Topic: Weight loss tips and tricks--- From the Obvious to the surprising

[341gerbig]

Just looking for any tricks you guys/gals found while losing weight, little tips and tricks that may not seem like they would make a big difference, but did.

A couple of mine:
-keep big, thick raw carrots in the fridge, if you get a hunger pangs, it will take you half an hour to nibble through 30-50 cals worth of carrot.
-If you get a craving, drink 2 big glasses of water and wait 5 mins, it usually goes away
-Exercise seems to curb hunger somewhat, get cravings? Go for a job (may be just me admittedly)

[Audiophile]

Way back I listened to an episode of a podcast called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe... 
The people there had some guest on that talked about how he and a friend had lost a lot of weight bu figuring out how much food and exercise they needed at their target weight. No "cure", nothing artificial introduced.... Just eating what is needed at the target weight.

I thought that idea made a lot of sense, so I did just that. I've lost 20 pounds in a year. The main thing for me is to take smaller portios than I "want". I'm a really fast eater so I'm usually still hungry when the food is gone. But before I allow myself to tke more food I wait twenty minutes. If I'm still hungry then I take more, but usually I am not. So there!

[341gerbig]

Yea, Ive lost 112 lbs over the last 15 months doing that exact thing, eating as the person I want to be someday.

Ive still got 77 pounds left to go, but i could always use more tips, ya know?

[Audiophile]

Yea, Ive lost 112 lbs over the last 15 months doing that exact thing, eating as the person I want to be someday.

Ive still got 77 pounds left to go, but i could always use more tips, ya know?

I'd say that with that kind of results you do not need anything else. Those are great results! But yeah, I understand you want to speed it up. There is a risk in that, I think. Much of the idea of what you are doing is to get in the right eating haits. So that when the target weight is reached there is no difference in what you eat, and how much.

Again, great work so far.

[Plastique]

Just looking for any tricks you guys/gals found while losing weight, little tips and tricks that may not seem like they would make a big difference, but did.

A couple of mine:
-keep big, thick raw carrots in the fridge, if you get a hunger pangs, it will take you half an hour to nibble through 30-50 cals worth of carrot.
-If you get a craving, drink 2 big glasses of water and wait 5 mins, it usually goes away
-Exercise seems to curb hunger somewhat, get cravings? Go for a job (may be just me admittedly)

Like you, when I'm dieting, I drink to curb hunger. But I normally rip through a million liters of diet soda instead of water, though.

Some more:

• Eat foods of low caloric density (like veges and lean protein) to help feel full.
• Take in plenty of protein. A high protein intake reduces hunger whereas carbs tend to have the opposite effect.
• Make sure meals have a combination of protein, carbs, and fats. If I remember correctly, combining all the macronutrients makes for longer digestion than eating primarily one by itself, which in turn helps satiety.
• Despite all the crap saying you need to eat very frequently to "keep the metabolism stoked", aside from being scientifically dubious, I find that eating more infrequently is easier with regard to hunger. When I ate every two hours, I was ravenous all the time.
• Nicotine is reputed to blunt hunger. I would chew the gum. However, I'm less keep after reading it could be implicated in cancer of the mouth/throat.
• Chew sugar-free gum for something sweet to keep the mouth busy.
• Try to get enough good sleep. Severely paraphrasing here, but I recently read some research saying fat loss is more difficult when you're tired because of heightened cravings, slower metabolism, and weaker resolve. Certainly matches my experience, anyway.
• Avoid drugs that have a direct significant impact on fat loss. When you stop taking them (which, when talking about a drug strong enough to have a robust effect on fat loss, is inevitable due to side effects or resistance), the likelihood is that your body will rebound. There just doesn't seem to be a shortcut to lasting fat loss.

That's all that comes to mind right now.

[Karyn]

Walk everywhere.  Moving to a city where everyone walks has done me a lot of good.  Living a mile away from work also helps.  It encourages me to walk or jog to and from work daily.  We also walk about a mile to get groceries.  I think 3 miles away is the limit on our destination distance, and that's more a time thing.  I also make sure I'm the one that runs all the errands in the office, and if I want to talk to someone, I'll get up instead of dialing their extension.  I've noticed the overweight people don't tend to do this.  Now if I could quit taking naps at lunch and go out for a walk instead, I'd be super happy.  Unfortunately my body has decided it wants naps.

