[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Practically everything I eat comes out of a package these days. I'd prefer it wasn't like that, but it was the easiest way to measure calories when I was losing weight. You don't lose half your body weight by not making extreme sacrifices, despite what charlatans might tell you in an effort to sell you something.

After I hit my lowest weight I decided to ease up on the extreme calorie counting and shift my efforts towards eating simple home cooked meals since they'd be less expensive and, if you believe the common wisdom, healthier. Consequently, I put on about 30 pounds. This was mostly eating tofu, eggs, potatoes, fruit, mushrooms, various vegetables, cheese, and homemade bread (usually whole grain).

So I went back to what worked. One other thing eating packaged foods did was give me a bunch of time back. I'm still about 10 pounds up from that experiment.

[JoshMnem]

I wasn't able to lose weight and keep it off until I permanently eliminated certain categories of food: added sugars, refined grains, all flours, potatoes, dairy, eggs, most oils, and most meat. The only grain-like things I eat are rice (mostly brown rice), amaranth seeds, and buckwheat groats. My staples are things like steamed Brassica oleracea vegetables and legume soup, which are easy to prepare in bulk in advance. The only oil I use during food preparation is a couple of tablespoons of uncooked olive oil per day. I get most other fats from avocados, nuts, seeds, and fish. I cook almost everything from scratch. I also do some calorie restriction and water fasting (3-5 days at a time).

I lost about 70 pounds and now am easily maintaining a normal BMI.

[JacobJans]

I don't know what you've tried, in terms of home preparation of food. One strategy is to switch to two meals a day, plus one snack. Another is to focus on high-volume, low calorie density foods, such as vegetables and beans, while limiting high-calorie dense foods such as bread, cheese, and meat. This allows you to feel full from fewer calories. Another way to think about this is to dramatically increase your fiber intake (and not just from hard fruits, but from a variety of sources). For example, if you were to make a pasta dish, use half the regular amount of pasta, and greatly increase the amount of veggies in it, so the pasta is just a small component of the dish.

[philbarr]

I watched this the other day which was more informative than I'd imagined [0].

Main take away for me was to eat fibre rich foods - so instead of potatoes eat squash and celariac, instead of rice eat bulgar wheat, and so on.

[0] The Truth About Carbs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5y6c0

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I've been fighting my body for the better part of a decade now, trust me when I say that I've probably tried every piece of advice ever parrotted on the internet. For instance the high-volume low-calorie high-fiber plan ultimately just made me extremely bloated and often constipated.

[JacobJans]

The bloating is caused by the production of gas by the bacteria in your gut. If you add a lot of fiber at once, the bacteria will overpopulate, and produce too much gas, causing bloating/distension. One way to avoid this is to gradually increase the amount of fiber, so your microbiome will adjust slowly, allowing you to avoid the excess gas/bloating. Not sure what to say about the constipation, though it could be a similar issue.

These things are not simple, are they?

One strategy is to focus on the healthy veggies that your genetic ancestors likely ate; your body is more likely to be adapted to those foods.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I didn't ask for your advice and I'm not a moron so I know how to use google just as well as you do.

This is the shit I'm talking about. If you have difficult losing and maintaining weight people crawl out of the woodwork to parrot bullshit advice they got from some clickbait article as though knowledge isn't the easiest part of the process. People don't have difficulty with their weight because they lack knowledge, people have difficulty with their weight because suffering sucks and the human body doesn't like having to eat itself.

[woodandsteel]

The high-volume low fat high-fiber plan works for most people. Apparently there is something different about your body.

[com2kid]

> Consequently, I put on about 30 pounds.

Kitchen scale and MyFitnessPal.

Also don't have food around that doesn't require prep! It is super easy to snack on fruit and bread. If everything in your fridge is raw meat or veggies that require cooking, there is no way to over eat.

Also I try to avoid prepping too much food in advance, since if the food is good I am tempted to eat it all without waiting! So I cook each meal individually, which takes a lot more time, but it works for weight loss.

Either that or I do a weeks meal prep and commit to not buying any more food, that way if I am stupid and eat more food per meal than I should, one of my future meals is going to come up short. It is amazing how quickly self control develops under those situations. :)

In comparison, packaged food requires at least a bit of conscious prep work, so people are aware of the time they spent and of the calorie consumption, thus I can see why that route can be easier.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> Kitchen scale and MyFitnessPal.

