First let me apologize for the wall of text :)
Let me start off with my story. I'm a 31 male (6'1"), currently at 220 lbs from 265. I struggled with my weight from an early age, around 15. Most of highschool I was the chubby kid, well liked by most people but didn't have much luck with girls. I joined the football team in my senior year and lost a ton of weight, and was the most fit I had ever been in my life. Things were finally looking better for me.
I went off to university and the freshman 15 turned into the freshman 50. I ballooned up to 250 lbs over the course of 4 years of terrible eating and exercise habits. I did not focus on calories at all, ate whatever I pleased, got stoned all the time, binged out, smoked cigarettes, partied, and never exercised. I felt like shit.
I tried keto 1 year after university. It worked great for me for around 8-10 months. I dropped weight like mad, and I was hooked. But I missed eating carbs, and I felt like my life was way more restricted and couldn't have fun out with my friends drinking beer and always concerned if things had carbs. I missed pizza, fast food, all the good stuff. I ended up starting to include cheat days twice a month. My relationship with food deteriorated. During my cheat days, I would think "well I can't eat this while in ketosis, so I better eat all of my cravings now." I binged, hard. Fried chicken, fast food, pizza, beer, soda. Everything I was daydreaming about while on keto. I was hovering around 225 lbs during this time, spiking up to 230 lbs after binging.
During the holidays after I started keto, I fell off hard. I went out partying with all my friends that were home, I enjoyed all the good food. And now I had a binging problem. I gained around 10 pounds over that holiday and after new years I knew I should get back on track. I started counting calories and tried to eat healthy. Then the weekend would hit and I'd go sneak in a large pizza. The next day I felt like trash so I ate like trash again. Sometimes I wouldn't get back on track until Tuesday or Wednesday.
Since then, I've been up and down between 230 lbs and 265 lbs for about 5 years. Nothing seemed to work and everything I did seemed to let me take 1 step forward and 2 steps back. It was exhausting. During this time I've toyed with a many different strategies to lose weight but none of them would stick. After much trial and error, I've FINALLY found a multi-faceted strategy that works for me. Over the past year and a half I've dropped from 260 lbs to 220 lbs. And I finally feel like it's working and it's so liberating.
I'm hoping this list will help anyone out there struggling like I was. Your mileage may vary, but this is what works for me.
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Keep a food diary. For me, just the act of writing down what I eat at the end of each day is tremendously helpful. It helps you stay accountable to yourself. I don’t even write down the calorie amounts. My brain knows if it’s happy with what I ate that day (if things were nutritious and by ballparking calories, see #7).
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Create a calendar to mark days off as you go as a way to track how you’re doing. If you’re happy with how you ate, put a slash “/”. If you exercised that day, put a backslash “\” (together they make an X. I use a circle if I had a bad day and didn’t exercise and I wasn’t happy with what I ate. This is similar to the food diary in that it helps you stay accountable. It’s nice being able to visualize your progress, especially if you have a bad day since you can look at the bigger picture.
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SAY NO TO THE FIRST CRAVING/BINGE. This one is huge for me. After going out with friends the night before, or indulging in a bit more carbs/bad food than I should have the day before, my brain ALWAYS craves more the next day. It’s like clockwork. My entire being wants to binge on more simple carbs until I’m stuffed and in pain. Saying no to this is super important to get back on track. My theory is that you need to literally rewire your brain every time this happens to tell it, “No you’re not getting any more of that.” Then it chills out. The next day you may have a small craving, but it’s way more dull and much easier to deal with. By associating situations with the word “no” to yourself, your brain is now EXPECTING that answer the next time you’re in that situation so it leaves you alone. The more situations associated with no, the easier it is. Soon as you say yes to one situation, it’s a slippery slope.
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Use intermittent fasting. This is like a cheat code for CICO. Just eat within a 16 hour window. I find the easiest for me is to just eat a small 500 calorie lunch, then eat a 1000-1500 calorie supper. I really enjoy the large supper (can you tell I’m a recovering binge eater? ), and it makes it simple. My lunches are generally boring, like a whole wheat sandwich with turkey, cheese, mayo, spinach and mustard. That’s it. Supper is where I can get more variety. Which leads me to:
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Meal prep! This is honestly a life saver. Every week on Sunday I make meals for 5 days. I’m lucky that I don’t mind eating the same meal for a few days. If I get bored of it, I’ll pop the last 1-2 meals in the freezer and just prep something else. The weekend I usually cook meals as I go since I have more time. It’s also important to have easy meals in the freezer or fridge that you can grab in case you’re feeling lazy. If you’re lazy and you have nothing easy to cook, that’s a huge risk to just ordering takeout for me.
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Focus on protein, fiber, vegetables, and healthy fats primarily. Eat whole grains for fuel and to act as vessels to deliver the former. I make sure that I fill my meal with nutrients and especially fiber if I plan to eat carbs. I try not to demonize carbs, but sometimes it is hard (stuck from my past with keto). Some simple carbs are OK if you make sure to load up on protein, veggies, and fiber. A typical meal would be like BBQ’d half chicken, brown rice, and steam broccoli. Or steak and mashed potatoes, roasted veggies. You get the idea: any whole protein, any type of veg, and some type of starch. Pretty simple.
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Ballparking calories. We all know CICO is the final determination on whether or not you lose weight. This gets easier over time, but you need to start looking up the calories for the food you eat. After a while, you kind of get the idea of how many calories are in what and can ballpark it. I usually round up when estimating, since it gives me more peace of mind to think that if I’m wrong I’m still well within my goal of 1500-2000 calories.
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Learn your triggers. For me, it’s when I’m tired, hungover, or after I’ve had a cheat meal. This all comes back to #3 (say no to the first craving). This may take some introspection, but try to identify trends from an outside perspective. Is it due to stress? Boredom? Try to address these.
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Don’t tell anyone about the specifics of your success (I’m breaking my own rule here). Recent studies have shown that soon as you announce how well you’re doing, your brain thinks it’s OK to slip for a bit since your perceived social image is that of someone of success. Who cares if you gain 5 pounds after the party since everyone there heard about all your success, and that is their perception/reality now. Try to stay off social media about your journey. Keep this a personal thing close to you.
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Virtual reality. I realize this may not be feasible for all, but it has helped me tremendously. I have an Oculus Rift that I used almost daily. The game I play is called Beat Saber. You can download songs which have blocks that fly in at you (think similar to guitar hero). You need to slice the blocks as they come in with two light sabers. The game gets super intense if you actually put effort into it. I forget who, but they recently measured that it burns as many calories as tennis. There’s many other active games in VR, but Beat Saber has been awesome for me. I’m the type of person that hates doing cardio normally, and I look forward to my Beat Saber sessions every day. It’s so fun!
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