Diet and exercise. Cut down sugar and carbs. Focus on meat and veggies. Using an app help track calories helps a lot. Also it helps having someone else that is in the same frame of mind with trying to lose weight so you encourage each other.
Top shelf Meth! Ya gotta make sure your dealer is gettin ya the good stuff, an not the stuff that has been “stomped” on, had an ingredient replaced with something like MSM, type of ingredient that most diet pills use to get people’s metabolism “going” to burn off fat and you will feel energetic and refreshed, but in long run ya still feel tired as a hole. But your heart an mind will be going a billion miles an hour!
I actually being losing weight due to naturally shrinking my stomach.
See alot of people think it is what you eat I'd the problem but alot of the times it is how much you eat.
Like I actually eat pretty healthy. I eat fresh fruit and granola or eggs cooked with no oil and toast or a homemade breakfast burrito for breakfast. I usually don't eat lunch but if I do I make leftovers or something small like a grilled cheese. For dinner it is usually hearty foods with alot of veggies and cooked using healthy options.
But here is the thing junk food was my crutch. I used to be one those people who could eat a whole pizza by myself and bread sticks.
When I decided to shrink my stomach I started small not eating till I was stuffed but eating to where I wasn't hungry anymore. That was like instead a whole pizza eat 2/3rds. Than I got used to it where I could only eat that. So I went smaller to half and so on till I am now 1 slice of pizza and I am stuffed.
You count the fat and fiber content in whatever you eat. It's a point system; Weight Watchers. Many don't want to put the work into it because you do have to weight your food and chart everything. If you're good with that, then you'll lose the weight.
Consistency in exercise. It doesn’t have to be extreme, it just has to be consistent. Set a moderate target and hit it everyday. Cut out the bullshit from your diet, especially fluids with sugars. Water, coffee, tea are all fine if they’ve got nothing in them.
I do modified Adkins, meaning I only eat 20 carbs a day. No fillers like pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, corn. If you think about it they are just bulk to fill your stomach. Eat like humans did 100s of years ago. My wife and I only eat meat, cheeses and vegetables. High fat foods. Your body enters ketosis, meaning it stops being fueled from glucose and lives off your own fat. I've lost 30 pounds ... eating bacon, steak, chicken. Greens are good like veggies and salads. It's not the easiest switch to no carbs but damn if I don't feel great! Living off bacon and cheese :)
I am currently working on diet and exercise. You really have to change your diet by cutting out junk food and making your own food. If you say "it's not that bad", it really is that bad. Also drink enough water in a day. Currently drink a minimum of 3 liters of water a day. You also need exercise to keep your metabolism up. A good mix of cardio and weights is really good. It really comes down to calories in vs. calories out but don't go below consuming 1200 calories a day or your body will likely go into starvation mode and make it more difficult to lose weight.
I've tried some different things but it always left me feeling deprived or overwhelmed, and I eventually tapered off my efforts. I just started using Noom, and it is actually really helpful. You can still eat anything you want, no food is forbidden like in many other plans. You just have calorie limits and the program slowly teaches you categories of food, ways to feel more full, increases your activity, Etc. It seems more sustainable, like I'm going to be successful. The cost was good too.
There are some good- and very bad suggestions here. Lol. What works for one person doesn’t work for all. Losing weight and not just gaining it back tends to be a lifestyle change, but it starts by changing habits and you can go as big or as small as you want. For most people two huge road blocks are a feeling of deprivation, and not knowing where to start. At its core- weight loss is simple. Burn more calories than you eat. Do this almost every day. In practice it’s more complex. To not knowing where to start- having a plan is best. It’s harder to “be good” and easier to “cheat” or be caught in a situation where you have little choice if you “wing it.” But if you aren’t ready for a plan- you can still have success.
Remember this is a process. If you want to lose weight and KEEP weight off- you need a plan you can follow. A way to LIVE not diet. That’s very important. It does you no good to lose a lot and gain it all back the second you stop your “kiwi cleanse” or when you stop your “miracle abs work out.” Now a scale is a good tool for dialing in your diet and activity level- but do not live by the scale- especially for women. Men and women fluctuate pounds of body weight and women more so based on water retention etc. live by the way you feel and the mirror, use the scale to fine tune what you see. If you like what you see and feel good and have good health- fuck the scale.
