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[Urist McScoopbeard]

So. I have never been "in shape", which to say without a stomach. I am not a fat guy, and you probably wouldn't think to classify me as such. In fact, the only place I have fat is my stomach. The rest of me is in good shape. I've tried to convince myself over the years that if I just workout more I can lose my stomach fat, but the fact of the matter is I can't. I'm not obese, but i'm close at around ~30 BMI and frankly it has caused me all manner of depression and low self esteem. I've learned to deal with it, but now that i'm almost 19 and that I am, in fact, living my formative years, I want to get in shape. By the end of my undergraduate degree I want to be thin and healthy.

Of course, my problem is eating... and I will admit, I have a problem with eating a lot. I'm addicted to food. Bad food really. I just can't stop. I overeat, eat often, and make bad food decisions. I came to realize it all when I forced myself on to a pseudo-vegan diet over the summer (Most of my meals were vegan and I occasionally pigged out on sushi or some unhealthy snack to stay sane). I was incredibly happy and I lost about 20 pounds in just a month or two. Which is frankly amazing. I went to college and gained most if not all of it back. Im set for another 3 years at least, and my mother has made it her personal goal to persuade me to get my masters too. Unfortunately, college, as many of us know, is fucking awful for your diet.

Long story short, I can't control myself, and I eat like a pig. I really don't know what to do to eat better. When I was on the pseudo-vegan diet it worked only because I was at home and my parents agreed to literally having nothing in the house but vegan food. I work out, and it's all I can do to not balloon up by working out 3 days a week.

Next year, I'll be doing a lot of striking/throwing martial arts which'll put me at 4 hours of practice 4 days a week and at least an hour or two on the weekends.

I really need to get my dietary shit together. How do I do this? Calorie counting and weight watchers type stuff does little for me, and I already discussed how little willpower I have when it comes to making dietary decisions in a cinch. I don't know if I have some sort of underlying mental health issue (like stress, or another form of depression) or what, but I really need some help on this.

[Angle]

Instead of trying not to eat unhealthy stuff, try to eat healthy stuff. Make it a habit to eat lots of good food. Then you won't have space in your stomach for junk.

I'd also suggest you do some research nd make sure you're proposed diet IS healthy, and you're not just trading one set of junk for another.

[zestorum]

A little bit of an alternative suggestion here, but have you tried a ketogenic lifestyle? I've heard good things from people on Reddit and although I haven't tried it myself (I have the opposite problem - trying to put on some mass!), I'm convinced that it works! Check out /r/keto.

A little info. It basically consists of eliminating all carbohydrates from your diet and replacing them with fats. It sounds good for you due to the absence of calorie counting which you've said you dislike. Look at some progress pictures and you'll see it's the real deal, though it may be a little hard to stick to at first. Good luck friend.

[nenjin]

My diet is absolutely atrocious. But I've been making a positive effort lately to eat better, or at least somewhat healthier, dinners.

See, when I order food, either from a fast food place or delivery, I gorge. I've been doing it most of my life, but I think the smoking and stress, plus my genes and metabolism, have kept me from essentially becoming obese. I also tend to not eat for long periods of time, because nicotine is an appetite suppressant and I drink a ton of strong coffee, and so I've gotten pretty good at ignoring my hunger for long periods of time. Hence, what started the gorging thing. When I do eat, I'm starving, and I have put away a shocking amount of food before that makes people 3x my size just stare agog.

But weight is starting to creep up on me after all these years. I've gone from being the lightest male in my family at 140 to 150 for most of my life, to the heaviest at nearly 200 in probably the last three years. I'm starting to develop a belly despite being pretty skinny every where else.

So my strategy lately has been to snack healthier for dinner, and try and cut down/out fast food to the weekend. A plate, and little handfuls this or that. Like a couple pieces of beef jerky, some peanuts, maybe a mozzarella stick, and water.

