So I’m going to preface this by saying that I’ve been very fortunate on my weight loss journey including how much free time I have to dedicate to cooking, and what I’ve done won’t work for everyone. Also I recommend not being hyper focused on weight and instead focus on being healthy.

I used to be very overweight, and was always overweight growing up. I’m 6’3" and at my highest in my mid 20’s was 330 lbs. I basically didn’t pay attention to what I ate at all, so I ate both too much and not healthy. 8 years later and now I’m around 215, and I have much more thought and time going into how I eat.

I decided that I wanted to change that, and after research I learned a few general things:

1. If you want to have sustained weight loss you can’t go on a diet - you need to change your habits and relationship to food. If you ever plan to go back to eating how you are now, you will return to the same weight and health. If you’re not prepared to have a permanent change to how you eat, you’re probably better off just staying the course because going back and forth can be very unhealthy, both mentally and physically.
2. Losing weight and changing habits are slow processes. It will take months or years to see significant progress, and it won’t be a straight line. Because it’s a permanent change there will be ups and downs along the way and over time, and that’s normal and fine. For me it’s been about 8 years and I’m still making slow progress, but there have been slips where I’ve gained 20-30 lbs back (pandemic was a bitch!)
3. My results are probably not typical. Everyone is on their own journey and dealing with their own hurdles, so don’t compare your results to someone else’s. Progress is progress, no matter how small. And improving your health is absolutely progress, even if the number on the scale doesn’t change.
4. EXERCISE. But not for the reasons you think. You will never be able to outrun a bad diet, you just don’t burn calories that fast while exercising. But it boosts your energy, mood, and for me also helped a ton with leveling out my hunger levels. It’s also probably the single biggest thing you can do to improve your health.

Sorry about the novel before I go into the question, but I’ve seen a lot of unhealthy mindsets and advice and I think it’s important to share that even with success stories there is struggle and it’s a constant battle and lifestyle change. It’s not easy, and anyone telling you differently is selling something.

So, on to what I do!

Best advice I’ve heard boils down to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Don’t try to follow fad diets. I haven’t seen any good reliable science that supports any super strict diet. The day to day doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as the week to week and month to month. Don’t beat yourself up because you went to a party and indulged, or spent a holiday week with your family and went a little overboard. But if you’re doing that every week, it’s going to have an impact.

For me what worked was a combination of counting calories and substituting foods. I started by logging everything I ate without trying to change anything, just to get a baseline (this was VERY illuminating, it’s shocking how easy it is to eat 3000-4000 calories when you’re mostly eating junk food). Try not to judge yourself here and make sure to log everything you eat, but don’t try to go insane accuracy. Again, aim for broad trends not the small details.

Once you have a good baseline, figure out where you can substitute out higher calorie dense foods with lower calorie dense foods. This usually means more veggies, less junk food. The goal here is to be able to still eat until you feel full, but to decrease the total calories. You want to be able to feel full, because if you’re constantly hungry you likely won’t be able to maintain it long term. A good strategy is to identify some foods that you like that are low calorie density that don’t require any prep. If you’re hungry and it’s not meal time, eat those. My foods were carrots, apples, and celery. I can eat as much of those as I want until I’m not hungry and it won’t have a huge impact on my daily calorie intake.

And honestly, that’s kind of it - rinse and repeat. Experiment with new foods and recipes that are healthier and keep looking for substitutions you can do. Like stew or pasta sauce? Increase the amount and variety of veggies you throw in. Start to learn which foods are high calorie density and which ones are lower. Look to eat a variety of foods to improve overall nutrition.

If you are lucky enough to have the time, learn to cook more. A lot of processed foods have a bunch of sugar in them, and that increases calories a ton without making you feel more full. Cook in big batches so most of the time it’s still quick and easy to eat healthy. Get a few recipe staples that you can cook without thinking or looking up the recipe to lower the effort for home cooked food. An instant pot is great for making large batches of healthy food - a beef and bean chili with tons of veggies over rice is super healthy, fairly low touch time, and you can make like 10-15 meals at a time. Air fryers are great for cooking 1-2 portions at a time of food you prepare in advance, so actual touch time is pretty low.

It’s really hard at first. It gets easier over time (months and years). I’m 8 years in and these things are much more natural to me, but if I’m not actively putting thought and effort into what I eat I still skip into bad habits.

Hope this helps, and best wishes to everyone on a journey for their own health and relationship with food!