So-as a process do not try to rush it. Yes. You want to be magazine ready now or in 6 months or whatever. Unless you’re already 90% there and just need to lose a couple pounds (if that was the case you probably wouldn’t ask this...) it won’t happen. Be realistic. Asides surfeited and photoshops and being the genetic 1%- the people you see in the media generally have been doing this a long time, or are on drugs. It’s easier to get in a level of shape your body has been in before. That cuts time. But when someone says they transformed themselves in 4 months from out of shape to Greek statue- that’s at the minimum a personal training, nutrition, and medical team that each make more money a year than you do, that’s being paid to work out for 6,12 hours a day as a full time job. That’s a diet that a human can’t survive on longer than it takes to get it captured on film. And that very likely invoked substances like insulin, various steroids, possibly amphetamines, HGH, etc.
so block that out and know this: staying “healthy” and natural- most people can lose 2-3lbs of fat a week if they do everything right. Most people can gain about .5lbs of muscle a week if they do everything right. It is very hard but possible to lose fat and gain muscle without drugs but you likely won’t do either to the “maximum” if you are doing both. So if you work out- don’t fixate too much on weight because you’ll be gaining muscle weight and losing fat weight and the scale might not swing as far as you like. That’s why we use the mirror. Body composition is more important to health, ability, and looks than weight. If you have no muscles and single digit fat and weigh 100lbs you might look like a skeleton and most would say not very good. If you have the same fat but 20lbs of muscle distributed well you’ll look and feel better. But- we each have goals and preferences so use the mirror and decide what you like, and don’t obsess about weight.
To the tips! To “dip your toes” and make getting started easier- here are the prime culprits that most people can easily incorporate into life and get healthier:
1. Liquid calories are a huge “invisible” source of calories to most people. Switch to only drinking water as much as possible. Not juice (usually juice is the same or little better than an equal serving of soda!), alcohol is a huge one as are fancy coffees. make yourself rules- you might have a soda when you eat out and limit it to one glass. You can also over fill the cup with ice so you have less in the cup. You might only drink once a week or once a month. When you drink, prefer clear liquors to brown, and prefer shots to mixed drinks or beer and wine as they tend to have more “punch” with less calories and sugar. Start drinking your coffee black or with only 1-3 creams and sugars. Sauces fall in this category too.
Dressing, ketchup, BBQ sauces, “secret sauce” all tend to carry tons of sugar and calories. Mustards tend to be a little safer, many hot sauces, but herbs and spices or other ways to get flavor are usually better than sauce or gravy. If you have to have a sauce, have less of it. That leads to...
2. Make better choices. Want something sweet? Raisins or chocolate raisins beat out a goey giant candy bar. Instead of a bacon cheeseburger get a regular burger. Maybe instead of a regular burger get a chicken burger? Instead of a chicken burger a lean chicken breast with a spice rub?
3. Continuing a trend- people tend to be bad with portion sizes and labels don’t help. Most people would cry to know what a serving of peanut butter actually looks like. The average sandwich where someone feels good for only having “140 calories” or whatever? No. More likely they have 300+ of peanut butter alone. Eating proper portion sizes is a huge key.
If you don’t want to measure- a trick is to always leave food on the plate. It’s wasteful- but basically anywhere you eat will give you too much food. So either order one meal and share it between 2 people, or save the rest for later, or whatever.
“But I’m still hungry!” Yes. This is a problem. A big reason people quit eating right is hunger or lack of fulfillment. What’s worse- many people “graze” when hungry- a handful of trail mix or some cheese, or a cookie here and there throughout the day because they are hungry. Usually they’d be better off having eaten a supersized McDonald’s meal and been full because those “little” grazing calories often add up to close to 1,000 calories a day, and you still didn’t feel satisfied and now are discouraged.
Instead- smarter choices. Despite myths celery and baby carrots aren’t 0 calorie, and they aren’t negative calorie. But close enough. Eating large portions of these types of food to fill up is a valid approach to hunger. Instead of eating a double portion of that nutrient rich and high calorie entre- serve yourself up a bunch of filler food that has little or near no calories. If you’re following #1 and drinking lots f water that will help you feel full too. Next and very important- FUCK ATKINS. It’s stupid. You need carbs. Not only that- the fiber from carbs can help keep you fuller. Just don’t go nuts on carbs. But protein like lean meat, and complex carbs help you feel fuller longer.
*before I forget- with fillers like celery remember the sauce rule. Go easy or skip the sauce. Ok. Back to it.* So having meals build around these staples will help with that hunger issue and make it easier to eat well. And that’s the key. This is a process. Don’t ditch all your favorite things at once. Don’t dramatically “quit” all your favorite foods and start trying to photosynthesize. Slowly and over weeks and months make these small changes. Start cutting back your soda or coffee. Slowly make it less sweet each week and adjust. Slowly start adjusting your portions sizes so that you have less of the high calorie entree and more “filler” and balance.
Don’t rush. Health is a life long commitment as is beauty whatever your aim here. So you have... your whole life. Don’t rush but act, in small consistent steps. You WILL suffer some. As you drop a cream from your coffee each time you’ll notice. As you eat less and phase out fun vices you’ll notice. But be deliberate. That’s why you go at a measured pace. It will suck- but not as much as going from rainbow blood Frappuccino to black swamp water in one day. The goal is to cause yourself as little suffering as possible so you stick with it. Once you’ve adjusted more, you make another change. That way it isn’t like jumping in to an icy lake from a hot tub where your every instinct tells you to quit. It’s easier to cope with small change than large change, but small change over time equals large change, and over time- the small changes you keep doing and build on will make a bigger difference than large changes you only do a short while and quit.
