4 ms·

> I need to lose a bit of weight. I know that for me, the best way to do that is to significantly change my "generally good but occasionally indulgent" diet. I

by Flenser 12y ago

> I need to lose a bit of weight. I know that for me, the best way to do that is to significantly change my "generally good but occasionally indulgent" diet. I know from experience that I can't willpower that into happening. I had the same problem. The way I increased my willpower was by: 1) Weighing myself every day (always at the same time if I could) 2) Writing it down. 3) Graphing it in Excel I found that seeing how my behaviour over the previous days had affected my weight gave me the willpower to eat smaller portions and forgo snacks. And having a short feedback loop allowed me to correct if I started slipping. I still ate plenty, and had snacks/biscuits etc. between meals, (I didn't feel like I was starving myself) but I found that a small change in daily intake was enough to gradually make the weight come off.

whazor 12y ago
Calculate how much calories you eat. You can find online the max amount of calories to lose weight.
- Flenser 12y ago
  Too much work, and I've already lost as much weight as I need to [1]. Weighing yourself every day and recording the result is very easy. All you need is a pad and pen by your scales. And if you want to graph it, once you have a spreadsheet, then updating it (even if only once a week) is very quick, and seeing the graph head downwards, is very motivating. I found it was the smallest habit I had to form to produce a result. [1] I've gone from almost 20st 5-6 years ago to just under 11st.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I wouldn't want to do it on an ongoing basis, but the act of calculating out a few meals can be helpful to calibrate one's sense of how much they should be eating. It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are.
    - Flenser 12y ago
      > It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are. That's exactly why weighing myself every day worked for me; I wasn't able to kid myself about how much I was eating. I also found that the odd big meal didn't matter, as long as I didn't make it a habit (which I didn't do thanks to having a tight feedback loop).

by Flenser 12y ago

whazor 12y ago

Calculate how much calories you eat. You can find online the max amount of calories to lose weight.

Flenser 12y ago
Too much work, and I've already lost as much weight as I need to [1]. Weighing yourself every day and recording the result is very easy. All you need is a pad and pen by your scales. And if you want to graph it, once you have a spreadsheet, then updating it (even if only once a week) is very quick, and seeing the graph head downwards, is very motivating. I found it was the smallest habit I had to form to produce a result. [1] I've gone from almost 20st 5-6 years ago to just under 11st.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I wouldn't want to do it on an ongoing basis, but the act of calculating out a few meals can be helpful to calibrate one's sense of how much they should be eating. It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are.
  - Flenser 12y ago
    > It can be easy to miss how calorie rich certain foods are. That's exactly why weighing myself every day worked for me; I wasn't able to kid myself about how much I was eating. I also found that the odd big meal didn't matter, as long as I didn't make it a habit (which I didn't do thanks to having a tight feedback loop).