Eating more healthily.

Edited: Getting a lot of questions about how I did it. Here's some suggestions with the reminder that this works for me, may not work for you. If you REALLY are serious about losing weight, consult a doctor and/or nutritionist.

1) I was a carb fiend. Pasta, rice, bread, if it had a carb, I wanted fourth servings of it. Sugar is a carb too. So I started watching how many carbs I consumed a day. It shocked me. So now I'm a lot more aware of how many carbs I eat.

2) Building on number 1, serving sizes. To me, an open container of any size was a single serving. I pay attention to how much I'm supposed to eat. For snacks, I'm addicted to SmartFood. You can order a bunch of them in single serving sizes.

3) Vegetables. I always ate veggies, now I eat more. What used to be two thirds potatoes or pasta or rice with a meal is now two thirds vegetables.

4) Cut back on meat. We usually go meatless for dinner at least twice a week. I hardly eat it at breakfast and lunch is about 50/50. I'd say 90% of the meat we do eat is chicken or fish.

5) I have always LOVED to cook but now I'm really stretching my wings and trying things I wouldn't do before. If you don't know how to cook, LEARN. Alton Brown or Ina Garten are great starting places. Don't be intimidated by it, you're not working for Gordon Ramsay, you're just feeding yourself. Learn spices. Steaming veggies sucks. Roast that s**t. Stir fry that s**t. Eat it raw. Anything but steaming. Except boiling, that's worse.

6) Bring your lunch to work. If you eat breakfast at work, bring that too. Same with snacks unless you can get healthy ones there.

7) Don't beat yourself up if you have a cheeseburger. You ARE going to fail. I fail all the time. Every day is a new start.

8) We only eat out or order out once a week.

9) Water. More than you think. Learn to love to pee.

10) I can't do this right now because I broke my foot but a walk after every meal helps with your blood sugar. Ten minutes after breakfast and lunch, a half hour after dinner.

11) All things in moderation. You can have butter or cheese or fried foods, just not every meal. And keep to what you're supposed to eat, it's a lot smaller than you think.

Anyway, that's some of the stuff that *I* personally did. It worked for me, it may not work for you. I'm not a dietician, just a dude who wanted to lose some weight.

NotHisRealName , Louis Hansel Report

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Low impact cardio.

F**k I loved to run, but it destroyed my legs.

I can swim my little heart out :)

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I started flower gardening. Really relaxing, you will see results all summer, lots of sucesses and failures but failures bring improvements. And I listen to audible books while I'm at it sometimes. Especially great if you have a desk job.

Edit: It's so nice to know so many are enjoying gardening! I had no idea it would be a reddit thing.

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When I stopped worrying about things I could not control. Completely eliminated my general anxiety. Still can’t speak in public, but a catastrophic climate disaster? Sometimes it be like that.

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I recently took up hand sewing. When I think of how many good pairs of jeans I've thrown away simply because the crotch ripped and all it would've took to fix them was a double threaded ladder stitch.

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Hiring a cleaner. I grew up in a house where money was tight. Whenever we heard people talking about their maid or housekeeper, we always assumed they were super rich. I'm not rich. Very much middle class. But my wife and I both work full time and have a lot on our plates. We found a local person who has a small cleaning business. We keep up with day to day cleaning (dishes, laundry, immediate spills and messes, wiping things down, etc). Then once a month, a cleaner does a pass, focusing on dusting, deeper clean of the floors, bathrooms, etc.

It's about the same cost as a date night and it does so much to help us stay on top of things.

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Realizing that my school isn't hell and appreciating the amount of effort my teachers put into their jobs

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Just packed up and moved thousands of miles away. Left everything behind and just started over. Besides some debt, a suit case, and contacts for only the non-toxic people in my life, its been an extremely liberating experience. And looking back, nothing was really preventing me from doing it sooner, no real reasons at least, I just kept coming up with excuses not to do it until one day I couldn't think of one

SpicyRiceAndTuna , Anete Lūsiņa Report

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Start only doing things you really want to do.

