Talk to Me about Losing Weight without Feeling Horrible

[revolting]

I've been trying to lose weight. I have no energy. I'm constantly hungry. I constantly ache. I hate it, and I know that long-term, I won't be able to keep the weight off if I'm constantly exhausted, hungry, and feel horrible. I am about 15lbs overweight, so it's not like I don't have some fat to burn! I've been restricting only to 1500 calories, and I definitely hear people restricting to much lower.

[philomom]

I'm doing 1500 calories and a thirty minute step routine daily. I was miserable for three weeks until my body adjusted. Now, three months down the road, I actually feel a little ill if I overeat. I've lost 18 pounds since January third.

[trekkingirl]

I've also lost 20 pounds since the beginning of the year. I read a book called LIFE WITHOUT BREAD. I found it at the library. If you look at page 9 of the weightloss challenge thread I outlined my diet there. I don't restrict at all and I'm never hungry. 

Edited by trekkingirl - 3/11/12 at 10:27pm

[goldingoddess]

You need to stay true to the smaller portions until your stomach organ shrinks back to a normal size and feels full after after eating a normal (diet) portion size.  

I lost 40 lbs in 4.5 months by never eating a portion bigger than my fist.  I went form obese to normal on the BMI scale.  The first three weeks were so hard, but then once my stomach shrunk back it was EASY to lose.  It is like getting a stomach staple, but instead of surgery you use smaller portions and time to get your stomach back to a normal size.

Eat lots of high fat and high protein foods when you do eat and don't focus on calories.  Cutting out grains can be a huge boost to weight loss.

[MichelleZB]

The thing they often don't tell you is if you are cutting back on food enough to lose weight, you will feel a little hungry sometimes. You don't want to be out of control starving or lightheaded, but if you're feeling kind of peckish, that's sort of... par for the course? You get used to it and then don't feel hungry anymore after a few weeks.

To offer a different perspective, I cut down on calories without cutting out grains. It can be done if you like grains. Choose whole grains: brown rice, oatmeal, whole wheat bread. Mmmm.

[MrsGregory]

You can do it!  I'm trying to lose weight while breastfeeding, and lucky me!  it's a huge struggle.  Oh, hooray, I'm genetically predisposed to see to it that both myself and my nurslings live through famine.  Awesome in 1012, less awesome in 2012, era of clingy knit pants. 

What I do, which works well for me, is I keep my exercise gentle and refreshing during the first few days or even weeks at each lower calorie count.  So, for example, as I lose weight I drop my calories, and after each drop I stop any weights, cardio, plyometrics and just focus on walking and yoga.  I find myself less likely <insert crazy behavior here> that way.

You can do it!

Focus on how wonderful you'll feel with the weight gone, how happy you'll be with yourself and your success, and how bangin' your butt will look in your favorite jeans! 

[trekkingirl]

I counted calories with my last nursling and lost 75lbs. It can be done! I kept it under 2000 calories. I followed the biggest losers plan. I think I found it on web MD.

[choochootwo]

I've lost about 80 pounds, but I've lost the last 35 implementing the Weston A. Price way of life and I feel great. I don't count calories or fat grams at all. Your body needs lots of fat in order to absorb vitamins. When we eat a low-fat diet, we feel like crap because we become vitamin deficient. One thing I do that makes all the difference is to take a sublingual B complex pill once a day and I take it with a fat-rich meal. It completely eliminated all my cravings for bread/sugar/bad things. 

For the most part, it's really about what you eat, not how much. Obviously, there are exceptions. But, my meals are full of meat. fruits, vegetables, and lots of healthy fat like grass-fed butter, cream, whole milk, avocado. Here's what I ate yesterday : 3 scrambled eggs with lots of GF butter, two apples, an avocado, oven sweet potato fries ( about 2 sweet potatoes ) tossed with butter and sea salt..dipped in buttermilk, a steak, 2 cups of kale sauteed in butter with onions, about 4 cups of raw whole milk, one cup of homemade strawberry kefir. The first few weeks, I did eat more...but I wasn't hungry in that edgy way like when on a low-fat diet. My was just absorbing these vitamins like crazy and so it craved more.

If you think about, our ancestors ate a diet rich in fat, vegetables, animal protein, and fruit. They weren't obese like our generation is.

I would encourage you to beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Nourishing Traditions, if you can. It'll explain it in better detail.