Board 8 > Help me lose weight guys. 41 yo and 325 pounds. Enough is enough.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't really know where to start. A long time ago, I was healthy and fit at 5'11" and 175 lbs., and I've always had a big rib frame. I played a lot of football when I was younger, and was in the military when I was in my 20's. A few years in, I became disabled and was medically discharged and currently have a 50% disability rating.

I suffer from a lowered immune system as I lost both my Colon and my Spleen, and over the years I have developed new issues. I am IgA and IgE defficient, hetero-zygous for Leiden factor V, and even apparently gluten-intolerant. Much of this has led to some depression, though not enough to warrant suicide watch, and I am happily married with two kids.

Over the past 2 decades, as I slowly gained more and more weight, I started getting lazier and lazier about my habits and started just getting into a routine of total ambivalence to my life.

Recently, my wife found out we are being transferred from SLC, UT to KC, MO for her job. We have been going through our stuff, and I decided it was time to go through my closet and get rid of clothes I no longer wear. As I was going through them, I realized that I actually liked most of the clothes, I just can't wear them because they just don't fit right anymore. For some reason, I decided to pull out our bathroom scale and weigh myself for the first time since I can remember, and I was a bit dismayed to see the number say 323.4 lbs.

I've already started making a few changes, I tossed out all of the sugary drinks in the house, which I know will be a good first step, but I don't really know where I should go with Diet and Exercise.

Due to some of my health issues, I know that I really shouldn't be consuming mass quantities of Vitamin K rich foods since I am already on blood thinners for my hetero-zygousity (I've had two blood clots in my life, one in my left calf and one in sinus veins surrounding my brain). I probably shouldn't eat a lot of grains with gluten since I am diagnosed to have Celiac's Disease, even if I haven't seen any effects of it (unless weight gain is an effect).

I was thinking a keto type diet might be a good start, high protein, high fat, low carb, but some things I have been reading suggest it's not a good diet for general weight loss. I don't have a lot of local friends, and will have even less when we move to KC, MO, so I'm worried any support system will be completely limited to my wife and she tends to be an enabler for me and I am always happy to let her enable me >_>.

You guys have any advice?
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I'm not a dietitian, but I know that when I dropped all drinks other than water, I lost like ten pounds in a month.
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see a nutritionist

get tested for diabetes

the trick is to make tiny changes. if you try to transform your lifestyle over night, it will last for a little bit, but you'll likely drop it all at once pretty soon. if you just start with something small (like sticking to water and snacking less often) it will increase your chances of succeeding with long term goals.

I read this book and it helped

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Step-Change-Your-Life-ebook/dp/B00GU2RHCG

With health issues like you are describing, you should certainly consult an expert.

The most general advice I can give is start a regular exercise program. Doesn't matter how intense, but make it regular.

If money is no object, consider a personal trainer.
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Anagram posted...

I'm not a dietitian, but I know that when I dropped all drinks other than water, I lost like ten pounds in a month.

by far the best first step right here. Stop drinking any soda/sugary drinks. Water, maybe the occasional glass of milk or something, but even that isnt ideal.
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BakusaiTenketsu posted...

I don't really know where to start. A long time ago, I was healthy and fit at 5'11" and 175 lbs., and I've always had a big rib frame. I played a lot of football when I was younger, and was in the military when I was in my 20's. A few years in, I became disabled and was medically discharged and currently have a 50% disability rating.

I suffer from a lowered immune system as I lost both my Colon and my Spleen, and over the years I have developed new issues. I am IgA and IgE defficient, hetero-zygous for Leiden factor V, and even apparently gluten-intolerant. Much of this has led to some depression, though not enough to warrant suicide watch, and I am happily married with two kids.

Over the past 2 decades, as I slowly gained more and more weight, I started getting lazier and lazier about my habits and started just getting into a routine of total ambivalence to my life.

Recently, my wife found out we are being transferred from SLC, UT to KC, MO for her job. We have been going through our stuff, and I decided it was time to go through my closet and get rid of clothes I no longer wear. As I was going through them, I realized that I actually liked most of the clothes, I just can't wear them because they just don't fit right anymore. For some reason, I decided to pull out our bathroom scale and weigh myself for the first time since I can remember, and I was a bit dismayed to see the number say 323.4 lbs.

