Lucille, DH and I have two "Low Calorie" days per week. It's easy once you get used to it. I could see doing it every other day for a while if we wanted to drop weight a bit quicker.

Have you heard that certain starches are changed by cooking, cooling in the fridge, then reheating? Something happens to the starch molecules that makes them less digestible therefore lower calorie, but still good for your gut microbes. Potatoes, rice, and pasta.

Good luck! I agree, different things work for different people. Right now, I'm basically eating what i really want, within reason, but I've been upping my exercse. Iwalk a lot and do a Gentle Bends workout three to five days a week. i truly believe exercising raises your metabolism. i would like to lose slowly, like a pound a week.

I'm with you! That should work. 600 calories is a lot! I used to work with a guy who fasted, water only, every Monday. Even that helps keep your food intake in check.

Here's what 600 calories looks like when "I" eat it:

1/2 cup oatmeal w/ salt & pepper = 150

Plain Greek yogurt = 80-120 depends on brand

Banana = 80-100 depends on size

Can of green beans or 2 cups fresh steamed = 80

Lettuce Salad w/ roma tomato & 2Tbl low cal dressing = 150

That's a LOT of normal, filling food!

It is good to mix things up. I have always believed that exercise is not part of the equation for losing weight.

I am a WW lifetime member. Now even they are saying that exercise is 30 percent and food 70.

I don't think it's even that high.

Since I have lose an inch of height, I had to adjust my weight to compensate for it.

I've always gone to the gym, alway walked (now on our second dog) but for me now it is getting the steps that equal 5 miles a day.

Even though I walk the dog and do two to three walks per day, this alone still didn't get me up to the five miles. In order to accomplish it I have to keep moving! Today will be difficult as it will rain for most of the day. I am hoping to get the dog out for a long walk, but if I don't I will be doing my walking around my house.

I totally get the "fasting." Even years ago WW talked about not eating all through the night. An easy way to do intermittent fasting is the twelve hour. If you eat breakfast at 7:00 then stop eating at 7:00 at night.

It really is about being mindful of portions. Even my cream says "thoughtful portion" is 1 TBS!

The real trick to any weight lose plan is to find one that YOU can stick to. All diets will work if you FOLLOW them.

I am on a 1000 calorie per day diet (sometimes I go to 1200) and am supposed to exercise 30 minutes every day. I do my exercise on an elliptical machine, but sometimes I miss a day or two, especially when traveling. I lost weight in Italy, however, because we walked so much every day. It's a bit more difficult to walk that much in Los Angeles because I get bored with going to the same places over and over again, but in San Francisco, I did not have a car and was forced to walk up and down hills every day - I was very fit while living there, but I also went to the gym at the Jewish Community Center regularly to swim. Swimming is my favorite exercise, and the ocean here is too cold without a wetsuit. When I lived in Venice, I would surf or bodyboard and also ride my bike on the bike trails. We don't have bike trails in Westchester, and so I don't ride my bike as much. We can take our bikes to mountain trails, but that requires hauling them to the trailheads. I could ride my bike to the beach here, but it's 2-1/2 miles, and I don't like riding on streets that far, although I used to when I lived in Culver City. In Venice, I was already at the bike trail, and so I did it almost every day. I also had accidents almost every day, or near misses, due to stupid people on the bike trails, some of them walking dogs, which is prohibited, but no one ever gets a ticket for it. Some of them were tourists who probably could not read enough English to understand "BIKES ONLY". There were pedestrian paths parallel to the bike paths, but many pedestrians preferred to walk on the bike paths, obviously just to annoy the bikers. I had accidents with quite a few of these people.

That sounds interesting, Lucille. I think I could do that, or at least limit myself to a snack mid-day. I sometimes go until 2 - 3:00 before eating my first meal of the day.

A normal day for me is consuming 1000 - 1200 calories and a 60 minute workout that includes yoga, cardio and some light weights. If I'm standing, I'm also usually moving in some way even if it's just swaying back and forth or walking in place. It's amazing how much movement one can get in while they are standing at the kitchen sink washing/peeling veggies or doing the dishes. After grocery shopping/errand running, I used to try to unload the car in one trip. Now I try to unload it in several trips as each trip burns a few more calories.

