What obscure weight loss tactics worked for you that I wont find in the top 10 results of a google search?

I’m on my iPhone so it’s hard to link, but look up (google) HMR. I’m in my 5th year of maintenance.

I lost 60 pounds rehearsing for Jesus Christ Superstar, but I don’t know if that is something just anyone can replicate.

Someone in Fluther suggested in response to a diet question a while back, I forget who to credit, but they recommended the Food Tree by Ranveig Elvebakk. I bought the book and after the first week or so it is easy and I am slowly losing weight and still eating enough to keep me happy. It is like a very healthy version of Atkins. Her website is not too helpful (http://foodtreemd.com/) but the book explains all.

I lost a lot of weight by cutting out nearly all fat from my diet. I didn’t worry about calories, just fat calories. That and exercising at the gym almost everyday yielded very good results.

Water diet. Drink LOTS of water. Not an unhealthy amount, but your pee should be mostly clear. If you have a tiny hunger pang, drink water, it’ll usually go away. And when you are eating a meal, for every bite take a big gulp or two of water. Eat slow and drink plenty between bites. You’ll find that you will feel full with less food. I’ve lost 10 pounds in about 1 and ⅓ months doing this.

I have quite a few:

1. Eat a handful of nuts 20 minutes before a meal. Nuts contain the “good fat” (monounsaturated) that stimulates your stomach to produce CCK, a chemical that lets your brain know you’re full. You need about 70 calories of unsaturated fat to do this (about a handful of nuts).

2. Eat slowly. It takes your stomach 20 minutes to tell your brain you’re full, so let nature takes its course.

3. Fiber and red pepper eaten at breakfast time help to curb your appetite for the rest of the day.

4. Being at a slightly uncomfortable temperature (a little too hot or a little too cold) increases your metabolism as your body burns calories trying to adjust your body temperature.

5. Increasing the body’s efficiency increases your metabolism. You can do this by eating anti-inflammatory foods such as: omega-3 fatty acids, green tea, beer (only one a day), turmeric, jojoba beans, soy products, flaxseed, whole grains, tea, broccoli, cauliflower, rosemary, red wine, grapes, dark chocolate, cabbage, spinach, garlic, coffee, bananas, etc.

6. If you must eat saturated fat, try to keep it to 4 oz. or less per meal.

7. Figure out how many calories you typically burn in a day. You’ll need to figure out your body fat percentage to get that number (the easiest way is to get a personal fat caliper like this one. Google “daily caloric output” for more info on how to calculate this number. If you know how many calories you typically burn in a day, it is recommended to reduce your intake to be about 10%-15% lower than your output. Any more and your body goes into starvation mode and holds onto the fat even more diligently.

8. Use the Zig-Zag Method. This should be used only after doing number 7 and reaching a plateau. What you do is increase your caloric input by about 200–300 calories for 2–3 days, then switch back to your weight loss calorie input and then raise it again. This “tricks” your body into dropping more fat.

9. None of the above will work without regular exercise. As little as 30 minutes of walking a day, every day, is enough to make a difference. You usually don’t forget to sleep or eat everyday and the same goes for walking: it has to happen every day.

A lot of the information above was gathered from Dr. Mehmet Oz’s You On A Diet and Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.

I have another great diet for you. You are allowed to eat anything that you want but you must eat it with naked fat people.

This is pretty unorthodox, but it always works for me. Most people talk about increasing your metabolism, but when I do stuff that raises mine (ie lifting weights, etc) I get really really hungry, and I end up eating a lot. In order to lose weight, I lay around my house and don’t really do anything physical, I get lost of sleep, but I don’t get hungry, and I hardly eat anything.

Intermittent Fasting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting

I did loose weight on the grapefruit diet about 25 years ago. It may have helped that I am not a real fan of grapefruit.

@Judi- I’m currently on the grapefruit diet. For the last two weeks I’ve eaten nothing but grapefruit. Now when I go to the bathroom I keep squirting myself in the eye.

I didn’t need that picture in my head.

I haven’t tried this myself and I doubt it would be listed in Google, but it was mentioned by Dr. Oz on an Oprah show—-

Tapeworm

This certainly isn’t popular at all, and won’t be in the top 10 cause it doesn’t make anyone money, but it works very well:

Have an active lifestyle and eat in moderation!

Lost 50lbs, not just by doing this, but it’s one of the more obscure things that helped.

