Real People Share How to Really Lose Weight, According to Reddit

There’s no question over the past year I’ve become obsessed with Reddit! It started after the documentary about Wall Street Bets and the GameStop explosion. But, I’ve joined so many communities from true crime, reality TV, bikini prep, weight loss, volume eating, 1200 calorie diets, and even motivational forums.

But my favorite communities are all about diet and weight loss, like this one named: LOSE IT. I like it because they are real people sharing what is actually working in their life to lose weight, and what’s NOT working.

So, I scoured the communities for all the threads related to what people are saying REALLY work for them for weight loss. Here’s what I learned.

The number 1 Answer: CALORIE DEFICIT. People say “calorie deficit” in a bunch of different ways, but 99% of them agree, a calorie deficit is what finally worked for them to lose weight.

Here are some of my favorite responses:

1. Literally eat at a calorie deficit. It’s very simple math. Use more calories than what you take in, then the body has to make up for the deficit by burning fat
2. Measure and monitor food intake calories – ensure less than your maintenance calories. This is the hardest part. If you don’t track your food for at least two weeks and build habit it’s never gonna work !
3.  Track your calories day to day but look at your weekly total calories (I do this!). You will have days where you eat more and days where it’s easier to stick to your deficit and your true eating patterns will show up in the weekly numbers.
4. It is often “eyeballing” or “estimating” high calorie foods that put you out of your deficit without you understanding why. Track every single bite, lick, sip, and taste and you’ll see which foods you consider “worth the calories” and which ones don’t.
5. Being hungry, telling yourself no about 30 times a day, eating right even when you are in a bad mood, eating the lower calorie option for months and months on end, reading nutrition labels and being willing to put tasty things back, not resting on your laurels after losing some weight, etc all are REALLY HARD TO DO even though they’re really simple conceptually. And remember, its always progress over perfection. Any step in the right direction helps.
6. Weighing food is super important too.
7. Trust me, serving sizes are actually much smaller than they appear lol. I started weighing food after college (once the phase of my life where I could eat anything and not gain any weight started to end) and wow an ounce of nuts or chips or sauce or whatever calorie heavy thing I was eating was much smaller than I pictured. Throwing back 600 calories of trail mix as my afternoon snack along with “a cup” of ice cream after dinner which my eyeball estimate was actually 500 calories every day probably explained why I was slowly gaining weight when I was in my mid 20s.
8. Most diets are a way to “trick” yourself into eating fewer calories. The biggest things are controlling how full you feel, as well as your blood sugar.
9. For controlling how full you are, the two big techniques are water and fiber. If you’re full on something like lettuce, you’re not going to then eat a big bowl of mac & cheese.
10. Most diets are a way to “trick” yourself into eating fewer calories. The biggest things are controlling how full you feel, as well as your blood sugar.
11. I counted calories and played badminton or danced like a lunatic sometimes.
12. I recently lost 70lbs, the secret? Eat actually healthy food, cut down food intake, and exercise. No excuses, only change. It’s that simple.
13. Slowly. Eat the same foods, but less of them.
14. Calorific deficit. That’s it. Eat less, exercise more.
15. Gotta burn more calories than you take in. That’s the only way.
16. Count calories. There’s no trick to it, you just write down the number of calories you ate every time you eat (you can Google “how many calories are in X” if your food doesn’t have it on the label), add up how many you eat in a day, and then cut that number down until you lose weight.
17. This from personal experience. Eat less calories for men 1500 cal/day and women 1200 cal/day leads to weight loss
18. Watch your calorie and sugar intake. Eat less than 2k calories a day, keep sugar under 30g’s a day, and go for walks. Find a hobby to keep yourself busy. Gradually lowering your portion sizes will make it easy if you always eat big meals.
19. Loosing weight is “easy”, stay in a caloric deficit over time and it fixes itself.
20. Weighing my food and calculating calories.
21. A good habit is going to sleep early. Being well rested increases your self control and gives you more energy to exercise. It also prevents cravings and late night snacking.
22. Easiest answer: Portion control. If you have giant ass dinner plates, use smaller plates and smaller portions of what you’re eating. You can eat anything you want (Pasta/steak/Carbs) but keep the portions smaller. I’ve lost 15 lbs in 3 months due to portion control
23. Count calories and only eat when your stomach actually growls. At first it sucks till you reach your goal weight as your in deficit calories making you feel even more hungry.
24. Calorie deficit, it’s simple physics energy in energy out. Your fat reserves take energy to maintain, if you eat less than you need to your body will start eating up fat and proteins to compensate. If you want to avoid muscle loss try to do some exercise and get your daily recommended amount of protein
25. Get a food tracker app and weigh and track everything that you consume. Make sure you’re in deficit for the week to the target they give you.
26. Logistically: Finally accepting that to lose weight, I had to eat less.

And, there are so many more!! Check out the threads on Reddit here, here, and here! Also, feel free to follow my Reddit profile here!

Want to save this post?

Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox.

Save Recipe

Email

SAVE THIS!