I've already started making a few changes, I tossed out all of the sugary drinks in the house, which I know will be a good first step, but I don't really know where I should go with Diet and Exercise.

Due to some of my health issues, I know that I really shouldn't be consuming mass quantities of Vitamin K rich foods since I am already on blood thinners for my hetero-zygousity (I've had two blood clots in my life, one in my left calf and one in sinus veins surrounding my brain). I probably shouldn't eat a lot of grains with gluten since I am diagnosed to have Celiac's Disease, even if I haven't seen any effects of it (unless weight gain is an effect).

I was thinking a keto type diet might be a good start, high protein, high fat, low carb, but some things I have been reading suggest it's not a good diet for general weight loss. I don't have a lot of local friends, and will have even less when we move to KC, MO, so I'm worried any support system will be completely limited to my wife and she tends to be an enabler for me and I am always happy to let her enable me >_>.

You guys have any advice?

We cannot really help you intricately without knowing your typical eating/drinking habits.

Drinking just water is a good 1st step. Depending on how many "sugary drinks" you were drinking a day that could cut anywhere from a hundred to 2000 calories a day alone.

You will have a caffeine withdrawal if they are caffieneted drinks.
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Keto is life
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Definitely agreeing with the people who say to consult an expert. The health issues you are describing seem quite beyond "Board 8 advice," as well-intentioned as it may be.

But yeah, the one thing that seems to improve everyone's health with no downside is "more water, less every other drink."
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DDP Yoga got me to lose about 30 pounds. It works (and is pretty much made to be accessible to people in really *really* bad shape)
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- See an expert
- Try intermittent fasting (basically, after your last meal, don't snack. Give at least 12-14 hours before your next meal, but 16 hours is recommended)
- Drink only water (or a combination of water/tea/things that don't have tons of sugar or other bad things).
- Think about buying a couple of dumbbells or something and doing some light to moderate strength training. That helps.

These are just general tips IMO but they should help at least a bit
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Basic starting tips would be to start walking every single day and replace some of the drinks you usually consume with water.

Those 2 things will help immensely right out of the gate, but you have to keep it up.
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Specific diets like keto can help, and setting up exercise regiments can help. But ultimately the thing that drives weight loss is CICO: Calories In and Calories Out.

If the Calories In exceed the Calories Out, you gain weight.

If the Calories Out exceed Calories In, you lose weight.

If they are about even, then you stay even. It's just math.

If you are doing a diet that focuses on certain healthy food types, it can help if the portions are low enough that you would be eating less calories. But if you eat large portions, the Calories In will still be high. No diet helps you lose weight if you are still eating until long after you are satisfied, even if the food types are technically healthier and more nutritious. On the flipside, if you eat relatively unhealthy foods but tone down how much of it you are eating, it can still help you lose weight (though you might suffer from poor nutrition in other ways).

To help track the amount of Calories In every day, I highly recommend you use the app MyFitnessPal (or something like it) which helps you very easily track how much food you are eating. You can search most foods and they come up very quickly, or you can scan the barcode on something you've bought and it'll come up with how much calories it has. It becomes very apparent where extra calories are coming from. Even if you still choose to eat out for example, if you just cut out that large soda from the combo meal you'll instantly save like 150 calories for the day. When you are forced to look at how much everything adds up to, it makes it way easier to just say "yeah i actually don't need that".

The general rule of thumb I think to lose weight is to consume under 2000 calories a day. This can vary based on your goals but the normal metabolism just for your body to live is supposedly around 2000, which is why you shoot for under that number.

You can do exercises every day which helps increase the Calories Out by expending energy during a workout, but if you don't keep your diet relatively under control, you probably still won't beat Calories In. Exercise can help your body get more in shape in general but weightloss wise it mostly just helps and accelerates the gain you get from keeping your diet under control.

You are a super methodical guy so I think approaching any changes you make in terms of CICO will help you a lot. No matter what diet you choose to take, try to apply CICO to it to make sure your calorie deficit is actually benefiting from it.
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DeathChicken posted...

DDP Yoga got me to lose about 30 pounds. It works (and is pretty much made to be accessible to people in really *really* bad shape)

This. I've lost 40 pounds doing this.