Or I'll make a sandwich with just a light bit of mayo and the meat, some carrots, maybe some olives, a couple slices of hard salami, a couple pieces of prosciutto...
 
What I've come to realize is, for me, it's all about portions. My eyes as a kid were always bigger than my stomach but by my teenage years that completely flipped on its head. I was suddenly finishing what I was ordering and progressively getting more each time. When presented with a lot of fast food options, I over order. 2 French Dips and a Fried Mozzarella sticks from Arby's to me is one meal. When I'm at the grocery store and I see an oven pizza, I don't see two nights worth of food. I see dinner. All of it. A bag of some thing you cook in the oven? Well....why not just make all of it so there's no left overs (which I've always hated because I'm picky.) I'll easily order $20+ dollars worth of delivery food and finish it in one sitting. Leave no witnesses!

But I don't do that with food I actually make. Somehow making it myself calms my over eager appetite, partially because I know it's not a thing I absolutely love (which is terrible fast food and pizza and shit you make in the oven) and because I think it actually took effort to make. When I'm staring at a thing of sandwich meat and a loaf of bread, I don't make 2 or 3 sandwiches (anymore. I used to make triple decker toasted sandwiches all the time when I had more zeal for cooking.) I make one, and supplement it with a handful of other sides.

Just the simple act of putting effort into making my food stops me both from being lazy about, and from mindlessly overeating. Now that I think about it, the times I really over ate when I made food at home was when I was unemployed. And that makes sense, because I'd have all the energy in the world to cook when I wasn't working. And since it being quick and easy wasn't a priority, I'd over do it. Not like these guys, but I'd make big stupid stacks of food.

Part of my issue obviously is motivation. I'm just beat after work and usually never buy more than a week's worth of groceries (partially because I tend to let a lot of it go to waste because I spend more time eating fast food than what I bought) which has led to a lot of reliance of fast food. So I try to shop light for things I usually feel I'll finish. Having more rigor when shopping has helped improve what's available to me. Lots of times I go to the store out of desperation for nothing in the fridge, and make poor shopping decisions because I haven't really put out the effort to build a good shopping list, and just grab what's easiest to think of instead of what's good.

Maybe that's not all super helpful to you, but I feel like, after years of being lazy about what I eat, and tending to focus on large amounts of just one thing (mainly pizza, but sandwiches, nachos, pasta, you name it. To me a meal often a ton of just one thing), assembling a varied dinner out of small, easy things has been an epiphany. A few slices of some nice baked bread, some apple slices, a couple more fruits and veggies you like, a cheese, a protein....it's all stuff you can grab out of the fridge in seconds. The trick is to not over do any one portion. Instead of a whole apple, do half an apple and save the rest for later. Instead of a fistful of baby carrots, try a palm full. Not more than 1 sandwich or a couple pieces of bread.

So yeah.
1. Get a mini fridge so you can keep lots of easy things on hand at a college. They're super helpful in keeping you from doing fast food.
2. Try to create modest but varied meals from a lot of easily prepared sources. (Raw veggies, quick proteins.)
3. Try to find/remember the healthy, real foods you do like and try to make those part of your rotation. I am not a veggie person, but I like olives, carrots, raw spinach, a good salad (without all the crap Americans like put on their salad like ham and cheese) and most kinds of fruit.
4. Eat all of what you buy before it goes bad. Buying food and letting it go to waste is not only kinda criminally wasteful in my book, it further demotivates you to buy more fresh foods and rely on easy, reliable fast food and preserved junk instead. Staying true to this means shopping seriously weekly or bi-weekly.
5. Drink water, as dumb as it sounds. I drink between 1 and 3 a sodas a day. 1 with lunch, maybe one with dinner, maybe one really really late at night. Otherwise I just do coffee with some cream and a tea spoon of sugar. If not those two things, it's water. On the weekends, I alternate between a cup of coffee and a tall glass of water most of the day. You don't have to replace everything with water. Just try replacing half of it. At the very least, it's not adding anything to the calorie equation, keeps you from getting dehydrated and does its part in keeping you regular.

