Few questions on weight loss for the "pro's" here.

[Crewsix]

Weight loss is mostly from diet and not exercise. People do not burn as many calories working out as they think. There clearly are benefits to working out, such as increasing muscle mass and how many calories your body burns naturally.

What you need to do is calculate your macros, carbs, protein and fat. Use a BMR calculator to find roughly what your body burns each day, and then set a 20% deficit. This will give you roughly 1 lb of weight loss per week. I would recommend limiting carbs to 50g per day, and setting a protein goal of .8g per lb of lean body mass. Fill the rest with fat.

[Triks]

This is a bigger issue than people realise. A lot of folks are stuck in a rut because it’s simply not viable for them to eat properly, given the cost. It’s easier, cheaper and less messy to pop into McDonalds and fill a hole with a Big Mac and fries.

You also mention habit, which is another issue. It’s why fad diets don’t work; people do it for a while, see results, and then revert to old habits. A can of Coke (even Zero) or Mars bar doesn’t look like much, but if you do that a few times a week then you’re going to see it add up. Crap food also seems to have a negative impact on metabolism, which compounds the problem even more, and processed rubbish is simply far more cost effective and easy to prepare than a dinner with fresh vegetables, wholegrain rice and a turkey burger.

Alcohol is an absolute killer. If you’re boozing regularly, I’d forget about weight loss.

Out of all that, I think habit is the biggest enemy of getting back in shape. It’s hard to make a lasting or permanent change without a significant cognitive commitment that most people simply aren’t capable of sticking to. If you can get through around two months of real change, in diet and exercise, then you’re well on the way to making it stick. Sadly, most people tend to struggle getting through a week or so without “falling off the wagon” and then concluding that they just can’t do it.

It’s why many obese people are unhappy. They want to change, try to do it on their own, and lack support.

Perhaps if we in the west didn’t make it so easy to get fat, it wouldn’t be so hard.

I also live in the UK and buying junk food is actually more expensive than you think. A bag of spinach and a carton of eggs from Aldi costs less than a meal from Mickey's and will feed you for 3-4 days.

Side note - this thread is getting needlessly complex. Just limit your calories and exercise - it isn't hard.

[aysatsana]

I've been cutting for the past few months and lost >30lbs, I'll reach my goal soon enough so here's my tips:

- most important thing is to be in a calorie deficit, this is the #1 rule. Without this you won't lose weight. Recommended is to eat 500 calories below your TDEE. You can track your calories with apps like myfitnesspal, or like me, estimate them. (once you've been doing this long enough you can get good estimates). My calories for cutting is about ~2200 (I'm 6'4 225). I eat between 1800-2400 calories when trying to lose weight. Don't need to be super precise once you're experienced enough

- cardio definitely helps, but isn't needed. I only started doing cardio further into my cut. Also, if you want to eat a few more calories then you can add more cardio to balance that out. (more calories = more cardio). The cardio doesn't necessarily have to be intense, I just do 1 hour walks on an empty stomach and it works great. If you're motivated enough, 1 hour walks on an empty stomach every morning would be amazing.

- One thing that helped me is to make an excel sheet with my weigh in for everyday. I weigh myself every morning and note it there. There will of course be inconsistencies with everyday weigh ins, but after awhile you (hopefully) notice a downward trend with your weight. Also next to the date I can add some comments about how I'm looking that day or so on. This just keeps me motivated when I look back at the comments or my weights 1 month ago, for example. You could also take a picture every so often and post it near the date. It's just to keep track of your progress.

- personally my meal plan was as follows, I found it was much easier to simply follow the same thing everyday, however you can of course eat something different everyday, it's just more of a pain to keep track fo the calories

meal #1: 1 cup greek yogurt, 2 packets of oatmeal, coffee
snack: 2 scoops of whey protein
meal #2: this is the only meal that can differ day by day, usually a meal with some carbs and protein that is around 600 calories.
*workout*
snack: fruit + whey protein or yogurt
snack: veggies + whey protein or yogurt

I tried to keep it high in protein because that's what is recommended to avoid muscle loss.

- another tip that I use myself is I do "resets" every so often, let's say I lost 15 pounds I will tend to lose focus on my diet. I take like 3-4 days off where I eat maintenance calories and that allows me to go harder in the gym. After that, it's like if I'm starting a new diet. I've done this like three times so far, it helps a lot mentally for some reason.


- I found drinking lots of water, coffee helps. I occasionally drink coke zero too.

The first week is usually the hardest, after that you get used to it and hopefully it feels normal. Just keep doing this and you will lose weight. Try to keep your mind occupied with work, school, video games, movies, etc... to keep your mind off food.

[Triks]

Coffee really is the best as it suppresses appetite effectively. When I was losing weight I was drinking upwards of 3-4 big cups a day with sugar and whitener.