I always felt this pressure to please others by inconveniencing myself or putting myself in an uncomfortable position as to make someone else happy or not upset.

F**k all that.

It's ok to say no and not have to have anxiety coming up with an excuse.

Do you really want to go out? Or is your friend pressuring you to go? Just say no and be firm. No excuses. Just be clear and firm. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying be an a*****e.

My life has improved greatly. No more social anxiety. No more unwanted social pressure. Just doing whatever I truly want to do because it makes me happy.

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I’m fat. I’m always going to be fat and I’m ok with that. That being said, being active. I let my weight limit me. I now realize that no matter my size I need to keep moving. I love getting out and doing things. It makes me feel good especially not with thinness being a goal.

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Getting a WFH 40 hour a week job

I was working like 55 hours a week in a warehouse before. So much room for activities

EDIT: This blew up so anyone asking how I did it, there's a comment below explaining it in detail

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I stopped acting like a doormat.

I used to think people walked all over me because I was such a nice person and people suck and take advantage of nice people.

It turns out that people like equitable relationships, they like people who can set good boundaries and protect them, and they like people who can take a little push back. They don't want someone just doing nice stuff for them all the time.

By trying to be the nice person all the time I was essentially just trying to manipulate people into liking me because I was useful to them. But this only attracts toxic people and narcissists.

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Flossing. (Actually, I use a water pick now.) Now my hygiene and cleaning visits are a breeze, and I haven't had a cavity in years!

perrydolia , Alexander Krivitskiy Report

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Swapped TV in the evenings for reading. I've read 19 books since march and my mental health has improved drastically since then. Not sure if it's because of the reading but it's the biggest change I made.

SmartPomegranate4833 Report

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A few things...

​

1. Started taking walks after every meal that I could. For lunchbreaks at work, I eat something while walking. Walks have allowed me all kinds of time to think about stuff, decompress, and listen to podcasts.
2. If you're like me and you're really out of shape and haven't exercised in years... Put an exercise bike in front of your computer (bonus points for a recumbent one, they're more comfortable), and learn to play more games with a controller. Set small goals with the thing. Play monster hunter? Do a hunt while pedaling as fast as you can, then do a hunt sitting in a chair, then switch back. It's difficult to describe how exhilarating it is to do raiding in FFXIV, and clear a boss for the first time, while completely out of breath and sweating all over the place. It's a truly unique feeling, and I cannot recommend it enough.
3. Somebody already posted "stop arguing with random strangers on the internet," but really I can't stress this one enough. If you see a post on a social media site that you know is going to have controversial comments below it, try and force yourself to not read the comments, unless you are going there specifically to laugh. Life is too short to get mad at people whose opinions you can't change.
4. This one is kind of situational, so it might not work for everyone. I live only 1.5 miles from the local grocery store, and only 2.5 miles from the local mall. When gas prices started going up, I bought myself an insulated backpack and stopped driving for my shopping trips. 3 mile round trip for groceries, and 5 miles round trip for my walks to the mall. It's forced me to buy less garbage food that I shouldn't be eating, and seriously think before I spend money at the mall. The exercise is a bonus.
5. Bought myself a pair of SleepPhones and started listening to nonverbal asmr videos, ocean sounds, rain, anything that seemed relaxing. Used to take me hours to get to sleep, now I'm usually asleep within about 30 minutes of getting into bed.
6. I quit smoking cold turkey last year and while I don't feel very different, I have certainly found that i don't get as winded from basic exercises as i did before.

