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Diet ideas - what actually works?

les24preludes

les24preludes

pfm Member
Please post your diet recommendations for long term weight loss. A diet that is comfortable and achievable.

And also how to do it in the wider sense. e.g. weighing yourself, using a diet coach, counting calories etc.
 
Eating less and moving more is really the only true way.
Carbohydrate reduction and moving into protein and vegetables will provide the quickest and most sustainable route.

I have the knowledge but cakes and chocolate always creep in!
 
Leave the fad diets well alone

Don’t give anyone money for advice

Move a bit more, preferably increasing your heart rate, and making you sweat a bit

Cut down on carby stuff: beer, pasta, bread, potatoes, cakes. A lot.

Find a hobby that involves walking.

You’re gonna drop dead anyway, so it’s up to you.
 
Low carb is the way to go.
Google Michael Mosley fast 800.
It might sound like a new diet fad, but it has a lot of science and research behind it.
It's worked for me.
Big advantage is after a few days I don't feel particularly hungry.
Good luck.
 
oldius said:
Eating less and moving more is really the only true way.
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Yes, but what if you are past the days when you can run and jump about? Yes, a daily walk is good but that alone won't do much. So it's diet alone.

And yes, eat less, smaller portions, small plates. But surely it's "eat smart" more than "eat less"? And carbs have their place - they help stop us from feeling hungry.

I do recommend a diet coach, often also a life coach. Very motivational - a good one can start you off and really believe you can make it. Self belief is a big part of continuing with any diet. You have to feel you can do it.
 
The wife and I realised we were eating far too much so went back to 1950s style of smaller servings and only a medium glass of wine, not killing off a bottle of wine per meal as was once the case. Absolutely no snacking.

We have both lost 9lbs each over 7 months and my blood sugar level is now in the correct place.

Surprisingly we now think the old mega proportions are revolting.

I suppose it's best summed up by don't overdo it.
 
I could be your new life coach. Just do exactly the opposite of what i do and in a few weeks you be swimming the channel and cartwheeling up the eiger.
 
As above the 5-2 diet definitely works 600 calories per day for a man and 500 calories for a woman on the diet days.

My wife and I did it for about five years and we each lost about a stone, weight loss was something like 500g a week on average, at the beginning we were losing about double that but eventually you get to a certain weight and hardly lose anything plus it ends up being a bit of a challenge so you tend to slip a bit, well we did.

We had a weight day which was every Friday and that definitely helped to motivate us.

The advice to get a dog is excellent though, when we got our dog back in 2016, I was walking about 15000 steps a day but that tails off too.

Best of luck but diet alone isn’t enough you really have to move too.
 
les24preludes said:
Yes, but what if you are past the days when you can run and jump about? Yes, a daily walk is good but that alone won't do much. So it's diet alone.

And yes, eat less, smaller portions, small plates. But surely it's "eat smart" more than "eat less"? And carbs have their place - they help stop us from feeling hungry.

I do recommend a diet coach, often also a life coach. Very motivational - a good one can start you off and really believe you can make it. Self belief is a big part of continuing with any diet. You have to feel you can do it.
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When you say the days are over for running/jumping about does that mean? There are lots of ways to ramp up the heart rate without running or jumping. I don't think you are going to get what you are looking for on diet alone but would agree with the posts on here that the Mosley 5-2 works is is not difficult to stick to. I'm sure you already know this but the key with moving and diet is consistency. Need to make it a part of your everday life.
 
I lost loads just by cutting out bread, potatoes and confined drinking to one night a week. I lost three stone but then Like two tone I plateaued and found it hard to drop any more.
 
les24preludes said:
How do you get a lot of protein if you're a vegetarian? Personally I eat fish and eggs, so not totally veggie, just not meat.
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You seem to be answering your own questions here!
Less carbs doesn't mean none at all.
Protein from beans, pulses, mycoproteins and tofu, if you are vegetarian.
Walking if you cannot run and jump.
The weight loss is the motivation. Many cannot afford a coach, so doing it with a partner, or just motivating yourself through meeting step by step goals.
 
If you are not yet retired, avoid canteens and restaurants. There's often too much fat and salt, and the plates are too generous.

I cook for myself every evening, then I put in tuppers what I think I will need. Usually it fits rather well, at our age we have learned to know how much we eat. It's a lot of work but I think I eat more healthy, and my weight goes down slowly but gradually (about 1 kg a year). Of course a microwave comes in handy. Oh and it makes me cook a lot, so it makes me learn every day.