Yes, somehow I managed to lose half my body weight and keep it off despite a setback from a failed experiment without every knowing how to count calories or properly measure things in a kitchen.

What is it with talking about health and nutrition on the internet that makes everyone come out and offer their unsolicited advice that assumes the person they're speaking with is an idiot?

[com2kid]

> Yes, somehow I managed to lose half my body weight and keep it off despite a setback from a failed experiment without every knowing how to count calories or properly measure things in a kitchen.

You mentioned that you had problems with home cooking, and found portion control easier with pre-packaged food. I proposed that measuring out home cooked food gives the same effect as prepackaged food.

I fail to see how that is accusing anyone of being an idiot.

[donovanh]

When people reply they aren’t just talking to you but lots of other people also reading this thread. The information may be useful to some.

[Djvacto]

I think a decent trick is learning to approximate calories/meal sizes for your body. I usually know when I'm eating 1 portion vs 1.5 portions of my home-cooked stuff, just by virtue of having cooked and paid attention to serving sizes long enough.

Another useful tool is a food scale. Everyone has measuring cups and stuff, but having a food scale can make stuff like measuring a serving of mixed nuts for my breakfast way easier.

However, packaged foods vs. from scratch is an element of time and convenience as well. I just make food when I have the time/feel like it (I enjoy cooking as a hobby, but am not always up for it) and use 'easy' meals when I need to: throwing together some pasta and a pre-made sauce jar I keep in the pantry, plus some frozen TJ's meatballs or something.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I'm well aware of the concept of estimation, and I own a food scale. Even when you make things yourself you know that an egg is ~70 calories, 100g of flour is ~400 calories, etc. It isn't exactly rocket science.

Knowing how much of what to eat isn't the problem. It has never been the problem. The problem is actually sticking to that diet when your body is screaming at you to eat more, when the part of your mind that evolved to keep you from starving --which is what losing weight is, since your body literally has to eat itself-- starts playing tricks on you and conveniently forgetting that you ate earlier, and when your metabolism, which has been unavoidably and permanently damaged by the mere act of losing weight at all, requires that you eat substantially less than the daily average.

I'm really sick of people assuming I'm a moron because losing weight is difficult. Do you know what it is like to only eat one meal a day? To have to avoid all social functions at which free food might be present? To ensure that there is only ever enough food in your house for exactly one week of your caloric allotment of 1600/day?

Trust me, whatever parroted advice you're thinking of offering next, I've heard about it and tried it.

[GLjEI4YbnGD27LB]

Well, this would then probably not work for you, but it worked for me. What helped me to lose weight was to still cook my own food from bought ingredients, and measure everything that I was eating for weight and calories. But mostly what I did was switch the type of food that I was making, and the ingredients I was using to things that were far less calorie dense, that worked for me. It does still suck to go to social events with plenty of food, because then I will totally eat it.

[JCharante]

The solution to overeating at social events is to go vegan. Then you'll only snack on some cantaloupe.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Corn chips and salsa, pita chips and hummus, popcorn if it doesn't have butter, and since I live in a relatively liberal town vegan sweets are not even that rare at social gatherings.

[runamok]

I get everything you said but the eternally damaged metabolism. Don't have the source handy on mobile but from what I have read the difference between a so-called fast and slow metabolism is < 10%.

Food is absolutely addictive and we have so much available. Combine that with a car based and sedentary lifestyle and it's a huge problem. The only thing that has worked for me is being a lifelong runner and cyclist. Burn an extra 500 to 800 calories a day and most weight loss goals are much more attainable. I am trying to help my mom lose weight and when you are very overweight adding huge amounts of activity is very hard.

She seemingly also has a 'slow' metabolism but in reality she moves as little as possible. Whereas I am always wandering around doing things at top speed. Activity begets activity because it begins to hurt less to move.

Anyways, best of luck in your efforts.

[krageon]

Your sources about metabolism are wrong. I know because I've done base metabolic rate tests in uni (with one of those hoods) and have seen (repeatedly) that some people breathe out ~4k kcal per day and others only ~1.6k. This is at rest and at different times in the day.

[krageon]

Yes, I know what that is like. While I agree that is is occasionally excruciatingly hard to not eat when there is plenty of food available, it's not impossible for me. It has nothing to do with whether or not you're a moron - loads of people will be perfectly able to just not eat unless it's within a certain timeframe, as you've no doubt repeatedly read.