I'm also in the carnivore camp.
Down 32lbs since August of 23. Didn't even have to try that hard.

You have to find a plan that works for your physiology and suits you long term. If it's not sustainable, it's just an exercise in futility.
s.

I have not read all of the answers. But I will tell you what my Doctor has been telling me for about 30 years.

Eat less

Eat better

Exercise more

I do better sometimes than others. But if I do what the Dr. says, it will work. It is not easy.

Start Walking. It's an exercise that Homo Sapiens was "designed" for and it's probably the best entire body exercise you can do. Work you way up to 6 miles a day and you will find the weight will come off and you will also find you feel absolutely fantastic after a walk.

As for Diet, pay attention to the above posts but I don't subscribe to all these Diet fads such as Keto this and that.

The best diet is a Whole Foods diet which means shopping for foods that actually need to be washed before you use them for a meal. This means Pieces of real Meat or Fish and avoiding Sausage and any other prepared meat items. It also means no ground meat, you would be shocked at what ends up in Ground Turkey. As for ground beef it is mostly beef, but it includes too much fat.

There are also items you want to avoid to the greatest extent possible. Number one on this list is Sugar. Which means that Candy, Donuts, Cake, Ice Cream and the like are off your diet list. Most aren't aware of it but Sugar is distinctly Toxic food additive. It causes inflammation in the body, aggravates Arthritis hugely, and it inflames the blood vessels in and surrounding the Heart. If you have Arthritis and cut your sugar intake by 50% in about a year you will notice your Arthritis is a lot less painful. Do it for 3 years and you will be nearly pain free even in positions that used to cause screaming pain.

Another item to cut back on is Sodium. The American Diet has much to much salt in it because the American Diet is derived from Bar foods. Take peanuts for an example. Salted Peanuts were served for "free" in many bars back in the early 20th Century. The only purpose for those "free" peanuts was to "encourage" the consumption of Beer. Every serving of food you are served in a Bar will have a lot of salt in it. Once folks got used to that they then wanted salty food at Home and in Restaurants. Even Cooking shows today teach people that Salt is essential for building flavor which is a line of CRAP. Spend a week eating salt free potato chips or peanuts and you'll find they are actual taste very good. Extend that to something like a nice Ribeye without any salt and you'll find it tastes a bit different but it still tastes very good.

It also means that you start reading Nutrition Labels and take note of the serving size. If you find a bag of popcorn or any similar snack item has 14 servings in one bag it's a certainty that is not something you want to eat.

I’m 54 and did the low carb thing at 40. I dropped from 280 to 225 pretty fast.

After 50 I gained back 15 pounds that I struggled to get off. The only thing currently working for me is walking at work, weights, cardio, rucking, kettlebells, and distance hiking. I’ve done a Mammoth March (20 miles in 8 hours or less) this year and last year. This year I shaved a full hour off my time (6:52:00) and attribute that to improved core strength and cardio conditioning.

I’m stuck at 237 but none of my pants fit now. They’re huge in the waist and everyone comments on how much weight I’ve dropped. The scale says no but I’ve learned to get the tape measure out and to quit worrying about the scale.

I do a 10 mile walk every Saturday morning at 3.5 mph in addition to my week day routine. The elliptical machine has been a major factor in my training and typically do that 2-3 times a week 20 minutes at 7.5 mph.

Speed hiking during the cooler months (rattlesnakes and copperheads here) is my biggest love and train for those as hard as possible. I’ve never been healthier.

Diet is typically low carb (zero alcohol since 2013 and no fast food) until 2 weeks prior to a 20-30 mile hike. Then it’s bagels, sourdough bread, oats, fruits, etc for the glycogen storage.

I’ve become so used to this it’s hard to take rest days. I did Mammoth March TN may 4 and took the prior week off from my routine and it nearly drove me crazy. Stretched instead.

Good luck.

You will lose weight if you don't drink anything with sugar. This includes fruit juices. Get used to drinking black coffee and unsweetened tea. Don't eat ketchup and other sauces with sugar. Cut down on bread and potatoes. Fruit has a lot of sugar so eat more vegetables instead. Also, don't eat for at least 12 hours. Intermittent fasting makes your body burn fat.

I was 150 pounds for most of my life. I got up to 165 pounds because I was drinking a lot of lemonade, orange juice, and coffee with sugar. I was tired of the gut I developed and that my pants didn't fit. My brother suggested I watch "That Sugar Film" to learn how bad sugar is for my health. After I watched it, I cut down on eating sugar and lost 17 pounds in a few months.

Another thing to avoid is cooking with vegetable oil and Canola oil. Cook with Olive oil, butter, or cold pressed Avocado oil.