As time passes and you acclimate you’ll miss things less. This will become your new “normal.” Most people will always occasionally want whatever it is- a coke or a chocolate bar or whatever. Some actually find it hard to go back though- their tastes actually change and that soda is far too sweet etc. So it’s ok to have cravings and ok to indulge a little once in awhile. But do keep in mind you’re never “safe,” just as you had to adjust to eating healthy you can readjust to eating like shit, and every time you “indulge” just remember you’re making a choice to slow or undo hard work and sacrifice. But it’s important to know you can still have your favorite things- just be reasonable about it and make them rarer and savor them more, in smaller portions.
As you continue to advance when you reach a point you are happy- stop advancing and just continue on your course. If you want to keep going you can start reading nutrition labels and go as deep as you want- weigh your food portions or meal prep etc. Just go one step at a time and so t let your mind get ahead of you. Nutrition labels are critical though. For weight- the single most important thing is calories. Most people need somewhere between 1200-2500 a day. Gender, activity level, age, it can change. But an easy almost math free way to find out? Eat honestly as you normally would for a day or a few and actually track your food. Do t cheat yourself here. Eat what you normally would and write down EVERYTHING that goes in your mouth and how much.
That will tell you how many calories you’re eating. Now- this is where the scale comes in as a tool. You should probably weight yourself about once a week. The best time to do this is early morning, wake up, use the bathroom, and weigh yourself without clothes before you do anything else. If that doesn’t work for you- just make sure that you weight yourself at the same time every day. So the “best” time is whatever time you know that on the same day of the week you can weigh yourself. It’s better to not weigh in after exercise or activity or meals. But most important is same day same time once a week.
If you know how many calories you regularly eat, and you take consistent weights, you can tel of you’re gaining or losing on your “normal” diet. If you’re losing- we are done if all you want is to lose weight. You’re already losing. If you are staying the same or gaining and want to lose- you’ll start reducing your daily calories by about 250-500. So if you were eating 2500 a day and gaining, for a week eat 2000 a day. Weigh in at end of week. Did you gain or lose? If you’re not working out and losing 2-3lbs- that’s it. Yay. Keep doing this for as long as you like. If you’re still gaining, drop another 250-500 and go another week. Repeat. Any time you decide you’re happy and want to stop- increase your calories slightly. So if you were gaining like half a pound a week at 2500 and dropped to 2000 and started losing- then decide you’re happy- the next week try adding maybe 250 calories the next week.
Then weigh in and if you haven’t gained or lost- that’s your “maintenance” amount- the amount you should eat to keep your weight stable. That number WILL likely change when you lose or gain weight or change body composition- so don’t think of it as a fixed number. It’s fixed until you make a change or your body changes through aging etc. also- gaining and losing weight on a scale is tricky. You an lose 5-10lbs on the scale over a weekend by just not drinking anything and taking things to expel water. But it won’t make you less fat and isn’t good for your health. I mention this because in our examples we talk about adding or removing calories based on weight gain and loss, and theoretical maximums like 2-3 pounds loss a week or .5lbs muscle gain a week... but amongst the fat and muscle weight is water weight and other factors that effect our weight by lbs.
The heavier you are the larger these fluctuations are likely to be. A 250 person has more mass to hold water than a 90lb person- by percent of each fluctuated 10% for water weight, the 90lb person would gain only 9lbs and the 250lb person would gain 25! But here’s the weird thing- you’d probably notice the 9lbs on a 90lb person more than the 25 on the 250 person. It has to do with body composition and how we carry weight and optical illusion.
This is an important one- YOU CANNOT TARGET FAT LOSS. Sorry. You can’t. Anyone who disagrees is magical, blessed, or wrong. Even if they swear they did- YOU can’t. Genetics determines where we store fat. If you like the fullness of your face but hate you gut- both go or both stay. If you like having a round butt but hate the flaps on your arms- too bad. You lose fat everywhere and where stores or loses fat first and most is genetics. BUT! Aha. There is hope. Body composition. Like your butt but hate your arms? You CAN target specific muscles to grow! What foes that mean? Well- if you work out your arms and develop some muscle mass and tone, you won’t actually target those flags- but the skin will be tighter and the tone will help hide them. Effectively it will LOOK alike you got rid of them.
And coupled with the fat loss of exercise, you might actually get rid of them. But then... your poor butt deflates too. Well- Squats and other exercises will put mass back in your butt. Muscle is firmly attached, so you can sculpt a high mounted and round booty. Don’t like your legs being straight and skinny? Exercises for the abductors and leg muscles can shape them back up. 2 important concepts here.
