It’s a while since I put anything health and fitness related on here, because if I’m being honest, there is so much good information available, it made me self-aware how little I know!
Today I decided to revisit the subject at least once, to share my personal perspective on losing weight, from the perspective of someone who got the exercise part nailed down, but never has been able to get the diet part in check… yet.
A life time battle with eating
Throughout my adult life I’ve always been a kind of fit, kind of fat guy.
I was never the sporty kid at school, so concepts like eating the right things for athletic performance was never a priority.
Going through those teenage years I became more self-conscious about how I looked, and by 18 after some encouragement from my dad I joined a gym.
This environment changed my attitude to keeping fit in ways the school system never could.
In the gym it was me against me – no one badgering me about my performance, no getting picked last, no nothing that made me think “what’s the point?”
Although I made improvements to my diet, being active did give me freedom to eat more of what I wanted without paying for it – the only consequence as a twenty-something was I’d never get a six pack, but who cares!
In my peak I was going to the gym five, six times a week, cycling to work and running in the evenings. Although I never measured, I estimate that I was eating anywhere between 3000-4000 calories.
Despite this I got to a lean 77kg (169lbs)
But as I got older I began slowing down, and injuries from hard training and competing in running events began to build up.
I change this do focus on weight training, and began putting on weight
“It’s okay, it’s all the muscle I’m putting on from lifting heavy” was my go to cope.
Throughout my 30’s the amount of time I spent in the gym, along with the frequency reduced, to allow more time for recovery.
By 40 I was now doing challenging 45 minute sessions 3 times a week, but far from the intense “exercise with every spare minute” attitude that had carried my eating habits.
In 2021 I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and the shock made me refocus my diet (briefly).
And although the next year I got the clear, I used this as justification to relax my eating habits – as you can guess, in 2023, weighing 97kg (214lbs), I found AGAIN I had pre-diabetes.
This time I began thinking if I was going to make a change, and by default improve the quality of my life I had to get more serious about what I eat, drop the weight and keep to a comfortable size that reduced the health implications caused for excess fat.
My greatest fear is that if I don’t conquer my eating impulse, I could get an injury that stops me keeping fit (and weight maintained), and I’ll end up incapcitated, morbidly obese and dependent on others for the smallest tasks.
Over the last few months I’ve revolutionised my eating habits to focus on:
Cutting down on how much I eat
Substituting higher calorie dense foods, for lower options
The progress so far
I’m proud to say with the efforts made so far I’ve lost one stone (14lbs), getting down to 91kg (200lbs).
As I continue to fight this battle my short term goal is to get below 90kg (198lbs), a weight I haven’t been below in over five years.
My long term goal is 85kg (187lbs) where I intended (at least for the moment) to stay a couple of kg, slightly above, or below this size.
From my weight loss, I share this tips well in the knowledge I’m not the best person to be giving diet tips, so I caveat this is my 18 weight loss tips from a kind of fit, kind of fat guy:
Weigh yourself everyday (if you must)
Conventional advice says NOT to weigh yourself everyday because you have to consider things like water weight, and other things.
I go against this because regular weigh-ins keep me accountable, meaning I can’t have a binge weekend and then excuse myself from the scales for a bit.
The downside of this is it can be demoralising if you spent most of yesterday fighting hunger temptations, but I need this to remain focused on the goal.
Avoid eating after your evening meal
Progress is made by the decisions you make each.
Avoid eating after dinner, tea, whatever you call your last meal of the day, don’t eat anything else.
The biggest challenge on cutting down on eating is temptations, the advantage of not eating before bed is you won’t succumb to these desires because you should be asleep for most of it!
Cut down on the desserts
Self-explanatory, your desserts are a source of many extra calories you consume.
Avoid needing to have something sweet after every meal.
Pick up fruit as a snack instead
My biggest downfall is from snacking during the day – substituting chocolate bars, biscuits and crisps for fruit makes a big difference to the waistline, and it’s more filling meaning you snack less.
Measure calories of what you eat
I don’t care much for keeping records of how many calories I consume, as it takes up far too much time.
But it’s good to have an awareness of how much is in what you’re eat, which is why I’ve taken a few weeks to measure the foods I typically eat.
Once you establish this set a new routine focused on a calorie deficit (i.e. less calories than you normally eat each day), and stick to the same foods each day so that you know how much is in what – this will allow you to maintain your weight loss efforts!
Avoid extreme dieting
Something I’m totally against is extreme dieting, losing 6-10lbs+ in a week, this type of weight loss makes me feel weak, gives me headaches, and makes me more eager to gorge on lots of bad things ruining all my efforts.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Water lots of water
Feelings of thirst can confuse you into thinking that you’re feeling hungry.
What’s more a well hydrated body takes up space in the stomach, making you feel full.
So when you start your day – have some water.
When you’re wanting a snack – have some water.
Water is the original diet drink (and it’s free!)
Be in a calorie deficit
Weight loss in a nutshell is:
Number of calories consumed – Number of calories burned = Weight gained/lost
So always focus on being in a deficit – eat less high calorie foods and exercise more.
Make effort to move everyday
To help keep you in a calorie deficit make a concentrated effort to move everyday.
Walk the dog more.
Leave the remote by the TV so you have to get up.