In recent years I've stopped and gained a lot back, but I'm starting to get back into it.
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CoolCly posted...

No diet helps you lose weight if you are still eating until long after you are satisfied, even if the food types are technically healthier and more nutritious.

not necessarily true. Lots of foods can fill you up without having excess calories. Leafy vegetables are great for this. These foods have lots of water and fiber in them that help you feel full without overloading you.
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Eat less? Sometimes I do that.
I guess if you have other health concerns it might not be a good idea.

No matter what the advice: be patient.
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To lose weight, a lifestyle change is necessary. Fad diets are fads for a reason. They work for some people--and usually people who want to lose 30~ pounds. But for someone who wants to take off a lot of weight, the fad diet won't do a whole lot of good.

Avoid foods you're likely to binge eat. Like if you eat potato chips, and can sit and eat a whole bag--no more chips. Replace it with a healthier alternative. The foods you binge eat aren't really satisfying you. You like the taste, and always want more. They won't fill you up.

Weight Watchers worked for me.
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Always be aware of what you are putting in your mouth. Every snack, know how many calories and sugars and chemicals and what they do to you and how your body tries to break them down. And I mean every thing you eat. Good fruits, lean proteins, nuts, chips, etc. I got more to say but I have to post depressing music in another topic. But inform yourself about this stuff and stay hyper aware of it.
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Youre a good guy Baku
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Thanks for the support and advice guys.
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CoolCly posted...

I highly recommend you use the app MyFitnessPal

Seconded. I've lost 141.8 pounds in 591 days solely by using MyFitnessPal.
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ulti: not helpful

it takes a plan as well as the desire. the latter alone won't do what's needed

I guess the first step here is macros:
https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/from-here-to-macros-4-steps-to-better-nutrition.html

From there, start to really understand everything that goes into the food that you eat. What is it made of, what is the nutritional composition, how is it made, etc. If these is some snack chip that should just be "potatos and salt" but it has half a dozen chemicals, be assured that those chemicals are meant to increase your desire to not only eat the product, but to overeat it as well.

This isn't going to solve your problems. It's just an important tool and an important first step. You need to know what you are asking your body to deal with. And this will help inform you on your decisions at the dinner table and the grocery store.
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like several others in here I'll just pitch in to say that water only is amazing. I've been doing it for about 5 or 6 years now. I felt so much better when I stopped all other drinks and those improvements feel like they have never gone away. I can say that my diet is not terrible but not great either. I do exercise at times but I don't have any kind of regular drive to improve my fitness. despite those facts, the water only thing has been more than enough to stabilize my weight and keep me more healthy and just feeling better on a day to day basis than I ever did before I cut out all other drinks. for someone who is over 300 lbs I don't think switching to water is going to help you lose any weight, but I do think it will make you feel better, make the process a lot easier, and help you stabilize your weight gains as you try to adjust to your new goals.
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@BakusaiTenketsu, you're a good guy. I agree with neonreaper.

I also echo CoolCly's sentiments exactly, with the exception of the 2000 calories per day thing. The amount of calories you should consume per day depend on how many calories your body burns per day (everybody is different; a 5 ft 120 lb female burns less calories in a day than a 6 ft 240 lb male even if they both sit on a couch the entire day doing no physical activity).

But the cool thing about MyFitnessPal, is that after you input your weight, height and activity level, it'll give you a rough estimate of your daily calorie expenditure and tell you how many calories you should eat per day based on your weight loss goals.

The most important thing that MyFitnessPal does for you beyond helping you set a budget of what your food intake per day should be is that it shows you many calories you are consuming through the foods you're already eaten. You might be surprised to find out how many calories a normal meal for you right now actually contains.

BakusaiTenketsu posted...

I was thinking a keto type diet might be a good start, high protein, high fat, low carb, but some things I have been reading suggest it's not a good diet for general weight loss.

Can you direct me to what you've read on this topic? I've never personally done a ketogenic diet before, but all of the resources I've looked at (personal anecdotes, mainly, and some scientific articles when I wrote a paper back in college on the subject) suggest that it is a diet well-suited for weight loss. I was actually reading your post thinking that I would recommend the ketogenic diet to you based on your dietary restrictions from Celiac's disease. Does your body being in "ketosis" actually help you improve weight loss? Honestly, I'm not sure. But the fundamental reason, in my opinion, that this diet exemplifies CICO that CoolCly was talking about. When you're eating high-protein and high-fat foods, you'll actually feel full and satiated while consuming much less calories than if you were eating high-carb foods. Think about it this way: would you feel more full after eating a plate full of steak or bread? Bacon or cookies? Which of those two options do you think contains more calories?