Get yourself a good digital scale, one that records down to tenths of a pound and ignore what people say about not weighing yourself… weight yourself all the time – like half a dozen times a day.

I’m the type of guy that needs to see progress and that builds momentum in my efforts and I’m fairly detail oriented so within a week or ten days… I could see how my weight fluctuated within a day and how it fluctuated during the week… and I’d celebrate two tenths of a pound losses.

Less obscure techniques:

-High protein/low carb diet
-My goal was just a pound a week…
-Take one day off per week where you can eat whatever you want… and then I’d overdo it a little bit to where I felt a little sick – would make me not have cravings during the rest of the week – Like I’d eat 8 candy bars all at once =)
-Though I exercised… the weight loss was due more to diet than the exercise. All the exercise would do is make me say, “Man, I just worked my a$$ off in the gym… do I wanna blow all that work?!?” But at 40 it made me fitter than I’d ever been since I competitively swam in HS…

Hope that helps…

I agree with @thrice2k3. I weigh myself everyday to maintain my weight. After seeing the number every day for just a week or two, it’s pretty easy to know what the normal fluctuations are for you, and thus to see the actual changes. I think not weighing one’s self is one of the stupidest pieces of weight-loss advice in existence, actually. If I was running an experiment in the lab, and someone told me to not measure the results, I would think they were an idiot.

I lost 15 lbs over the last year eating healthy, intermittently exercising (although that didn’t help me at all) and doing this and my first tip. And I wasn’t really overweight before.

Weighing yourself everyday is a poor indicator of how much body fat you have, and the ultimate goal of weight loss is to lose fat. A better indicator is using a tape measure to see the differences in your waist size, thigh circumference, etc.

A couple of years ago, at a weight of 206lbs., I decided to go to the gym and lose weight. I’ve been going religiously since then and weigh 220lbs. According to the scale, I would have been a major failure. But in reality, I’ve gained a lot of muscle. My arms, shoulders and chest are huge, and my belly is much smaller than it was a few years ago. I look better, but more importantly, I feel better. Having a lot of muscle on you is good for your health, but weighing yourself constantly will make you think you’re not making positive gains when you really are.

@drdoombot: I’m sorry, but in reality you’ve gained 14 lbs. You can call it whatever you want, but I wouldn’t call it success.

Weighing yourself every day is great for maintenance. It only makes sinse that knowing your body well and how it flucuates would help you to notice if something is going in a wrong direction. You can take inventory, while it’s still fresh in your mind of any activity or dietary differences that could account for the change while it’s 1 -5 lbs instead of waiting until it’s 20–30 lbs.
I can’t imagine that information could be bad unless you misinturpert it. Consitantly weighing yourself daily and at different times of the day gives you more data to draw on to make decisions.

@La_chica_gomela That’s just ignorance. In a lab experiment, you’re weighing a single material. The human body is made of a variety of organic materials, so weighing yourself only gives you an overall picture, but doesn’t tell you if you’re losing the good stuff along with the bad.

Not all weight-loss is equal. Losing muscle is detrimental to your health. If you lose muscle but have just as much fat, you’re actually less healthier than you were before, even if the scale tells you you’re lighter. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Let’s say Brian weighs 200 lbs. and has 18% body fat. He wants to lose 20–25 pounds.

Before Dieting
36 lbs. of fat
164 lbs. of lean body mass

He decides to just eat less to lose weight and does little to no exercise. He sees great results and loses 21 lbs. in 6 weeks. Take a look at his stats now:

After Dieting
26.5 lbs. of fat
152.5 lbs. of lean body mass

With a loss of 9.5 lbs. of fat and 11.5 lbs. of muscle, you’d be ridiculous to think that Brian’s weight loss was a success. With less muscle, he has lowered the number of calories he burns at rest, and has set himself up for relapse. Like most people, he’ll start eating regularly again, continue not exercising and eventually gain the weight back. This time, however, he’ll be in a much different situation than when he originally wanted to lose weight:

After Gaining Weight Again
41.1 lbs. of fat
158.9 lbs. of lean body mass

So, Brian weighs 200 lbs. again, but now his body fat is at 20.5%. He’s exactly where he started, but he has less muscle than before, more fat and a slower metabolism. Trying to lose weight is now going to be harder.

Any nutritionist, physical trainer or health specialist worth his/her salt knows that we obsess too much about weight when weight doesn’t matter. What matters is how big your waist is and how much fat you’re storing. Standing on a scale cannot accurately measure fluctuations in fat.