What has helped you most while trying to lose weight?
 

What would you suggest to people who are just starting out on their weight loss journey? A supplement, a book, a website, an app, a trainer? What helped you out the most on your weight loss journey?

Mine are...
Runtastic pedometer app
3fatchicks
Arise app
Magic Bullet (healthy smoothies for bfast instead of cereal)
food scale
and my supportive boyfriend ;)

Finding an activity I love. For me it was running. Working out no longer feels like work. Even when my eating gets wonky, I keep running. The extra perk is running is easier at lower weights so I have a stronger reason to stay committed to healthy eating and weight management. For me "being thin" wasn't good enough. If it had been, I'd would have lost my weight a decade ago.

Also focusing on being fit rather than thin. Again for me, that has helped tremendously. Being thin, for me, meant starving and skipping meals, the less I ate the "better" I did at my "diet". Being fit means I have to care for my body and eat, but eat healthy, nutritious foods. Starving it is not an option. As my starving often lead to binging, it was a vicious cycle.

This means I also don't over do it with exercise (I used to obsessively exercise) and I take care to get adequate sleep. I drink less. Now I was never a drinker, per say, but I'd have a glass of wine at night a few times a week, but now I treat myself 1-2x a month. I also drink water all day, because staying hydrated is caring for my body. I try to practice de-stressing techniques and I try not to over load my plate (life) with too many responsibilities although at times it still happens.

Weight loss is no longer about eating as little as I can. Its a small piece of the puzzle to treating my body better. This mind set is helping me to recovery from my ED. :)

Few years ago when i lost lots of weight for the first time the best helper for me was a gym! I started to train as a maniac! I stayed at gym for 3-4 hours 4 times a week. and when i came home after gym i did not want to eat! i did not want to ruin all my efforts so i simply ate some green salad! I lost really a lot! Was looking great that times((( but i guess i ate too little so after a year my weight came back to me and even brought few new friends - pounds;-)) so this time i decided to go slow but get lifetime result at the end)

Ginger, I can't go to the gym. It's just way too intimidating. I have no idea what machine to use, how to work them, how much weight I should be lifting. I tried going a few times on a day pass and hated it.

GG, I know what you mean about the running, but for me it's hiking\walking. I love it. I get to put my earphones in and just zone out for an hour or two.

3FC

Myfitnesspal.com

iPod filled with good tunes.

Jogging

Well, I'm not going to go with any tools because that is so different from person to person what is worth it or not.

I guess the that that has been the most useful is just learning how I tick - figuring out triggers. Figuring out how to make this a lifestyle change versus a crash diet. Stuff like that.

I've gained and lost 3 times in my life (mostly recently 2-3 years ago) and each time I still can and do learn more about myself and what hurts or hinders me. Hopefully, I've learned enough to never fully derail again.

To expand (I think) on Melissa's thought, what's helped me most is making time for reflection and active planning. Regular journaling helps me stay on track in the day to day, but its real value comes when I need to step back and look at the bigger picture of what's worked for me, what my trouble spots are, etc. I have a page of my weight loss truths and lessons learned, so that I can remind myself from time to time and occasionally add on hard-won knowledge.

When life gets crazy and I've gone astray of my routines, it's really nice to have a personal touchstone that helps bring me back.

Planning
My fitbit -I get a lot of satisfaction from reaching 10000 steps a day
Mindset

My nutritional therapist who has taught me that dieting does not work, and who is the first person to tell me to trust my cravings.

Tools or skills that have helped:

3FC. Definitelty.
Enjoying learning about nutrition, health, psychology, habits
Meditation (and self-reflection without obsessing, and forgiveness)
Therapy

Pilates
Zumba
Baladi
Kickboxing
Martial fusion

My whey protein powder has been my most important tool.It helps satisfy my appetite and helps sustain me till mealtime.I drink it in coconut milk every morning and sometimes at lunch or supper not for lunch or supper because I do eat low starch carbs and protein for meals.I include the calories in my total daily count.