1. Fat “rides” on top of muscle. Look at those people who do strength contests like throwing giant logs. They tend to look “soft.” Not like Arnold or those magazine people who are all “chiseled.” That’s because they work out for strength and not looks. They have a layer of fat on top of the muscle. No matter how strong you are or how many sit ups you do, unless you won the genetic lottery you will not see abs if you’re at 20% body fat. That’s good and bad. It’s sad for the many people who’d love to have abs or definition but don’t, and makes it hard for many to ever “get abs.” However for those (women often fall into this category) who don’t want to “look jacked” it’s a blessing. See- if you work your butt like crazy and are afraid it will look all veiny or “gross..” if you aren’t trying to have single digit body fat it won’t. The fat will sit on top and make it look visually bigger. It will still have some squish and still be shaped like a “normal” butt.
That’s why our mirror is important- to help us steer where we want to go. The second important thing is that this concept is where performance and health and appearance diverge. The holistic strategy is to work out all muscles evenly to keep balance. If you only care about your arms you could work them out for looks and never do back or core or anything else. However that opens a risk of injury- your stronger arms can do more work than your weaker shoulders can and your shoulders are supporting the load too but aren’t trained to take it. For that reason I don’t advise being too unbalanced or targeted in your training- however- favoring some body parts over others of appearance is your goal or a driving concern is ok of you aren’t training for functional goals or sport. Just don’t let your training get too unbalanced.
So all that preamble leads me to this- train. If you want to look good, lose weight, feel good- train. I recommend weight training as a part of everyone’s routine. I especially push it on females I work with because women often are afraid or averse to weights. You won’t get “bulky.” That’s not how biology works. Without drugs or decades of hard body building 99.9999% of women can’t get “bulky.” You will get tone, be stronger, increase bone density (which is a huge health issue for women especially as they age.) You WILL improve your body composition. You will improve your performance. Guess what else?lifting weights can burn as many or more calories as “aerobic” programs in less time and have been shown repeatedly as more effective at doing so. Lifting is shown to have many benefits and help us as we age as well- improving coordination and helping keep the brain “healthy.”
Lifting is linked to improved moods and feelings of confidence and well being as well as often increased sexual satisfaction and drive. It’s also the single most and one of the only effective ways to reshape the body, and you will spend less time at the gym and more time living your life. There are no marathon sessions and most programs are only a few days a week. Wow. If that isn’t enough- remember how we talked about calories? When you do any work out at all- you can eat more calories and lose weight. Lifting burns lots of calories. Lifting heavy a person can require anywhere from 3000-6500 calories a day. That means that if giving up food is something you do t want to do- lifting can be your ticket to eating more and losing weight (you still have to eat decent food though- not all junk.)
It’s personal though. If you’d rather run at a steady pace for 2-5 miles a day a half hour or so at a time than spend less than 60 seconds a set lifting something heavy- more power to you. Whatever you do it’s recommended that if health, looks, or weight loss are your goals you incorporate exercise. “Aerobic” exercise has mostly been debunked. It’s inefficient at burning calories (but if you wanted you could clap your hands long enough and lose weight from that...) and for the time you spend you won’t gain the other benefits to health and fitness or appearance you will with cardio or resistance training.
I advise you stay away from machines. Free weights only. If you are scared- use a squat rack and set the pins so you can’t hurt yourself. Machines do not work small support muscles. You aren’t required to balance the weight and support it, so you do not get the ancillary benefits of free weights. For weight training- strong lifts 5x5 and Starting strength are great programs that are simple for beginners and cheap/free. Nerd Fitness offers some good advice and information as well in a friendly wrapper.
Losing weight, being healthy, looking good- it all starts with and requires a commitment. Take it a day at a time, make small steps you know that you can commit to and continue, don’t go overboard and try to make huge changes all at once, make small smarter choices where you can. Make it a lifestyle change and don’t make it more “punishing” than it has to be because it’s tempting to think that “boot camp” style approach will get you equal results but in general it won’t, and most people can’t sustain that so quit before they get results or revert to their old ways and lose all that hard work. There’s no point in suffering and having nothing to show for it. If that’s the plan you might as well not even bother.
Also... Don’t take their word or packaging its “healthy.” Read the label and understand it. Trail mix is often labeled healthy but it’s usually packed with calories and sugar. It’s made to give energetic on the trail for goodness sake. Of course it is. To be “0 calorie” a food just needs to have less than 5 calories per serving. That “healthy” flavored water that is “0 calorie”? Wait... why is this water “2 servings...” they cheated. By making a serving have less than 5 calories they can label it 0 calories.