PM me if you're interested in receiving my contact information. I'll send you my cell phone number (actually, there's a chance you already have it from our mafia days) and you can text me at any time if you have any questions or concerns. I'm not an expert on this subject, but I've been through what you're going through and have done a lot of research. I know a lot about the information that is out there, I know what worked for me, and I am happy to help you as much as I can. I'll even start using MyFitnessPal again in order to add you as a friend so that we can both log our meals together and see each other's progress over time in terms of goals met and days logged.

Good luck, Baku. You've made the first step toward your weight loss journey. I'm happy to help you if you're interested. A bunch of us here are. =)

P.S. I heavily recommend you strip down and take a "before" picture of yourself in a mirror. Not to share with anybody, but it'll be really cool for you to be able to see just how far you've come when you compare before and after pictures as you shed off the weight.
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Next is exercise. If you can build some muscle first, it will make your cardio way more effective. I'm not suggesting that you need to become a body builder or anything. But you need a little muscle. How you do this is up to you. You can get a gym membership. You can get weights for your house. You can get strength training bands. You can try to do free exercises. I can tell you what worked for me, I can tell you what might work for you... but really you need to understand that you need to build muscle.

Building muscle will help you feel better. You remember that feeling and when you regain it, you'll feel fucking awesome. You'll feel powerful, you'll feel healthier, you'll feel sexier. You will look better in your clothes. You'll burn fat in your sleep. And I repeat, it'll make your cardio way more effective. And your kids will think of you as being strong instead of being fat.

Cardio is important. Running or biking or recumbent biking. Or whatever works for you. Just make sure you add that in and preferably it's something you enjoy well enough.
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Yeah, next is exercise. But you don't need to rush into it if you aren't ready for that yet. Remember, CICO is the main factor in losing weight. The reason why exercise will be helpful for losing weight is that you'll be burning off some calories that you've eaten, so your "calories out" will increase. A majority of weight loss is going to happen based on the food that you eat because it's going to be much easier to decrease your "calories in" than it is going to be to increase your "calories out."

Neon is 100% right on all accounts; you're going to feel powerful, healthier, and definitely sexier. But I just want to reiterate that the first step here is going to be making some kind of change. Personally, for me, incremental changes over time worked much more effectively than trying to drastically change everything at once. Does that mean that it'll work best for you? Who knows! You say that you used to be an athlete and were in the military, so exercise definitely isn't totally foreign to you.

If right now all you're capable of doing is trying to manage your diet better and walking around the block a couple times a week, then that alone is enough to get this train moving. Eventually, you'll want to walk around the block more often, and then progress to jogging or biking.

I personally found that weight lifting was much easier for me at first than cardio. I couldn't really run to save my life, but as a bigger guy it was a bit easier for me to get into a weight lifting routine. We'd be happy to answer any questions on the topic if you're interested in learning more. I can even try to help you develop an easy beginner's routine as you get started.
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I guess aside from making sure you are armed with knowledge/understanding of diet and exercise, you'll want to think about time. If you're overweight and out of shape, it's gonna take a while to get back into shape. If you continue exercising and eating right, then you're a healthy person and it'll just take time to shed the pounds. Think about it like... if you starting doing this a year or two ago, you'd be doing really well. So think about next year - you will be glad you started exercising and eating right. You may hit a wall at some point - just keeping making good decisions.

