories.  You might like it.  Lots cheaper too.

[Glenda]

Julia,  You were just using doughnuts as an example of many treats to make a point I know.  But doughnuts were my big downfall in the past until one day it finally hit me that the 15 minutes good taste that provided enough calories to support 30 pounds that I had to carry around all day every step I took didn't make me happy.  Doughnuts, the  long term view, made me fat and unhappy.  I am mature enough to completely understand the long range situation and view and no longer eat doughnuts, ever.  I don't even negotiate with myself about it.  It is out of the question.  I don't miss them either.  It is a much greater pleasure to walk across parking lot into the grocery and everywhere else all day  feeling slim.  If you can change your mind about something, it is a whole new ball game.

[Glenda]

A lot of excellent suggestions from this group of people doing such a great job of managing their weight.  Great!  There  is one additional different diet strategy  thing you might want to consider.   Someone wrote:  most people eat about 10 things over and over.  "favorites"    They know they like those things and they know how to fix it.   If your favorites made you fat you need to find some new favorites because "will power" is limited and sooner or later, after you diet, you will probably go back to your old favorites.  That may be why everyone says it is easier to lose than to maintain.  They ran out of enthusiasm.   There are GREAT decadent wonderful treats that are lower in calories.  You just have to experiment and try things to find them.  It is definitely worth it too.    For instance, fresh strawberries coated with melted chocolate.  In the produce department are little cardboard containers of Dolci Frutta Hard Chocolate Shell.  It is like Magic shell in the plastic squirt containers but you can easily  know and control the delicious calories.  9 wafers are 80 calories   4 X 80 is 320 calories which is plenty for a whole pound of strawberries.   A half pound of strawberries at a sitting is a very fine indulgence.  Try it you will love it.   This is probably a new favorite with fewer calories than in some old favorite you would be better off without.   

[Glenda]

A question for everyone's opinion.  A couple of changes in my diet were (1) stopped eating 100 calories a day of candy vitamins since 100 calories supports 10 pounds of fat and (2) stopped drinking wine every night because 1 glass drifted into 3 or 4 along with salty snacks.    

         I haven't had any wine now for at least 6 weeks.  A daughter mentioned wine and I said I had stopped drinking alcohol completely, but then  I was encouraged to drink at the family holiday events.   I don't really want to be reminded how fun it is to drink.    I'm wishing they would forget about it and not notice.  What difference does it make to them what I do anyway.    Drinking turns into lots of calories.  I don't want to be a "party pooper" as they say , or rude.      Any thoughts or advice?

[DavideFitbit]

That's a very common topic @Glenda, it's particularly difficult when you have a family reunion or with friends and they insist that you have a drink with them.  

It's quite hard to say no in these circumstances; I usually end up drinking a little bit 😁, but it's important to stand your ground as well if they insist too much (in a very diplomatic way 😎).

My family is also very insistent (for some reason), but in the end, only I am completely aware of the sacrifices required to reach my goals, and other people are not necessarily thinking about that. 

[GraceGFitbit]

Hey @Glenda, many thanks for those tips! Indeed, its healthier and sounds great. I love Greek yogurt too, I will definitely try it. 

About drinking wine, I think the best is to do what makes yo feel comfortable no matter what the others say. I have only one or two drinks at parties, family and friends are always trying to make me drink more but I stand on my position. I don't eat meat and it's the same when someone in the group starts to give you a speech about why he/she likes to much eat meat...🙄

Finally, people knows that if they want me there they have to respect this is how I am. I have to say that sometimes I take part of jokes they make about the situation. 😆

[Baltoscott]

Hi @Glenda - most folks will stop pushing you to have a drink if you just say something like, “No thanks.  I noticed I wasn’t feeling all that great the next day after drinking so I’ve stopped doing it.”  

I cut out drinking on even numbered days as a weight loss strategy a few years ago (which cut down on my craving as compared to when I drank a few beers every day) and although I sometimes drink anyway at parties, when I don’t i just say “this isn’t a drinking day for me, but if we need a designated driver I’m there.”