- speaking of servings... a serving size is rarely what you think it is. The most accurate way is a good scale. But learning what a serving really looks like for most foods you eat can work if you don’t want to go that far. On top of giving you a “meal” that is actually 2-4 people worth of food, foods often “cheat” the servings. That candy bar with only 100 calories? The one bar is actually 2 or more servings. That 200 calorie bag of chips has 4 servings....
So don’t get fooled. Be conciliatory of what you eat. Learn what is best for at and what a serving looks like. I don’t log calories. I probably should, but if I’m not training for something and just doing “regular training” I don’t bother. I have a good idea what I’m eating and what “enough” looks like. I still have to check the nutritional info on new things or when eating out at a new place though. Sometimes you’d be SHOCKED to find out exactly what you’re eating. For a person on a hard weight loss routine- a single regular sized burger meal off the menu can be their entire days calories, and for an adult on 2500 cal diet at can be half or more their daily limits. So be alert.
Now- there’s much more to nutrition than calories. But for weight management- that is the single most important thing. We discussed carbs and protein earlier. Those should make up most of a persons diet. Fats are important too. I know! People hear fat and freak out. Your body needs a certain amount of fat to function. Fats are used to build hormones. The hormones that help regulate weight and fat gain or muscle. Eat fat. Just not too much. Transfat is bad. You need saturated and unsaturated. Your body doesn’t care where calories come from. Carbs, fat, protein- it doesn’t care. 100 calories of apple are the same as 100 calories of fudge. But there is a catch...
The Apple will likely have vitamins and minerals and the like, antioxidants and other things you need to be healthy. The fudge is likely just simple sugars and little or no nutrition. So when choosing calories it’s usually best to choose ones that give you things you need to be healthy. That’s why a lean steak at 200-300cal is a better choice for a meal than a donut at 195 cal. Eating the donut instead of the steak is less calories! But... the donut will leave you less satisfied and have you hungry again faster, and the donut doesn’t have protein and healthy fats and all the other stuff the steak has that you need like iron.
It’s also very easy and very cheap to keep eating foods like donuts, and at 195 calories each you’ll quickly run out of calories for the day before you’ve gotten all the protein and other things you need to be healthy. On the surface of you dog past the calorie number, the fats, protein, and carbs are the simplest things to worry about. Just do your best to make sure that every day you are getting your calories but not going over your goal, and you’re getting the right amounts and ratios of proteins, carbs, and fats. That’s where our veggies come in- our celery has almost no nutritional value- but it also takes up room in our tummy and helps us feel full. If we fill up on celery when hungry instead of reaching for the donut we can help keep our weight in check and keep calories free for nutrition later.
Veggies count towards carbs usually- but carbs make the bulk of what you should be eating next to protein so you’re fine as long as you choose complex carbs and stay in the limits. From there we can go down the rabbit hole. We can start worrying about vitamins and minerals, folate and amino acids. We can discuss how simple carbs spike insulin in the blood while complex carbs tend to keep insulin steady, and we can talk about the role of insulin on fat retention and muscle... that’s too complex for here. Don’t get overwhelmed.
The thing about this is that it CAN be as complex as you want. If you are interested and the science or math or whatever tickle you, if you want to “tinker” on your body and try various nutrition combinations and training and blah blah to get the results you want or find your limits- you can. If that’s all overwhelming and it’s scary and seems like too much trouble? Duck it. People like me have done the science for you. I’m telling you why and how- what’s behind the curtain. You don’t NEED to know all that.
Calories are the basic thing you should know and track for weight. For better results it’s not much more effort to track protein, carbs, and fat- and will allow you more flexibility to eat healthy while enjoying life as you see all the things you can have and stay healthy. It opens your options. The rest is when you start getting deeper and have either gotten your results and want to go farther with it, or you don’t get your results but have been honest and dedicated and don’t know why you are hitting a wall.
Wether it’s losing weight or gaining muscle, being healthy or being athletic or being a model- it’s going to start with food, but if you’re able and intelligent you’ll add some training that’s conducive to your goals and lifestyle. You’ll need to be patient. TV transformations are for TV. there are lots of unhealthy or downright dangerous or risky ways to lose weight, lose fat, gain muscle etc. stay away from those. Please. You will not lose 60lbs in 6 months. Most people would be lucky to be able to lose 60lbs in a year. You will not go from 0-fitness magazine cover in a year or even likely 2-3 years.
It will take time to get where we want. We have to be realistic. We have to understand as well that you might not be able to. Even if we pretend the Rock is “all natural,” know that not every man can look like that. There are genetic limits to how large you can get without drugs and they aren’t the same. Some people can’t ever get an 8 or even 6 pack. Some people’s abs just aren’t evenly spaced and they may get a “5” pack. If you have long muscle insertions and lanky limbs you could be 6’ and never look as “bulky” as you want, and if you have short insertions and are 5’7” you may never look “surfer trim” but will look stalky instead.
