Ask Lemmy

tried all the bullshit in these comments, nothing worked long term. was still miserable and hated myself. progressed into an eating disorder. only thing that ended up working was to seek psychological help. learning intuitive eating helped stop the binges. I let go of the obsession with food, obsession with weight, obsession with image. accepting yourself as you are is the only way to change. fancy that.

Track your calories, macros, and any micronutrients that you're concerned about (e.g., sodium, fiber). Set a goal and stick to it. I use the LoseIt app and a digital kitchen scale.

Drink a lot of water. Half your body weight (in lbs) in ounces. So if you weigh 130 lbs, drink 130 ÷ 2 = 65 oz of water daily. This is your baseline; add more for exercise. Don't go overboard because too much water is bad for you.

Aim for 45-60 minutes of vigorous exercise 3-4 times a week. I like weightlifting for this. On the other days, be active, but don't push yourself too much. You need rest for recovery.

After your workouts, don't eat back all your calories, but do consider having something protein-heavy.

Sleep. I can't emphasize enough how important sleep is. Try to get 7-8 hours every night. This is the hardest one for me personally; I don't have a ton of advice. But developing a bedtime routine helps.

Weigh yourself every day first thing in the morning, after you've used the bathroom and before you've had anything to eat or drink, with no clothes on. I like my Withings scale because the app tracks my measurements over time.

Have a mindset of lifestyle change - otherwise, if you go back to old habits, you're likely to gain back any weight you lose.

Good luck!

Weigh your portions. Especially on things like pasta.

What the pack says is a portion is unlikely to be what your eyes think is a portion.

don't consume sugar. get that shit out of your house. do not snack, ever. do not cheat. habits are all about consistency. get used to being hungry at the end of the day. eat a carrot, fatass.

Weighting every day at the same time. Using a smart weight that logs the measurements. Using software that smoothens out the readings, so you don't stress about day to day changes. Don't want to advertise, but combination of Withings scale and trendweight website works great for me. And ultimately, combination of fasting and exercise is ideal for me. Every calorie spent and every calorie not eaten helps.

Worms.

I track my macros. I have a jar of Chilli Crisp and a jar of hot honey on hand at all times.

If I make my lean chicken tacos for dinner and Ive got a bunch of carbs left i put the hot honey on, if I have fats left over I use the Chilli Crisp, if Im running light on both just a small pinch of chilli powder.

Weigh yourself consistently (i.e. same time, same outfit) - I find it easiest to do straight after jumping out of the shower in the morning, post-poop and pre-breakfast, but ymmv. And the important part, record it. I have smart scales, which makes life easier, but absolutely not essential. There's something very motivating about watching the line go down - and will quickly highlight if you're on the right track, or if you need to cut back a little more.

I find it easier to maintain a hard no-snacking policy, than to try to reduce snacking but with case-by-case exceptions. Stick to eating at mealtimes only, rather than allowing yourself to rationalise that slice of cake (it's a colleague's birthday, rude not to), bag of chips (I only had a small lunch) or dozen donuts (they'll go stale if I don't eat them, that's wasteful).

I’m very, very susceptible to addiction, but the thing that makes it easiest for me to curb a habit is to pretend I’ve already moved past it. If I think about junk food, I intentionally think of overly sweet, salty and artificial foods and (internally) express my distaste. With smoking, I think of the smell of an ashtray in the rain; with drinking, I think of cleaning up day old beer with a hangover.

Saying “I don't really have a sweet tooth” is what made me lose my sweet tooth.

I'm working on losing a few kgs for playing sports, so I'm trying to make changes that are sustainable for the rest of my life. E.g. quark and granola instead of bread for breakfast, and no more snacks in between meals (RIP stroopwafels).

That way I only need to change habits once instead of multiple times like when you're dieting, and the effect is slow but noticeable.

Eat less. It sounds obvious, I know. But prepare your meal as normal, divide it in half and put half in a container in the fridge. Eat the other half, then distract yourself for half an hour. If you’re still ravenous, heat up the other half and have it. But you probably won’t be. And you’ve got your next meal ready to go!

