What diet tips have really worked for you?

I have tried every diet book out there. So far, the only thing that's worked for me is a raw diet but I never can stick to it for long!

Less food, more exercise. That works for me every time.

And I do limit my carbs...because they seem to take longer to burn off for some reason

I agree that diet alone is a poor approach to losing weight. Exercise is indispensible. The key to any weight loss is far too simple to require a whole book: you have to burn more calories than you eat. After that, it all comes down to finding a mental approach to dealing with hunger that works for you. Good luck.

I have found that just keeping honest track of everything you eat will help you cut back on the input side. If you are eating more than about 12 cal per pound of body weight per day you are likely gaining or close to it. You have to have a roughly 3500 calorie deficit to loose a pound. That works out to -500 cal/day to loose a pound per week. If you exercise and keep track of your calories and stay below the calories you need per day you should loose weight. It also helps to learn ways to convince yourself that what you feel is appetite, not hunger. Oh, and stay away from beer, wine and hard stuff, they do not suppress appetite. Keeping it off is harder than loosing it, at least for me; I have lost the same five pounds twenty times.

Do as much exercise as you think you should and triple it. Pain is weakness leaving the body.

Some of us have metabolsims that drop into starvation mode and conserve energy when calories are restricted. So, the weight doesn't change. What works for me is severe carbohydrate restriction, close to an Atkins approach. I try for low carb AND low fat. Also, the carbs I do take in are heavy on fiber and good quality.

The above is slow torture and slow weight loss. To speed it up, add exercise as much as possible to fit into the day.

CamperMom

Nothing is working for me right now. I agree with all of the above. I should try the writing everything down approach, at least for a few weeks until those darn scales get unstuck.

To really loose weight and KEEP it off you need to change your lifestyle, permanantly. I overeat when I think I am "hungry" but really am not, or am tempted by goodies (holidays). You are supposed to be mildly hungry some of the time but if you refocus your mind the hunger subsides. There is a difference between being really hungry and just not full. You need to be comfortable feeling "not always full". Keeping my weight in control is just as much mental as what I eat and exercise.

I really avoid using exercise as my weight control mechanism. I adjust my eating based on my exercise level - not the other way around. When I am out backpacking a lot I eat more. When you eat, eat good food, not junk. Avoid food that create cravings (excess salt, sugar and fat). I keep NO snacks in the house! If I want food I have to actually make something from scratch or reach for fruit and vegetables. I am lucky in that I was raised in a home that was into organic gardening long before it became popular and my mother did not let us snack all the time. I am now in my early 60's and weigh the same as I did when I was in High School. I do not fanatically exercise nor do I diet. I just set an upper limit for weight (about 8 pounds over my ideal), and when I reach that, I make an effort to eat more healty. If I have that glass of wine, I have to "pay" for it by cutting out something equal in calories. I am in this mild diet mode usually from the Holidays until March. I walk or bicycle about 2 hours a couuple times a week. Once I start backpacking regularly I really have more trouble keeping on enough weight.

Writing everything down is working very nicely for me. along with conscientious, regular exercise (mostly regular bike riding). Keeping a food diary helps me make better choices - reaching for an apple instead of a doughnut.

For me it is a combination of exercise and watching what I eat. I have an established exercise routine involving weight workouts combined with about 1-2 hours of aerobic exercise 5-6 days a week. For aerobic exercise I variously hike, cycle, jog or walk briskly. I live near the Santa Rita Mountains and do a timed, eight-mile round trip hike with a 1700' climb once a week. I stay in backpacking shape by adding bottles of water to my day pack for this hike.

For eating I keep a mental score card of what I eat. I try to eat a healthful diet that is fairly low on the food chain. And, importantly, I try to eat mindfully. In the past, for example, I had the habit of eating peanuts by the handful. Now, I eat them 1/2 a peanut at a time and gain the same satisfaction. I try to eat my meals slowly; it takes a while for the full signal to get to your brain and the more you eat before it gets there the more adipose you accumulate.

I don't drink alcohol any more; it is metabolized more-or-less as a sugar and I try to keep my sugar consumption as low as possible - fruit only. I don't handle booze particularly well anyway so I stay away from it. Also, as WD states, you need to get used to being moderately hungry without using it as a signal to eat.

So far, it has worked out OK for me. When I got out of the Army long ago, I was about 6' tall and weighed about 175 pounds. I had been a medic in an airborne unit and was tough as a twenty-five-cent steak in those days. But, over the years I have shrunk: I am now 5' 10" and still weigh about 175. However, I am now in my mid 70's and my adipose to muscle ratio has shifted a bit since my army days. My ideal weight should now be nearer 160 pounds. I am working now to get my weight down but it comes off more slowly than it did when I was younger.