You might not have the genes for wide biceps and while you can make them all around bigger, you ant make them just “wider.” You may not ever have pecs or they may not be the shape you want. Your skeletal frame and a while host of things determine all this. The “V” taper figure isn’t possible for everyone naturally nor is the “V” cut of the abdomen and pelvis. That’s bone structure and many things. It’s ok. Don’t try and be someone else. Find who you are and what you and do and what you like about that and work to that goal.
And to put it right out- without or even with drugs and surgery- if you want to look like a magazine star and don’t already or seen really close- you likely won’t. Ever. For most people- even most stars- those looks are a life. They become your life. Read interviews where celebs talk about it. There’s a reason guys like Chris Pratt or Vin Diesel or women get photographed months after the wrap of a movie where they were in shape and “magazine sexy” and they look like average Pudgey folk. Looking like that is a full time job. It’s measuring all your food with a scale, not eating or drinking for sometimes days before you plan to “show off” your body. It’s hours and hours of exercise, it’s always getting a full restful sleep, it’s not touching alcohol or junk food or much food at all. It’s giving up many of life’s simple joys all for the purpose of looking like that.
They have the world watching and millions or billions riding on them. Their lifestyle and career requires it, they are being paid millions to do it. They have a good reason. Some people are really into to as well, or are physical or aesthetic for a living and to them it is worth it. For most people, not being able to eat out or have an occasional drink with friends and spending more time at the gym than at home- working a full time job and then having the second full time job of fitness is too much for too little. Most people want to look and feel good to improve their quality of life. So at some point you’ll teach a stage where you can’t go any further without making radical changes and literally structuring your life around fitness As opposed to fitting fitness into your life. That’s a choice point where we each must decide to be happy with the results we have or sacrifice more and more of our lives for smaller results.
So be realistic. Don’t set yourself up to think that you “only have to do this for” x amount of time and then you’ll be “done” and you expect to look like a model. No. Unless you want to go back to where you started you’re never “done.” But take it a day at a time. Secondly, even drugs require some work and sacrifice to get results. So there’s no super food or magic work out or pill or injection that will get you to that level alone. Lastly/ you aren’t them. You can change yourself for the better and often dramatically- but it Won’t be in a few weeks and it won’t be some magic transformation where suddenly everything you do t like about yourself will be gone and you’ll be a clone of your idol.
You’ll also likely feel at some point that you aren’t strong results. It’s a trap. You see yourself daily. The changes will be gradual and constant but very small. As said earlier- that adds up over time. People who don’t see you as often will notice more. That’s why grandma always talks about how much their grandkid has grown even if the kid doesn’t feel they have. That’s why we can look so different as we age but our closest family and friends aren’t shocked to se us but out distant ones from the past are. Every little change over time adds up. You will notice some things and not others. You’ll likely see the most dramatic progress early on when it’s easiest to make large gains or losses and the change is more dramatic. The longer and further you go the less visually striking the changes are but they are still happening and still add up. So don’t feel discouraged. Keep going until you are happy.
A word on drugs and the like- if your goals are to just improve a bit- if you want to lose 10,20,60lbs- of you want to gain a little muscle or whatever- drugs generally aren’t worth it. They all have potential side effects. Some people are luckier than others, it sucks to find out you’re the unlucky one. And really- it’s a waste. The money, the dangers, to achieve a body that you could have achieved naturally on your own by just doing things right and being patient enough to wait a year or two? Come one. The accelerated effects also have issues. Strength gains with drugs can be huge and quick- but bones and tendons and ligaments take much longer to strengthen and heal than muscles and drugs don’t help with that. If you haven’t been exercising a long time already, you likely have poor form as well which means stop et worse results for more effort, and coupled with the fact your connective tissue and bones are weaker,
certain muscle groups tend to get disproportionately strong on drugs, the shitty form and heavy weights- you’re very likely to injure yourself. That hurts. Might cripple or hinder or hurt or weaken you for life, and you can’t train now for likely months or even years. So you’re back to lousy shape and you wasted the money and stress on your body of the drugs as well as time and effort training and have less for it. Not smart.
Really quick- many places drugs like steroids are illegal. In others they aren’t. So wether criminal penalties are a possibility or not- this stuff applies.
Not all drugs or even steroids are used to turn people into big muscle monsters. Many are used because they y’all burn fat or develop “lean” muscle- woman especially tend to favor a few types like this which are also known to not have or have far less risk to develop “masculine” traits. These are often coupled with some type of amphetamine or derivative or other uppers like cocaine. Amphetamines also tend to suppress appetite making it easier to not eat. In fact many in the fitness industry who use these drugs for appearance sake have to use other methods like marijuana to stimulate their appetite enough to eat what they have to in order to maintain muscle mass.
