How to lose weight

I was pottering around Calorie King, avoiding work, and found this post which i totally agree with, and thought I would share:

I decided to write this after receiving a few emails asking for advice on what I did to lose weight. (Frankly I didn't want to have to keep repeating the same thing over and over :D)


In addition I’ve noticed a few things around the forums, generally people asking for help because they aren’t losing weight or feel they’ve plateaued, but generally aren’t actually following CK recommendations because they couldn’t possibly eat that much…. Sorry guys how do you think you got overweight in the first place (despite whether you think you did or didn’t eat a lot, you where eating too much).


So, these are some of the things I did, that worked for me, I can’t guarantee they’ll work for you, but if what your doing isn’t working what have you got to lose.


First and foremost, my top two recommendations are this, be honest with yourself and what you are reporting/recording and start by actually following CK recommendations. It never ceases to amaze me that people will go out of their way for weeks on end to try the latest fad diet but refuse to try CK recommendations.


So to elaborate on this, you have to find some time to be bothered to fill in your diary and for a while at least this means weighing everything, not just saying in your diary a medium carrot, what you see as a medium carrot might be very different to what others (including your CK diary) might see as a medium carrot, so you do have to be bothered to weigh things. Most people are more than a little surprised to discover just how much they get wrong especially when it comes to meet and stuff. In addition to that we all know about consumerism, and just because a packet of something says 500g doesn’t always make it so, someone posted recently about discovering that the package weight versus the actual weight was that the actual weight was significantly higher, meaning more calories in than they thought! Over the course of a week this can make or break your loss.


CK recommendations. Follow them for at least 2 weeks better to go for 4 weeks, AFTER that you can start tweaking if the weight isn’t coming off. Here’s the thing with exercise cals, my suggestion is if you don’t have a HRM and you use CK to guestimate them only eat back half your exercise cals, when you get a HRM you will have a better picture. This is what I did in the beginning before I got my HRM. Once you’ve established a routine you will see if eating all or some back works for you. But I beg of you to actually try it first before discarding it, all I see is people continuing to drop their calories lower and lower, and wondering why they aren’t losing weight…. Cause your body is probably friggen hungry.


Be prepared. The more prepared you are the better off you will find yourself in times of weakness or just generally having a bad day. Whether you pick a day of the week to do a cook up or just cook extra a few nights a week, (I do both! :D) I then freeze the extra portions and if I come home and don’t want to cook, I have something, quick, easy, portion and calorie controlled that will take 10 minutes in the microwave. Generally I actually sit down the evening before and enter what I’m going to eat the next day into my diary, this way I can see where I am calorie wise, I can quickly pack my lunch and snacks in the morning and take out anything I need for dinner. I keep a pad in the kitchen so I weigh everything out and then whilst dinner is cooking I can sit down punch it all into CK, make sure the cals are OK and I’m good to go. This way I don’t get caught with the half an hour spent wondering what I should have and then getting so hungry I cave in to the sausage roll or McDonald’s or whatever.


Educate yourself. Spend a bit of time reading up on things, there is a lot of conflicting information, you may have to tweak things to get it all working for you, but this is something you will need to maintain long term, if you simply consider it a diet you go on and off, congratulations we will see you here next year heavier again. Learn about foods, what is good fuel, what is better fuel, learn about take away foods, so that if you are out shopping and you didn’t bring anything with you and you need to eat, what are the better options for you? Subway… try a subway salad (you can even double the meat! ;D) McDonald’s… it might be a worst case scenario, but the Sweet Chilli Seared Chicken wrap, a salad and water work out to be one of your better options. Write it all down on a piece of paper if you have to, but have a string of choices up your sleeve, to help you make a better choice than chips and a burger (or whatever).


In addition to the educating yourself is understanding food better. Some people say as long as you are under cals, if you eat your cals in chocolate it doesn’t matter, but unfortunately for most it really does. If you truly are being honest in your recording (generally people think they are but aren’t – sorry if that offends, the truth often does) and you still aren’t losing weight, start looking at what you are eating, because it matter’s also, it really is a combination of how much you eat, what you eat, and how you move, that’s why when people ask me what I did to lose the weight I say “Eat better and move more”. Notice I don’t say eat less, I say Eat better. Bulking out your meals with vegetables will not only fill you up (for less calories) they are good for you in a whole host of other ways and will do much more for you than a block of chocolate.


