Losing weight, AKA diet
 

I hate the word diet but need to cut a lot of weight.
Do any of you "losers" have a meal plan? Like what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner? What are your options? Pretty vague and I know cut the carbs but maybe some recipes.

in 2017 I dropped 60lbs. I was not super strict about food, but I was just super strict about calories and sugar. I stuck to 2400 calories a day and tried to reduce my sugar intake to less than 30 per day. Some days it was darn hard but some days it came easy.

So my typical day is this:
Breakfast: Oatmeal and coffee...every day!
Lunch: a sandwich and a simple snack like plain pretzels and things like that (when working)
Lunch at home: Eggs, chicken, sweet potatoes and you can have normal potatoes if you only use salt and pepper on them.
Supper: (smallest meal for me) lots of eggs here and maybe a sandwich, a small piece of meat like 4-6oz for good protein and such.
Snacks: popcorn, little salt: pretzels, applesauce, a granola bar...you get the idea.

It was really hard at first to stick to it but after a while it was just second nature. I also use a calorie counting app to keep track. That was really nice so I knew where I stood throughout the day.

This worked for me....been holding now over the holidays but Jan 1st I am back at it trying to get to 100lbs down by the end of 2018.

the word cheat day is the killer. I allowed myself ONE, ONE day a month for a cheat day to just let go a little. This was usually our date night when eating out of at a family celebration when cake and things were around.

Good luck and stick with it, diets and cycling can do wonders. I would cycle 3-5 days a week when time allowed. I always shot for 150 miles a month and usually beat that pretty easily.

I have a very simple plan that has worked for me and friends who tried it. I don't diet, and instead eat only foods i really enjoy and which a high "satisfaction index" (SI). SI is concept I came up with many years ago and is based on the amount of any food needed to feel satisfied.

For, example, if you sit down and eat various cheeses, you'll probably find that you can eat tons of most mild cheeses, but won't ear the same amount of sharper aged cheeses. So, no more American and Swiss, but as much as i want of any sharper cheeses.

That concept is applied across the board, so I eat only more flavorful foods that I really enjoy and tend to eat less of.

The other trick is not to deprive myself if indulgences. For example, I like onions rings and beer and will have them from time to time. But I time it so it ends up being in lieu of a regular meal, rather than added food.

BTW The same SI rules apply to beer, no light beers that are guzzled glass after glass, only high SI beers like Stout, which take time to enjoy.

Mostly I just watch what I eat, keeping away from the candy, pastries, and other sweets that are nothing more than useless calories. The weight drops slowly, but it allows me to eat what I regularly like to eat. Also drinking water regularly throughout the day helps.

There are also times I don't feel like eating a meal, so I won't (usually breakfast or dinner). If I start feeling hungry between normal mealtimes I'll just have something like a piece of fruit and water and that'll tide me over until the next mealtime.

Well, all of the above gave the same answer SO I WILL NOT REPEAT!! But here is a "plan" that may have came from here (sorry do not remember where I first read this)

1) Eat LESS (aka lower you Kcal intake)

2) Eat (more) HEALTHY (aka cut the empty Kcal foods) NOTE: I DID NOT SAY ELIMINATE!! I actually ate what I wanted. It just mean there were some nights I did not eat after supper!!

3) MOVE/MOVE MORE (aka Get on the bike and ride!!) I actually started moving by walking about a mile a day then after about two or three months I started increasing the miles till I was waking about 5 to 6 miles a day average. Got to riding the bike on summer because 10 mph on the bike gives you a "cooling breeze" that 3 mph walking does not!!

Oh, I was never on a diet because I had ALWAYS been on a diet!! The problem is it was a gaining diet!! I hate the way we use the word diet in our culture. We "GO ON A DIET to drop 'X' pounds", what does that mean? Well after 'X' pounds are lost "WE ARE NO LONGER ON A DIET", when we are NO LONGER ON A DIET that means we can eat what we want when we want!! The problem is, and I can prove is --- I lost 110 lbs (290-181) between 2009 and 2013 I stopped my diet (though I never called it that. I said I was changing my wanter) and have regained 80lbs (181-260). So as the weather warms (I am not walking or riding in 30 degrees or less in fact I think I will wait for 50s) I will be walking or more likely biking. I am attempting to return to the healthy eating plan and attempting to change my wants NOW!!!

