Varying approaches to glp-1 weight loss with and without tracking

Where is the middle choice? I pay attention to what I eat and move around some but I do not fixate on every detail.

I would have voted but none of the choices matched what I actually did. I dropped one hundred pounds over the past sixteen months without counting calories or following any special eating plan. After being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes I started the medication two months later. I cut way back on carbs and simply paid attention to what I was eating. The shots removed the constant thoughts about food and the urge to overeat. I went past my target of one hundred eighty and am now at one hundred seventy four. I am also off insulin and plan to stay on the medication for life.

I log everything I consume but I do not get overly focused on it. I make sure to hit at least twelve hundred calories and will scramble at the end of the day to reach that if needed. I exercise when possible though my job already involves physical work. Down sixty eight pounds in ten months.

Over the past nine months my thinking has changed quite a bit about weight control and how these medications fit in. Most approaches only work if you keep doing them. Strict eating plans or exercise can control weight but only while you stick with them and most people cannot keep that up forever. Because of that I now use the medication to control how much I take in so the only ongoing effort is an occasional quick injection. I have also concluded that exercise is not useful as a long term weight tool for most people though it still offers other physical benefits unrelated to calorie burn.

I have been eating clean six days a week and staying around thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred calories. I have not been able to exercise much beyond what my physical therapist assigns. I have been bad about logging calories and macros so I set up a simple system where I snap a photo of each meal add a short note and send it to chatgpt for an estimate. It shows me where I stand for the day and reminds me to add snacks for protein if needed. Once I start working out again I will probably do something similar with voice input. I may move the whole thing to an open model later.

Back to my usual eating habits. I have not returned to the gym yet. A new location was supposed to open early this month within walking distance but they are still waiting on their certificate of occupancy. Thanks to some of the medication I am down almost twenty pounds since the start of August and losing about two pounds a week which feels right on schedule.

Exercise has almost nothing to do with losing weight. It all comes down to what and how much you eat. Combining the two into one poll question does not make sense when only one of them actually matters.

I disagree. Strength training helps keep muscle which brings many other advantages. It also means you can eat more while still staying in a deficit. Eating more supplies better nutrition overall. Cardio supports heart and blood health among other things. Using these medications without any diet plan does not make sense to me because you will lose weight but still end up soft with loose skin. People can do what they want but if you have nothing useful to add it is better to stay quiet.

The middle option fit best for me during the maintenance phase. I eat more now and include things like potatoes and pasta but not every day.

I do not watch my diet much beyond trying to stay healthy and skip obvious junk. That feels much easier with the medication in fact I have lost interest in cooking elaborate meals. I worry a little on some days that I am not eating enough but not enough to start tracking. I take exercise more seriously. A bigger reason for trying the medication than weight loss was quitting alcohol and it is working. The extra energy from stopping is going into training. Unfortunately I badly injured my ankle right at the beginning so I have only been able to do swimming for cardio. I have spent more time in the gym than before and have been learning new exercises. Once the ankle heals I hope to get back to long slow runs and maybe even an ultramarathon someday.

I chose the first option but I am actually stricter with exercise than with nutrition. I track macros but not total calories and I care more about hitting the macros than any specific calorie number.

At first I logged my food and managed two yoga classes two climbing sessions and one weights session each week. Now I mostly go by feel and it is working though I am probably not eating enough. I am trying to stay around one hundred forty pounds but I have been under that more often than not lately. I may need to start logging again to make sure I get enough fuel. I am still getting four or five workouts in per week but I have shifted focus to climbing now that the weather is better for outdoor sessions. If there had been an option for relaxed eating but strict workouts that would describe me now. I picked the first option because that is what I was doing and will probably return to it.

I mostly track protein to support muscle. I do not track other food on this medication because overeating is not possible I get full very fast. I exercise with the goal of rebuilding lost muscle but nothing extreme. Hiking is not exercise to me it is enjoyable and free therapy and I do it at least once a week. I cannot believe how easy it is now to climb steep hills with a lighter stronger body. It used to be a real struggle. I chose the middle option.

I focus on portion control with a strong emphasis on protein. I do not track or measure anything and I still have large cheat meals once a week. My meals are clean about sixty to seventy percent of the time. I skip cardio but I hit ten thousand steps on most days and I lift heavy. I have stayed lean without stressing about it for months. I still get to enjoy food and drink occasionally. I am not competing so I am not aiming for single digit body fat. I am fine staying between twelve and eighteen percent. My hormones are not suppressed energy is good and libido is high.

I began with the strict diet and exercise approach and that is how I lost forty pounds in four months all on tirzepatide. After returning from deployment I moved to the middle option watching what I eat exercising and logging calories in an app. I have lost another twenty five pounds over the next five months. That period included adding other medications as it seemed progress had stalled around the forty pound mark on tirzepatide alone. Sixty year old male started at BMI forty now down to twenty nine. I never would have thought any of this was possible a couple years ago.

