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I’ve never been significantly overweight fortunately, but over the pandemic I got about 20 lbs too pudgy, which proved frustratingly hard to lose. What finally

I’ve never been significantly overweight fortunately, but over the pandemic I got about 20 lbs too pudgy, which proved frustratingly hard to lose. What finally worked was combining the Apple Watch (Fitbit is fine too) and a calorie counting app that track calories. The app (Yazio, there are others) took into account caloric expenditures beyond basic metabolic needs. That is, if one walks a mile as tracked by the Apple Watch, that’s an extra ~ 100 calories to eat. Armed with these tools, I set a modest goal of 3-4lbs fat loss per month in Yazio. It worked. An unexpected positive outcome from this experience, is that I developed a much better intuitive sense of the caloric and nutritional value of foods and what activity levels I needed to maintain to stay at my desired weight. I recommend to give this approach a try. Edit to add: These apps make an educated guess as to one’s basic metabolic daily expenditure. For reasons that aren’t clear, this estimate can vary as much as ~25% between persons. Therefore you may have to tweak the daily calorie goal. Second, weigh yourself every day. The weight loss goal of ~ 1lb/week is less than the daily variance in body weight due to hydration levels and so forth, so you will need to use a three or four day rolling average to keep track of your progress.

leidenfrost 3y ago
To me, what worked best is, yes, tracking calories, but also finding the foods that manager the hunger in the best way possible while also being as low calorie as possible. Proteins and vegetables for the main servings, and green apples, oranges or tangerines for when I crave something sweet afterwards. Beware of juices. Some of them have as mush sugar as a coke.
mbowcut2 3y ago
I’m similar. Never been very over weight but I’ve put on 20ish lbs in the last few years. My wife and I started tracking calories and exercising a month ago and it has been so beneficial. I lost about ten lbs, but even better than losing the weight has been building a better intuition of what foods are calorie rich, higher in protein, etc.
overvale 3y ago
Same. The best part is the education. I now am certain what my portion sizes should be, how much of each meal should be protein, how many calories are likely in the food I'm ordering at the lunch counter, etc. That information, and keeping it in mind the same way you might keep your budget in mind has made a big difference.
coffeebeqn 3y ago
I quickly got sick of calorie counting. It got me thinking about food way too much (while hungry) when I do better not thinking about it. What I needed was very simply to be ok with the feeling of hunger. Whenever I felt hungry I would automatically head to the kitchen to look for something to snack on. Now I generally eat pretty fixed calorie meals - 100-200 for breakfast for example and when I get hunger in between I just remind myself that I’m not on the verge of dying in the wilderness and that I can wait an hour for lunch. I also replaced any snacks and beers in the house with dried fruit, nuts, seltzer water because I know I’m lazy and will pick the easiest thing
- Angostura 3y ago
  This sort of worked for me too. Thinking of hunger as something to aim for - remaining hungry for an hour or to as an achievement was useful. The difficulty I had was avoiding satiating myself subsequently
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
There is no way that 1 mile is 100 calories, I would be as light as a piece of paper by now
- BenFranklin100 3y ago
  For an 180 lb person, walking 1 mile burns approximately 100 calories. This is a common and proven metric. https://www.verywellhealth.com/calories-burned-walking-a-mile-8548541 https://www.verywellhealth.com/calories-burned-walking-a-mil...
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
    Picture me shocked. I walk 40 minutes 5 days/week (10 minutes steep uphill, 10 minutes steep downhill, 2 times per day), and I always counted that as 50 calories per "roundtrip". It's really bothering that I've been struggling to get below 180 lb
    - sn9 3y ago
      A food scale and an app like Macrofactor can make this much easier.
      - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
        Been doing that for 6 months, including food scale and myfitnesspal, I track every calorie (or I try, sometimes it's really hard to guess). I excluded the other variables, so my problem is with hunger, I need to address that
        sn9 3y ago
        Haven't checked out MFP in a while but the perk of Macrofactor is that it calculates your TDEE for you and adjusts it as it changes so you know precisely how much to eat to maintain a given rate of weight change.

leidenfrost 3y ago

To me, what worked best is, yes, tracking calories, but also finding the foods that manager the hunger in the best way possible while also being as low calorie as possible. Proteins and vegetables for the main servings, and green apples, oranges or tangerines for when I crave something sweet afterwards. Beware of juices. Some of them have as mush sugar as a coke.

mbowcut2 3y ago

I’m similar. Never been very over weight but I’ve put on 20ish lbs in the last few years. My wife and I started tracking calories and exercising a month ago and it has been so beneficial. I lost about ten lbs, but even better than losing the weight has been building a better intuition of what foods are calorie rich, higher in protein, etc.

overvale 3y ago

Same. The best part is the education. I now am certain what my portion sizes should be, how much of each meal should be protein, how many calories are likely in the food I'm ordering at the lunch counter, etc. That information, and keeping it in mind the same way you might keep your budget in mind has made a big difference.

coffeebeqn 3y ago

I quickly got sick of calorie counting. It got me thinking about food way too much (while hungry) when I do better not thinking about it. What I needed was very simply to be ok with the feeling of hunger. Whenever I felt hungry I would automatically head to the kitchen to look for something to snack on. Now I generally eat pretty fixed calorie meals - 100-200 for breakfast for example and when I get hunger in between I just remind myself that I’m not on the verge of dying in the wilderness and that I can wait an hour for lunch. I also replaced any snacks and beers in the house with dried fruit, nuts, seltzer water because I know I’m lazy and will pick the easiest thing

Angostura 3y ago
This sort of worked for me too. Thinking of hunger as something to aim for - remaining hungry for an hour or to as an achievement was useful. The difficulty I had was avoiding satiating myself subsequently

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago

There is no way that 1 mile is 100 calories, I would be as light as a piece of paper by now

BenFranklin100 3y ago
For an 180 lb person, walking 1 mile burns approximately 100 calories. This is a common and proven metric. https://www.verywellhealth.com/calories-burned-walking-a-mile-8548541 https://www.verywellhealth.com/calories-burned-walking-a-mil...
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  Picture me shocked. I walk 40 minutes 5 days/week (10 minutes steep uphill, 10 minutes steep downhill, 2 times per day), and I always counted that as 50 calories per "roundtrip". It's really bothering that I've been struggling to get below 180 lb
  - sn9 3y ago
    A food scale and an app like Macrofactor can make this much easier.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
      Been doing that for 6 months, including food scale and myfitnesspal, I track every calorie (or I try, sometimes it's really hard to guess). I excluded the other variables, so my problem is with hunger, I need to address that
      - sn9 3y ago
        Haven't checked out MFP in a while but the perk of Macrofactor is that it calculates your TDEE for you and adjusts it as it changes so you know precisely how much to eat to maintain a given rate of weight change.