• Daily walks. I started barely being able to walk more than a few steps, I was in a really terrible shape. Nowadays, I will walk at least 8km daily. More as often as I can. It feels too good. Exercising regularly and in the long-run is key.
• Eating healthier food, aka fresh fruits, veggies, real fresh bread and NOT eating industrial pre-processed food anymore. Like none at all. No 'just this one time' or 'just one byte'. No more feeding myself with ready-made dishes, no more fast-food (I still ate delicious burgers and fries mind you... just all hand-made with fresh food), no industrial sweets or whatever either. And no industrial beverage either, aka no soda not even light.
• Not being an asshole with myself. I failed many times at keeping my motivation. No blaming and no hating (I was already punished enough by all that wasted time it meant for me to fall back into my bad habits) but I kept on going while trying to understand how/why I failed (so I would not do the same mistake again).

I halved my weight and I still eat plenty (even chocolate, pastries or things like that, just... a lot less and never industrially made), I replaced me eating shit (literally, industrial are feeding us shit) by me eating actual food (and enjoying preparing it), and I also retook control my body, muscles and joints, by starting to move it... like it is was designed to. We're not designed to sit on a couch or in front of computer all day long (be it to work or to play).

I've tried a dozen ways.

All diets work, if you stick to them.

Try a few and go with the one you find easiest to stick with.

Long term you'll have to figure out how to change your habits if you don't want to stick on the diet forever. Or you'll regain it again.

Ice cubes peppermint gum. To chew when others are having dessert. I've eaten, I don't need empty calories, but my teeth are still hungry. Gum gives them something to do, and the little crunch of Xylitol helps it feel more like eating than other sugarless gums.

I was also gonna say fasting, intermittent fasting to be specific, and cooking at home more. But it seems that’s not answering your question because it’s a “food habit”. So instead, I would recommend:

• Sugar substitutes. Yes they can make you gassy/poopy. It’s trial and error to find the right substitute and right amount to use, but once you get it, you’ll be able to avoid a ton of sugar. For example, a teaspoon of stevia on my coffee is fine. Monkfruit instead of sugar but only half as much for savory dishes works for me. Allulose for home made ice cream is fine as well. And so on.

• Eat water-rich food to make you feel full but not consume a lot of calories. Celery and cucumbers are good snacks and can be paired with other food.

• A bit more pricey, but shiratake is basically zero calories and comes in noodle, rice, or cube form.

One extra tea.

Enjoy experimenting with cooking and food prepping a lot more to find new healthy Staples you like with more vegetables, protein.and healthy fats (edited). Eat more fermented foods. Don't buy junkfood/sweets, cook or bake healthy versions of junkfood instead. But avoid artificial sweeteners, they mess with your gut biome. Add less sugar to things. Just look for zero added sugars on packages. Bam, easy. 🙃

Not eating works pretty well, though I understand it's probably harder for someone with a desire to eat.

One thing the diet industry hates:

Fasting. Hard to make money off not eating food.

It's also highly effective and safe so long as you educate yourself properly before beginning.

I did 14 day fasts with an electrolyte slurry, psyllium husk, and multi vitamins. Take a month off, eat well balanced meals, repeat until goal weight. I lost ~15-20lbs each fast doing it a total of three times to hit my goal weight. Each time is less, because the daily caloric requirement to maintain your body decreases with your weight.

After that, I started gym/weight training.

edit: and never eating junk food or drinking sugar ever again. That includes fruit juice and dairy milk. Unsweetened Coconut "milk" for me now. Processed grains massively reduced too. Basically, flour. Honestly flour probably inflated the waist line for me more than sugar.

Hyper-fixating on something keeps me away from the kitchen, for better or worse. Same with sleep ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The best thing I ever did was fast 16 ish hours until after noon then broke with a light healthy snack. You can almost eat whatever you want after that because you eliminating 1/3 of your meals. I lost a ton of weight that way

The timing of the day in which I eat certain things. I lost 15kg over a year just by cutting sweets and carbs after 4pm. I still ate them, especially in the morning.

And talking about morning - "breakfast like a king, supper like a beggar" also contributed to that weight loss.

Nowadays I am not strict but whenever I see myself going over my weight I first take those two measures up before making any calorie cuts

Edit: although these are food habits, so I don't know if it really answers your question. Exercise is the other thing that helps, you don't even need a lot of it

Coconut cream + coconut water = great sugar killer. Judt get the water with no added sugar and dilute it like 1/2.

Try it, seriously. Its like sucking at the titties of the coconut Goddess. Closest we'll ever come to Nectar of the gods

Stress helped me lose 20 pounds in three months last year ^.^

I wouldn't recommend it.