[DonA1979]

My one trick that hasn't been mentioned yet is to have a small cup of coffee before my cardio workouts.  Takes advantage of the caffeine being a vasodiolator and getting the HR up a bit.  Doing this, however, you have to remember to stay well hydrated since coffee is also a diuretic. 

[Plastique]

Doing this, however, you have to remember to stay well hydrated since coffee is also a diuretic.

If you're habituated, it's not really a concern.

By the way, why do you think it's advantageous to have a slightly higher heart rate from caffeine?

[Cognoscento]

When you boil it down, all I did was eat less and exercise more (a lot more LOL).

 That being said, when I started my weight loss quest, my biggest problem wasn't will power, it was unconcious impulse.  I would conveniently forget that I was restricting my diet and just eat out of habit.  To combat this I did two things:

1. I wrote a contract out specifically stating the "rules" and signed it. I taped it to the fridge. Believe it or not this really helped because there were clearly defined limits with no grey areas.  Also, everytime I would restlessly head over to the fridge to grab a snack, the contract would be right there to snap me out of it.

2. My mantra for this quest was HTFU (acronym for Harden The F*#K Up).  I attached that acronym to the mental image of myself being lean and muscular - an image of myself running unashamed along the beach with my shirt off.  I wrote HTFU on my forearm with indellible marker so that every time I was feeling "weak" and wanted to grab a chocolate bar or skip a workout, I would glance at my forearm and instantly, my resolve would return.   

Needless to say, it worked.

[Squarebanks]

Buy a device that tracks steps and movement like a simple pedometer, or something more sophisticated like the Bodymedia Fit. Having a device that tracks movement pushes you to move around and exercise more. I treat my daily calorie burn like a game and try to beat my "high score."

I love my device which tracks intensity of movement with an accelerometer and gives me an estimated calorie burn. I've tracked my diet estimated calorie burn, and weight over several months and I found that the burn estimate from the device is spot-on. Devices like the Bodymedia Fit are perfect for the OCD nerd/scientist/engineer. The body is just an energy balance system after all.

[DonA1979]

Doing this, however, you have to remember to stay well hydrated since coffee is also a diuretic.

If you're habituated, it's not really a concern.

By the way, why do you think it's advantageous to have a slightly higher heart rate from caffeine?

I'm sure theres no real advantage to it. For myself, I find that it helps shorten my warmup period.

[quirk3k]

I would like to throw out some standard advice and some novel tips that worked for me.

The standard

• Track: Know how much you are eating; know how much you exercise. Measure when possible and estimate only when necessary.
• Support: Get help from people around you. Get to know people at the gym. Form a social network with a culture of weight loss.

The novel (which worked for me)

• Reward Yourself Frequently: Every day I have small chocolate squares or ice cream. It's a constant stream of small rewards.
• Vary Your Food Intake Greatly: Some days I pig out; other days I have small meals. Remember to track everything and fit it into a weekly budget.

In the past, when I've tried to lose weight, I would only eat "healthy foods." I would go on for months like this, but would feel deprived, go off the diet, and gain a bunch more weight. Now I fight to avoid feeling deprived. I eat little bits of chocolate, small cupcakes, small scoops of ice cream. I have all the foods I love in teeny tiny doses. I eat them in small bites and take my time to enjoy them. A salted dark chocolate caramel is amazing as it melts over your tongue. A single piece can last me 10 minutes.

In the past, I would track my food and eat the same number of calories every day. I would lose weight for a few weeks, but then my body got used to the new level of food and weight loss would slow to a crawl. I got my best weight loss results by varying my daily intake and making it work out to a weekly average.

I hope this helps. Losing weight is hard.

[RyanSchwieger]

Ok. I know this sounds really weird, but eat from smaller plates/smaller bowls/smaller glasses(especially if drinking juice or soda and not just water. Doing this helped me to confront how much I was eating, and I ended up being more aware of what a serving is.

Cut fast food and really needless or over abundant snacks. Replace Soda with water.

[LumpyFish]

Cut out sugar as much as you can. That packs so many calories.

[lonely moa]

Eat the foods that leave you satisfied so you are never hungry.