Lastly... not everything works the same for everyone. It's important that you're able to understand things. If something isn't working for you, it's OK, keep making good decisions, try something new.
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Don't have that much time to read all this, but here are a few suggestions:
-Set realistic goals. Like right now, "I will be under 300 pounds by the end of summer." is perfectly realistic and attainable. Don't think "The end goal is to be under 200 pounds." Think in steps. "300 pounds by October 2018. 265 by the end of 2019. 230 by the end of 2020. Under 200 by the end of 2021." That sort of thing. If you focus on your end goal first, you'll never get there. As a Survivor blogger, I liken this to the people who think about the merge and the endgame when it's only Day 1. They don't even make the merge because they ignore their current situation. Focus on the NOW, go day by day, and when you get to the endgame, concern yourself about how you're going to win.
-Keep in mind this is a MENTAL thing. Portion control is huge. If you tell yourself you're full after three slices of pizza, then your brain will think you're full. And then 20 minutes later, you'll feel full. Continuing to reduce portion sizes will shrink your stomach so you will actually feel full after those three slices. Use strategies, like take three slices and package the rest in the fridge immediately.
-Don't deviate in your attitude. Even when you break for one day, leave it at that one day. Go right back to it the next day.
-Walk a LOT. Don't bother going for "a jog" if that's never been something that's stuck. Walking is more sustainable. The goal here is not to become a meathead. It's to be under 200 pounds for the rest of your life.
-Do crunches/sit-ups. I'm not talking excessive amounts. Shoot for like 300 a week (100 three days). Try them on a ball - it's much easier. The muscle there will help burn more fat. Just that small amount will be enough to build what you need. You don't need to overdo the crunches.
-When you move to Kansas City, try to be more outwardly social. Force yourself to go out to places that aren't going to have food. If you're at home all the time, you're more tempted by what you have in your kitchen. If you distract yourself, you'll find a support network that will help you, too.
-Cold brew coffee is a great way to get caffeine for a similar taste to cola but without calories or aspartame
-Salads are necessary. Try one with mixed greens, white meat chicken, bacon, and a little ranch dressing (don't do too much and try to go healthier - try Bolthouse, which doesn't have preservatives). You can change things out as necessary, but obviously remember my salad topic and don't overdo the unhealthy stuff. Stick to greens, tomatoes, pickled beets, white meat, bacon, etc. These will help fill you up but with providing nutrients.
-Eat small dinners. Go from 3 pm to 7 am the next morning with having only 500 calories at most, preferably less, at least 5 days a week. You don't need as much energy later in the day.
-Treat yourself on occasion. Don't rob yourself of everything you like forever. If going out to your favorite burger joint once a month feels like a treat, that's because it is. Just be careful not to overdo it. And don't be afraid to bring home leftovers.

Just be smart about it. Hopefully, you can get your weight down!
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KingBartz posted...

With health issues like you are describing, you should certainly consult an expert.

This absolutely. If you didn't have the health issues, the basic cut calories, drink water and go for walks would work. It will probably work now too, but you should definitely go to a doctor first to address your concerns and desire to lose weight then a nutritionist to help come up with a plan-- ideally a nutritionist who has spoken with your doctor and understands your health problems.

Cutting sugary drinks is a fantastic first step. The next would be cutting calories, however, due to your lack of a colon I do not know what a healthy daily intake of calories would be for you specifically. That said, more than any diet fad such as high protein or whatever, cutting calories is the only full proof method for losing weight. It's a pretty simple equation. I would just consult with an expert and figure out how to cut calories in a healthy manner for your particular health issues while still maintaining the vitamins/minerals you need.
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Investing in some good exercise equipment is also a good idea. Personally I like to play video games while I exercise. Often I won't even realize how long I've went. Gotta find the right game though.

And don't get discouraged if you hit a plateau. If you've lost some weight, and then don't gain that's still good. On the worst days, not gaining weight is a lot better than gaining extra pounds.

One little thing I want to add, not super sure if it's been covered.

When I changed my diet a few years ago I made an effort to identify the situations that caused me to overeat.

For example, taking a container of food(box of crackers, bag of chips, etc.) to the couch with me or to my desk at work. I found that I would always eat more than I intended to with an open container than if I portion my food before going to the place that I eat it.

Similarly, I changed to portioning my meals on a plate and then prohibiting myself from going back for additional servings.

Those happened to be 2 of the bad eating habits that I unconsciously did and were very easy to prevent. There may be ideas you can make to help yourself from accidentally overeating.

Also want to second the cheat meal thing. Always give yourself a treat every now and then.
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You guys are awesome.

I have tried using MyFitnessPal for 2 days now, and I think it will help for sure, although I find myself guessing a lot on the calories and portion sizes still.

