This is partly resonant with my experience over the last few years, which I think I've mentioned before in the weight loss thread, but this is as good a place as any. (TL:DR - Portion control is your friend.)
I used to cycle to work, just shy of 11 miles each way. Since I worked shifts it wasn't every single day, but I used to ride between 40 and 60 miles per week most weeks, sometimes more, sometimes less. It worked out about 3500 miles per year commuting if my bike computers were accurate. That was my annual base of riding, with recreational rides on top of that. I was still overweight, but didn't worry about it.
When I was having my cancer treatment there was a bit of sucking of teeth, and the comment "we don't want you to worry about it until your primary treatment is done, but you could do with losing about 20 kilos.' 20 kilos is a long way. It wasn't helped by being told not do do any cycling, running, swimming or kayaking during treatment. "What can I do?" sez I.
"You can walk 5km a day, but nothing bouncy, or strenuous, and no impact." At first I thought that was a bit restricting, but looking after the surgery scars, and then the whole skin-falling-apart-due-to-radiation, made me appreciate it a bit more. Once they'd signed me off, they said I could go back to 'normal,' whatever that means.
Thus in spring of 2020, coinciding with lockdown, I restarted my exercise and began to look seriously at losing the weight. Nick was also overweight and decided to join in. There's a whole story in itself of how much easier it is if you a) don't have to go to work, and b) don't have to make two different sets of meals.
At some point in this process, Michael Moseley did one of his shows where they took a group of very overweight people and tortured them subjected them to a diet-and-exercise regime. We watched this with some interest on my part (failed biochemist), and thought we might use it as a jumping-off point. Mainly though, we just went with the initial information on the NHS diet pages, and thought we'd tailor things as we went.
I wrote everything down. All the foods we normally ate I tabulated with their calorific content, and worked out how much to have at each meal, backed up by weighing ingredients. We removed many, but not all, carbs. Almost no rice, pasta or potatoes for the best part of a year. We maintained our protein intake, and kept up the exercise regime. A couple of slices of bread was allowed with soup. Cheese was restricted. But - and here's the crunch - we didn't really restrict what could be eaten (nothing was 'forbidden'), only how much. A traditional calorie controlled diet, but one full of things we'd enjoy eating, combined with the ability to make it all ourselves rather than be eating a crappy sandwich on the hoof halfway through a 12-hour midnight shift. The other thing that seemed to help was not doing breakfast - a sort of intermittent fasting, without actually fasting.
I lost 25 kg in 8 months. Nick lost 58. Yes, really.
After 8 months, the hardest thing was actually readjusting the numbers so that we remain at our target weights. We both went under by a good few kg, but neither of us felt like we were actually on a diet, so we had to tweak a few more calories in here and there to get back on track. It there a relevant point? I hear you ask. Well, it's all the stuff I don't pick up from the media:
1. Write it down. If it goes in your face, you need to write it down. Without cheating. After a week or so, you no longer need the scales because you quickly get a feel for how much salad is 75 kcal, but I still write it down. If I didn't write it down, it never happened. You can average over a week like a smartwatch does, but you still need to record it.
2. Make your own food. Much of what we eat now is actually batch cooked, homemade, with lots of salad, raw or lightly cooked veg. We make our own pickles, including the odd bit of fermented stuff like kimchi and lime pickle.
3. Count the calories and work out how much you actually burn. Most guidance says 2000 daily calories for women, 2500 for men. In reality, it seems I only need about 1600-1800 average. Nick needs 2000-2200. Any more than that and we gain weight.
4. If there's a PIE on offer in the supermarket, and you like PIE, then bloody well get it. Just split one between two, or make it last over two meals. You'll be happy you had PIE, and your craving will be satisfied, but you'll also have the restricted intake you need.
5. The one that nobody seems to talk about - people seem to think the 'exercise' is there to help you lose weight. It's not. It's there to stop you eating your own muscle in preference to burning the fat. The body is really, really good at simply deleting stuff you don't use, and will delete the easiest stuff first. Not using those cycling leg muscles? Well, we'll just get rid, because you clearly don't need them. Fat stores? ah, we're keeping those because you might need them. If you exercise and restrict calories, it would appear the body gets the message, and starts to burn the reserves.
The privilege here is in the fact that the pandemic furlough (and then deciding to simply retire) gave me the time to do all the research, all the food management, cooking, and growing some stuff ourselves. The privilege of having time, a garden and a greenhouse.
We're in a death-spiral. Shitty food is cheap. Poor people are either money-poor and therefore have to buy the cheap shitty food, or time-poor and therefore have to buy the fast option of cheap shitty food, or both. Our society has become reliant on transport without exercise, so most people are removing any chance their body might have of balancing its equations. Even if you do ride to work, you can still end up overweight - BTDT. It seems to be the worst combination of people either can't do better for themselves, or people won't do better for themselves. Maybe a bit of both. Politicians and companies aren't helping.
