AMA about weight loss

Is walking "exercise"?
For your weight loss purposes how many steps a day did you look to achieve?

Bit of a coincidence, have decided to to get my fitness up and weight down starting tomorrow .I am really starting to feel these extra kilograms. Pretty similar to how you where, 6'6, 51 and 286 lbs. Back is not great, but just have to be careful.

Going to start with a 30 to 40 minute walk everyday with the odd longer walk on weekends. Get some basic light home exercise going as well plus a bit more being active around the house cut down a bit on the sitting Infront of the pc.

Then will be watching my diet, trying to cut down on carbs, junk and some alcohol. Adding heaps of veg. Budgeting at least one or two cheat sessions, hopefully don't pig out

So nothing extreme but not looking for extreme weight loss. 1 to 2 lbs loss per week would be great, obviously will get harder as I get closer to my goal. 220 would be great, but first stop 240

How much of a role did tracking your calorie consumption play in your weight loss?

FYI in this thread I'm going to keep my answers short to avoid boring people. If anyone wants me to elaborate on any given point I'll be happy to.

Tracking my calorie consumption comprised about 95% of my success.

The only way to burn fat is to eat in a calorie deficit. End of story. There are no shortcuts. There are no magic pills. There are no fat burners. There are no metabolism enhancers. There are no magic fat-melting diets. There are no potions that help you burn fat in your sleep. People who say otherwise all have one thing in common: They're selling something. Think about that.

Walking is definitely exercise. Many experts swear it's THE SINGLE BEST exercise for burning fat, especially for people who are also trying to build muscle. I don't have a step count I shoot for - I take my daughter for walks and/or to the trampoline park every opportunity we have, which is usually 3 to 4 times a week.

To be clear, it's the eating in a calorie deficit that burns the fat, not the exercise. Exercise just helps the fat get burned off a wee bit faster (and exercise has numerous other health benefits).

Good luck! Let me know if I can do anything to help.

I’m impressed. Seriously. I agree with 100% of what you said.

Boring personal story:

So at the end of the day you'd say it's primarily about tracking calories? AKA simply eating less than you would if you weren't holding yourself accountable?

Some people have an extreme aversion to feeling hungry and it quickly becomes a highly emotional/sensitive issue. How does one overcome that?

First off, congrats!

Were there any foods or food groups you either eliminated from your diet or added to your diet that you perceived as particularly helpful in achieving your goal?

Do you worry about putting the weight back on?

Someone mentioned YTF's thread. I recommend it if you haven't read it. It was hilarious and heartbreaking—the guy was a poker dealer who could really write. He was 45, 5'8", 380 at the start. He really dedicated himself to losing weight and had some impressive successes, but he'd fall back into bad habits and his weight would yo-yo. One detail I remember is that he couldn't resist gas station muffins. He died of a heart attack at 52.

There is a huge difference between eating LESS and eating FEWER CALORIES. Here are a few examples:

16oz tub of cottage cheese with 6oz blueberries - about 450 calories 50g protein
4 eggs, 6oz ham, 6oz mushrooms, 4oz tomatoes, 2oz jalepenios - about 500 calories, about 55g protein
a 1/3-lb burger made with 96%-lean ground beef served on a keto sandwich thin with tomatoes and pickles: about 350 calories, 30g protein. Add a slice of cheese and it's about 450 calories, 37g protein. Add 6oz roasted potatoes and it's up to about 600 calories, 40g protein. You can add an ENTIRE SECOND BURGER and still only be at 1050 calories, 77g protein.
You can make burritos with carb balance/keto tortillas, beans, lean ground beef and your favorite veggies and even put some salsa or sour cream in it for a few hundred calories and pretty high protein.
If you like pasta, try black bean pasta or chickpea pasta or edamame pasta. It's very high in protein and fiber.

YouTube and Google are replete with other examples of high-protein, high-volume, low-calorie recipes. I've even found a recipe for a 12" 4-topping PIZZA that's about 800 calories and 70g of protein, friggin delicious, and super easy to make from scratch.

I personally like to keep a supply of protein bars, protein chips, protein shakes, beef jerky and other snacks handy.

Lastly, I try to drink 3/4 to a gallon of water a day. I have a sodastream - it tricks me into thinking I'm drinking cokes when I'm actually drinking water 🙂. The overall health benefits, not just for burning fat, of drinking a lot of water are immense.

