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YSK to lose weight, fill up with foods low in caloric density and high in fiber, like fruits and vegetables. This can trigger satiety without the overload of calories and beats going hungry long term.

Why YSK: many countries have issues with weight, such as mine with 74% of US adults being overweight or obese. The global weight loss industry is over $200 billion yearly, with many influencers, pills, and surgeries promising quick results with little effort. These often come with side effects, or don’t work long term.

Studies suggest filling yourself with foods low in caloric density and high in fiber, like fruits and vegetables, can help reach and maintain a healthy weight. It’s good to have these foods available in our living spaces to make the choice easy. Your taste buds will likely adapt to love them if you’re not there yet.

Xanis ,

That little clicker in the brain that goes off when you’ve had enough doesn’t really work for me. I have to feel physically full or I still feel hungry. Even worse, my dopamine levels are garbage and eating makes me feel good.

Not saying this doesn’t work. Only that I’m far from the only one where it is this simple.

JusticeForPorygon ,
@JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world avatar

74%? That’s actually lower than I thought

Dkarma ,

Humans don’t need grains.

Pretty simple.

cymbal_king , (edited )

Yes! The biggest factor with body weight is calories in vs calories out. Foods with volume and mass but fewer calories displace calorie dense foods. Even as simple as substituting popcorn vs potato chips is huge on calorie savings. Protein and fats (ideally plant based) can also help you feel full longer than say simple carbs like potato chips/white pasta.

I highly recommend Harvard’s Nutrition Source for science-based nutrition info and recipes, the language is very accessible too!

Edit: fixed link

HootinNHollerin ,

Correcting link nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu

cymbal_king ,

Thanks!

ricecake ,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satiety_value

It’s not just fruits and vegetables, but getting the right components.
A high sugar low fiber fruit won’t do as much as a higher fiber fruit, so apple > blackberry, for example.

You can also take advantage of your bodies insatiable love for protein and make that a key part of the meal as well, and it’ll signal that it’s full sooner and for longer.

Food that physically takes longer to eat also help because you can eat faster than you can “realize” you’re full.

A trick of mine, that I don’t know if there’s any general basis for it but it helps me, is to not take a plate with as much food as I think I want, but to instead take a plate with about half that. That way I get to feel like I’m having two servings, and the gap between finishing the first and starting the second usually means that the second is less than the first.

zkfcfbzr , (edited )

My own advice:

The diet I’m on, which has lost me 36 pounds (196 to 160) and counting since early April, is simple calorie restriction - I try my best not to go over 1500 calories/day, and if I do go over, I try to make up for it by going under on following days until things average out.

Every time I’ve tried this diet or similar diets, I’ve had great success, as long as I’ve meticulously tracked and wrote down how many calories I ate each day. The times I’ve tried this diet without tracking have all ended up failing, even when I “tried” sticking to it for months. The moment I start writing numbers down, things just fall into place. So for me at least, that’s the key.

Some notes:

  • Over the last 127 days my actual average calories/day has been 1472/day
  • I try to avoid meals where counting is very difficult or impractical. That means I try to avoid going to restaurants that don’t post calories and I’m not big on “real” cooking. If I do have a meal where a good count isn’t possible I try my best to overestimate - usually with 2500 or 3000 depending on how full I am since it’s really hard to eat more than that at once. I find it very difficult to go to most restaurants without getting more than 1500 calories, also, so I don’t eat at restaurants all that often anymore. Fast food places like McDonald’s are actually some of the easier options to work with, though.
  • I’ve made little to no effort to eat healthier - just less. I can have a blizzard from Dairy Queen if I want, but that’s 1100 calories and then I’ve only got 400 left for something else. I have mastered making delicious ice cream that’s just 300 calories/pint though. In practice I usually eat processed foods from a can, box, or bag that you just need to heat up or follow the instructions on the box for.
  • A scale is essential for getting accurate calories out of things like butter, milk, ketchup, ice cream ingredients, etc.
  • In general meats are a pretty poor choice - compared to other foods they make me a lot less full compared to how many calories they take up. I can eat 8 hotdogs (without buns) and fill up my daily calories in that one meal, and still be hungry - or I can have two cans of spaghettios (580 calories total), and be so full I almost can’t finish.
  • For me at least, after the first week or so I just stop feeling hungry in general most of the time. There are occasionally days where I only eat because I know I should, rather than because I got hungry.
  • When I’m on this diet, I basically never get heartburn, even after a day where I eat something that would usually have given it to me badly - probably the nicest part of all this.
  • Despite what the post says, I eat basically no fruits or vegetables in my day-to-day life.
  • In the past, I’ve incorporated extremely heavy daily exercise into my routine as well - I’m talking multiple hours a day, every day, for at least two months. While it did have some noticeable benefits like a very noticeably lower resting heart rate and increased strength, it had basically no visible effect on my rate of weight loss - looking at the graph, you couldn’t even tell which portions of the diet were subject to heavy exercise vs. heavy leisure. The lesson learned is that diet is far, far more important than exercise - you can offset an entire workout with a single cookie.
  • When I’m not making any dieting attempts at all, I’m a huge glutton. I’ve never gotten over 200 pounds, because any time I get close I start doing this diet - but if I ate the way I wanted to all the time, I could easily weigh 350+ pounds. I can very easily eat single 1200-2000 calorie meals multiple times a day. I’ve yo-yo’d a lot in the past few years but I’m hoping to more or less keep things permanently under control this time - once I get to 140ish I plan to raise my daily calorie allowance to the point where I maintain, rather than gain or lose, over time.

