*** Big Fat Weight Loss Thread ***

I have cleared everything out of the house and didn't spend time in the supermarket near the cakes and sweet stuff.

It sounds obvious and almost silly, but you're right. Just not buying the wrong stuff in the first place makes it much easier not to eat it :cry:

Mind you, to my credit, I've had a bag of chocolates in my cupboard for a month or so now. I'm waiting for a time to treat myself :)
 
It sounds obvious and almost silly, but you're right. Just not buying the wrong stuff in the first place makes it much easier not to eat it :cry:

Mind you, to my credit, I've had a bag of chocolates in my cupboard for a month or so now. I'm waiting for a time to treat myself :)

That's very impressive.

I went to one of those scoop places at the weekend, where they have the huge barrels full of food stuff, and you use it like a pick n mix place. I stocked up on loads of nuts/dried fruit/cracker things on the basis that it's a great snack that's relatively healthy and high in calories and thinking it'd last me ages. Spent around £20 in total
However my wife looked in the cupboard yesterday and noticed i'd already eaten far more than i should have! Mainly because some of it was salt and pepper cashews, and the flavouring has coated everything else making it extra delicious!

This is my problem with small high calorie foods. I crave volume for grazing and so it's easy for a small bowl of nuts/dried fruit to hit 500kcal and yet can be gone in a few handfuls. I need to find a better alternative really. Maybe i just need to cut up loads of carrot sticks!
 
This is my problem with small high calorie foods

One thing I think about is calories per cubic cm AND calories per minute. So, rice cakes are a reasonable size and take a little while to eat at only 70 cals for a couple = GOOD. Even those low calorie ice creams. Half a tub is 160 cals and takes me a good 10 minutes to eat (I'm very slow with things like ice creams and yogurts) = GOOD.

Handful of almonds, although healthy are 100 cals and literally gone in seconds = BAD :cry:
 
I'm not massively overweight but I have gained a stone and a half that I'd like to lose.

I find it really difficult to cut the rubbish foods out.

Being at home at the minute and it's easier to sit here and eat a bag of crisps and chocolate out of boredom.

The biggest annoyance is once I finish eating I'm always full of regret, and don't even enjoy the food half the time.

Anyone been through this sort of phase? What worked for you to change?
 
I think most of is go through that tbh. Personally, tracking EVERYTHING meant I just had to stop snacking. It does come down to will power though. For me, seeing the numbers clock up makes me just not snack, but this might not work for everyone. I don't think there's any secret to it, it's going to be hard.

Having said that, often when I'm hungry I have a coffee or a glass of water and it can stave off some of the hunger.

I actually find working from home makes it easier, but then I used to work in a supermarket where it wasn't uncommon for nice things to be given away or sold so cheap you might as well buy them! I have better control and less temptations at home.

Can you throw a little exercise in too? Even if it's just a 20 minute brisk walk? Work up from there?
 
I'm not massively overweight but I have gained a stone and a half that I'd like to lose.

I find it really difficult to cut the rubbish foods out.

Being at home at the minute and it's easier to sit here and eat a bag of crisps and chocolate out of boredom.

The biggest annoyance is once I finish eating I'm always full of regret, and don't even enjoy the food half the time.

Anyone been through this sort of phase? What worked for you to change?

that's me all over !!
 
I think most of is go through that tbh. Personally, tracking EVERYTHING meant I just had to stop snacking. It does come down to will power though. For me, seeing the numbers clock up makes me just not snack, but this might not work for everyone. I don't think there's any secret to it, it's going to be hard.

Having said that, often when I'm hungry I have a coffee or a glass of water and it can stave off some of the hunger.

I actually find working from home makes it easier
, but then I used to work in a supermarket where it wasn't uncommon for nice things to be given away or sold so cheap you might as well buy them! I have better control and less temptations at home.

Can you throw a little exercise in too? Even if it's just a 20 minute brisk walk? Work up from there?

See I find the opposite. Being at home makes it more difficult to cut stuff out, having access to the snacks and no other distractions. The key is of course avoiding buying the snacks in the first place.

