I want to drop by and say, good luck. And stay consistent. I noticed there is still a lot of misinformation here, some say calories in and calories out does not matter (which is so bullshit). Just be very careful about the information. Also want to drop by and say you can not specifically reduce belly fat or fat at certain body part. It does not work no matter what you try.
Remember, the key thing is as simple as these few words...
Eat less move more.Eat less means calorie deficit, you burn/use more calories than you eat.
Move more does not mean doing cardio only or run 5 to 10km everyday. Something sustainable. Even just from in the past you walk 5k steps a day, to 6k steps a day is already more. Of course the more the better.
It's a mindset change as well.
Now some personal small tips.
1) find some vegetables that you like to eat. Most vegetables are low calorie. It does not matter that much. The key thing is you have to like it else you won't eat it. The nutritionist did tell me vegetable is "unlimited".
2) with fruits, you have to exert abit more control but watermelon is low calorie, so is strawberry. But strawberry mahal in malaysia. You do have control the servings per day. Last time the nutritionist told me 2 servings a day.
3) portion control. I have a mini weighing scale to weigh my snacks. I still eat but I portion control. If you can track calories it's better. If no, it's also ok. If the potato chips say 30g per serving, I will weight 30g to eat. Something like that.
4) Intermittent fasting works well for me. May not work well for everyone. The reason why IF works because you eat less, hence calorie deficit. If you do IF but binge non stop during the eating hours, it still won't result in fat loss. In my case I like IF, because it's easier. I just don't eat. If I eat 3 meals a day, my portion control becomes tougher because you can only consume so much calorie a day.
5) you cannot out-exercise a bad diet. Just does not work. You can Google this. How much calorie you can burn running 5km Vs eating a piece of chocolate. Exercise is good, and important but the main purpose of exercise is NOT fat loss.
Other notes... Do track your weigh consistently, ideally daily. On a daily basis, our weigh can fluctuate quite abit. For me 1% fluctuation daily is normal. It can go up and down either way. But as you monitor it daily you should see a downward trend.
Some influencer I recommend watching
1) Jordan Yeoh - IG
2) Keancheonglim - IG / Tiktok - his content is in mandarin / chinese but his video has English subs
3) Ben carpenter - IG (@bdccarpenter)
4) Eric Roberts - YouTube, Tiktok (ericrobertsfitness)
2 is fun to watch if you understand mandarin. 1 talks about both nutrition and weight training. Choose your content.
Yup CICO should be the way... because whatever method u choose to lose weight , it should be for life.. so to cut out a whole food group just doesnt make sense
I used to think it terms of weeks or months of hard effort.. only to regain it. So rather think slow and steady now..
Slight calorie deficit, strength train 3x a week, cardio, 10k steps and protein protein protein