At one point in my life I was 275. I lost about 80lbs by running a mile and a half to two miles every day and cutting out soda.

Then I got type 1 diabetes and lost even more weight...to the point that I started looking like a prison camp survivor because my body wasn't metabolizing any of the sugars I was feeding it and I was slowly poisoning myself.

These days I'm pretty much keto. I count carbs, not calories. I eat meat, plain vegetables, and a little bit of dairy. I drink only water. It helps to have some motivation...like if you don't do this you'll go blind, lose your feet, and eventually die.

I'm at a pretty healthy 195 now and have maintained that for a couple of years with the above diet and daily exercise. I've gotten to where I enjoy the food and don't really crave the stuff I can't have. It also saves a lot of money because I never eat out anymore.

I'm 66, 5'6 and 142 pounds this morning. I used to be able to eat anything and everything and my weight never changed other than if I was engaging in things like a week long backpacking trip, I could not eat enough to maintain weight.

In my 50's that ended. My weight slowly crept up from 135 to 155. I'm pretty active, have a physical job(s), do jujitsu weekly, help my wife around the farm, walk a bunch.

I discovered through a friend in he combatives training world how to calculate my basal metabolism. That is, the amount of calories to simply breath, digest food and maintain life. For me, that is about 1,300 calories a day. You then add to that, the amount of calories appropriate to your daily activity level. Anything more than that is stored as fat. Despite anything you might believe, it matters not an iota where or what those calories come from. Consume more calories from any source greater than what you burn in a day, you gain weight. If you want to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit. And it takes burning a bunch of them (days worth to lose a single pound.

I get about 550 calories over my basal rate to keep my weight the same. Consume less, one loses weight. It's really that simple. And hard as hell to do without diligence. My ideal weight is 135, number I chase every single day.

There are any number of on line basal metabolism calculators on line. Pretty much everything has a calorie amount on it. We eat pretty clean at our house, meals are prepared from scratch. But I like potato chips, Twizzlers and pie. So I know that if I eat those things, I have to cut elsewhere.

It's not easy to be careful in what you consume. And really easy to stuff in an extra 1,000 calories.

You can go keto, you can cut out sugar or carbs, But at the end of the day, it simply comes down to eating fewer calories than you burn. And you have to be diligent.

quote:

The formula for weight loss is simply calories in < calories out. Eat less than you burn each day.

The clinically proven to not work, time and time again method. (At least not past the short term. That will work great if you don't mind putting it all back on in a year.)


Someone mentioned reading Jason Fung. I would suggest the audio book,much easier to stick with.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:

quote:

The formula for weight loss is simply calories in < calories out. Eat less than you burn each day.

The clinically proven to not work, time and time again method. (At least not past the short term. That will work great if you don't mind putting it all back on in a year.)


Someone mentioned reading Jason Fung. I would suggest the audio book,much easier to stick with.

Huh? Using more calories than you consume IS the only way to lose weight. There are a bunch of different ways to get there, but the bottom line is simple. Everyone will say there is THIS or THAT way to it.

First of all, it's not a "diet." To be successful, you need to make life choices. You also can't just be like "OK, I lost the weight, job done." No, you need to stick with it.

Brad has it. You need to know your base metabolic rate. Where you go from there is up to you, but you'll increase activity, lower calorie intake, or both.

I've gained and lost a chunk of weight twice before, now going on a third. Why am I fat again? Simple.

I did it to myself. This is a key part of fitness and weight loss. You are in control. You are also a lizard brain marinating in hormones, and food is delicious and has been for millions of years.

The best way to lose weight is:

SLOWLY

The best way to do it is: Find out how many calories you use in your average day. Then find a way to control that.

I used a Fitbit. There are a variety of ways to get your daily intake, some are more accurate than others. Trial and error will tell you.

The basics?

Junk food either has to go entirely, or be strictly limited. Soda? Get rid of this and candy daily. Any highly processed anything should be strictly limited.

Your body and brain NEED fat. Sugar and carbs, less so.

For me "OMAD" works best. I did it for years, and broke that during the pandemic for a variety of reasons. Now I'm back on, and have lost weight already.

Your body is "lazy" and will seek equilibrium. We're also evolved to binge. You do NOT need to eat 3 times a day. You don't need to eat once a day....

Meat, nuts, healthy fats, oils that are not highly processed. I'm not a fan of vegetables, but they do a job.

Anyone looking to lose weight needs to know, the only success is life changes, not a "diet" period. You're going to have to treat it like alcoholism for it to work.

The first step, as Mr. Appliance said, is getting that baseline.

You need to be fair with yourself, you need to be honest. Can you cheat? Sure, too much and you've fucked up..

If you want to, you can. If you don't really want to, you won't.