An added bonus of writing things down is getting to graph things too!

Note that I’m not claiming this is healthy. Just effective. Anyone can lose weight eating nothing but chocolate cake, as long as they eat sufficiently little. It doesn’t mean you won’t die from it.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

I’ve made little to no effort to eat healthier - just less. I can have a blizzard from Dairy Queen if I want, but that’s 1100 calories and then I’ve only got 400 left for something else.

In addition to choosing not to have something in the first place, choosing not to finish something is another great skill. Lowest calorie blizzard is still hundreds of calories, but choosing to eat only half of the smallest size can work.

Definitely a harder habit to change compared to not ordering in the first place when raised to always clean the plate.

zkfcfbzr , (edited )

While that’s true, and while it’s something I’d definitely recommend for others, I can’t honestly say that’s something I’ve mastered doing myself. To me, not finishing just means I have more work to do when it comes to figuring out how many calories I actually ate. While I could just guesstimate that I had 60% of that blizzard, I find that in practice I’m really not okay with being that wishy-washy with the numbers. The days where I have to just guesstimate kill me inside.

And this situation with the blizzard is something I’ve dealt with. I had a mostly finished blizzard but couldn’t finish it. I had to mark the level of ice cream still remaining, empty the cup, then get weight measurements for the empty cup (​c), cup full of water (f), and cup full of water up to the level of remaining ice cream (w) - at which point the total calories eaten were (w-c)/(f-c) * B, where B is the number of calories in the full blizzard. If I could have avoided all of that by finishing the last 28% of that blizzard, you bet I would have.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

I either go for about half and call it good or just round it up to the full amount when counting and then not worry too much if some other things are 5-10% higher than they should be.

It isn’t like the menu calories are precise. Heck, for a blizzard it could be up to 15% more when served if it is above the cup line.

The important thing is paying more attention to what we are eating, how high in calories things are, and whether we actually know what a portion size is.

zkfcfbzr ,

The worst part is that I know the menu calories aren’t precise at most restaurants, but I still won’t let myself be wishy-washy with them. I actively recognize there’s no point in relying on how many calories Outback Steakhouse says are in a Bloomin’ Onion (1900 btw) when the largest bloomin’ onion I’ve had in the past is close to double the size of the smallest I’ve had. But my entire system relies on precise tracking so I still feel I have to make the effort.

Rounding up to the full amount after eating >85% or so is something I do though. I’m much more okay with it if I know I’m overestimating than if I think I might possibly be underestimating.

Eideen ,
@Eideen@lemmy.world avatar

For me I found that I need summer levels of vitamin D, so when for September to April take 40000 IU per day. For me I took 2-3 months to get out of power saving mode. In the summer I try to be a long as I can sun without getting sunburn without sunscreen, midday.

Then I do intermittent fasting only eating dinner.

This has led me to losing 250g per day.

MajorMajormajormajor ,

40 000 iu? I always heard 10k iu is the upper limit for most people. Is this a typo or is there new research on safe levels?

MHanak ,

The pills i see are mostly 1000 or 4000

hydration9806 ,

This is oddly controversial, but an even more satiating method is to consume more protein. If you hit your goal body weight (lbs) in grams of protein, you won’t be reaching for that end of day snack.

Note drinking the protein instead of eating it doesn’t work nearly as well for this.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

I don’t think it is controversial, except when it is an all or nothing thing just like the zero carbs crap. A balanced diet will keep you full and includes proteins, fats, carbs, and everything else as long as they are in the right balance.

Crappy diets like the one based on the food pyramid, which had way to many carbs, are the main problem.

