Weight loss accountability/support 2024 edition

Tried eating with chopsticks?

This is a real difference maker!

I need to give this a try!

A portion of garden peas could last an hour.

I agree with this! I’m terrible at eating rubbish if we have it.
I’m trying to focus on eating more plants, veg, fruit for each meal- rather than cutting anything specific. A goal of at least 50% of the plate is plant based eg instead of 2 sandwiches with a tiny bit of salad in, have 1 sandwich and a salad, or take the ingredients and make an awesome salad.
I’m back to 92kg+ and I’d like to be 85kg so I can run faster, do even better in sprint tris and fold in the middle easier for tt riding!
6foot4 so not super fat but my diet can definitely improve

As a Korean, I have exceptionally quick chopstick skills, probably why I got fat.

Off to a flying start, wife ordered a takeaway for our dinner even before I left work!

I got those shirataki noodles again, someone here suggested them last year, they make a big ol plate of food and are literally 5 calories or so. Might not agree with everyones gastro system I hear but no issues here.

Weigh in day 1: 81.1kg
Weigh in day 2: 80.2kg

Ate about 1700 calories yesterday. Obviously the bulk of the above loss is dumping a bunch of retained weight, but that’s good as I’ve got a much clearer picture of the actual weight I need to lose now. Only need to lose 1.2kg to bring me back down into what I think is a healthy range for me, then I can focus on steadily chipping away at the rest.

Do recommend a daily weigh in, have found that it keeps focus and motivation better than a weekly weigh. YMMV obvs.

+1 for a daily weigh in, ideally with a rolling average to smooth out those big day-to-day fluctuations.
I like "libra" on android for logging and graphing

Realistically how hard is shifting 7 kg?

Scales don’t seem to be working (and that’s before I got on them!) have been pretty bad food/booze wise since October, but also training a lot, drank the last of the New Year’s Eve beer last night so new year, new me starts today, as with last year will be doing keto stuff, not drinking, green veg to get some vitamins in, I’d guesstimate I’m about 76kg, want to get back to 70kg by March and hold steady until Ironman in august…

Edit 81….target stays the same, going to tell myself some of it is muscle from more cycling/swimming…

It doesn't have to be super difficult. I'm aiming for similar, which is about 10% of my bodyweight. Aiming for a patient and sustainable approach of about 0.5kg a week, which means a deficit of 500kcal-ish a day. If you've got more capacity for misery I think you can safely go up to 1kg per week but obv that means a hefty deficit BUT sometimes that's easier to take when you know it's going to only last 7 weeks.
"it depends" I guess

Ok. It doesn’t sound horrendous, I just need to get some structure into my life then.

This was the rowing plan I used. Kept to 3 sessions a week and found the want to complete it helped give me a target during the tougher periods. Trying to figure out my training plan and goals for this year at present...

Personally I find the first 3 or 4 days are worst; once through that it feels like my body adapts a bit and i feel less hungry and miserable. Whether that's physical or mental or both, who knows.

It can be very easy, and take a long time, or it can be really horrible and take a few weeks.

The former is likely way more sustainable, as you are going to be eating pretty much the same amount of food post-diet, as you are during.

I'm aiming for 0.25 - 0.5kg a week to drop 10kg, by just eating more sensibly (no crisps, chocolate, biscuit binges), basic CICO, but without calorie counting.

Last year I dropped 10kg at 1 - 1.5kg a week, and it fell apart afterwards. The difficulty for me was not the hunger, but the mental effort needed to plan and manage a calorie restrictive diet, with very pedantic calorie counting, in such a way that I was eating "normal" food, and varying my diet a lot.

Horses for courses, though - what works for others may not suit you.

Mental fatigue from dieting can be pretty strong, and its easy to bounce back to old habits.
After a fast diet, working out what your 'maintenance' intake to hover around your desired weight is pretty important, because going back to your pre diet eating will likely get you back to pre diet weight.

If you're trying to battle an upwards trend of weight, you have to make a fair shift on what you're eating on the daily after losing the weight, as your pre diet habits were to eat to surplus.

If you're at a steady weight previously, then its a bit easier to maintain your weight after a diet, as you had self regulated to your previous weight, just need to self regulate to a slightly lower weight.

87kg yesterday, 5'11" 47 ... hoping to get down to 80kgs by spring.

I've been boozing out of boredom, so have joined a gym - rather than open a bottle of wine I'll head out, even if I don't do a huge workout, something is better than nothing I hope.

I tend restrict my eating to an 8 hour window, roughly midday - 8pm, I'll be stricter on this and with a few more workouts (and 3 bike commutes a week) I'm hoping for 0.5-1kg off a week.

When I last successfully shifted a load of weight, I what worked for me was a combination of increasing and varying my exercise, avoiding sugars, and adding lots of green veg or salad to every meal to make me feel sated at low calorie cost. It worked pretty well, the problem was that when I buggered up my knee my appetite stayed the same and I ballooned through two years of rehab and never shifted it again.

Nearly there with a four day fast.... Lots of ups and downs. Day one was horrendous but more because of the hangover than the fasting I think, day two was ok, not too unpleasant, felt a bit weak doing weights to start with but improved as I persevered. Day three was quite hard work in terms of hunger pains but did a pretty hard interval session on the treadmill without issues. Day four (Today) felt awful when I woke up having not slept well and weak as a kitten but a gentle interval session this morning has perked me up for now! Daily weigh in as below:

01/04 86.4kg
02/04 84.3kg
03/04 82.6kg
04/04 82.1kg

So I guess there was about 4kg of water and digestive weight lost rapidly and now just ticking along with fat burning? Presumably will gain around 2 kg tomorrow when I start eating again!

*Disclaimer I am aware fasting beyond 72 hours isn't advisable without medical supervision but I'm irresponsible and will take it easy tomorrow when reintroducing food! YMMV!

Doing a 4 day fast seems daft enough... But adding in a hard interval session too?! Just seems like a recipe for muscle damage, slow recovery and maybe illness and injury.

I think the negatives of short term fasting are over exaggerated, and 24 hours more than the typical 48-72 hours isn't going to drop you off a cliff. The 4th fasting day isn't going to suddenly atrophy 1kg off your biceps.

Slow muscle recovery maybe, and hunger pains, but literature suggests reduced inflammation, blood sugar control, and improved immune system.

Most people have plenty of fat reserves to go without food for weeks and weeks, but definitely not ideal for being functional or preserving muscle mass.

A hard interval sessions sounds brutal on a fast though.

Bottom line is, not eating is the quickest way to lose weight. Any food eaten will slow you down compared to not eating. Losing weight while not turning into a broken shell resembling a human being is a different formula.

Hard relative to being in a fasted state is probably a better way to put it, hardly the rolling on the floor dying kind, 5x8 min intervals increasing by 2% incline but decreasing speed each time.

I was sucked in by the Limitless doc on Nat Geographic which cites the benefits @Acliff listed!

I genuinely think I might murder someone if I went four days without food