Good luck!

[NullForceOmega]

Burn calories.  Weight training for your upper body, swimming to maximize calorie use, walking/jogging/running to further use up the calories your body isn't burning currently.  Diet is not the primary factor in weight loss, burning unused calories while maintain reasonable intake is.  As you build muscle the amount of calories your body demands increases, but if you already are an overeater then you just don't eat more and the new muscle mass will metabolise the fat.  By the way, martial arts is not an effective workout when trying to lose weight, I am saying this as someone who has done years of martial arts and is still overweight.  I need more exercise too (gods damned broken knees).

[wierd]

Portion control + Balanced dietary intake + physical exercise == proper weight maintenance.

In other words, dont eat the "American diet", Eat meals with greater amounts of vegetable matter in them, with higher fiber content, complex starches instead of simple ones, and try to use plant protein sources more frequently-- etc.  Portion meals appropriately to your caloric requirements, and couple those with a strong daily exercise regimen.

Since changing careers to something more physical, I have been dropping pounds of pure lard pretty shockingly in the past 2 months. (lost 3 inches off the waist, and even the hard to remove hip blubber is shrinking.)

Increased muscle mass increases your standing metabolic rate, which reduces your body's base ability to even store fat in the first place. You don't need to be a body builder, just do more physically exerting activities so your muscle gets denser. That will increase your standing metabolism, and make you lose weight.

[zestorum]

Burn calories.  Weight training for your upper body, swimming to maximize calorie use, walking/jogging/running to further use up the calories your body isn't burning currently.  Diet is not the primary factor in weight loss, burning unused calories while maintain reasonable intake is.  As you build muscle the amount of calories your body demands increases, but if you already are an overeater then you just don't eat more and the new muscle mass will metabolise the fat.  By the way, martial arts is not an effective workout when trying to lose weight, I am saying this as someone who has done years of martial arts and is still overweight.  I need more exercise too (gods damned broken knees).

Sorry to contradict you man, but diet > exercise for weight loss. The saying that you can't outrun a bad diet is sound advice. Building muscle is good though so if you have the discipline and funds to stick to a gym routine, go for it.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

@Zestorum, ya, I was always taught that as well, and from personal experience it's the more important of the two. Was just thinking about that.

Well, thank you for your suggestions guys!

[bahihs]

Gather 'round children, let me tell you the secrets of life and death:

Spoiler: Secrets of Life and Death (click to show/hide)

Fasting!

Yes, the age old practice of monks and mendicants leads to longer life and weight loss.

Warning: Biochemical soliloquy ahead

As early as 1935, scientists have discovered that calorie restriction activates specific metabolic pathways which leads to fat loss, lowered blood sugar levels, lowered blood pressure and general longevity. The original 1935 study showed a near-doubling in lifespan of mice that were fed 60-70% their normal caloric intake (1.3 without and 2.4 years with CR) and 75 subsequent years of research has only shown that CR is more or less universal; everything from yeast to mammals live longer when they eat less. 

But you knew this; its common sense. Eat less, and you'll lose weight. Obvious.

However! The same metabolic pathways activated by CR are also activated by fasting. CR forces the body into the "starving state" increasing Beta-Oxidation of fatty acids and fatty acid mobilization from adipocytes and decreasing fatty acid synthesis and storage.  It also activates the SIRT1 protein which in turn interacts with PPAR-gamma (peroxisome proliferator activator receptor-gamma). PPAR-gamma is a hormone receptor which activates transcription of genes that control adipogenesis and fat storage. SIRT1 binds to two PPAR-gamma corepressors (SMRT and NCoR) and prevents the transcription of those genes. This causes loss of fat stores, and since adipocytes also serve as endocrine organs (i.e they release hormones) this has further consequences in the body.

