Originally Posted by
Flordibel
Hey Dracarys! Losing weight is a mega-pain in the butt. If you don't mind, I can share what's worked for me in the past, and my own story?
I started weight training ~3x a week around 4 years ago. I didn't make any changes to my diet. While I mostly maintained, my weight did slowly creep up over a period of about a year and a half. When my friend started a new gym and training program, it came with weight management, most of which focused on calorie cutting. I'm a competitive person by nature, so me and her decided to go at this same program together. I started up with the app MyFitnessPal (they have automated plans that calculate if you put in your current weight and how much you want to lose), and sure enough, by keeping to that calorie amount each day, I shed 30 pounds in a matter of months! It was awesome. My grocery store trips did increase in price, because I was buying prepackaged things in order to be able to track calories, but it was a tradeoff I was willing to make.
I managed to maintain my weight across the pandemic, but I didn't lose any either. I also moved states, which meant finding a new gym. So I found one - the same program my friend had been using - which is weight training, with optional high-intensity interval training and cardio days if you feel like it. (I usually avoid those lol.) But nothing really changed until the trainer (who is a certified nutritionist as well) decided to change up what macros I was eating each day, rather than calories - i.e., the portion of carbs to protein to fats. When he increased my carbohydrates, I shed a ton of FAT in like, 3 weeks. That was great! It was oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs in the mornings, with carb-heavy meals at noon, and a light dinner.
Then... I plateaued. I stopped losing any fat. NOooooo!!!
So he changed me up again a few weeks ago. Now, instead of a pasta lunch every day, I eat... veggies. It's... better than I thought it would be, actually. I kept that oatmeal/hard-boiled egg breakfast - though it's toast instead of oatmeal, now - and for lunch, I do chopped zucchini, asparagus, onions, mushrooms if I'm feeling it, tofu, and blanched almonds on cauliflower rice. (I also pair this with a protein shake.) If you cook them all for about 5 minutes in the pan with a marinade of your choice... it's actually GOOD! And I don't like veggies as a rule! When I started eating this for lunch, I dropped belly fat really quick in 3 weeks. The key part for me was being able to buy the veggies pre-sliced, because my ADHD brain doesn't let me make a meal if I can't think past "prepare the ingredients." So it may help if you can find veggies pre-sliced, though it will mean you're going to the grocery a couple times a week instead of maybe the one time you're used to.
Sooo... to sum up, I think all bodies are different. For me, I could work out all day every day and probably not notice any results unless I eat differently and change up my diet, whether it be calorie restriction or macros changes. And you may have to do both - for me, simple calorie restriction only didn't work after a while. I'm also a person who doesn't mind eating the same foods day after day. It may be a different journey for you, but the important part is, you've already started! Doing any kind of simple activity along with changing up your diet is a very possible key to success - I wish you the best of luck!