I maximize fiber and protein and don’t really count calories. Most americans do not get enough fiber so metamucil can be very powerful. I will go out of my way to eat filling, low calorie foods. Apples, celery, and the not so occasional pickle.

i just eat intuitively, it took some training to wean myself off sugar and onto vegetables but now the most unhealthy thing i can get cravings for is cinnamon buns and meals feel incomplete and vaguely gross without some sort of vegetable, ideally green vegetable, in it.

IMO calorie counting and anything as strict as that is just stress-inducing and gives you a pretty fucked up relationship to food. I think the best thing for most people is to just look at the calorie counts but don’t actually worry about it at all, minimize sugar intake, maximize vegetable and fruit consumption, reduce meat consumption, and choose whole-grain options wherever possible.

This lets you enjoy food without stressing about it, and should be extremely easy to follow.
Sugar is basically the only big bad food that matters, it’s super easy to get way too many calories with sugary stuff because it doesn’t make you feel full and is so calorie dense.
Vegetables on the other hand are pretty low in calories and take up tons of space in your stomach, so you feel full and won’t want to eat more than you need. And always choosing whole grain makes sure that even if you get a lot of starch (which is basically sugar but less terrible), you at least also get a bunch of fibre and other nutrients.

And fibre is a bit of a golden bullet i feel: it just generally makes your gut health better and best of all makes taking a dump a much more pleasant process.

Intermittent Fasting is what worked for me. I’ve been on 16:8 for 3 months now and lost almost 10 lbs so far. I like it because it’s so easy. Just don’t eat for 16 hours. No need to avoid any particular food/ingredients and no need to count calories (relatively compared to other diets). I didn’t have to change what or how I eat other than the time I stop and start eating.

Whole food plant based diet. I also try to limit the amount of carb intake to maintain a healthy mix. Some people go WFPB and end up eating mostly bread and pasta which isn’t great. I also try to go zero SOS (salt, oil, sugar).

I’ve got ADHD, I either binge eat for the dopamine, or I forget that I’m human and need food to survive, and then eat whatever’s fast and easy when my body is finally signalling hunger at a level that I can’t ignore. I try to keep some healthier options around for both scenarios, and it also helps to be around other people who have more regular schedules and I can follow their lead on meal times and join them socially. But when I’m alone, my personal diet is only “balanced” because it’s so chaotic.

I’ve found this about myself after extensive trial and even more extensive error:

• My body seems to use up potassium fast when I’m stressed. No idea why. But taking potassium seems to help me recover when I’m feeling burnt out (I have an HPA axis problem so my stress response isn’t normal)
• Low carb diet (under ~125 grams per day) makes me functional in a way antidepressants, adderall, modafinil, tony robbins, ayahuasca, zen training, therapy, etc never could. I’ve never done keto but low carb is incredible for me
• I have no sense of thirst so keeping a nalgene bottle nearby helps me a lot (the 1-liter capacity is important for tracking my water intake, and this is why the new 828-ml standard for sports drinks pisses me off)
• Wheat gives me systematic inflammation, resulting in miserable outlook on life for about three days. It’s dose-dependent. I can have a piece of toast and be fine but if I eat half a loaf of bread, then I hate everyone and everything the next couple days

I think that humans are, evolutionary, omnivores but with vegetarian food outweighting meat. Dairy came in later with the ability to domesticate animals and turning formerly non digestible food (grass) into milk and hence increasing the availability of food resources.

I would like to have a vegetarian diet for the most part and reduce meat intake to maybe twice a week. I prefer unprocessed meat (steak or chicken beast). But I was not able to find the muse to change my diet.

This is not driven by moral concerns. Eat or be eaten is something I, as a human somewhere at the top of the food chain, can live with. I just feel like meat is not as scarce as it should be and many people have lost the connection between meat consumption and the animal where the meat comes from.

I don’t eat for pleasure, and I try to follow some bioethics, but that’s basically it.

I try to eat 80% to 90% minimally processed foods, and the rest is “fun” food. This is what makes me feel good and keeps me from putting on weight. If I consume too much processed stuff I feel like garbage - I’ll feel tired, get headaches, and feel achey (shit just hits you harder when you’re older).

Minimally processed is stuff like oatmeal, fruit, veggies, lean meats, beans, and rice. I try to eat some fermented stuff every day if I can, usually in the form of fermented dill pickles or kimchi. I try to vary my foods as much as I can, since variety is good for your gut microbiome.

Had a UC flare, after that I adjusted my diet. About 50% of the time I do 18h of fasting. Tried an 3 day water fast, gonna do this maybe every 2 months. Mostly meat free meals, cooked from scratch. Trying to keep sugar and bread to the weekends. Eating fermented vegetables and kombucha with most meals. Additional vitamins when I remember.