But I'm even struggling to do that.

WHat I often do is if I set myself a goal of starting from "tomorrow" I end up binge eating the night before. And of course tomorrow never comes....

that's me all over !!

It's the feeling once I've eaten that I really hate.

I had a takeaway the other night, ate all of it as it was expensive but it was disgusting, and then sat there full of regret as usual lol
 
Can you set yourself a target of not eating any snacks/crap in work time then allowing a treat in the evening?
I have a bit of chocolate/sweets every day after dinner as a treat for eating well during work time. That's a max 200 calories mind not a sharing bar to myself. :p
I'm pretty good with being able to have stuff in the cupboard. We always have a load of crisps, chocolate etc but I'm not tempted.
 
I'm pretty good with being able to have stuff in the cupboard. We always have a load of crisps, chocolate etc but I'm not tempted.

I don’t have the self control unfortunately.

After eating a load of crap last night, I threw a lot away as I was going through my self disgust and regret phase.

it’s the only way I can do it.

the frustrating thing is I’ve done it before. I even used to do intermittent fasting. It’s the initial week for me that’s tough.
 
My weight loss update is..... I haven't lost any. :p
After a really clean and Dry January I got down to 13st 3. Didn't particularly want to go too much lower (due to rugby).
I've still eaten good in the week and do loads of exercise but I do allow myself to enjoy the weekend, have a few beers eat a takeaways etc. I don't feel like I'm cutting or anything.
Get on the scales this morning and i'm still 13st 3 which I'm pretty happy with as the gym is going well.
Still continuing the same of not being too bothered about weight loss, I've thought I've eaten a bit worse the past two weeks to be honest, but out of interest weighed myself and I've actually lost a further two pounds.......
Problem I have now is I'm down to about 13st and still don't really like the way I look. Still carrying too much on the belly and love handles.
 
Still continuing the same of not being too bothered about weight loss, I've thought I've eaten a bit worse the past two weeks to be honest, but out of interest weighed myself and I've actually lost a further two pounds.......
Problem I have now is I'm down to about 13st and still don't really like the way I look. Still carrying too much on the belly and love handles.

Exactly where I'm at now, 13 stone and told the usual not to lose any more weight by others but everything I'm struggling with is mid section/belly and it's a real confidence knocker for me. This is squishy fat over hard fat whether that makes a difference. Years of too much drink/poor eating probably contributing I don't know or just the genetics as I read about.

On that note I'd really like to make a big push to rectify this as I've tried for years and have come a long way weight wise but what would you suggest is the best way to go about it? Obviously calories in vs calories out but any other guidance, I'm not talking becoming shredded here but just flatten the protruding belly! If it's as simple as cut all sugar/salt//alcohol/junk then so be it but can that be kept up long term which is what I want, I know I'd struggle at least but maybe you do get used to it? I start to read up online and it just ends up with all conflicting advise and saying to try this diet or that diet.
 
Exactly where I'm at now, 13 stone and told the usual not to lose any more weight by others but everything I'm struggling with is mid section/belly and it's a real confidence knocker for me. This is squishy fat over hard fat whether that makes a difference. Years of too much drink/poor eating probably contributing I don't know or just the genetics as I read about.

On that note I'd really like to make a big push to rectify this as I've tried for years and have come a long way weight wise but what would you suggest is the best way to go about it? Obviously calories in vs calories out but any other guidance, I'm not talking becoming shredded here but just flatten the protruding belly! If it's as simple as cut all sugar/salt//alcohol/junk then so be it but can that be kept up long term which is what I want, I know I'd struggle at least but maybe you do get used to it? I start to read up online and it just ends up with all conflicting advise and saying to try this diet or that diet.

I don't think you need to cut anything out completely in the long term. The problem I had in the past was that my *default* choices where mainly quite calorie (and more than that fat ) heavy and occasionally chose something healthy, if you switch it around the other way (I.e. normally you'll choice healthy options but occasionally get something junky) that's probably the long term change that will make it all stick. On squidgy fat, that needs real patience and to be honest and targeted exercise, anything heavy in core work outs (Les Mills GRIT Core might work). I remember feeling pretty rubbish when I got to 13 stone, it was like I'd worked really hard and still didn't like how I looked, I started to push much more into exercise at that point and less so on relying on calorie cutting. I seem to annoy people on here, so I'll just say that's just me trying to be helpful and not an insult in anyway.
 