Fasting also forces the body into the starving state, but with much less upkeep (no need for calorie-counting). So, you eat a normal balanced diet and you fast. How you fast is also flexible. The prevailing method is "Intermittent Fasting" or IMF (google it). It involves either fasting entire days (a common scheme is fasting the whole weekend or on alternating days of the week) or fasting for 16 hours/day, leaving an 8 hour window for meals. The latter method involves eating two meals a day, one in the afternoon and one at night, separated by 7-8 hours, then fasting the rest of the night. This is something I recommend to everyone, as it:

1. Saves money (1 less meal a day, means less food = less money spent on food)
2. Saves time (1 less meal a day = 1 less meal you have to spend time preparing
3. Saves lives (Yours mainly, as CR/IMF has shown to prevent heart disease, cancer and diabetes)

Oh and it breaks down fat like nothing else. But that's small potatoes compared to immortality.

[acetech09]

Gather 'round children, let me tell you the secrets of life and death:

~snip~

Sounds interesting, but is it really recommended as a long-term eating plan or only for weight loss?

Something tells me I'd starve to death if I only ate two closely-spaced meals a day.

[Neonivek]

Ok my steps

Step 1: Like yourself
Step 2: Find foods you like
Step 3: Eat More

This is what you are doing

Step 1: Hate yourself
Step 2: Eat low calorie garbage crud
Step 3: Eat less

Ok joke aside.

My personal opinion on losing weight is that generally speaking you want to try to eat more, throughout the day.

You want to get to know yourself, know what you like, know what you can't live without.

And exercise? do you find it boring? Find something you like to do.

There is a reason why there is a HUGE debate with Canadian Doctors right now... about whether or not a doctors should prescribe "lose weight" anymore... or if they should instead put people on a "Be healthy" regiment.

Ohhh and pro-tip: Most Diet food is unhealthy... and often high calorie garbage. My Sister's Healthy diet Granola Bars? Yeah she would have actually been better off eating a Mr.Big.

[bahihs]

Gather 'round children, let me tell you the secrets of life and death:

~snip~

Sounds interesting, but is it really recommended as a long-term eating plan or only for weight loss?

Something tells me I'd starve to death if I only ate two closely-spaced meals a day.

Unless your planning to have babies sometime soon (you should not fast if you're pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant... Duh) its for the long term. And you wouldn't starve at all, its actually much easier than it sounds; whats more there is whole community of people that do it and people have been doing it for millenia. Finally, 8 hours apart is closely spaced?

@neonivek Actually you can eat whatever you like; you need not calorie count or even watch your portions. You just have to make sure the meals are balanced for adequate nutrition and eat two meals/day. You will end up eating less almost by accident. Furthermore the point of this is to increase longevity, the weight loss is only a side effect. Dont knock till you've tried it. Its rests on the strong shoulders of science.

[i2amroy]

Gather 'round children, let me tell you the secrets of life and death:

Spoiler: Secrets of Life and Death (click to show/hide)

Fasting!

Yes, the age old practice of monks and mendicants leads to longer life and weight loss.

Warning: Biochemical soliloquy ahead

As early as 1935, scientists have discovered that calorie restriction activates specific metabolic pathways which leads to fat loss, lowered blood sugar levels, lowered blood pressure and general longevity. The original 1935 study showed a near-doubling in lifespan of mice that were fed 60-70% their normal caloric intake (1.3 without and 2.4 years with CR) and 75 subsequent years of research has only shown that CR is more or less universal; everything from yeast to mammals live longer when they eat less. 

But you knew this; its common sense. Eat less, and you'll lose weight. Obvious.

However! The same metabolic pathways activated by CR are also activated by fasting. CR forces the body into the "starving state" increasing Beta-Oxidation of fatty acids and fatty acid mobilization from adipocytes and decreasing fatty acid synthesis and storage.  It also activates the SIRT1 protein which in turn interacts with PPAR-gamma (peroxisome proliferator activator receptor-gamma). PPAR-gamma is a hormone receptor which activates transcription of genes that control adipogenesis and fat storage. SIRT1 binds to two PPAR-gamma corepressors (SMRT and NCoR) and prevents the transcription of those genes. This causes loss of fat stores, and since adipocytes also serve as endocrine organs (i.e they release hormones) this has further consequences in the body.