Boozilla ,
@Boozilla@lemmy.world avatar

Too much protein can be hard on the kidneys, especially long term. Balance and moderation. Not saying your point is bad. But there are a lot of protein bros out there.

hedgehogging_the_bed ,

Modern fruits have too much fructose for good health these days. They’ve been bred to be way too sweet.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

Still better than an industrial snack, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. If you already have illuminated all these snacks and other sweetened products from your diet, I think you’re doing pretty great. Before that, it seems a bit silly to worry about fruits being too sweet.

hedgehogging_the_bed ,

I have a lot of friends who have a fruit smoothie every morning and wonder why they aren’t losing weight. Bananas, apples, and grapes in particular are to be avoided. Most berries are okay.

TheBananaKing ,

Better: just learn to live with not feeling satiated all the time.

Not that you shouldn’t make vegies a significant part of your diet, just that a big part of the lifestyle change is learning to be hungry between meals as a normal and non-distressing thing.

Eheran ,

This. Really. If it actually hurts to get hungry perhaps you have Helicobacter pylori. Let that get sorted out.

Tar_alcaran ,

Learning to cope with discomfort is a very important, and very often disregarded, life skill.

KevonLooney ,

Not really. Especially when talking about physical pain.

You should not be in discomfort all the time. This is the kind of thinking that prevents people from going to the doctor. Pain isn’t normal.

Zorque ,

Part of it is identifying differences between discomforts. Feel a little hungry? No big deal.

Feel sharp stabbing pains? See a doctor, dummy.

treadful ,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

Pain isn’t normal.

I get the point of your post but also, pain is normal. And not every pain requires medical intervention.

givesomefucks ,

You’re saying people should just deal with hunger and fight against everything evolution wants, instead of just eating high fiber food and not being hungry…

How is that “better”?

Zorque ,

Evolution isn’t divine, it’s random mutation that generally benefits it’s current environment. Considering most of our evolutionary traits emerged thousands, if not millions, of years ago… I’d say we can safely conclude that a lot of our evolutionary instincts aren’t especially relevant to our current circumstances.

thejoker954 ,

The eating issue is less evolution and more societal.

Society is the one who says we should eat 3 meals a day, not evolution.

Evolution would rather we ate more often throughout the day.

Think of it like a gas tank. Currently people fill it up and wait for it to get empty before filling up again.

When the reality is its better to always keep a half a tank for emergencies.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Evolution’s impact on our hunger was driven by scarcity. Most humans don’t experience the levels of scarcity that drove that evolution.

So, yes, you should work against evolution. This is true for a lot of aspects of the human condition.

Phil_in_here ,

And it’s also good to remember in our modern lives, it’s often just a feeling more than a state of being.

It’ll tell you you’re hungry just because it’s the time of day you normally eat. It’ll tell you you’re hungry when you really just need a drink of water.

snooggums ,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Plus the feeeling of being hungry between meals goes away after a few months if you are still getting what you body needs.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Also, it can take up to a year for your brain to adjust to a lower calorie diet.

ricecake ,

That’s a more complicated topic. Not everyone’s endocrine system is wired the same way, and you can’t always just willpower your way through it.

Insistence that willpower is sufficient for weight regulation is a big cause of people going on diet after diet that just doesn’t work. They’re fighting against the system that has a disproportionate influence on what you want in the first place, and if you push it too far you find yourself not giving a shit about your diet, and then being filled with a slew of complex feelings coming from your “lack of self control”.

It’s better to direct that energy towards getting your diet compositionally right than trying to be okay just being hungry.

You can’t get your body to stop insisting it needs food, but you can get it to insist less often. You can teach it that it doesn’t need “SUGAR”, it needs water and maybe an apple or banana. You can give it a little solid protein between meals to keep it from asking for a continuous stream of carbs.
You can learn to identify the difference between eating because you’re bored or want a little dopamine, and eating because you’re hungry. The first one is your brain and you can willpower through it to eventually unlearn the habit.

You can choose to make good choices at the store instead of failing to make them in the kitchen.

Willpower is critical, but it’s important to know what you can or cannot actually solve with it and work within that framework.
You’re in control of your body, but that doesn’t mean that you need to pick the harder path.

And, for some people, their endocrine system is a lot more forgiving. Those usually aren’t the people who have a lot of trouble loosing or keeping off weight because they try to just “eat less” and it works.

Dkarma ,

This is a joke, right?

Insistence that willpower is sufficient for weight regulation is a big cause of people going on diet after diet that just doesn’t work.

No, that’s caused by a specific lack of willpower. Going on diet after diet is exactly why focusing on being ok with being hungry is so important.

Get a clue.

thejoker954 ,

I’d argue we should be ‘grazing’ more. Not just accept feeling bad.

I think we eat too much in one sitting. It should be spread out more.

Every couple hours we should be adding energy to our reserves not waiting 6+ hours.

James_Fortis OP ,

I used to be uninterested in foods like broccoli, apples, oranges, and blueberries, but after a transition period I love them and have them every day. I’d like to hear anyone’s story who’s also been able to integrate more of these foods.

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