My weight has been edging upward for the past several months, for a variety of reasons, and has reached a point where I want to rein it in and move in the opposite direction.
My most successful past efforts have been with calorie counting — it's by no means an exact science, but it both lets me play with numbers and (most importantly) makes me conscious of what (and how much) I'm eating. That, in turn, gets me back into good habits, like not taking seconds, etc.
It's the habit stuff that I think makes weight loss sustainable over time — crash diets and "let me give up all the things I really like" diets tend (according to both research and my own anecdata) to fail sooner or later.
So I'm firing back up the MyNetDiary app [http://mynetdiary.com] on all my various devices, and having at it. I won't be posting extensively about the whole thing (because I don't want to be one of those dieters), but making public mention now and again will hopefully keep me honest.
Haha
I've been using Lose It! (On and off) because it has such an excellent and easy to use search database. It even uses your location to prioritize food from nearby chains.
In the end I think it's the keeping track of what you eat that matters more than the numbers. I've seen at least one meta study that found the "successful " diets all involved writing down what you ate.
The app did throw some interesting things at me though once it had enough data. For instance it pointed out that when I ate my granola breakfast I did better at restricting calories the rest of the day.
I should start it up again.
If counting calories works for you that's great. My own experience is that the only way that works for me long term is not keeping track of what I eat – just reducing my carb intake, and filling up on protein instead.
+Meirav M. South Beach worked very well for me. And it's much more like changing the way you eat than going on a diet. But it's a hard one to do when your partner isn't doing it. And the first couple weeks are really hard.
+Kee Hinckley I've heard about that one, haven't tried it. It sounded like it would be really difficult.
+Kee Hinckley Huh — that is an interesting feature. I'll look into it.
+Meirav M. I'll see how it goes. I'm way too in love with carbs, I'm afraid.
+Dave Hill I totally understand. I'm way too fond of them myself 🙂
Dave, start with a 4 day water only fast then transition to an intermittent diet where you consume all your calories within only a 4 hour window in the day. Hunger becomes a habit and once you break that habit it is easier to form a new ones. Check out the Keto diet
+Bill Kemp Thanks.
There are many videos on YouTube about the benefits of fasting that are
actually very beneficial.
Hello, I have never used any formal diet plan. I have had two times in my life when I was unhappy with my weight. Both times I was able to get it back to comfort, 61-63kilos.
It is a foreign concept to me to have difficulty to the point of failure/depression. Yet, I know many people with difficulties. I want to understand better but the more people I talk with, the more ways to count the difficulties. It is just a bit confusing.
I Hope you are successful +Dave Hill & +Kee Hinckley. I myself have had a lot of success with short fasts. I do know that our ancient metabolism is more responsive to temporary fasts.
The kinds of foodstuffs that are many people's mainstay, are too new for our digestive systems to be able to keep up with. Processed foodstuffs, other than salted, smoked, or dessicated have only been around for less than 70yrs. Far too short a time for any system to adapt to. We are all test subjects in the food industry. I believe I will be long gone before any real, true adaptation and related science will occur, other than Diabetic research.
I wish you luck, Tc, Nola.
I have a friend who did a really odd diet. He only ate every other day. Worked for him for several years.