South Beach Diet. I "started" in May at 260, but I wasn't really serious (i.e. cheated a lot) until August when I think I weighed about 250. Now I weigh 210 and find the diet VERY easy, I've been losing 10 pounds a month August, Sept, Oct, Nov. I have also been able to add exercise and have gone from a 22W (with muffin top) to a 14W or 16 or 14 (depending on the brand) with NO muffin top pants/jeans.
I'm not at goal yet, but I'm a calorie counter and I work out 30-60 minutes (cardio + strength) 6 days a week (i just walk on rest days). So far I've lost about 40lbs.
ETA: Started "dieting" in May, but didn't really get serious until August when I started counting my calories.
Last edited by platformnine; 11-21-2009 at 08:07 PM.
Started on Atkins 8/2008, lost over 100 lbs, then switched to The Metabolism Miracle (low carb, low fat) and am still losing. I've lost over 150 lbs in 15 months on low carb.
I use the Weight Watchers "Winning Points" system but I'm not attending meetings. I'm trying to avoid sugars and white flour as well and I stopped eating anything fried.
I've lost 32 lbs thus far, but have a fair amount left to go.
Counting calories and exercising 4-5 days a week for at least 30 minutes to 1.5 hours. I alternate my exercise days to look like the following:
Mon - 1.5 h
Tue - 1 h
Wed - 30 min
Thur - 1.5 h
Fri - 1 h
Sat - rest
Sun - rest
To determine my daily caloric intake, I went to freedieting.com and thedailyplate.com. I put in "sedentary" for activity level and got a range of calories. At first, I went with the highest caloric range and found that worked for the first 5 lbs, then I had to drop 200 cals to see the same weight loss and after another 5, had to drop it another 200 cals. Determining your caloric needs is quasi-scientific as it needs a lot of tweaking to find a plan that suits your needs. Experiment with the numbers, give yourself a week with each range you set for yourself and see whether you gain or lose. Adjust accordingly.
Another helpful hint is to keep in mind that all these actions are for the rest of your life not just the next 2-3 months. That said, I think it's best to start slowly by incorporating one change at a time. If you eat fast food everyday, cut it down to 5 days a week, then 4, then 3 until you eliminate fast food from your diet. Then work on eating more veggies and lean protein. Take small steps and in a few months you will adopt a new lifestyle that you can maintain instead of jumping in all at once and burning out soon after...Although this does work for some people...
The entire weight loss journey is so personalized that it would be impossible to take one person's plan and superimpose it on someone else's life. That's why you start with a plan you think is the most feasible for you and tweak it accordingly.
I love math so I'm a calorie counter :P I like to add up my BMR and calories burned through exercise and subtract my calories eaten and play with it to see how much i should lose that week haha. It's my bizarre guilty pleasure at the end of each day. However, reading this thread, I'm impressed with how successful people have been with the low carb thing! I hated Atkins because I love veggies but I'll have to look into South Beach!
I'm a calorie counter. I use thedailyplate.com to count my calories. At this point, I am pretty good at estimating my intake, because I'll do it out at the end of the night, and almost always be within 100 calories of my estimate.
I also exercise 5-6 days a week, between a half our and an hour each time. I do a mix of steady-state cardio, high intensity interval training (HIIT), and weight lifting.
My biggest piece of advice- find something you love. You can only stick to things that you enjoy. Find exercise you enjoy, find healthy food you enjoy, and healthy habits that you can enjoy for the rest of your life. After you lose all the weight, maintenance of that weight is almost identical to the process of losing it. We're going to be doing this for the rest of our lives.
I've lost 190 pounds by counting calories, rarely cheating, eating very healthy foods and doing a heck of a lot of praying. I lost 156 in the first 12 months. Just reached the 190 pounds lost today! (YIPPEE) I still don't have a structured excercise plan but I move a lot most everyday. I rarely sit down except to post on 3FC and to eat...
My advice would be to pick a plan and start ASAP. Tweak as necessary, and by this time next year you will be addicted to the MALL!
3. Volumetrics - large portions of lower calorie foods to stay full
I lost 70+ lbs and February will be my 5 year maintenance milestone.
My advice would be to find a plan that works for you (either creating one for yourself or tweaking an existing plan to fit your needs/lifestyle) and thinking how you will keep up that plan the rest of your life. I do exactly what I did to lose weight, every day. Except I get more calories a day and one treat meal a week.