Take regular breaks to move around if you have a desk job.
Make a point to squirm about more.
Recognise feelings of hunger are natural
One of the biggest paradigm shifts in my understanding of losing weight was embracing those feelings of my desire to eat and respect this was part of the process to progress on my journey.
When you make a mental mindshift that this “suffering” is the result of the good work you’re doing, you’ll find those moments much easier to get through.
Get to bed earlier
Not only does better sleep help with weight loss, because if you’re asleep you can’t eat, getting more sleep will help your struggles during the day.
The time I crave snacks the most is when I’m tired – in my mind I’m telling myself if I have some chocolate the sugar will give me the energy to keep awake.
If you’re having a particularly rough evening and want to reach into that fridge, take yourself off to bed, read a book and get an early night.
Stop self sabotage yourself
Often I’d have a good day keeping to a pretty healthy diet.
Then 10 minutes before bed I’d be raiding the cupboard for biscuits. Not just one, sometimes as many as five.
I’ve already covered how night and getting to bed are easier times to control your eating, so why would I give up so close to the finish of the day?
I realised there is an element of self sabotage, my weakness is before bed and dealing with stressful situations.
Identify yours and you’ll be able to reduce or even stop the self-sabotage.
Made a mistake? Don’t restart again after the weekend or tomorrow – start now!
Simply enough if you’ve fallen off the wagon, a big mistake to make is telling yourself
“Never mind, I’ll pick up again from next week”
Do write off one mistake to your planned diet as an excuse to take the rest of the day off and indulge in some gordging.
No, reset yourself as soon as possible, forgive yourself for the transgression, and get back on it!
Forgive yourself
Being self critical will not help.
Repeat: being self critical will not help.
It can only make things worse.
Often I think about how I let myself get this far, and think how stupid I was to do this to myself.
Although it’s easier to lose a couple of lbs rather than a couple of stone, you have to accept what you’ve done – keep motivated in what you intended to achieve, and keep putting in the effort to exercise more and eat less calories.
Don’t just measure scale weight.
As someone who lifts weights, things like “muscle weighs more than fat” was my cope for gaining weight.
But when it came to weight loss, I was determined that this would be body fat, and not come at the expense of muscle mass.
So as part of this process as well as hitting the scales I get out the tape measure and check out the size of my waist to see if it’s going down, against the size of my biceps (etc), to see if they’re aren’t disappearing too!
A handy measure for fat loss is to find a machine that measures height, weight, BMI and body fat percentage. It’s about £1 (or whatever your local currency is), but gives you an idea of the progress you’re making all over.
Shop on a full stomach
Recently we’ve started shopping after evening dinner.
One thing I’ve noticed is that I’m not chucking silly impulsive purchases into the basket because I’m hungry at that moment.
Going to the shops on your main meal makes a difference to your purchase choices, and with lots of the sugary goods you normally add, you find yourself saying
“Nah, I’ll leave it…”
Keep your goal in mind
Late night shopping equals more discount prices as supermarkets looked to shift baked goods that they can’t sell tomorrow.
So you do have more temptations.
Keep your goals in mind.
Keep focused on using those discounts to your advantage to get more of the quality food you want (for example you can find some good lean meats at cheaper prices to freeze).
Finally… don’t blow all your progress on a weekend
The weekends are a time for enjoying yourself, but they can also be the undoing for all your hard work.
Excessive drinking is a source of extra calories and it slows down your weight loss. Cut it out (or better yet stop drinking).
Enjoy yourself in moderation, and if you find it hard to stop, then don’t start.
Wishing you the best in your success
James @Perfect Manifesto
Perfect Manifesto 
These are good tips. I have found at my age (61) that walking and doing other exercises needs to be for good health. My food choices are 85% based on healthy choices with a few unhealthy ones sprinkled in so I don’t go nuts!
I was an exercise anorexic in my early 20’s, very unhealthy even though I was exercising like crazy. I have had to learn to change the focus from dieting and losing weight to just focusing on being healthy (physically and mentally). It had lowered my stress levels in this area tremendously. Walking outdoors is my all-time favorite activity, as it nourishes both my mind and body.
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Hi Tamara, thanks for commenting –
I was listening to something the other day that said if you struggle with over eating after exercise, walking is a good exercise to avoid those cravings – so I’ve been dedicating more time to walking the dog!
I think “being healthy” is the better aspiration over “being thin” or getting as light on the scales as possible – although I still have another stone to go, I’m already filling fitter, and mentally feeling good about myself and how I’m looking.
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That’s great to hear! As someone who had a very harsh inner dialogue, I’d say it pushed me to become anorexic, because nothing was ever enough for my old inner voice.
Part of my recovery was switching my motivation for doing things in life. By focusing on goof health, my inner dialogue was able to shift, and that was well before I worked on teaching myself to like myself. The simple shift of focusing on just being health, body, mind and spirit, was amazing.
I’m so pleased to hear you have added walking to your life, and choosing to walk the dog longer is so beneficial for the 2 of you! Good on you!
The only issue of course with walking is inclement weather, so an alternative plan is necessary. I have rejoined Planet Fitness for those days. Years ago when I lived with my daughter, her town has an indoor walking track, for free to all. I’d even take my grandkids with me.
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