All great answers. I've really learned so much here about the right foods to eat, how to look at myself differently, and in a more positive light, and how to stay focused and motivated.

apo9...do you mix it with coconut milk? or coconut water? I always thought coconut milk was very high in calories, which is why I don't make curries any more.

I buy canned light coconut milk from Trader Joe's that is thick and 1/3 cup is 50 calories. That's the kind that I use in my curries, etc.

There is also a thinner consistency carton of coconut milk available on the market sold with the other milks - silk has three different versions for 90 calories, 80 calories, or 45 calories per serving.

I use Silk coconut milk.It is 80 calories in 1 cup(250 ml).I live in Canada and maybe our products are different.I dont always use a whole cup of milk or sometimes dilute it with water to get approx 40 calories that adds to the 110 calories of protein powder.I drink 2 scoops in diluted coconut milk at breakfast(150 calories) and only 1 scoop in water when a snack to tide me over.
It sure has kept me from snacking and helps control my appetite.
I also think the amino acids are good for the production of neurochemicals such as serotonin and dopamine.
I actually think it is like using protein bars but less carbs and less triggers for sweet than the bars,also less calories.

Varying exercise. I did anything and everything to challenge different muscles and try to stay ahead of boredom.

Food Journaling

YMCA's FitQuest program for logging workouts and food

Going to bed early if hungry.

Tracking what I eat (I track calories at MyFitnessPal and points at WW)

Fitbit

Using my HRM with Digifit which talks to Fitbit

Increasing exercise

The mental aspect of making weight loss a priority

weighing in daily

attending a WW meeting each week and having the accountability of the

weekly weigh in

Writing my blog

Reading 3FC and other blogs

Like many others - finding an exercise I enjoyed. At first I hated running, but it was the only thing available to me (couldn't afford a gym/classes), eventually once I saw myself improving I loved it. I really enjoy Zumba too, but I love the endurance element of running and trying to beat my personal records allows me to get competitive with myself.

Once I found a passion for running I wanted to get better, which meant I started to eat healthier. When I first started running I had cut down what I ate but didn't make the healthy substitutions until I wanted to improve my performance, which in turn helped a lot with my weight loss.

Entering races also helped too, having a short term goal really helped too. If I ever felt lazy I knew that I had entered a race so if I slacked off I would embarrass myself on the day, that always motivated me!

Counting calories really helps me too. If I want a big greasy burger I can have it but I have to try my best to keep within my calorie limit by either eating healthier in the day or exercising a LOT to compensate! This isn't the best method, but it works for me.

When I first went to the gym a couple years ago the subscription came with a session with a trainer.

She took my measurements, assessed my fitness and strength level and gave me a protocol to follow - x number of repeats on this machine with a certain weight, then y repeats on another machine and so on. She also showed me exactly how to use each machine. It was just one session but it gave me a routine and confidence in using the machines. It was great. I continued for months (and then lost steam unfortunately) - but over those months I definitely grew stronger and fitter.

Not saying you have to a gym of course - but don't give up on it because you don't know how to use everything from the get go. I think most people don't and need help in the beginning.

So many things are helping me.

3FC. I like to be on a forum. It helps me stay focussed.

Sustainability. Making choices i know i can sustain for the long haul i.e. tailoring my diet to something i can do forever. This includes cutting back a bit more as my needs become less.

Thinking about maintenance well before i have arrived so that there is no end of diet situation when all of a sudden i am not following my rules anymore.

Having counselling when stress, pressure or depression emerges in order to keep my mood and motivation as high as possible.

Becoming a day time person and not going to bed too late most days.

Understanding that exercise is not an essential part of my weightless program. I have recently started a nice little running program and am aiming to enter a race in November but then i will stop because it will be too hot to continue. My diet needs to be able to accommodate my stop start tendencies with exercise.
Here is the easy running program for beginners that i used. Just seeing how easy it was got me started. i found: http://www.health-calc.com/exercise/...gram-beginners. There are lots of other good things on this website as well. I want to note that all the times in the past i have lost weight i did it with lots of exercise - taking up triathlon, going on cycling tours, running every second day for 10km or walking that far when i was starting, going on long hikes. This time i have needed to focus on other things and because i know i can't sustain an exercise program indefinitely, i needed to make what i do more flexible. Reading that weightloss should be 80% diet and 20% was also a good little tip that fits with what i do.

