The first problem with people unable to lose weight is simply not counting calories and trying to "switch to healthier food and eyeball it". You have to have a kitchen scale and measure portions. Track every meal in an app. It's annoying at first, but once you get in the habit, it's just part of preparing the meal. When you do that, you will be able to tell which meals in your diet are high calorie (which, some are surprisingly calorie dense contrary to what a lot of people think), and find replacements or downsize the portions accordingly.

The second problem is people simply not being honest with their calorie tracking. You may only eat 3 meals but then when you're hungry you will eat a handful of raisins, peanuts, or something else, a lot of people will think to themselves "well, it's just a handful, so it can't be that many calories" - but repeated habit of eating those adds up, and most people don't account for that in their calorie tracking app. Similar to adding a small bit of, say, butter to your pan before making scrambled eggs. You may think, "it's only about 10 grams of butter, it's not much so why bother tracking it", but that 10 grams of butter is 75 calories, over the course of a month of preparing scrambled eggs every morning for breakfast, that's 2250 kcal, after 3 months, that's an entire KILO of bodyweight fat that you either gained or could have lost - small things add up.

Sometimes (but less frequently) it's also hormonal issues, you may want to go to a clinic to do a bloodtest (specifically thyroid hormones and diabetes markers).

Also, low intensity cardio (slow pace incline treadmill/stairmaster) can go a long way in aiding weight loss.

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thewebguyd 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yep. It's almost always either not tracking or not being honest with tracking.

It's possible to overeat anything - whether a food is "healthy" or not, while important, isn't what matters for weight loss. Burning more calories than you consume is what is important for weight loss.

Where I see folks, particularly men, fail most often is in their mid-late thirties. Sedentary lifestyle, wants to lose the "dad bod." Someone in that situation, with no physical activity, would actually have a fairly low TDEE so a 500 cal/day deficit might look like eating in a range of 1500-1700 calories/day, which if they are like the average American and used to consuming 3500+ calories/day, will be quite the shock - so they are almost immediately super hungry, and might start out with good intentions with tracking what they eat but will frequently miss all the little snacks here and there, or just haven't developed the skill of meal prepping, and properly weighing out their food.

It's a lot of work, and requires a lot of dedication. Too many articles out there that just simplify it down to "Eat less, move more" but don't do enough to actually educate folks on what that really looks like.

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anonymousDan 2 days ago | parent [-]

Any good resources you recommend on this? Speaking as an early forties Dad :)

	▲	thewebguyd 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		First, figure out your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) to figure out how much of a deficit you need to eat in to lose weight at your desired rate. You can start off with one of those online calculators (like this one: https://tdeecalculator.net/). 1 to 2lbs/week is generally healthy and sustainable. Losing weight too fast can cause you to lose a lot of muscle as well, which is generally what you don't want (resistance training will help with this) I like this TDEE spreadsheet, as the formulas aren't always accurate for everyone: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7gGXXQIy4R4ejRRNkZHZHFDOW8... You log what you eat and your weight everyday, after a few weeks you should have a pretty good picture of your TDEE and know how much you need to eat for your desired weight loss. What was important for me, is that if you add in exercise, try not to eat back what you burned from the exercise - smart watches/fitbits aren't always accurate in their estimates, so just use the exercise as an opportunity to dig a little deeper of a deficit (and for the other health benefits). As much of a pain in the ass it is, you'll want to weigh your food for a while, down to individual ingredients including cooking oil, as it's really easy to underestimate how much you consume (2 tbps of olive oil is 120 calories, for example - that adds up over the course of a week if you are using that much or more every time you cook). The reddit r/fitness wiki has a wealth of information on diet and routines as well, I highly recommend skimming it over: https://thefitness.wiki/ If you are able I'd recommend resistance training along with diet as well. Building muscle will help boost your metabolism a bit, help with aesthetic goals, and getting stronger will only help you as you get older. No need to go crazy here, even just 2 to 3 days/week, especially for a beginner, can give you some pretty big improvements. A lot of people think they need to hit the gym 6 days/week like a body builder but it's not necessary at all. Lastly, take progress photos and/or body measurements as well. You'll hit periods, especially if you are resistance training, where the scale isn't moving, but you could still very well be losing body fat so the photos/measurements can be helpful to keep your motivation through these periods. Expect your weight to fluctuate a lot too day to day, what's important is the average trend over time, not necessarily day to day. Hope that helps!