This is not a good idea again. There are numerous health risks and these types of drugs can and often do take their toll on your appearance in every way from oily tough skin to loss of teeth, wrinkles, etc. I am not condoning drug use- but where legal, when someone has worked for years or decades to go as far as nature will take them, and can go no further- there is a certain logic that if they want to go further drugs are the only way. These are people who have already built their lives around this and made it their biggest most dear goal in life. They are knowledgeable and skilled and the best on earth at fitness and have explored every option and done all the work a human can and can’t go further.
They are not simply people who want to look better in a swim suit or fit into an outfit they bought or feel sexier. If your goals are achievable naturally- achieve them naturally. Using drugs earlier than you “have to” in order to reach a level of a novice, and gaining none of the experience and conditioning before doing so is a recipe for disaster in most cases. Just don’t do it, you can’t keep the effects of the drug after it wears off, so if you couldn’t get there naturally to start you’ll have to go back on drugs again once you start to lose your body because you don’t know how to keep it up without drugs.
Wether on drugs or not- those celebrities I mentioned who fall out of shape after a role? There’s another reason. You just can’t stay in “top” cosmetic shape for the long term at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Men and women need a certain percentage of body fat. It cushions our organs and does other things. Men can go lower than women without adverse effect but for men and women, falling to super low body fat causes issues. Confusion, irritability, trouble focusing, dizziness, lack of sex drive, temporary infertility (that over the long term can become permanent.) Compromised immune function, many also experience things like insomnia, and women start missing and then not having periods (some would be happy but no. Not in a “happy” way most of the time) and can suffer pennant damage. Most people feel very fatigued at low body fat, most people do not like the way they feel and are miserable at those levels.
Losing weight with drugs or through eating disorders has even more complications than I already discussed. You may look trim but you might not feel so sexy when your teeth start falling out, your gums recede, you start losing hair, your skin starts looking like shit and your eyes become sunken. You can use substances or foods to “push it out the other end” but many symptoms like those of malnutrition are the same, as well as possibility for hemorrhoids, torn/bleeding/irritated anus, and of course even anal prolapse (google it. Your asshole basically turns inside out...) all not very desirable and very avoidable.
What’s more having known people with all manner of eating disorders including several who suffered such disorders for 20+ years- in the long term it can really fuck you up. True of amphetamine, laxative or other drug use too. You can seriously mess up your body, your hormones, how fast your metabolism works. So that decades later if you try to lose weight healthy ways it can be almost impossible because your body is so mixed up from drugs forcing it to work overtime while your body tries to grab as much nutrition as it can from a now truncated digestive process. Everyone’s different and I’ve met some people who seem like they were born for drugs. Seemingly no negative sides, all the “best” gains- but they tend to be exceedingly rare and most get a mixed bag including terrible side effects that often never go away or can be undone.
There are no cheats here boys and girls. If you cheat at fitness you only cheat yourself. Whatever your goal is- you’re going to have to put on work and I strongly discourage drugs or extreme measures aimed at exceeding the natural limits of the human body. Eat reasonable portions, do some activity, eat smarter, be realistic.
And then there are lots of little tricks you see- that’s part of being realistic. We have to understand that the image people often put forth isn’t what they look like sitting on the couch alone at home. The same as only a fool expects to see a model without makeup and have them look exactly the same. That’s not how it works. Without touching a weight or losing or gaining a pound you can often make hue impacts in your looks. If you add diet and exercise we can get some real drastic visual transformations.
You probably have shit posture. Most people do. Stop doing that. Get a friend, a coach, a mirror, practice better posture. Proper posture helps us look our best. Poor posture accentuates many traits commonly considered undesirable and hides the desirable ones.
You might dress wrong. Not badly- just wrong. The eyes tend to go to bright colors. It’s usually good to put bright colors where we want people to look and darks where we don’t. A two tone top with a black bottom and bright top will accentuate the chest and de emphasize the belly. That draws the eyes away from an area that is often a “problem” area and towards one which is usually more attractive. Dark panels on the sides of the abdomen like on a swim suit or dress can halo visually form a more flattering body shape. Wearing clothes that are too baggy or too loose on certain places also doesn’t do us favors. We often think it’s better to go baggy than tight and show our bodies if we aren’t happy with them...
But not generally true. The baggy clothes make us look bigger and the unfaltering shape makes us less “human” shaped which isn’t generally attractive. Again- this is a case where accentuating positive features we have and working with ones we don’t care for as much is crucial. Patterns can be ally or enemy. Stripes tend to visually draw the eye giving the illusion of elongation. A vertical stripe will make us look taller and thinner, a horizontal stripe will make us look shorter and wider. A man with a long torso and small frame might want to go horizontal on a shirt to make his torso appear wider and more balanced in height. Someone with a short wide torso might want to go vertical to slim and elongate. Generally one shouldn’t mix stripes, and one should either do an entire outfit in stripes or choose legs or torso based on their body type and perceptions.