All or nothing. I used to have this attitude, I had to get it all perfect from the get go and if I did one thing wrong I packed it in and went back to my KFC and chocolate. The biggest change I made when I started this final time round, was to do what I could. Instead of overwhelming myself with being perfect, I just did one thing for a week, I drank a 750ml bottle of water every day for a week. The next week I took a flight of stairs instead of the lift and drank my bottle of water, every day for a week. Start with one thing, or one meal at a time and you will be surprised to suddenly finding yourself, several weeks down the track, with new habits, and more than likely weight and cm loss. This also helped so that if I did find myself knee deep in a tub of ice-cream, that was OK, rather than killing myself for it and making the choice to eat crap for the rest of the week, I would just get back up, dust myself off and move forward again, one step at a time.


Which brings me to measurement. You can’t live and die by the scales, they are only one measurement, one guide of what is going on in your body (I’m talking scales for body weight you should live and die by your kitchen scales as previously pointed out ;D). I personally don’t believe in daily weighing it does my head in, if you choose to do it, you must be fully comprehensive of the fact that daily fluctuations occur for a mirad of reasons, otherwise, stick to weekly. In fact in my first few months I had someone else weigh and measure me once a month and tell me my results. This meant I couldn’t obsess over the scales. Measuring yourself is just as important if not more. There are likely to be times when the scales may not move, but your clothes are getting looser and you are losing cm’s this is what you want really! So this applies to all things, BMI, waist hip ratio, they are guides, and they don’t work for everyone, so don’t kill yourself trying to fit them, if you aren’t sure and can get to one, a Dexa scan (Body composition scan) is really your best option, especially if you are not sure what the right weight is for you. They are worthwhile in my opinion, but generally on any measurement you use, you are looking for a downward trend to keep you going.


Are you bored yet? Next is support and accountability. People generally say I’m not telling anyone what I’m doing in case I fail… way to set yourself up there! Firstly if you can get your family and friends on board working with you, it will make it sooooo much easier, but in addition to that, it will also weed out people who might try to sabotage you. You need to figure out who these people are (they might not realise they are doing it, they might!) because you will need to employ strategies in dealing with this people, whether it be being fully prepared when you see them, asking them to stop (if they are a spouse or someone you live with) through to the extreme of not being involved with them anymore (are they really a good friend worthy of your time and energy). If you can’t find support in your family and friends, then look online, and find what you need, only you can find it, so don’t use it as an excuse to quit. Best of all is that shoulder and ear to lean on when you are having a hard day, having a whinge is always preferable to eating a bucket of ice-cream or a block of chocolate! :D


Get over yourself. Yep harsh hey…. The biggest obstacle you will have is yourself. Really listen to some of the things you tell yourself, I’m so busy, I’m so lazy, I can’t do this, I can’t do that, it hurts, it’s uncomfortable, blah blah blah. We tell ourselves a lot of sh*t! Change only comes when you step outside your comfort zone. Start changing the negative self talk around. One of mine was this, I used to tell it to myself but I also used to say it out loud to people!!! “I’m fundamentally lazy”. And guess what boy I believed it. One day I heard myself and thought what am I doing? So I stopped saying it, and guess what happened, I stopped believing it. And I have to say within a few weeks I really managed to crank up my exercise routine, because I wanted to do more, because I didn’t feel lazy anymore. Everyone has them a million and one excuses and how everyone else is in there way. Nope, only one person in your way and that’s you, what you say to yourself, how you react to what’s going on around you. Get out of your own way and I promise an amazing new world will open up to you.


Finally, well there’s probably loads more to say, but I don’t think that anyone can digest much more, and that’s this it won’t all be smooth sailing and that’s OK. You may fall down, but what’s most important is to get up again and continuing to move forward, that’s where your ear friend or even this forum is a good place to come. Be willing to get a butt kicking and some support at the same time, as far as I’m concerned if you are serious that’s what you are really looking for to get you going again.


As always with anything that’s posted here on the forums, I highly suggest, you take what resonates for you and discard the rest, I hope this gives newbies a starting point and anyone struggling some food for thought… so to speak! :D

 I love this post because it gets straight to the point, and it is totally true - the only way to lose weight is to do it healthily, honestly and ask for help if you need it!  How do you know if this person is telling the truth?  Well the fact that she has dropped from 130kg to 75kg should say it all really!