I eat like a friggin' PIG. I'm never hungry.

Thank you agamblerthen! Nice to see another SSHEer responding to my thread

As you probably saw in my previous post, high-protein high-volume low-calorie meals can be a HUGE HELP in staying in a calorie deficit without being hungry. The one thing I personally completely eliminated from my diet is refined sugar.

At present I'm not worried about the weight going back on, but never say never - it's always prudent to be mindful of such things. But over the last 5 years I've learned so many delicious recipes like those in the previous post that I would basically have to have a complete meltdown before putting weight back on would even be a thing.

I'll check out YTF's thread - thanks for the recommendation.

What about the various available shots?

Maybe not a magic pill, but there something in the one I'm taking that is life altering.

Probably from a combination of medications and who knows what I've spent most of the last fifteen years hungry all the time. Preoccupied with it. Haunted by it. I topped out at five bills and change (maxed out the doc's old school scale so don't really know, I'm also 6'4" so a bit less bad than it sounds) and lost down to 400, mostly by lifting, walking six+ miles per day (mostly golf) because simple physics... moving that much weight around uses up energy. I was at one point eating 4K+ calories per day and losing 2lbs per week. Still it was mentally exhausting to be that hungry. I backslid up to 460 with the kid, poorly thought out career move, and other factors that kept me from being able to exercise 4hrs each day, blah blah blah.

Then I started one of those shots. The food noise in my head is gone. I'll almost certainly lose a ton of weight (barely hyperbole) but I wouldn't care if I didn't because holy crap the amount of mental energy I was using up fighting that noise is staggering. It's like a exorcism.

Since I'm not a medical professional it's probably best I not give an opinion about the shot.

How is your weight loss journey going? How's the hunger? Have you ever experimented with meals like those I describe in a previous post that are high in protein and volume but low in calories to help fight hunger as well? Do you drink a lot of water?

Hi sir,
I have been at around about 220 since the pandemic. I got it down to 207 and I've been in this range of 207 to 230 the past 4 years.

Before pandemic I was about 205 range.

I hired dietician and a lot of stuff.

I feel like I'm pretty educated about how to lose weight but I struggle to execute.

I really got addicted to the food delivery apps. Actually. I can't take these off my phone because I rely on uber to get to and from where I need to go.

I'm also playing quite a bit of live poker.

So maybe I can start with the food addiction / delivery app for starters?

And maybe you can let me know how you dealt with the nutritional aspects of your weight loss?

My goal is to get down to 205, then to 190, then 175.

Currently I'm guessing to be in the same range. I guess 225 right now.

I'll share a personal anecdote with you. From 2010 to 2019 I took anywhere from 10 to 30 business trips per year, and for all practical purposes I had an unlimited expense budget for meals. I could pick up a phone and have a full rack of ribs and a plate of french fries delivered to my room within 45 minutes - AND IT DIDN'T COST ME A DIME. Wondering why I ballooned up to 290? Were I taking my fitness seriously back then, I'd like to BELIEVE that I'd have had the self-control to only order, for example, a steak with asparagus and broccoli as side dishes with diet coke and berries for dessert, but every single day? Every meal? Resisting that temptation ALL THE TIME? I don't know. I just don't know. I stopped traveling when the pandemic started so it's easier for me nowadays.

So if you're addicted to your delivery app, there SHOULD be some healthy dishes you can get. Order the burger with no bun (i.e. in a lettuce wrap) with a ton of veggies on it, or see if they have a side salad. Red Robin has a huge texmex chicken breast plate that they can serve with green beans and broccoli. Some places may have like turkey sandwiches or tuna sandwiches where you can pile on extra tomatoes and pickles. Chiptole has some healthy options, some pizza places sell pizza on a cauliflower crust etc. Try to find all the healthy dishes you can and start ordering those. Hopefully you'll see your discipline improve with time. It isn't easy!

I've already posted a couple times that my idea of "nutrition" is simply high-protein, high-volume, low-calorie, pretty much end of story there.

I don't play much live poker, but when I do I eat a big healthy meal before I hit the casino, and take a couple protein bars and a couple sacks of beef jerky with me - that usually gets me through a 6- to 8-hour session without having to pay for an expensive, calorie-dense meal.

Hope this helped. Good luck!

Anyone know the best calorie counter app?

Asking for a friend.