Fasting also forces the body into the starving state, but with much less upkeep (no need for calorie-counting). So, you eat a normal balanced diet and you fast. How you fast is also flexible. The prevailing method is "Intermittent Fasting" or IMF (google it). It involves either fasting entire days (a common scheme is fasting the whole weekend or on alternating days of the week) or fasting for 16 hours/day, leaving an 8 hour window for meals. The latter method involves eating two meals a day, one in the afternoon and one at night, separated by 7-8 hours, then fasting the rest of the night. This is something I recommend to everyone, as it:

1. Saves money (1 less meal a day, means less food = less money spent on food)
2. Saves time (1 less meal a day = 1 less meal you have to spend time preparing
3. Saves lives (Yours mainly, as CR/IMF has shown to prevent heart disease, cancer and diabetes)

Oh and it breaks down fat like nothing else. But that's small potatoes compared to immortality.

Important note, but intermittent fasting is what you want to do because fasting for longer than a day or so starts to hit you with all sorts of bad health symptoms that begin to outweigh any benefits gained rather quickly. There's a whole handful of death rates that start to shoot up extremely rapidly once you start fasting for more than a couple of days, and cutting your chance of dying by a heart attack significantly isn't going to help much if you've increased your chance of dying to something like the flu so much that it outweighs any longevity benefits gained. (Short term intermittent fasting does have a variety of fairly well-studied health benefits though, so it does work).

Also this isn't really aimed at the OP since you sound like you're trying to cut your weight to a lower spot still in the "healthy" range, but for anybody else reading this keep in mind that a lot of the health benefits from fasting like that naturally assume that you aren't fasting so much that you pull your body into the "underweight" categories. Dropping into the "underweight" division carries many of the same risks that fasting for longer periods of time does, so if you are pushing the underweight boundary fasting might not be that good of a thing to do unless you increase your food consumption elsewhere to balance it out.

[TempAcc]

A little bit of an alternative suggestion here, but have you tried a ketogenic lifestyle? I've heard good things from people on Reddit and although I haven't tried it myself (I have the opposite problem - trying to put on some mass!), I'm convinced that it works! Check out /r/keto.

A little info. It basically consists of eliminating all carbohydrates from your diet and replacing them with fats. It sounds good for you due to the absence of calorie counting which you've said you dislike. Look at some progress pictures and you'll see it's the real deal, though it may be a little hard to stick to at first. Good luck friend.

That diet is atrocious and several naive and not very intelligent redditors got sent to hospitals after insisting on that diet for weeks. Ketosis is not a state you want your body to be in for a prolongued time.

Anyway, the first advice on the thread is actualy the best one. Instead of avoiding bad food, just eat good food, and start exercising regulary. You dont need to go outside to exercise, just do around 30 minutes of a series of exercises consisting of crouching, doing crunches, push ups, and things like running in place. Jogging is also quite good if you have the time and a good place to do it, too. Try to keep yourself moving throughout the day, do exercises that make you sweat and leave your muscles aching.

Also, ever tried guacamole? Eating guacamole with pieces of ricerye crisps is pretty great on your tongue and on your body. Avocado is known as a source of good fats and lowers colesterol if consumed regulary. Also, things like leek, cabbage lettuce are great because they're take a longer time to digest so you'll feel full longer.

Also, I cannot stress this enough: quit soft drinks. Any soft drink, be it cola, sprite, etc, is terrible for you. I completely stopped drinking cola and stuff about 6 years ago and my health has very noticeably improved.