I think it is important to find a life long plan. I am following the principles in the book Thin Within. I also have both the Weigh Down Diet books and audio cassettes and refer to them. I am trying to just eat only when I'm truly hungry and stop when I'm comfortable. This has me eating smaller amounts and losing weight in return. No special foods or anything. I am no where near goal. I have a long way to go. When I started out I was not motivated so I haven't lost the amount of weight I think I would have if I would have tried my best. I am very determined now with God's help to get this weight off and keep it off. I am still working on an exercise plan and finding something that I will enjoy doing every week. I have reached my first goal of a 30 lb loss and I am working on my next 30 lbs.
I eat only whole natural foods, like the eat clean diet, but I have my own version, i never read the book. I lost 65 lbs. in 10mo. and am still losing even though i am below by goal. Lots of fruit, veggies, fish, skinless chicken, seeds, nuts and one yogurt everyday. It worked great for me and i feel so energetic, I didn't crave any processed foods or sweets cause i eat every 3 hrs. I am very active, I power walk and do a little jogging 50 min. a day. I would highly recommend trying it. The weight seems to fall off and my skin got so clear, my nails and hair grow real fast. My hair is actually thicker now than ever. I always say fruits and veggies must be magical, they have done wonders for me!
I started Weight Watchers in August of this year. I've lost 25.6 lbs so far. I really like WW because I can eat what I want, I just feel like I make better choices and I'm in more control.
When it comes to finding quick weight loss diet tips that work, selecting your foods for your diet can be a real balancing act. You have to lose some of what you’ve grown accustomed to and add some items that may be new to you. Here’s some quick weight loss tips that experts recommend to promote weight loss.
Quick Weight Loss Tips #1 - Reduce fat.
With regard EO fat, the research is clear: Diets too high in fat promote overweight and obesity. You should strive to consume no more than 25 percent of your calories from fat - and that fat should the “non-saturated” type.
Quick Weight Loss Tips # 2 - Don’t be so sweet.
Numerous studies have linked table sugar to increased calorie consumption. While sugar doesn’t do as much dietary damage as fat, you’ll find that when you eat sweets, you simply want to eat more… of everything. Not only that, but sugar also makes your body excrete chromium, and chromium is a mineral that helps your body build calorie-burning lean tissue - so you want to keep your chromium levels up.
Quick Weight Loss Tips #3 - Drink up.
“If people want to keep their nutrients in balance, they need to drink plenty of plain, unflavored water every day,” says Judy Dodd, R.D., past president of the American Dietetic Association. Water not only acts as a solvent for many vitamins and minerals but also is responsible for carrying nutrients into and wastes out of cells, so the body functions properly. As a rule of thumb, you should drink a half-ounce of water for every pound of body weight daily, unless you’re very active, in which case you should increase your water intake to two-thirds of an ounce per pound of body weight daily. So if you weigh 100 pounds, you should drink 50 ounces of water a day as a minimum
Quick Weight Loss Tips #4 - Fill up on fiber.
You can curb your hunger by increasing your intake of dietary fiber, which is filling, so you feel full but eat less. For these diet tips, experts recommend eating more fruits, vegetables and wholegrain cereals.
Quick Weight Loss Tips #5 - Get treatment for food allergies.
Some researchers believe that being overweight is the result of people craving foods that they are allergic to. For these people, weight loss is extremely difficult until they figure out what those trigger foods are and eliminate them from their diets.
“There are specific food allergies that trigger uncontrollable craving and bingeing,” says Joseph D. Beasley, M.D., director of Comprehensive Medical Care in Amityville, New York. “It’s a common problem in overeaters.”
If you suspect that food allergies might be part of your problem, ask your doctor to help you identify the offending items. Your doctor may recommend that you see an allergy specialist.
FYI for sunnia - JulieJ08 and I will call out the "experts" on your #1. Neither one of us would be where we are now without substantially more fats (admittedly, good ones like avocado, nuts, olive oil) than those recommendations. If your hair's falling out, your nails shattering, brain fog, and skin flaking off in sheets, low-fat may not be your style! I track somewhere up in the upper 30's, percent-wise.
There are so many great starting places here. Just keep in mind, no plan works for everybody - be ready to give whatever you do at least a month to prove itself out, and when nothing works or if you're miserable, c'mon back for more ideas. I probably would never have thought to eat MORE fat until I saw Julie's posts - that's the virtue of seeing so many different plans all in one place here! Good luck!
Lost weight