What's the consensus on Diet or Zero soft drinks? Can they be pretty much just as bad as regular soda? Making the full switch to water is definitely a goal, but just curious if it's a water only thing, or if there are some exceptions that are worth enjoying.

MajinZidane posted...

Can you direct me to what you've read on this topic? I've never personally done a ketogenic diet before, but all of the resources I've looked at (personal anecdotes, mainly, and some scientific articles when I wrote a paper back in college on the subject) suggest that it is a diet well-suited for weight loss. I was actually reading your post thinking that I would recommend the ketogenic diet to you based on your dietary restrictions from Celiac's disease. Does your body being in "ketosis" actually help you improve weight loss? Honestly, I'm not sure. But the fundamental reason, in my opinion, that this diet exemplifies CICO that CoolCly was talking about. When you're eating high-protein and high-fat foods, you'll actually feel full and satiated while consuming much less calories than if you were eating high-carb foods. Think about it this way: would you feel more full after eating a plate full of steak or bread? Bacon or cookies? Which of those two options do you think contains more calories?

I read several articles, and most suggest that keto diets are great for slimming down, but I did remember reading one that said not to use keto as a long term dietary means.

Granted, I was pretty much all up in my head about what to do when I first made this topic, so naturally, I immediately googled dietary means, and I know it should be taken with a grain of salt since not everything on the internet found by google is necessarily going to be the right information.
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What's the consensus on Diet or Zero soft drinks? Can they be pretty much just as bad as regular soda? Making the full switch to water is definitely a goal, but just curious if it's a water only thing, or if there are some exceptions that are worth enjoying.

I'm glad you asked!

Diet soda isn't necessarily good for you. It has aspartame and other chemicals that aren't great for your body. There's also evidence to suggest that drinking diet soda will increase your craving for food and cause you to eat more throughout the day. However, if you drink just diet soda, you won't gain weight. I personally used diet soda as a crutch because I didn't want to give up all of my unhealthy habits immediately at once, and it let me still drink things that weren't just water while I made incremental changes. If you use MyFitnessPal and log your calories, the potential increased cravings won't impact you because you'll know how many calories you're consuming and adjust accordingly.

Nowadays, when I'm not drinking water I'll have things like Powerade Zero or the occasional zero calorie Monster drink when I want caffeine.
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A lot of people don't agree with me on that and will just tell you to cut out all regular and diet soda completely. They might be right, I dunno. I'm just telling you my personal preference and reasoning behind it.
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I have a Question about DDP Yoga.

Is it hella cheesy?

I tried to do a Yoga class once, and the instructor was just so lame that I couldn't keep myself motivated.

And I know that in itself is a lame reason to not stick with it, but when you're struggling it's just another reason to wallow in self-pity.
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Water is amazing. And I'm not talking about the taste or physical satisfaction you get from drinking it.

Have you ever thought about how freaking cool it is that (virtually) every single living organism on this planet, which happens to be the only planet we know to host any life at all, depends on water to survive? And the fact that it's here in enormous quantities?

I started drinking a lot more water and caring far less about other drinks at the point when I realized that if there's anything in the world that connects all people, regardless of religion, race, language, sex, etc., water is pretty high on that list. Like, to me, drinking water is really just fully embracing being a fucking human. And that's pretty cool.

Seeing it from that perspective makes water a more exciting choice than soda or energy drinks or lemonade or whatever.

If you can decouple eating and beverages, then maybe diet soda is OK for you. I'd probably lean towards "unhealthy" because god knows what all those chemicals do to people but at the same time, eh. I would be mindful of the food choices you might make because of associations with soda that you might not be aware of. I feel like I eat a ton of pretzels when I drink diet soda and I don't have a great explanation for it. "Fuck man I need some pretzels". Or I think about 'coke with a straw' and I gotta get some McDonalds. So, just be aware of what you're doing and what happens - maybe I am echoing Bartz.

I guess I think I see a lot of diets as being "a person who eats poorly is temporarily eating well". And the help I'd like to offer is to make sure you understand in full detail what type of eater you are and reconfigure that.
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I tend to disagree with focusing on cheat days. To me it feels like, you're a poor eater that needs to eat poorly as a reward for denying yourself. I could be off-base and different strokes for different folks, etc.

