re: Anyone actively trying to lose weight?

Snacking is ok. Make it healthy snacks.
Fruit, nuts, protein bar, etc.

Use protein shakes to curb appetite. Keeping a bottle of water will also help this.

At night if the late cravings hit, brush teeth and get in bed. Doesn’t matter how early it is. Getting in bed doesn’t mean going to sleep.

It’s not complicated. But being not complicated doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Up protein, lower complex carbs, calorie deficit, lots of water and sleep, and no alcohol.

I get on the scale very little. I mostly pay attention to lean muscle mass and body fact percentage via an InBody scan every3 months or so. If I'm gaining weight but adding muscle and losing fat, I don't care what I weigh.

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frick off this isn’t the OT.

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I can't believe I'm saying this, but "In His Defense" when he posted that shitty reply, this thread was on the OT, it got moved. I kinda wish that was a feature on this message board, as in I wish there was an indicator of some kind that a topic had been moved. In the olden days, on other message boards, admins would edit the title of all topics they moved, so the new(er) title on the now moved topic would read

"(moved from OT Lounge) Anyone actively trying to lose weight?"

And we all know how the OT handles ........well....everything

Never discount a good walk.

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As mentioned, watch what you eat and drink water like it’s going out of style. But never eat later than 7:00. 6:00 if possible. You’ll be surprised at how much that helps in dropping pounds.

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I have been doing all of this for over 6 months. I was a fat arse 5'11" 245 and I lost 30 lbs. But lately I can't seem to drop another single pound. I stopped losing weight about 5 weeks ago. For the last 2 weeks I have not exceeded 1500 calories/day and I have exercised religiously. 1.5-2 hours lifting weights 5days a week and walking my dogs 2-3 miles every day. I drink nothing but black coffee and water. The weight loss just stopped and I can't explain it. What was working so well before isn't working anymore. So now I'm sitting at 5'11" 215 and I need some advice other than ozempic.

You need a diet reset. I'm sure someone else can explain it better than I can, but you can't just lower calories perpetually. At your ht/wt, if you are truly eating 1500 calories a day (not calling you out and saying you are lying, rather I'm just saying that even the most exacting person can make mistakes/omissions, and maybe that's why the lack of continued progress), I can't imagine the 90-120 minutes of exercise you're doing is doing you any favors. It sounds like you're in that grinding phase of Enormous Effort = Little to NO Results.

Take a month and reset. Slowly increase your calories, cut back on the time you're lifting,(you don't have to quit lifting intensely, just make what you do COUNT, consider cutting out anything that isn't essential, in the past I like doing reverse pyramid training for this and limiting myself to 1 core lift a day and 1 auxiliary, for example) , consider just switching to something completely different for a month.

Ideally, after a reset period, you've gained a nominal amount of weight, but you're recovery is better, sleep is better, and now you can reduce calories again and hopefully lose more weight. I think if you've gone more than about 2 weeks without losing any weight, you have to consider a reset.

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I'm still taking in less calories than I'm burning

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I'm not losing any weight.

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You’re wrong.
You can’t beat science. If you burn more than you consume, weight has to leave.
I would switch up how you’re tracking calories in/out.

Those kinds of fasts can work, I recently did a 48 hour fast, but for completely different reasons. Based on what you're telling us, I don't think a fast would be the best strategy for you.

Like I said, I bet you're being honest and you are probably right about your intake and you're at least in the neighborhood of 1500cals/day, but you aren't losing weight because you are in maintenance. Your body's actual caloric daily burn must be matched to your daily caloric intake, otherwise you'd either lose weight or gain weight.

Hormone wise, your body is depleted from being in a deficit, and I'd imagine your energy during your workouts reflects that, and I'd imagine your N.E.A.T.(Non-exercise-activity-thermogenesis: which is fidgeting/pacing/etc), is way down as well. Your body is done with letting you lose weight until you reset those hormones.

I (first off, I'm no expert, but I try to put expert voices in my head through books/podcasts/videos/etc) don't think fasting will help someone in your state, but they're good for other things.

As of late I've been on a big Mike Israetel/Renaissance Periodization kick for my nutritional knowledge, but he's definitely just one of many quality sources of information on the topic. I like him because we are basically the same height and build and through watching tons of this videos you can see that he can go from being in a fluffy/chubby body to an absolutely shredded body, so I trust him. He can do it, so I can do it. In this video about diet resets he's got no body hair and he's lean as hell, so he must have had a bodybuilding show or a photoshoot coming up when this was shot.



ETA: The timelines he is using in this video are longer than I think you need to use. I don't know if you are, or if you are not, psychologically burned out from dieting, if you are, take the time to work through that, but if you aren't burnt out, just frustrated with lack of progress, I don't think you need to spend several months basically "healing your relationship with food and dieting." Just gradually ramp up your calories over a few weeks, once you feel your energy improving(and probably sleep as well) that's when you should shift focus to maintaining that and just focusing on getting simple, foundational training in, don't go gonzo crazy yet with marathon workouts, don't under-eat, AND sleep sleep sleep. Stick with that for a while (I don't know what will work for you, I would just re-assess how I feel on a weekly basis and for me, I feel I only need a few weeks in a transitional phase before I move on to the next one)

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My spouse is a doctor and she says she doesn’t recommend and to lose it naturally via healthier lifestyle and I agree with that.

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I’m a doctor and disagree.

Some people need this to help with weight loss. Yea if you don’t make any lifestyle changes while on it, sure you will gain the weight back. But that can be said for every diet out there.