by LordHeini | 2025-04-17 10:22:38+00:00
Its all about long term habits, basic knowledge about nutrition and the 80/20 rule.

Hardcore diets and then falling back to the old habits are absolutely not the way to do it. There are things like diet fatigue, the mentioned Yo-Yo effect you don't want to deal with.

Your "diet" should be generally healthy and long term sustainable. It just does not work to replace one way of malnutrition with another one.

So here are the things i (BMI 22, bodyfat < 19% for now 20+ years, at age over 40) would recommend:

One is strength based exercise. Find 1-3 days in your week where you can dependably (!) spend an hour or two to go to the gym. It is better to go once every week reliably, than to go 3 times one week and then skipping the next.

Get a full body training plan consisting of multi joint exercises. For example don't waste your time on biceps if you can do rows which trains your biceps and back at the same time.

You must do strength training order to gain muscle mass. Muscles have a large influence on your hormones, which helps to suppress hunger and keeps you fit in general. The hunger suppression is important if you lose weight. It works this way: if you lose weight, you will usually lose muscle mass alongside fat. Losing muscles creates a huge hunger signal compared to fat. Doing strength training keeps you from losing muscle (or even building it) so your hunger is lower while you lose weight.

And you don't want to end up skinny fat with issues like back pain (which i ended up with at age 20 without ever being overweight).

Don't overdo it. But be consistent, do the smallest amount necessary but every single week no exception.

Don't do cardio (at least not cardio only). Cardio is fine if you do it for sporting reasons but since you seem to be overweight, i assume this is not the case ;) So cardio would just waste your time because it burns surprisingly small amounts of calories while increasing hunger by a lot. It also does not build muscles as much so why bother?

The most important part is to get your nutrition in check.

Basically do the following:

Close to every meal should, by volume, roughly consist of 1/4 protein, like chicken or other lean meat, or plant based alternatives 1/4 carbs, like rice, potatoes whatever (pasta has tons of calories so be careful here) 2/4 vegetables like carrots, broccoli... whatever just mix it up.

It is a ton of vegetables, which is good because it keeps your stomach full and is healthy in every conceivable way.

Do not skip fats, but skip pure sugars especially in liquid form like soda.

Don't do cheat days where you mindlessly eat thousands of calories, this messes with your psyche for no reason. But eating out, or some junk food is fine from time to time you are not a robot.

Inform yourself about the calorie content of your meals and try to control the amount.

There are many ways to exert control, which are highly individual. Some have no problem skipping breakfast, some make their meals smaller, some do keto or track calories. Whatever floats your boat you have to find out. Remember it has to be sustainable. Personally i try to get a good amount of protein into my meals and i keep an eye out for calories without counting.

Every single morning: Use the toilet, step on a scale, check your weight. It varies a bit from day to day but the average helps you track. You might want to use an app but its not really necessary. This is your main way to keep track. Gain weight? Try to eat a bit less next week.

Keep in mind that you are in it for the long run. There is no need to lose tons of weight in the short term. It is fine to be slow which is way more sustainable anyway.

You want to be fit for the rest of your life so you have to keep at it for the rest of your life.