Sounds about right. Calories in, calories out. I have $7 digital scale that I measure food with. With consistency you eventually get to the point where you can eyeball 50g of rice, 125g of chicken, roughly a 250 calorie meal. There’s zero tricks to it, just measure and aim for 1500-1800 calories a day.
Oh, and it’s going to suck, because it’s hard. I did 180 to 138 in 5ish months. Started with the Keto until I realized it’s just a trick to reduce calories, so eventually just cut the Keto framework out so I could eat some bread/rice.
Keto I found also seems to trick you into feeling less hungry even with reduced caloric intake.
A lot of dietary advice treats the sensation of hunger as some taboo thing to be avoided at all cost. But the body will fight HARD to maintain current balances and hunger is a clear signal that you’ve ingested less calories recently than your norm.
We’re so used to never going hungry that the sensation feels like a serious anomaly, but hunger is not harmful unless it goes on for a protracted period (at least days), it’s just unpleasant.
I’m not advocating for starvation, but I think successful dieting that doesn’t rely on some trickery necessarily involves enduring the sensation of hunger until the body adjusts to a new baseline.
Fronting up in advice to dieters and normalising the idea that it’s ok to feel hungry when adjusting your diet downwards would be hugely beneficial to people’s success in weight management I think.
This part doesn't get emphasized enough. People start down this road and at first it looks like losing weight is easy because they shed a few pounds right away, but most of it is water so they hit a wall and things get hard and they think they must be doing something wrong. They're not: it just sucks and there's no way out of that, not that it stops people from trying to sell them an easy way.
Oh, and it’s going to suck, because it’s hard. I did 180 to 138 in 5ish months. Started with the Keto until I realized it’s just a trick to reduce calories, so eventually just cut the Keto framework out so I could eat some bread/rice.