I don't personally think that diets work. Sure, one can loose weight on the "cranberry and boiled egg" diet or other such. But keeping the weight off is the hard part once the dieting ends. My preference is to not change what I eat but to change the way I eat. Modifying my eating behavior is a lot longer lasting than is going on a diet.

I agree with other posts that weight loss has to involve a lifestyle change, rather than adherence to any particular diet. I try not to buy snacks like cookies, crackers, chips, because I know I will just eat them all in a couple of days and wont be able to successfully ration a reasonable amount. So I just don't have them around. A friend of mine wrote a really nice series of blogs about this subject a while ago - he lost a lot of weight and has been able to keep it off (well, until he married a cupcake baker, that has made things a bit harder!). Starting with the idea that "If you want something to happen, you have to create an environment in which it can happen," he makes the analogy that losing weight is like starting a fire, kindling, tipi, etc. He is a great writer, so check it out if you have time: Here

As someone on another forum put it:
1) Eat less
2) Eat more healthy
3) Move more

I was doing this before I found this wisdom. Doing so I have lost a 100+ lbs and maintained said lose for just over a year.

When I started hiking every week, I dropped 10 lbs in 6 months.

When I stopped drinking soda every day I dropped nearly 10 more.

Eat better food - real food. Eat every day. Have something for breakfast. Get moderate exercise. Get a physical to make sure you are not hypo/hyperthyroid, or any other medical issue that can radically influence weight.

I can and do eat junk food, when I am backpacking and in a calorie deficit. Unless something happens to upset my system - stomach flu last October radically screwed up things and I lost too much weight! - my weight remains consistent. It takes time to find your balance. Write everything down each meal and be more aware of caloric intake, and balance it to your level of activity.

I don't do much exercising during the week, tho I have taken to parking farther from stores so that I am walking more. But I started with a baseline - I know that I have no medical condition that complicates my metabolic performance. And I have over time become much more aware of my body's needs much quicker. Staying hydrated at home as well as on the trail is important. Getting enough sleep is also important - there was a study that linked sleep deprivation to weight gain, not so long ago.

You just have to get used to that "I'm hungry" feeling. Set in your mind what you are to eat that day, and if hungry, just deal with it. After a few weeks, it doesn't bother you at all. Don't eat low calorie or diet junk if hungry between meals, just drink water and forget about it.
Today, people don't like and will not accept a little discomfort.

I've tried every diet out there. High/low fat, high/low carb, high/low protein etc etc etc. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for you. All these different ways of eating have brought me to this: Eat until you feel satisfied. But only eat whole unprocessed foods, raw. Ignore everything processed, and be honest--milk is processed, roasted almonds are processed, booze is processed..anything that comes in a can, in plastic, etc is a processed item. It works for me, I feel great. & yes, I eat my meat raw as well. Not to say I don't cheat-I like some booze and potato chips sometimes too

Matt

If you have a smart phone, I recommend the "My Fitness Pal" app... I did this when I asked my Doctor about loosing weight.. he recommended MFP .... I love the app, it uses the phone to scan the bar codes of the foods you eat & registers the calories & nutritional data for your daily allowance... it also allows you to put in calories burned exercising.

This app helped me lose 100 lbs which I have kept off for 5 months now... I highly recommend it. Tracks salts, sugars, vitamins, cholesterol levels etc.

I don't know if the original poster is still reading, but here's my advice, part of which I heard somewhere:

1) Find ways of making exercise a fun part of your routine.
2) "Eat food. Not too much, mostly plants."

By getting exercise through things that you find exciting or interesting, it's more likely to be something you'll stick with. Exercise must be a permanent part of life to stay in shape. It doesn't have to be the same activities all the time; I seem to cycle my interests every few months, and the weight stays off.

I heard 2) from the radio, I think. "Food" means things mde from ingredients your grandma might have had in h Er kitchen.

Sorry; apparently, my iPad hates this forum software. Tried to edit a typo with no success. Also meant to finish with:

"Mostly plants" means meat should be thought of as an occasional thing, or a garnish.

Works for me so far. I dropped 15 lbs 10 years ago and haven't fluctuated since.

I have actually gone through a lot of weight loos regimens and though dieting is something a lot of people actually start with, it does not always promise great results for some reason.

There are times when you cut on too much food that it actually works against you when you suddenly binge on food that you are going to eat the next chance you get, which totally defeats the entire plan. So a good workout routine which would allow you to eat almost as normally would work better.

HBO made a great documentary about the obesity epidemic in America. I feel fairly health conscious but this show really opened my eyes to a lot of problems out there that I hadn't considered before.

Its free to stream or on HBO on demand. A few other channels are running it as well.

http://theweightofthenation.hbo.com/