For more weight loss: exercise, exercise, exercise. Walking is good but not enough. Running enabled me to lose 6 kg over one year. Losing weight long-term takes years.

Diets are a no-no, our bodies are way more sensible than we are, even in 2024.
 
As @oldius writes: "eating less and moving more". The "eating less" will be more impactful, but a bit from "moving more" has wider benefits.

The graph below came from: a food diary, a weight diary, no change to diet other than eating less of the same (chocolate etc. still allowed but less of it), a long-term commitment to a modest weight loss rate, a weight target, a gradual "soft landing" adjustment of intake on approaching the target. Christmas weight gain is still allowed - but just a little less.
weight.png


If doing it again I might adopt a more "intermittent fasting" approach rather than the "eating less daily" I used. Because I did notice what I think was the impact of metabolic adaption to long-term calorie input deficit, which took a year to go away after weight stabilization.

For moving more - replace a weekly car journey to the supermarket with two smaller shops on foot; park further away from the shops and walk; park on a top floor and take the stairs; just get up and take a walk; walk faster up slopes; etc. There are many small opportunities.
 
It depends...on you and how your body works; however, getting away from "diets" and focussing on long-term nutrition is a good place to start. Broadly, food will impact your belly more than exercise (though do exercise - good for feeling good, building muscle, stretching and getting the heart pumping), so: less ultra processed foods, more veg/fruits/nuts/beans. Eat more in the morning, a bit less at lunch and even less at dinner. Get some good sleep as it affects weight.
 
Measure your portions by weighing them, keep a food diary, cut out junk. Have a day off once a week. Add to your food diary how you feel at various points.

I lost weight like this, about 10kg. Sustainably. I worked out the kind of things that I wanted to eat and weighed what I thought was a normal portion. I then served myself 2/3 of this, measured its weight and wrote it down. This is your new portion size. For breakfast, lunch and dinner. For snacks, I ate fruit and veg.

So a typical day goes: 35g breakfast cereal, 125ml milk. Weighed, written in the book.
Lunch: 300g of home made soup, maybe watered down with another 100ml of hot water. One sandwich. Weighed, in the book. Fruit.
Dinner: 130g of cooked pasta, 200g of bolognese sauce. Or the same in chilli and rice, or chicken curry and rice. If eating meat and veg, 200g potatoes equals 130g of pasta or rice.

Eat like this for 6 days a week. On the 7th, party time. But keep your diary and record how you feel. In my case it took me 3 weeks to work out that 6 days a week I woke up feeling great, and 1 day a week I was like death. So I started to question the need for a huge meal and a skinful of beer or a bottle of wine every Friday day off. Guess what, sometimes it's not worth the pain. If it happens to be a birthday, go for it. You are going in with your eyes open, you'll pay the piper and it's worth it. But a boring Friday watching James Bond on your own? Maybe I'll just have 2 beers.

The current maintenance is to do all this but to back off the regime a bit and have more days off. If you start getting off track, then back on the 6 days pw regimen you go.

Oh, and exercise, exercise. But you can't outrun a crap diet, and you can't expect to lose weight without reducing your food intake. You got to where you are by eating what you do, so something has to change.
 
stevec67 said:
Measure your portions by weighing them, keep a food diary, cut out junk.
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What worked for me a few years ago when I lost quite a lot of weight was the "keep good records" suggested by John Phillips above. For the last 10 years I've kept records and graphs in Excel of daily weight and long term weight, but that alone doesn't work though it gives me the whole picture. Weighing portions definitely helped - keeping track of calorie intake because if you don't it can be deceptive. But I didn't find that to be sustainable - too much faff.

I think simplification is very useful. Eat the same breakfast every day so you know the calories. And simplify the other meals which you vary so you know their calories too.

What I've found useful is sesame bagels e.g. with eggs in the morning, and cinnamon and raisin bagels as dessert or snacks, often just half a bagel. Those are sweeter and you feel quite sated. No butter/spread with bagels. One alternative is crumpets which are lower calorie - 176 rather than 230 for a sesame bagel for 100g. I do put a bit of low fat spread like Proactiv on them, though. Also useful are cans of baked beans especially with added spices or onions.

A Mediterranean diet is nice, but it's more work. But the tomatoes and fruit bit is easy and sustainable.
 
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