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!