I seem to annoy people on here, so I'll just say that's just me trying to be helpful and not an insult in anyway.

I'm honestly not sure what's wrong? You seem to think you offended me? No, I was confused, which I did state a few times. I thought you might explain, "oh, it's just you said..." and I would then at least understand and could have corrected/explained it, but never mind, it's fine. Don't hold back if you have things that can help people, please, post away!

I would generally agree with what you've said too, in that I think you're saying add in some specific exercise on top of the eating well.
 
On squidgy fat, that needs real patience and to be honest and targeted exercise, anything heavy in core work outs (Les Mills GRIT Core might work).

You cant target exercise away fat, sorry to say this. The body doesn't care what you do in terms of exercise, its main care is cals in cals out, and once its used all the easy to use fats then it will start to get rid of the more stubborn fats. Unsurprisingly these tend to be in the areas we all would like to lose the fat from mainly!

The main thing really is accountability of cals in vs cals out. Track everything, even when you are eating at maintenance etc

On my current maintenance phase, ive been on now for coming up to 12 days and happy to say i am staying stable in a 1lb range. The built up diet fatigue i was feeling is fading, and ive been able to enjoy some family treat meals out without feeling so conscious about what to pick off the menu. Ive still tracked everything, and i cant say enough how strong of a tool this is for me personally. Now to decide on how much longer to maintain before switching back to weight loss and maybe completing that final bit of weight loss im after.
 
I don't think you need to cut anything out completely in the long term. The problem I had in the past was that my *default* choices where mainly quite calorie (and more than that fat ) heavy and occasionally chose something healthy, if you switch it around the other way (I.e. normally you'll choice healthy options but occasionally get something junky) that's probably the long term change that will make it all stick. On squidgy fat, that needs real patience and to be honest and targeted exercise, anything heavy in core work outs (Les Mills GRIT Core might work). I remember feeling pretty rubbish when I got to 13 stone, it was like I'd worked really hard and still didn't like how I looked, I started to push much more into exercise at that point and less so on relying on calorie cutting. I seem to annoy people on here, so I'll just say that's just me trying to be helpful and not an insult in anyway.

Great idea to switch it around, I do favour more calorie dense food too. I just feel more satisfied eating this way and I wouldn't say they are always poor choices but easy for the calories to start mounting up and the cravings for those types of foods will always be there. I'll have a go at switching it. Definitely need to up the fruit & vegetable count so I could start there.

You cant target exercise away fat, sorry to say this. The body doesn't care what you do in terms of exercise, its main care is cals in cals out, and once its used all the easy to use fats then it will start to get rid of the more stubborn fats. Unsurprisingly these tend to be in the areas we all would like to lose the fat from mainly!

So is it a case of just continuing to lose weight? What happens if I get to 11 stone and it's only just starting to disappear, do I just keep going almost like a reset then start to put weight back on in a controlled fashion?
 
So is it a case of just continuing to lose weight? What happens if I get to 11 stone and it's only just starting to disappear, do I just keep going almost like a reset then start to put weight back on in a controlled fashion?
Yeap just keep losing the weight until you get to the point you are happy with. You can always take diet breaks and have a maintenance phase and tick over for a few weeks / months depending on what you feel you need before jumping back in to a diet.
 
It might sound obvious but when interpreting/calculating the net carbs in food, would I be correct in assuming that, for example,
if a sandwich label reads as having 22.8 grams of carbs in it, do I take that figure or the one below it - of which sugars 1.2g?
 
It might sound obvious but when interpreting/calculating the net carbs in food, would I be correct in assuming that, for example,
if a sandwich label reads as having 22.8 grams of carbs in it, do I take that figure or the one below it - of which sugars 1.2g?
The total count so 22.8 in this case
 
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