I am at one hundred thirty three pounds lost this week after a twenty one month journey with three clear phases. First six months I ate less exercised a little and did not count calories because my energy needs seemed high enough. Lost sixty pounds. Next eight months I started tracking to keep a deficit as my needs dropped. Still exercised moderately but no gym. Lost another forty five. Last seven months back to sensible eating without counting and light exercise no gym. Lost another twenty eight. The last time I weighed two hundred two was fifteen years ago when I was at the gym four or five days a week walking more and eating extremely clean. It was miserable and unsustainable. This time feels completely different. I feel like a normal person reaching my goal without exhaustion from extreme restriction or heavy exercise. Most importantly I feel healthier than ever.

I tried for years to lose weight. Covid made me very ill and triggered many health problems including an autoimmune condition. Losing weight felt like endless failed attempts and I was very discouraged. At three hundred fifteen pounds everything was miserable. I am six feet tall and even then I was still that heavy. My wife used to say I carried it well but I had to accept that I was out of shape. Flares from the immune issues could leave me suffering for months. I needed help. Now my immune problems are mostly in remission. I believe the anti inflammatory effects of these medications have helped a lot. Flares do not feel the same and do not leave me incapacitated. I only recognize I am in a flare when my mind is clearly not working right like when emotions interfere with daily life. Most current flares are triggered by stress and are easier to handle now. It is strange. I have

I am the footnote in those commercials. Results may vary.

I cannot really pick just one. I track calories I stay active because I enjoy it and I try to keep things balanced so no foods are completely off limits. I just aim to stay within my target and the medication helps with that. I follow a ninety ten rule.

I fall into the middle category. I lost a lot of weight about ten years ago and slowly regained most of it during a difficult marriage and divorce which is why I am here again. Back then I kept detailed spreadsheets of calories and macros and logged every rep of every set. It made me obsessive constantly running numbers in my head and eventually wore me out mentally. It did teach me how to estimate calories and portions reasonably well so now I generally know how much I am eating and how much protein I am getting without tracking. I do think spending time counting carefully for a while is educational and useful long term for more relaxed responsible eating. I would suggest it to others. You do not have to do it forever unless you want to but for me the obsession was not healthy after a while. If I needed to lose more and progress stopped I would probably track again briefly. Thankfully I am nearing the end of the loss phase and progress has not slowed.

I voted for the strict program. It is not extremely rigid since I am not on a set meal plan and sometimes skip a running day but most people would still see it as strict. I have always liked the flexible tracking approach as long as it uses real food rather than processed items. I log calories daily with a focus on protein and fiber while being a bit more flexible with carbs and fats. I do not track micronutrients and let variety in the diet handle that. I follow a weightlifting program three times a week yoga twice a week and running three times a week though realistically it is two because I dislike running. I would not call it obsessive but I do track workouts food supplements and research. Daily weigh ins blood pressure and resting heart rate. I have baseline scans and blood work and plan another panel soon plus more testing later.

Keeping everything steady via physical activity was my goal, however issues with my spine have interfered during recent weeks. On Thursday I'll discuss the results of my scan with a specialist, which aren't looking great. Still, it's nice that extra weight isn't a problem for me. 👍 😎

I am pretty strict with diet but I have not yet made exercise a consistent habit. Before these medications I was already good with diet about ninety percent of the time but the other ten percent where I would go off track ruined everything. I would eat well all day then get fast food or pizza at night after already eating a full day of healthy food. With the medication removing the constant food thoughts and extra cravings I can stick to real food and avoid late night binges on junk.

I have been in a place where I was completely rigid about everything that went into my mouth and it worked at the time I was fit and performed well. Even a small deviation from the eating plan would trigger huge sugar cravings and one cheat meal would turn into a cheat week. The great thing about this medication is that I am far less strict about food now. Food is fuel and if I want a bite of something I have it. I get full so quickly that it is literally only a bite anyway with protein first. There is no strange craving wave afterward. I am grateful to be free from that rigid mindset and all the mental games that came with it. I also love rucking and have done events for years. Good living.

I end up quantifying and following every possible thing. It's worked out great so far, though I've become obsessed with the whole process if I'm being real. Now I'm trying to figure out how to stop and go back to normal life.

Once I got on reta I made zero attempts at cleaning up my diet. I figured it would handle everything on its own. Started at 229 pounds back in April and hit 159 pounds just yesterday 🤷‍♂️

I see the weight loss from reta as a pleasant side effect. My main goal is to control and improve my type 2 diabetes. The medication combined with avoiding carbs like bread, rice, noodles and so on has led to a clear improvement in my blood sugar levels and I've lost 20 kg. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's blood test and hope my values gradually normalize. That's more important to me than big upper arms or a six pack.

Returning to low carb meals once daily plus extended fasts every month feels good overall and my digestion has settled down nicely. That medication combined with the eating plan and longer fasts let me drop pounds at a steady pace. Now and then I slip and eat things I should avoid yet I always try to restart quickly. Movement comes in small doses and I walk as much as possible on most days. Disc problems in my lower back mean the lost weight eases some pain though not everything. Following the same protocol with large amounts of the peptide brings extra comfort there too. The third choice worked out best in my case.

Cottage cheese features heavily in what I consume these days, the lactose-free kind. A recent discovery, it avoids messing up my digestion despite my intolerance. My partner and I go for many walks together. I purchased an ergometer and row with it daily upon waking, yet without pushing myself. Meals emphasize protein content while limiting overall energy intake.