Books i have loved and found really useful this time round have been:
The Don't Go Hungry Diet and Don't Go Hungry For Life by Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis - She's a diet scientist and i have learnt a lot of theoretical and practical stuff from her books. And she has a great idea which she calls a success diary in which you rate your hunger and satiety before and after eating. This enables you to avoid having to count calories.

That said i don't need to count calories anyway. Just eating whole foods and keeping a detail food log is sufficient for me to know what where i'm at whilst losing weight so long as i get on the scales every day.

Weighing daily but not having to stress about the daily ups and downs of the numbers because i have a clue what they might mean and know that it doesn't mean, i've put on fat every time it goes up.

French Women Don't Get Fat was a wonderful book with some nice recipes. Mainly its a great book for teaching you a new food culture if there's a problem with the way you eat or if you treat dieting like a kind of punishment. Dieting doesn't have to be unpleasant or punishing.

The website Nutrition Wonderland taught me useful stuff about hormones that affect our weight loss and gains.

Focusing my eating around 3 main meals a day and trying to keep snacks to a minimum. And making my meals close together so that i can avoid hunger. I was doing this before read the book don't go hungry because i had already worked out that going for long periods without food during the day didn't work for me and wasn't sustainable in the long term. Going all evening and through the night without food is the best time for me not to eat.

Quitting sweets and eating whole foods, prioritising fruit and vegetables but bringing back yummy things like cheese and nuts and seeds. These high fat foods which i had let go from my diet are now back because they are tasty and nutritious and useful on a diet in small quantities. I think that at least for anyone who is not insulin resistant, just quitting sweets would solve most people's weight and appetite issues. It has certainly solved mine. Of course if you binge on pasta instead of sweets, then it might not work for you. You have to seriously cut down or out the things that you can't control. I find it easier to cut them out.

Increasing the amount of legumes and pulses i eat. These do the bulking and energy job of bread and pasta but they are low GI so it is lasting energy. They are a vegetable so you get that benefit. They are high in soluble fibre. they are good for cholesterol. they are filling. Cooking them takes a bit of getting used to but they are versatile and make food interesting. They are also inexpensive foods.

Thanks for the tip Munchy and apo9. I've never seen it before, but maybe that's because I never knew it existed, or to look for it. I've always made my curries with the canned coconut milk, which is loaded with calories. Since I began counting calories I gave it up and tried to make a curry with coconut water. It did not work out to say the least. Maybe this Silk coconut milk will work out for me.

-A good pair of shoes. Poor shoe choices in the past were a barrier to movement, and I didn't realize it until I got a pair of shoes that I LOVE (Naturalizer Bzees). Now I walk everywhere and even look forward to putting on my shoes, they feel that good!

-A pedometer. It got me moving last year and now I just really enjoy seeing my steps every day.

-Living alone. The only food in my house is here because I brought it here. I'm able to focus on just me.

Good thread, I'm learning from everyone's responses.

I agree. Whenever i want to fall back into binging on crap or foods outside my nutrition plan for that day, i think.... HEALTHY and that usually keeps me from derailing because i truly do want to be healthier and it helps that i love whole foods

Maybe I'll give it a shot again. It was just so intimidating stumbling around trying to figure out what machine did what, and even how to sit in them. I guess if I had someone showing me around it would help out a little. I may give it a try again.

Drinking more water. I drink 3 litres a day. Never felt so energised. Don't need Coffee now.

I found a cool new one. I downloaded a new ebook the other day for less than a dollar. It's pretty informative. It gives a bunch of healthy tips on weight loss. Some I was aware of, others I never thought of. The author seems pretty adamant about healthy weight loss. No supplements, no fad diets, no starving or denying yourself. Definitely worth the 99 cents.

http://www.amazon.com/52-Easy-Weight...ight+loss+tips