For instance using vertical stripes to elongate the legs might end up making the torso look too short and or wide- and using vertical stripes on the torso might not look right to them- but using horizontal stripes on the legs might make the legs look proportional to the torso and be the best bet. Likewise- stripes and patterns don’t have to cover the whole garment. Pants with stripes on only a part of them can create a limited effect to that section of the pant and balance out while not overpowering or being “told much.” There are many patterns and ways to use them. Ultimately fashion changes with tones and is personal- and what is most important is a person like what they look like- but there are certain general visual rules we know tend to effect human perception certain ways, so expressing personal style while using these rules to our advantage can help.
In general we do not want to look like a walking tent of fabric, nor 50lbs of meat in 5lb bag. Colors, cuts, patterns, all sorts of things can be used to accentuate the features we want to show and help put the ones we like less into a less prominent view. There comes a point where diet, exercise, even surgery or drugs can’t really change certain things. If you’re an adult you aren’t going to grow or shrink much in the immediate future. Your skeletal structure won’t change so if you have a wider or narrower frame than you’d like, long or short arms or legs, etc- you’re stuck. If you’re an endomorph or an ectomorph, pear shaped or triangle or hourglass- you can do what you can do but that’s who you are. Know your body type and what works for you and use it.
Tl:dr For most people- “weight” isn’t really an issue. Unless you’re a competitive athlete or something- weight is seldom what bothers us. What bothers us is when we look in the mirror or look down and don’t like what we see. When we get winded going up stairs or when we get our physical at the doctor and our blood pressure is too high, when we want to fit a smaller size or wish we could fill our clothes better. So in general- fuck weight. It’s just a metric we can use to help get to where we want to be. Ask what your goal is. What is it that makes you want to lose weight or think you need to? Because as this thread proves (and this is the short version,) there are a lot of goals and conflicts and details. So what do you want? That’s the better question to get an answer specific to you. Otherwise- take a dump. You’ll lose weight.
See alot of people think it is what you eat I'd the problem but alot of the times it is how much you eat.
Like I actually eat pretty healthy. I eat fresh fruit and granola or eggs cooked with no oil and toast or a homemade breakfast burrito for breakfast. I usually don't eat lunch but if I do I make leftovers or something small like a grilled cheese. For dinner it is usually hearty foods with alot of veggies and cooked using healthy options.
But here is the thing junk food was my crutch. I used to be one those people who could eat a whole pizza by myself and bread sticks.
When I decided to shrink my stomach I started small not eating till I was stuffed but eating to where I wasn't hungry anymore. That was like instead a whole pizza eat 2/3rds. Than I got used to it where I could only eat that. So I went smaller to half and so on till I am now 1 slice of pizza and I am stuffed.
1. Liquid calories are a huge “invisible” source of calories to most people. Switch to only drinking water as much as possible. Not juice (usually juice is the same or little better than an equal serving of soda!), alcohol is a huge one as are fancy coffees. make yourself rules- you might have a soda when you eat out and limit it to one glass. You can also over fill the cup with ice so you have less in the cup. You might only drink once a week or once a month. When you drink, prefer clear liquors to brown, and prefer shots to mixed drinks or beer and wine as they tend to have more “punch” with less calories and sugar. Start drinking your coffee black or with only 1-3 creams and sugars. Sauces fall in this category too.
2. Make better choices. Want something sweet? Raisins or chocolate raisins beat out a goey giant candy bar. Instead of a bacon cheeseburger get a regular burger. Maybe instead of a regular burger get a chicken burger? Instead of a chicken burger a lean chicken breast with a spice rub?
3. Continuing a trend- people tend to be bad with portion sizes and labels don’t help. Most people would cry to know what a serving of peanut butter actually looks like. The average sandwich where someone feels good for only having “140 calories” or whatever? No. More likely they have 300+ of peanut butter alone. Eating proper portion sizes is a huge key.
“But I’m still hungry!” Yes. This is a problem. A big reason people quit eating right is hunger or lack of fulfillment. What’s worse- many people “graze” when hungry- a handful of trail mix or some cheese, or a cookie here and there throughout the day because they are hungry. Usually they’d be better off having eaten a supersized McDonald’s meal and been full because those “little” grazing calories often add up to close to 1,000 calories a day, and you still didn’t feel satisfied and now are discouraged.
- speaking of servings... a serving size is rarely what you think it is. The most accurate way is a good scale. But learning what a serving really looks like for most foods you eat can work if you don’t want to go that far. On top of giving you a “meal” that is actually 2-4 people worth of food, foods often “cheat” the servings. That candy bar with only 100 calories? The one bar is actually 2 or more servings. That 200 calorie bag of chips has 4 servings....