As a friend of mine says - "every calorie counts" and that's whether they are being consumed or burned. I think that may be from Weight Watchers as that's the plan she follows.

The only diet I ever lost weight on was the Rotation diet which was a fasting diet. WW I always gained weight. If I am remembering correctly it was a 600 women/900 men calories for a week then 900/1200 middle week, then a return to 600/900. Then you were supposed to take time off and eat anything that you missed within reasonable limits. It later morphed into other diets. It did have permissible foods but most of the ones you were not supposed to eat during the dieting phrase were things that I did not normally eat.

I've always heard you can't outrun your fork. :) I recently read about a study where a control group did exercise only and another group did dieting and exercise, and the third group did dieting only. The dieting only group actually shed quite a bit more weight than the exercise only group, but the ones who dieted and exercised shed the most pounds.

I practice intermittent fasting, and incorporate alternate day fasting sometimes. Believe it or not, I find intermittent fasting easy--much easier than counting calories or points or keeping a food diary. I've learned a lot about my body through IF, and it's changed my life for the better.

I exercise for health and functioning, but exercise has never been a source of weight loss for me.

Many people are not aware that muscles weigh more than fat and that the body is between 50 and 60% liquid. I would have posted water but the liquid is a mixture of all kinds of things. Comparing strictly weight between dieters and exercisers is similar to comparing two fruits that may weigh the same but have a different bulk.

You do need to be in decent health to do fasting as there are several health problems that it could make worse.

Men lose weight, in general, more easily than women, and that has been attributed to the fact that most men have more muscle mass than women, and muscle burns more calories even when it is not doing anything. So for me, my exercise is not for the calories burned while doing it, but for the building of additional muscle (and because it makes me feel good).

Exactly Kadefol. Case in point. Just now I got back from a long walk with my dog that I tracked on my app.

Walk: 77 minutes

Distance 2.79 miles

Steps 7,164

CALORIES: 167.2

So now I can eat one large cookie!

I have had doctors tell me that exercise does not do much for weight loss. Its all about the diet. What they CANNOT seem to tell me is WHY! If I eat 2000 calories to maintain my weight, what is the difference in cutting back 500 on my diet and not exercising, or not cutting back on eating but instead burning an additional 500 calories through exercise. Why? What's the difference? The calorie count ends up being 1500 either way! No one knows..... it's stupid. It should work the same way!!!!! But apparently it doesn't. So frustrating.

I prefer low carb too Lucille. I end up fasting inadvertently sometimes as well.

eld, I know what you mean. I've come to look at calories burned thru exercise as a buffer. For me, it means that if I have that cookie, I haven't just sabotaged my diet for that day by going over my daily allowance.

Like others, my main reasons for exercising is because it's good for me and it makes me feel good. I really feel it if I skip a day or two.

I might try this fasting thing. This weekend, I'll be going out of town to get together with an old friend and I'll most like eat and drink more than I should. When I get back next week, would be a good time to start - maybe one day a week at first, and if it doesn't make me feel lousy, bump it to twice a week

"An easy way to do intermittent fasting is the twelve hour..."

I practice intermittent fasting as well but it has always been my understanding (everything I've ever read and how my doctor practices I.F.) that the fasting window is 15-18 hours. I usually don't eat after 6:30 p.m. and no earlier than 10:30 a.m. I'm usually not hungry again until 2 p.m. and again around 5-6 p.m. I love eating this way.

According to our doctor, "a young man", walking is enough exercise for us along with our normal daily activities, mowing, gardening, hiking, kayaking, and grandchildren. We also fast two days a week on 500 calories, (his suggestion) which looks a lot like Nicole's fasting diet.

We don't do it for weight control, we do it to keep our numbers related to BP, cholesterol and triglycerides normal and our A1C is below 5.5.

Does a gym work? For many it does. However, there are many overweight people at the gym because they consume too many calories. There's also many at the gym with high BP, cholesterol and A1C due to a poor diet.

If you wish to change or maintain, be mindful of what and how much you eat. :)