Why is losing weight more difficult now?

[AtW]

A rather heavy question to answer...

[tomtomagain]

It's all the fault of cupcakes.

Back in the 80's a cup-cake was the size of ,well, a cup. Now they will feed a family of four.

[Zero Liability]

That could well be a contributory factor. Unheated bedrooms were pretty much the norm when I were a lad, and as this chap found, a lot of weight loss happens during your sleep.

Why your bathroom scales are lying to you and how to find your true weight



I've never liked skimmed milk so seek out stuff that's more like the genuine article. I don't consume nearly as much of the stuff as I used to, so it's it's no longer a significant part of my diet, but when the so-called "low fat" milk costs more and is 7% rather than 9% fat, nuts to that - I'll go for the "full fat" variety instead.

I'm probably misremebering the actual percentages there, but the actual difference didn't seem to be very much and you'd probably achieve more by having fruit instead of cornflakes for your breakfast, for example.

Coconut or almond milk (basically soy milk infused with either of those) is nicer, IMO.

Managed to lose well over a stone this year purely by dropping snacks, fizzy drinks and just having soup at lunch time.

Pretty much at my "ideal" weight now. .

Fizzy drinks were the easiest thing for me to drop. What I find really hard to drop is pasta and white bread. I've largely cut both out of my diet, but I still eat more of those than I should. As for soups, always best to check their salt content, because just 2 a day can fill your 6g quota. Unless you make them yourself. I'm not really very prone to putting on weight but I stuck to soups for a while for other health reasons. It's probably one of the more manageable dietary plans. Except broccoli and kale soup. Hard to force that stuff down...

Another option is to stick to good quality chicken, rice and salad.

[MrMarkyMark]

Coconut or almond milk (basically soy milk infused with either of those) is nicer, IMO.



Fizzy drinks were the easiest thing for me to drop. What I find really hard to drop is pasta and white bread. I've largely cut both out of my diet, but I still eat more of those than I should. As for soups, always best to check their salt content, because just 2 a day can fill your 6g quota. Unless you make them yourself. I'm not really very prone to putting on weight but I stuck to soups for a while for other health reasons. It's probably one of the more manageable dietary plans. Except broccoli and kale soup. Hard to force that stuff down...

Another option is to stick to good quality chicken, rice and salad.

Good points. I have managed to drop a lot of the pasta and poor quality breads out too.
I usually go for good quality fresh made soups and would hope they would need less salt.

Now, if only I could cut down on the booze .

[darmstadt]

Nothing bigger than the palm of your hand every ~4 hours between 8am and 8pm.

Must explain why the skinny bloke here keeps sloping off to the bogs

[darmstadt]

That could well be a contributory factor. Unheated bedrooms were pretty much the norm when I were a lad, and as this chap found, a lot of weight loss happens during your sleep.

I noticed that but I thought it was due to tulipting the bed after a night on the curry and ale

[unixman]

It's all the fault of cupcakes.

Back in the 80's a cup-cake was the size of ,well, a cup. Now they will feed a family of four.

Quite so. "Cup cake" is the US name for a fairy cake in the UK. Fairy/cup cakes were small items in the 70s, often with a thin layer of solid icing on top, or dab of cream. I suppose that explains the fairy name. Today's so-called "cup cake" is the size of your fist, with half an inch of wobbly, unset butter icing on top. Yuk. It's like Moore's law in reverse.

[d000hg]

Cup cakes and Minis have ballooned, but muffins, scotch eggs and profiteroles are often miniaturised. And of course wagon wheels and mars bars have dwindled.

[Sysman]

Also one thing that is ignored is if you are busy doing something e.g. walking/cycling from A to B at a reasonable pace to go to work, digging the garden, playing out you are less likely to be stuffing your face.

This is why the small bits of daily activity are important rather than just going to the gym for an hour.

We had a visiting elf'n'safety girl in the mid-90s who recommended regular breaks from your desk. What she said made sense - I made a concious effort to get away from the place for lunch for example rather than eating sandwiches at my desk.

When working from home I discovered that having a proper breaks every now and again helped significantly, even if those were just a cup of tea in the garden or lunch in the dining room rather than at my desk. Better for concentration too.

[Zero Liability]

Well, I recall reading that your body goes into "standby" mode when sitting for too long, even if you have a moderately active lifestyle outside of work. As such, a small break from sitting to walk around a bit every 30 mins/1 hour makes sense to me.