I don’t eat animal products. Even though many animal products are associated with negative health outcomes, I do it for ethical reasons, not those health reasons.

I usually eat twice a day, a very large meal and a small to medium meal. Has nothing to do with health that just follows when I get hungry and eating is more pleasurable when I am hungry.

Been cutting back on hyperpalatable foods, more potatoes, less potato chips.

To save money I rely a lot on high calorie staples like grains and pulses.

For drinks it’s almost all water and tea. When I’m out I will indulge in some liquor, but I’ve cut back on that a lot.

I just cut my intake in half at lunch and dinner. I find my body needs a decent breakfast with protein. Lunch can be whatever just cut in half and dinner needs to be a decent balance of protein, carbs/starch, and veggie. Oh and lots of water. I cut out the sugary drinks, took a month to wean me off but now I prefer no or low sugar drinks and feel a lot better.

Gaining weight can be HARD.

One of the things I’ve personally struggled with is how much these conversations and resources are focused on how to lose weight or not gain weight. But there are some of us who have various disabilities and conditions that make getting up to a healthy weight incredibly difficult. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to increase my calorie intake without resorting to simple sugars and carbs as my job has gotten somewhat out of hand. I may go to 4 meals a day? I kind of hate eating so it probably won’t work.

I have MCAS and wasn’t diagnosed until my mid thirties. Lowest I weighed myself at was 138lbs at 6’4” tall. You could see when I needed to pee I was so skinny. Mosquitoes stopped biting me. I hit 170lbs at 12 years old, got sick and then hit it again at 32. I weighed myself at 213 last week so I’m officially more than half again what I used to weigh. I look and feel so much better it’s kind of crazy.

I’d be happy to answer any questions people in similar situations may have. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve tried ask people about this topic and have been simply laughed at. Or put down by comments belittling it as a problem and expressing jealousy. That said, my advice may not be useful to a plurality of people.

Learn about food on a biochemical level to some degree. Find out what makes a complete protein. Figure out your circadian rhythm and good times of day for you to eat. Pay attention to the amounts of what you’re putting in your body and adjust accordingly.

Pay attention to your cravings. If you’re craving potato chips try to think about what it is in them that you are actually looking for(salt) and address that specific craving with a healthier option if required. It takes some trial and error but one can train themselves to crave components over foods. Do you want cake or do you want that mouthfeel? Or the fat? Or the sweetness?(a big revelation for me is that I rarely crave sugar, I actually want the comfort food aspect of sweetness which is much easier to address is a healthy way) Also learn when to ignore your body and when it is lying to you. A good place to start on this front is that you are thirsty for water(specifically water) right now. There’s a sort of evolutionary drive to restrict our water intake to the bare minimum because clean water is expensive typically and prepared beverages were often safer. Where one has potable water flowing from taps this efficiency bias becomes a lie and you should really just drink more water.

Cook from scratch if you have the space. It’s a lot to learn and I was very lucky to grow up in a household that provided this focus. Don’t learn to cook unhealthy things. It’s much easier to not buy a deep frier and never learn to deep fry foods than it is to avoid the temptation of delicious fried goods every day. The crucible for me on this is that I’m terrible at making eggs but amazing at pancakes and I found a lesson in my breakfast. If you learn to make tea biscuits or scones vs cookies then you’ve limited what level of trash you can feed yourself.

If you can’t cook at home or don’t have the time find good restaurants or how to shop differently. Pad Thai from a takeaway is just as fast and cheap but can be significantly better than a Big Mac or pizza. Bag of greens or head of lettuce, Fresh bread, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cheese and a rotisserie chicken or chunk of salami(pate or Creton is great too) makes a delicious meal that will keep for a day or two without refrigeration and is reasonably healthy. Makes a 5$/meal if you’re careful with the meat and cheese. This is one of my preferred road trip foods because you get to try different bakeries and cheeses and meats along your route.

People talk a lot of about rice and beans being a healthy cheap staple and I always like to point out peanut butter and jam sandwich’s fall into a similar category. It makes a complete protein, if you’re able to add cows milk it’s a good boost of vitamin d, complex and simple sugars in the jam satisfy cravings and give longer term energy, fat in the peanut oil, etc etc. It’s also very cheap and low entry investment. Under 10$ for starting with big jars of peanut butter and a loaf of bread that gives you 2-3 days of food and another 2$ or so every 2-3 days until the jam runs out. No learning or equipment required. Houseless friendly. Wide cultural acceptance. Good for hanger.

Eat a variety of foods and eat what makes your body feel good. Eat an amount that maintains your healthy weight. But the most important part is finding the motivation to control your intake.