In regards to fasting: yes, it does break fats like nothing else, but it may bring more problems then it solves. Not only that, fasting regulary has been proven to lower your metabolism rate, which actualy contributes to obesity if you start eating normally again. This happens because that, once your body notices you're taking longer and longer intervals between meals, it starts slowing down your body functions so it consumes less fuel, as a survival measure against starvation scenarios. It will also make you feel like shit after doing it for a long time, you'll get sleepy easier and be more prone to diseases.
In fact, its way better to make small (and healthy!) meals every 2 hours then to fast. This makes your metabolism faster and actualy contributes to losing weight. Try doing something like eating apple slices or leeks every 2 hours for a month or so. This, of course, isn't very easy to do, but the results can be quite impressive.

[bahihs]

Gather 'round children, let me tell you the secrets of life and death:

Important note, but intermittent fasting is what you want to do because fasting for longer than a day or so starts to hit you with all sorts of bad health symptoms that begin to outweigh any benefits gained rather quickly. There's a whole handful of death rates that start to shoot up extremely rapidly once you start fasting for more than a couple of days, and cutting your chance of dying by a heart attack significantly isn't going to help much if you've increased your chance of dying to something like the flu so much that it outweighs any longevity benefits gained. (Short term intermittent fasting does have a variety of fairly well-studied health benefits though, so it does work).

Also this isn't really aimed at the OP since you sound like you're trying to cut your weight to a lower spot still in the "healthy" range, but for anybody else reading this keep in mind that a lot of the health benefits from fasting like that naturally assume that you aren't fasting so much that you pull your body into the "underweight" categories. Dropping into the "underweight" division carries many of the same risks that fasting for longer periods of time does, so if you are pushing the underweight boundary fasting might not be that good of a thing to do unless you increase your food consumption elsewhere to balance it out.

Correct. Fasting for more than 48 hours at a time will lead to your body to actually starve which will destroy any benefits gained.

In regards to fasting: yes, it does break fats like nothing else, but it may bring more problems then it solves. Not only that, fasting regulary has been proven to lower your metabolism rate, which actualy contributes to obesity if you start eating normally again. This happens because that, once your body notices you're taking longer and longer intervals between meals, it starts slowing down your body functions so it consumes less fuel, as a survival measure against starvation scenarios. It will also make you feel like shit after doing it for a long time, you'll get sleepy easier and be more prone to diseases.
In fact, its way better to make small (and healthy!) meals every 2 hours then to fast. This makes your metabolism faster and actualy contributes to losing weight. Try doing something like eating apple slices or leeks every 2 hours for a month or so. This, of course, isn't very easy to do, but the results can be quite impressive.

Generally incorrect, unless you're fasting more than you should (more than 48 hours at a time) or not eating a balanced diet (inadequate nutrition). Getting sleepy will happen depending on the times you eat the first meal because food is a powerful internal clock (so if you awake at 6:00 am and then eat at 12:00 your body will think it should wake up at 12:00 and adjust itself accordingly). The solution is to eat when you wake up and skip dinner instead of breakfast (if you awake early).

You should not "be susceptible to disease" however, in fact studies have shown the complete opposite: boosting of the immune system and complete disappearance of diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes (among others, but these are big three killers in western society). Unless of course, as above, you decide to overdo it and fast for more than 48 hours. I would recommend sticking to day-long (24 hour) fasts at maximum, or even better intraday fasting (16 hrs).

You're also not supposed to "start eating normally", rather this is supposed to become your new normal. Increasing the metabolic rate will of course break-down fats, but you are entering the "well-fed" state which leads to fatty acid synthesis and adipogenesis, not mention hormones which control hunger will be released more often in response to your faster metabolism. The opposite is true for fasting.

Eating small meals every few hours does very little to enter the "starving state" that is necessary for the benefits of fasting. There needs to be an extended period of fasting for its effects to take place. Please don't just take my (or anyone elses) word for it. Look up the scientific studies on Pubmed and other medical journals and consult with your physician. This isn't a gimmick like dieting (complete agreement with TempAcc on the ketogenic diet, and any diet which recommends anything other than balanced meals) or artificial, like weight-loss drugs.