General Diet Plans and Questions General diet questions, support for various diet plans other than those listed below.

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Old 02-26-2022, 03:06 PM   #1  
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Default Keeping weight off!

I lost 90 pounds many years ago. Lots of people have asked me how I lost the weight. But the better question is probably how I kept it off. And the answer to that is: I didn’t! Not all of it. It’s complicated.
Yes, losing weight is a load of work, but in theory it’s as simple as a math equation: Eat less, move more—truthful yet unhelpful, and incredibly dickish. For me it was about learning to not eat the entire container of Ben and Jerry’s in one sitting, which…really, have you had Ben and Jerry’s? Anyway.

Granted, the math equation isn’t the whole story—not all calories are created equal, after all. But broadly speaking, it is true that creating a caloric deficit is key to losing weight. That felt easy enough, and when I set out to make these drastic changes to my lifestyle, I was successful in accomplishing my goal.
Where I had a harder time, though, was in maintaining the weight loss. After initially losing the weight, I kept it off handily for the first three years because I ate healthfully and was very active. I checked not one, but two marathons off the bucket list. I thought surely my metabolism could, now and forever, just handle all the calories I was taking in, calories that were fueling a ton of physical activity!
Then I got injured. Like, surgery-and-no-more-running injured. Ruh-roh.
When I was running, I felt like I could eat anything and my weight was unaffected. After my injury I continued to eat mainly healthy foods (mostly whole and unprocessed stuff, plenty of fruits and veggies, whole grains, you get it) but I didn’t adjust my calories down to “not running 55 miles this week.” Slowly, some of the weight crept back on. I’ve relost most of it, but it did make me take stock of the fact that weight doesn’t just come off and go away forever. Your metabolism doesn’t reset permanently without work, and an excess of calories—whether through not working out as much or through dietary changes—will eventually cause weight gain.

And that’s actually really common among people who have lost weight. According to a review from 2007, somewhere between one third and two thirds of people who lose weight on a diet end up gaining back more weight than they originally lost in the first place.
But what about the people who don’t gain it back? What do they know (and do) that the rest of us struggle with?
The National Weight Control Registry is a database that tracks the habits and behaviors of participants who have lost 30 pounds or more and kept it off for over a year. They’ve tracked more than 10,000 people since 1994 who have volunteered to take detailed surveys on their eating habits and behaviors.
From what I can tell, establishing consistent weight-maintenance habits seems to be almost as important to success as achieving a caloric deficit. Which makes some sense if you think about it. Doing a hard thing for a limited amount of time is easier than doing a hard thing forever. The most successful way to do that hard thing forever is to make it less hard—you know, a habit that you can live with that doesn’t make you totally miserable.

I combed through the data to see the behaviors and strategies that people who have lost weight and kept it off have in common. Before I get into it, though, I should point out some limitations. There’s the obvious issue that we’re dealing with a selection bias: The people participating in the registry are the ones who have actually kept the weight off. It’s possible that the people who gained the weight back also shared many of these habits and behaviors. We don’t know, because their data isn’t in this registry. Then there’s the standard disclaimers that come with all observational and self-reported data (you know, that people lie). And, of course, the big one: Correlation doesn’t equal causation.
One final note before I dive into it. It’s worth pointing out that trying to do what these people have done may not magically work for you! Every person’s body is different, as are everyone’s needs, preferences, lifestyles, values, and habits. A habit that is enjoyable and effective for me might feel absolutely not do-able for you, for any number of reasons. I don’t know your life. I also don't know that weight loss is the healthy choice for you. That's why I'm not here to tell you what to do with your body. But if you make the decision, like I did, that losing weight IS the right choice for your body and your life, we do have some info to look at about what has worked for people and what hasn't. Got it? Great.

With all that being said, here are some key findings that I thought were really interesting, and resonated with me and my own experience.
Ninety-four percent of people who lost weight and kept it off increased their level of physical activity. OK, fine, no big shock there. But you know what I found encouraging when I looked a little closer at the data? The most frequently reported form of exercise is walking. WALKING. Think you can only drop weight by giving yourself rhabdo with the cool kids at a high intensity workout class with a lot of grunting? A fancy sports watch and a training program? Chafing your nipples off in attempt to check that marathon off your bucket list (hint: Band-Aids)? Look, more power to you if you enjoy that stuff. Do what makes you want to keep working out, but remember, you don’t have to destroy yourself.