Actually, a friend of a friend, who doesn’t even need to lose weight but loves counting.

I wish I could help your "friend" but I never used apps. I did everything in Excel. The only thing I can tell you is I've heard a lot of people say they love MyFitnessPal.

MyFitnessPal is easy and free!

I've lost control of mine for the first time in about 30 years. At that point, back then, I lost about 60 to 210 (I'm 6' 3"), stablized at 220-ish. Sure enough I counted every calorie for about 6 months in losing, only time in my life I ever did that. I kept it to 1700 calories a day of very low fat and race walked 5 miles a day. It had to happen on that plan. I never stepped on a scale during the whole six months. Dude sees me at poker game for the first time and says, "You've lost 50 pounds." I got on a scale that night and at that point it was exactly 50.

Did the walking part for years, couldn't maintain the strict eating. Gained about 30 lately. I don't like the shots of the new stuff semaglutide. Haven't tried mounjaro, which I hear is less distressing to digestion. The problem is night owl snacking galore. Sugar is my drug of choice.

I know you didn't ask me for suggestions but it's my thread so I'm going to give some :p😃

Very low fat diets are overrated. Healthy fat is good for you. As long as you maintain a calorie deficit you can structure the carbs, protein and fat however it's convenient for you. Most experts will say the more protein you eat the easier it is to lose weight.

Look into weight training. In 2010 I went from 263 to 227 by running 15 miles a week and I felt just as fat at 227 as I felt at 263. My most recent weightloss included weight training and I feel like a totally different person now. Most experts recommend accompanying fat loss with weight training.

Since I'm not a medical professional I'd better not try to comment on semaglutide or mounjaro.

For the "snacking galore", what you can do is make sure you have a full pantry of healthy snacks that taste good, so that when you do give into a snacking temptation at least you're snacking on something that's either low in calories or high in protein and fiber. Protein shakes and protein bars can help satisfy a sweet tooth. There are high-protein marshmallow rice krispie treats out there, and low-calorie marshmallows. If you can eat sugar free jello, you can make vats of it at a time and have it in the refrigerator ready to be a sweet-tooth-satisfying zero-calorie snack. I personally love Catalina Crunch cereal - it comes in several different flavors, but it's sweet and is basically 95% protein and fiber, so it's filling and nutritious. I just eat it right out of the bag, but you can put it in a bowl and pour coconut milk on it for a treat. You can take a cup of plain greek yogurt and add a teaspoon of natural honey and a handful of berries to it for a sweet treat. Watch the flavored greek yogurts - some of them are high in sugar.

Hope that helped.

Thanks. Yeah, I wanted input. I indeed do the weight training, have all along, but necessarily decreasing in intensity with aging. Nothing close to body building, but I love working the various groups regularly. It definitely worked. I am on some medicines now that coincide with the sudden weight gain, which also coincides with decreasing intensity and frequency of workouts.

One mistake I made when losing was eating a virtual 100% carb diet for 6 months (without even realizing it, ignorant of food groups, and all I ate was pasta, high fiber cereal, baked potatoes, some fruit). But when you are limiting to 1700 calories a day, weigh 265, and race walk 5 miles 365 days a year, it just has to fall off like crazy and stay off. It did. But nothing is forever, I guess. That was 30 years ago.

After going from 265 (at least, don't know my high, didn't have a scale, doc caught me at 263) to 199 briefly, I stablized at 212. Good weight for me, but not perfect. At 200 people, including my doc dad, thought I was on drugs. Him checking my thyroid and stuff.

Is Catalina Crunch that real hard cereal? That's a problem for me with crowns, next one I lose is going to cost bukoo thousands to replace everything. Meanwhile a lady at the poker table the other night is chomping on milk duds, which I love, but are just too chewy for me, as I lose crowns, jerks them off. Dentist told me "Who put these crowns on, they are too shallow." Young dude that worked at the same practice previously had done it. He said these are on like berets, they need to be on like helmets. So anyway I avoid too hard or too chewy.

I have to be careful what I say since I'm not a medical professional, but I can't imagine that "Definitely get your doctor's advice about weight training" could possibly be bad advice.

Obviously avoid any food that could affect your crowns, but most of the snacks I listed should be relatively safe. Google and YouTube should have plenty of examples of high-protein high-volume low-calorie sweet treats.

Good luck!

how many years were you at 290?

2 or 3