this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024

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YSK to lose weight, fill up with foods low in caloric density and high in fiber, like fruits and vegetables. This can trigger satiety without the overload of calories and beats going hungry long term. (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Why YSK: many countries have issues with weight, such as mine with 74% of US adults being overweight or obese. The global weight loss industry is over $200 billion yearly, with many influencers, pills, and surgeries promising quick results with little effort. These often come with side effects, or don't work long term.

Studies suggest filling yourself with foods low in caloric density and high in fiber, like fruits and vegetables, can help reach and maintain a healthy weight. It's good to have these foods available in our living spaces to make the choice easy. Your taste buds will likely adapt to love them if you're not there yet.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

My own advice:

The diet I'm on, which has lost me 36 pounds (196 to 160) and counting since early April, is simple calorie restriction - I try my best not to go over 1500 calories/day, and if I do go over, I try to make up for it by going under on following days until things average out.

Every time I've tried this diet or similar diets, I've had great success, as long as I've meticulously tracked and wrote down how many calories I ate each day. The times I've tried this diet without tracking have all ended up failing, even when I "tried" sticking to it for months. The moment I start writing numbers down, things just fall into place. So for me at least, that's the key.

Some notes:

Over the last 127 days my actual average calories/day has been 1472/day
I try to avoid meals where counting is very difficult or impractical. That means I try to avoid going to restaurants that don't post calories and I'm not big on "real" cooking. If I do have a meal where a good count isn't possible I try my best to overestimate - usually with 2500 or 3000 depending on how full I am since it's really hard to eat more than that at once. I find it very difficult to go to most restaurants without getting more than 1500 calories, also, so I don't eat at restaurants all that often anymore. Fast food places like McDonald's are actually some of the easier options to work with, though.
I've made little to no effort to eat healthier - just less. I can have a blizzard from Dairy Queen if I want, but that's 1100 calories and then I've only got 400 left for something else. I have mastered making delicious ice cream that's just 300 calories/pint though. In practice I usually eat processed foods from a can, box, or bag that you just need to heat up or follow the instructions on the box for.
A scale is essential for getting accurate calories out of things like butter, milk, ketchup, ice cream ingredients, etc.
In general meats are a pretty poor choice - compared to other foods they make me a lot less full compared to how many calories they take up. I can eat 8 hotdogs (without buns) and fill up my daily calories in that one meal, and still be hungry - or I can have two cans of spaghettios (580 calories total), and be so full I almost can't finish.
For me at least, after the first week or so I just stop feeling hungry in general most of the time. There are occasionally days where I only eat because I know I should, rather than because I got hungry.
When I'm on this diet, I basically never get heartburn, even after a day where I eat something that would usually have given it to me badly - probably the nicest part of all this.
Despite what the post says, I eat basically no fruits or vegetables in my day-to-day life.
In the past, I've incorporated extremely heavy daily exercise into my routine as well - I'm talking multiple hours a day, every day, for at least two months. While it did have some noticeable benefits like a very noticeably lower resting heart rate and increased strength, it had basically no visible effect on my rate of weight loss - looking at the graph, you couldn't even tell which portions of the diet were subject to heavy exercise vs. heavy leisure. The lesson learned is that diet is far, far more important than exercise - you can offset an entire workout with a single cookie.
When I'm not making any dieting attempts at all, I'm a huge glutton. I've never gotten over 200 pounds, because any time I get close I start doing this diet - but if I ate the way I wanted to all the time, I could easily weigh 350+ pounds. I can very easily eat single 1200-2000 calorie meals multiple times a day. I've yo-yo'd a lot in the past few years but I'm hoping to more or less keep things permanently under control this time - once I get to 140ish I plan to raise my daily calorie allowance to the point where I maintain, rather than gain or lose, over time.

An added bonus of writing things down is getting to graph things too!

Note that I'm not claiming this is healthy. Just effective. Anyone can lose weight eating nothing but chocolate cake, as long as they eat sufficiently little. It doesn't mean you won't die from it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I’ve made little to no effort to eat healthier - just less. I can have a blizzard from Dairy Queen if I want, but that’s 1100 calories and then I’ve only got 400 left for something else.

In addition to choosing not to have something in the first place, choosing not to finish something is another great skill. Lowest calorie blizzard is still hundreds of calories, but choosing to eat only half of the smallest size can work.

Definitely a harder habit to change compared to not ordering in the first place when raised to always clean the plate.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

While that's true, and while it's something I'd definitely recommend for others, I can't honestly say that's something I've mastered doing myself. To me, not finishing just means I have more work to do when it comes to figuring out how many calories I actually ate. While I could just guesstimate that I had 60% of that blizzard, I find that in practice I'm really not okay with being that wishy-washy with the numbers. The days where I have to just guesstimate kill me inside.

And this situation with the blizzard is something I've dealt with. I had a mostly finished blizzard but couldn't finish it. I had to mark the level of ice cream still remaining, empty the cup, then get weight measurements for the empty cup (c), cup full of water (f), and cup full of water up to the level of remaining ice cream (w) - at which point the total calories eaten were (w-c)/(f-c) * B, where B is the number of calories in the full blizzard. If I could have avoided all of that by finishing the last 28% of that blizzard, you bet I would have.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I either go for about half and call it good or just round it up to the full amount when counting and then not worry too much if some other things are 5-10% higher than they should be.

It isn't like the menu calories are precise. Heck, for a blizzard it could be up to 15% more when served if it is above the cup line.

The important thing is paying more attention to what we are eating, how high in calories things are, and whether we actually know what a portion size is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The worst part is that I know the menu calories aren't precise at most restaurants, but I still won't let myself be wishy-washy with them. I actively recognize there's no point in relying on how many calories Outback Steakhouse says are in a Bloomin' Onion (1900 btw) when the largest bloomin' onion I've had in the past is close to double the size of the smallest I've had. But my entire system relies on precise tracking so I still feel I have to make the effort.

Rounding up to the full amount after eating >85% or so is something I do though. I'm much more okay with it if I know I'm overestimating than if I think I might possibly be underestimating.