Yep gonna, Have too cut back. Since I got out of the Navy in 1984 the lightest I have been is 224. I was 224 in 93 or 4 and was cycling a lot and walking at work for 8 hours and youth helped. I used to stay around 250 and about 7 years ago I got back into dirt bike riding. That plus no longer commuting to work my weight went up. I do cycle quite a bit. Yep cutting back on the food will have to happen. At 55 I need to cut. I am around 300

Here’s mine.

10 calories for each pound you want weigh. I want to weigh 185lbs. So that’s 1850 calories a day.

Never eat back my exercise calories. I’m down 40lbs since September.

I don’t demonize any food. I eat relatively healthy. I did cut out Soda and Chips/Sunflower seeds and lots of Pizza.

Good luck to everyone!

The big thing here is to enjoy life and let the rest come naturally.
O.K. enough of the Zen crap.:)

Try to look at diet as something almost everyone does.
What you are trying to do is change your diet not go on one.
The Zen approach is small changes over a long period of time.
Eliminate one dessert out of your weekly diet. Add one piece of
fruit into your weekly diet. Eliminate one canned good out of your weekly diet.
Add fresh produce instead.

I am a big boy and need to lose weight but I would still be two twenty if in shape.
I am fat and do not enjoy it but as a whole I enjoy life,especially riding my bike.:)

I have found that a trail ride or a session at the motocross track on my Honda actually burns more calories than a mountain bike ride. --- Im guessing this was not the case with your experience?

This sounds pretty solid

Go for long rides, but eat normally. Or better yet, go for long rides and don't eat anything at all afterwards.

Cut out grains and sugars, and try to eat mainly meat and veggies.

I did a lot of off road, rides 75+ miles in the mountains of WV. No MX for these old bones. The dirt bike killed my knees. I grew up on a dirt bike and would still ride but it got expensive and the Sundays away from family didnt help much.

Diets....I love diets and I have had some experience and done an absolute bucketload of researching on the issue.

So to break it down simply, dieting is about restricting calorie intake, while diet is about how you do that.

My first piece of advice is to give yourself some education on how different foods affect your body. In that I mean what foods will give you the best calorie bang for buck. I went on the 5/2 diet for a while. I dropped 10kg in 10 weeks. It was too hard for me to stick to but I did get an absolutely awesome education and understanding of how different foods affect your body. When you're sticking to just 600 calories 2 days per week, it's in your best interest to understand how to make that work best for you. The problem for me with that diet was it affected my performance too much and I had to enact far too much discipline for my liking to stick with it. BUT it was an education on food/calories that I have found to be unmatched elsewhere. You don't have to go on the diet, but you should definitely read about it. Actually I would give it a go, even if it's just for a few weeks to give yourself an education on how to fuel your body for best results.

My next piece of advice is to then experiment with diets. Only you truly know what you like to eat. Sticking with something that works for you will mean you're going to find it easier to lose the weight and you're much more likely to keep the weight off rather than rebound quickly. I don't mean find a diet that is strictly confectionery and ice cream either :lol: For me, I enjoy meats, cheeses etc. I was directed to the low carb high fat style of eating. I'm not going to call it keto or paleo because that wasn't where I got my stuff from. I was directed towards Tim Noakes and I found that the diet fitted in well with what I had learned about myself through 5/2 dieting and I really enjoyed the food I was eating. It's a mind bender at first, eating fatty foods and getting results. I dropped 17kg in 10 weeks initially and stabilised that for a while. My performance never suffered, and I actually improved on the bike. My blood tests showed improvements right across the board, especially in bad cholesterol levels (I purposely had a blood test before starting and took another 6 months later to ensure there weren't any negative effects)

Looks interesting https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-diet-...ies-1514721601

In some ways I am fortunate in that a lot of the things that really tempt other people either don't interest me or are things that I would end up with an upset stomach if I try and eat. Anything greasy or fatty (bacon, pizza, cheese, burgers, ice cream) gives me indigestion. And I don't care for chocolate. Chips and soda don't really tempt me either.

My weakness is baked goods of one sort or another (donut, muffin, scone, etc), but only good ones. Crappy gas-station donuts are always disappointing, so I don't bother with those. Potatoes are another thing that would tempt me, but our solution is that we don't eat them at home very often.