There’s no such thing as a “best” diet or approach to weight loss. Whatever works for you is what’s best (as long as you’re being safe about it). Do you crave the structure of a program with a coach and support? Prefer flying solo with an app and meal planning in the peace and relative quiet of your kitchen? There’s no magic bullet—a study that looked at NWCR data back in 1997 found that both worked for long term success. Forty-five percent of registry participants worked independently on their weight loss and 55 percent worked through a program. More recently, psychological research has shown that having group support (from clinic-based groups to losing weight with friends) can help weight-loss efforts. Again, this probably just comes down to how you work best. Don’t try to force yourself to do something that makes you miserable!

Food is more important than fitness when it comes to losing weight. There’s a saying in the fitness world that you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. The fact that 98 percent of NCRW participants modified their food intake to keep weight off tells me that exercise alone—while important for respondents, as I mentioned above—is not the key to weight loss. In fact, a 2014 review found that while exercise is great for health, without caloric restriction, it won’t result in clinically significant weight loss. This is a reminder that the calories you eat really are key to a weight-loss effort. In fact, for some people exercise can actually make weight loss harder as it can cause us to overestimate how many calories we’ve actually burned.

Your reasons for wanting to lose weight in the first place can predict whether you keep it off in the long run. Patients who had a medical trigger for weight loss, i.e. any sort of health issue that they cite as their motivation for weight loss, showed a greater propensity for both losing a larger amount of weight and keeping it off long-term. I did have a medical trigger for my weight loss (I get SUNCT headaches, which are painful and come with a host of scary strokelike symptoms; they severely tanked my life for a while, but it’s well managed now). My weight didn’t cause my health problems, but finding myself with a mysterious ailment in my 20s changed my perspective on my health. Being chronically ill with something you can’t prevent makes you take stock of how you manage the rest of your health. In my case this included trying to prevent other health problems that might be weight-related in the future. Losing weight wasn’t suddenly easier, but for me there was a clear motivation from living with a hard-to-manage chronic health problem.

And certain behaviors weren’t hard and fast rules (because, again, everyone’s different), but there were some commonalities among registry participants. For instance, 78 percent say they eat breakfast daily, 75 percent say they weigh themselves regularly (at least once per week), and 90 percent say they exercise an average of one hour per day.

OK, so what does this tell us about weight loss? Yes, at first glance it sounds like all of this amounts to “eat less, move more.” But what I find encouraging is that the data from the NWCR demonstrates that there is no one right way to go about achieving weight loss, provided you maintain a caloric deficit and it’s one that you can sustain and of course adjust when you’re ready to maintain.
For example, regular weigh-ins, maintaining a calorie-controlled diet, and getting regular exercise are habits that have contributed to long-term weight-loss success, according to the NWCR data. But recent long term studies show that low-carb and low-fat diets produce similar results; the diet that works best is the one that you can stick with. And furthermore, those habits might not be helpful—and indeed can be harmful—for others.
The hard truth is that many attempts to lose weight will fail. I found one way that worked for me out of countless ways that didn’t. It doesn’t mean I’m in on a secret, it just means I found the combination of foods I like that makes eating healthfully a good deal. I’ve stumbled. I’ve gained and lost.
Whether you prefer plant-based, eating like a caveman, cutting carbs, supplementing with meal replacement shakes, or just plain old counting calories, they can all work for weight loss if they’re a fit for you and they reduce your caloric load. (But remember, just because you’re losing weight, it doesn’t mean you’re also eating a balanced and nutritious diet. You should always consult with your doctor and a registered dietitian before changing up your diet.)

Beyond that, figure out what type of exercise works for you, and don’t try to wreck yourself on day one (the injured athlete trying to pretend **** doesn’t hurt on day one is an athlete who will be sitting at home not working out on day two). Yoga? Great. Walking your dog? Great. Don’t have a dog? It’s time to get a dog. I mean not even if you’re trying to lose weight, I just think dogs are great.
I’m down to the last bit of weight I’d like to lose, and incorporating the habits that I used when I lost the weight in the first place is helping. I’m checking my weight twice a week, cooking a lot of vegetables, and working out again a bit more regularly (not like running a marathon regularly, but my bike is getting some miles on it). And I’m begrudgingly learning to only eat one portion of Ben and Jerry’s at a time.
Wait, what do you mean one pint isn’t a portion?
Some habits are hard to break.
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