You could read endless nuggets of advice for how best to lose weight, but the only bits of information that are ever actually useful are those that have been tried and tested. In this thread, Redditors share the one weight loss trick that actually worked for them:
1. Make water your go-to drink
‘Don’t drink your calories. Want a glass of orange juice? Choose water. Want a pop? Choose water.’
2. When food is out of sight, it’s out of mind
‘Portion control is the only thing that works for me. However, for me, if I were only going to eat 1/4 of the burger I would need someone to remove the other 3/4 from the table. One thing that I’ve learned about myself is that I mindlessly eat food if it is in front of me.
‘You have to learn who you are and what works for you. I have lost over 100 pounds [7 stone], so I know what works. When I am done eating at a restaurant I need my plate removed immediately and I never want chips or bread baskets on the table. Doesn’t mean I don’t splurge occasionally, but those few times are conscious decisions.’
3. Plan your meals in advance
‘Meal prepping. You would be surprised how much control you give yourself over your calories when you plan ahead. It also saves a lot of time and money.’
4. Have some patience
‘This is a really great way to lose weight. I have a coworker who is into those fad diets where the goal is to lose a ton of weight in a short amount of time. In reality, losing weight slowly and making changes you can maintain over long periods of time is a great and healthy way to lose weight.
‘It also allows you to eat more food, and to eat things you enjoy without feeling the urges to binge. I believe the best way to lose weight is in a way that is a sustainable lifestyle. Losing weight is not easy, but it can be easier to keep it off if you take your time getting it off.’
5. Use a calorie-counting app
‘When you first start to use MyFitnessPal and realise how much crap you eat and how many calories each piece of crap has, you can’t help but sort yourself out! Weighed my cereal out when I started and usually had over 500 calories with the milk in which is way too much considering I was eating other stuff at breakfast, too. Puts things into perspective and helps a lot!’
6. Use smaller plates
‘We started doing this at my house and it was incredible to see 1) how much food I was putting on those big plates, and 2) how much less food I could eat and still feel just as full. Or rather, I found I wasn’t stuffing myself full every meal and was actually happier for it.’
7. Walk more
‘Walking. It’s so underrated. Anyone can do it, it can be done anywhere and it’s free.What I’ve been doing is leaving early for my bus to work and walking 30 mins along the route before catching my bus. On the way home I’ll get off early and walk 30 mins home again. Adds an hour of walking a day with very little disruption to my daily routine. That plus eating better and I’ve lost a stone in about 5/6 weeks.’
8. Adopt the 70% rule
‘Eat 70% of the meal. Take a break and talk for a while, drink some water and enjoy the moment for a bit. You’ll find that the majority of the time the food will settle in your stomach and you won’t be hungry anymore.'[Via]
9. Make easy, at-home exercises part of your daily routine
‘Do simple exercises like push-ups and sit-ups every night. Start out with low numbers and by the end you’ll be able to do 100+ push-ups a day. It’s just involves making it a part of your routine.’
10. Remember to feel hungry
‘You can’t lose weight unless you are hungry. Accept it and deal with it.This is the answer. I cut out snacking and was hungry to the point of being slightly uncomfortable for large chunks of the day. But I lost weight, and also didn’t perform any worse at work or the gym or my other pursuits.’
11. Learn to cook
‘I started learning to cook. As a result, I quit eating most processed foods (because the food I cook tastes better! Bonus!). That stubborn 15 lb that I gained after an injury a few years ago just went away. The only “effort” I made was to find a few recipes that I love and practice cooking them on Sunday afternoons.’
12. Do weight training instead of cardio
‘Lifting weights is much better than grinding cardio for losing weight, and more importantly keeping it off. Lift as if you were trying to build muscle as optimally as possible. If you’re a beginner, you’ll probably build some muscle in addition to losing fat.’
13. Spoil food you don’t want or need to eat
‘A trick my nutritionist told me… if you can’t get that excess food away from you, then ‘spoil’ it on some way. Open and pour a sugar packet on it, mush a paper napkin in it, spill some water on it, etc. Do something that makes it “rubbish” instead of “food”. You’ll stop that mindless munching. I’ve used that tip many times, and it works.’