Now, if you eat well and every once in a while you have a treat, that won't be a problem because you eat well all the time. Your body will be well-configured for proper foods... and the piece of cake every few weeks won't be a big deal. I think a couple of decades ago when macros became a big deal, cheat day was supposed to be the one day per week that you don't need to worry about where your calories come from. And if you do a good job, you'll stop craving that stuff, or you'll have a very strong desire/need to consume very little of it.

anyway maybe I'm offbase about this. I agree that you won't need to cut out certain foods entirely but I think it's important to understand that you aren't trying to obey/deny cravings. but certainly not everyone is the same!
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tips...

1. Don't have snack foods in your pantry. Only keep healthy foods around. If you get munchies... having some melon or broccoli is way better than demolishing a bunch of potato chips.

2. Get used to the taste of things without salt, butter, etc. Food tastes pretty good without unhealthy embellishments. You might be used to things being a vessel for ranch dressing or salt, I know I was. A little salt on chicken can help but try to have unsalted nuts and salads without fatty dressings and broccoli plain or steam without butter, etc.

3. Try to avoid artificial foods and ingredients. God knows what that stuff does to you. Check out the packaging of your foods and look up things you don't understand and try to figure out how foods were processed.

4. When you go out to eat, cut your meal in half. Eat one half there and take the rest home. There are very few restaurant entrees that you need to eat anymore than half of.

5. If you eat something for the sake of taste, just enjoy a small amount. If you want ice cream, having a few bites will satisfy your taste buds roughly as much as eating a giant ass ice cream cone of it.

6. Realize what leads to unconscious eating. Like what Bartz was saying. If you bring a bag of chips over to the table, do you even think about how much you are eating? First few bites are good but then you kinda "get in the zone" with eating, right? If you instead had 5 chips and made sure to savor them, you'd probably enjoy them even more.

7. Drink water.

8. weigh yourself every morning first thing - at least weigh yourself at the same time every day. Don't worry over minor fluctuations.

9. Vegetable snacks - if processing vegetables is a lot of work, then start off buying pre-sliced fuits/veggies. It's obviously better to process it yourself but it's better to spend $5 on two servings of
sliced peppers than it is to buy a whole bag of potato chips for $3.

10. It's fairly true that you feel full about 20 minutes after you're actually full. I would think of food not so much as "small portions" or "smaller portions", but instead "correct portions".

11. If you have insurance I imagine you can get referred to a nutritionist. I could say "eat lots of spinach" but it sounds like that might be bad for you.

There's a lot to learn and what works for some people might not work for you. There's a lot to take in here and I still think your first step, whether you do what I say or do what boko says or whatever is to learn macros. You should know roughly what a good diet looks like and be able to quickly break down your food choices into that diet. After a quick look at macros you will never look at food the same way. You don't even need to follow macros or obsess about them, it'll just help you understand dietary needs and sources.
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I will say I cannot stress how important exercise is. One of the biggest things helping me drop over 20 lbs in the past few months is consistently working out. Biking, upper body, stomach, whatever. I'm really, really bad at sticking to diets but much, much more consistent at exercising and it's ensured I'm still steadily losing weight even when I fall of the wagon for like the umpteenth time. I'm basically doing a 1.5 hour exercise routine 6 days a week, not to mention I do a lot of walking during the day instead of driving to nearby places, and I'm continually adding new exercises to the workout.
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All these tips and no one can answer how in the literal world you are spose to keep sodium down and meet potassium and fiber minimums while on a diet. Tsk tsk
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Corrik posted...

All these tips and no one can answer how in the literal world you are spose to keep sodium down and meet potassium and fiber minimums while on a diet. Tsk tsk

I have no clue how to keep sodium down, sorry!
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MajinZidane posted...

Corrik posted...

All these tips and no one can answer how in the literal world you are spose to keep sodium down and meet potassium and fiber minimums while on a diet. Tsk tsk

I have no clue how to keep sodium down, sorry!

I have heard "no-salt and salt-lite are the answers" for actual salt... But it's that everything under the son prepackaged has sodium out the ass.
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Buy fresh, don't add salt
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KingButz posted...

Buy fresh, don't add salt

Not viable in real life unless you have a ton of money and time.
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Corrik posted...

KingButz posted...

Buy fresh, don't add salt

Not viable in real life unless you have a ton of money and time.

Uhhhh
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