Cut out/severely down on processed/prepared foods. Eat fresh, healthy foods and cook in ways that don't add a lot of fat and sugar. E.g., You can bake that salmon filet in parchment paper with just a brush of olive oil rather than in a way that leaves it swimming in butter. Portion control as well.

I've been intermittent fasting and its been working pretty well. One thing I noticed is I don't eat on the bike unless its a very long ride. Someone gave me a pdf of a book called Eat Stop Eat that breaks it down for you. Its really hard at first but it gets easy pretty quick. As I'm typing this I haven't eaten in 22 hours and I feel fine.

I typically do it two days per week. I'll eat dinner and then not eat again until dinner the next day.

I'm sincerely impressed. I had to google and found different sources recommend 10-15 calories per pound (+ exercise). So your math is pretty correct as seen in your quick weight loss.

I probably eat in the 12-15 calories category (inc occasional pizza or donut) but otherwise mostly raw fruit, vegetable, oatmeal, yogurt (all without sugar and salt added). I also go on some hour long rides or some other exercise. My weight loss is much slower (down to 179 now from 215 this spring, I'm 6').

I noticed after eating junk food (pizza etc.) I gain a lot of weight not from calories, but from having to drink huge amounts of water for the salt. This throws my weight off for 1-2 full days no matter how little I eat. I bet if one just cuts out junk food (=anything with salt, sugar added etc,.) one loses a lot of weight in some days by just losing the amounts of water.

For me, with about 60 pounds of weight loss in 2016 followed by a year+ of successful maintenance, it's pretty generic and boring: Count calories, use a Fitbit tracker. Move a leeeeetle more, eat a leeeeetle less. A little patience and a little self-discipline.

Typical "grazing" additions, for snacks and sides: almonds, walnuts, a no-sugar nut butter, whole-milk cultured yogurt, with the occasional store-bought "protein" bar (that has as few non-essential ingredients as possible, no added sugars, plenty of fats and proteins).

Typical breakfast: eggs and a lean meat with small side of fruit, or a protein/veg/fruit smoothie blend. Occasionally, small amounts of oatmeal.

Typical lunch: tuna or lean meat (without sandwich bread), veggies, and either yogurt or nuts.

Typical dinner: a lean meat or meat substitute (ie, a tofu lasagna instead of meat lasagna), or a bowl of my homemade "meaty" (savory) veggie soup, small salad with plenty of leafy greens and color.

Typical fluids: water, occasional red wine in small quantities, green/black tea.

Check out videos on Keto Diet and Intermittent Fasting from Dr. Berg on You Tube.

Tons of great info there.

Here's what I'm trying to stick to this week:

5 eggs cooked in avocado oil
1/3 cup sunflower kernels
Big ass salad for lunch (1/2 egg, cheese, turkey, ham, tomatoes, cucumber, spinach, various greens, lettuce)
2 Tbsps organic Italian dressing
2 Tbsps Bleu cheese crumbles
Whole Haas large avocado

Here's what the macro breakout for the above looks like:

Calories 1,803 calories
Carbs 35g
Fiber 22g
Fat 148g
Protein 94g

Fat 72%
Protein 20%
Carbs 8%

I try to eat that in the most compressed window of time as possible so I can fast until the next day. This increases fat burning and triggers autophagy.

I throw in some slow cardio (walking) a couple of days in the morning and with more intense cardio (cycling) a few days in the evenings.

I'm trying to quickly shed 15 holiday pounds in three weeks and I'm confident this will do it with the above plan.

After I hit that specific goal, then I'll add in some CrossFit type heavy lifting intervals in there to round it out for long term slow weight loss and heath.

After a lot of research, this is the best method I could find.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. same with diets.

There are too many variables to make a judgement in advance, so check back in in 3 weeks and let us know how you did.

I should have elaborated. I lost 32 lbs last year doing this. Just continuing.

That was an important detail.

80 lbs off here over the past year and about 40 to go. Am more like a Percheron than Clydesdale ( tall, fat and gray) Keto diet most of the time. nuts and fresh/frozen cranberries if I get cramps. Found that cheese stalls as does working out too much. Not bad for an post meno fartess

I don't eat sweeteners, no dairy except an ounce or so of cheese. The singular exception to the sweetner is I have a glass of water with Crystal light ( 1 a day)
I find I need to feel hungry for about a third of the day to loose.

( 50 gm) I never know if I should post in metric or US.