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Getting divorced, 10 out of 10, would recommend

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Setting rules for myself. After covid started, I spent a year drinking and eating pizza every other day and at that time I thought why shouldn't I keep doing it if I enjoy it. You can die anytime so you should make the most out of what little time you have right?. The problem being (apart from health consequences) that it quickly becomes not enjoyable and I realize now how miserable I was during that time

Most things are only fun when you do them occasionally. Sounds obvious I know but it was not obvious for my dumbass. Now I have set rules for myself that I can only drink on sunday's and only eat junk food once a month and its so much more rewarding and fun

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Learned Spanish. Now I have a lot of amazing latino friends and I got a lot of great gigs and opportunities because of it.

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Stop drinking and doing so much drugs. I was a terrible alcoholic with first signs of cirrhosis and puking qnd losing enough blood to need a transfusion so kind of a wake up call that still took years to actually stop altogether.

FixingandDrinking Report

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Moved to Washington.

It literally turned my life around.

I was a cab driver in Arizona. And had been barely hanging on when 2008 recession hit. There were more drivers than cabs to lease. There was a lottery every day at work to see if you even got a car.

My luck sucked.

I ended up getting two evictions on my credit in under a year cause I just couldn't pay rent. Not even living paycheck to paycheck, but day to day...

A friend let me stay at his place in Georgia to see if I could do better there. Sadly it was almost worse than Arizona.

I decided to ask my parents if I could stay with them and try Washington.

NIGHT AND F*****G DAY.

I started doing office jobs for like $15/hr. Then something happened. Since I was staying at parents and kicking them some of my income for "rent" though it was low dollar, I was able to save money.

When a job that I had gotten at $17/hr layer off the entire department I put my foot down. Unemployment and savings allowed me to say F**k Off to the "I need a job NOW" opportunities. You know the ones, the ones with s**t bosses and s**t businesses just destroying the workforce.

Then it happened. I found my unicorn. The company was impressed at my resume due to my ability to find a problem and create a solution to fix said problem.

I got hired as a data coordinator. $19/hr. VERY shortly into that position the manager noticed my excel skills and hired me full time from the temp service well before contract was up. $22/hr. After a year he promoted me and moved me to a higher skill position. I was given a raise to 56k/yr.

I quickly proved my mettle in this new environment and earned promotion to Business Analyst 1. I was bumped up to 69k/yr. Just last October in mid pandemic I asked for a raise after proving myself even more in that new role. My boss agreed and went to bat for me.

Came back (after a bit of delay) with a raise to 76k/yr. With a cost of living bump in March of 22 that has put me at 79k/yr.

In 14 years I went to living day to day pay, to having a fully funded emergency fund, I bought a condo May 2021, and have a new car that is almost paid off.

My credit has skyrocketed to 769 and climbing. I have about $30,000 worth of credit cards with 0 balances, and a 401K that while stunted from years of not having...is getting there.

The absolute biggest change is that I do not have to worry about a big bill. I don't have to put off any payments as my savings and income can handle fluctuations.

It has done wonders for my life and wellbeing. If I had done this YEARS earlier, just think where I might have been.

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Improved my finances and my health.

Tucking away money for retirement was something I should have started in my early 20's. I'm in my early 50's now and will probalby end up retiring to Costa Rica or Portugal to make the most out of my money.

I also had a deviated septum fixed when I was in my late 40's and man, I wish I'd fixed that sooner. You forget how important breathing through your nose is until you go to the dentist, or sleep, or eat, or exercise. HUGE inconvenience for a week or so while it healed for a gigantic upgrade in my lifestyle.

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I begrudgingly started lifting weights when I was 30 due to some back pain that caused me to barely be able to get out of my office chair, I forced myself to go for a few weeks, then I started looking forward to going to the gym, then after a while I became a total gym rat meat head. I wish I had started lifting when I was a teenager, not only did it cure my back pain but I lost weight, look and feel much better and the doctor says all my health indicators are spot on now as I am in my 40s and in addition it's like a hobby for me now that I tinker with and socialize with other people who are into the same thing etc

StjerneskipMarcoPolo Report

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Understanding that just because they’re your parents, doesn’t mean they get a mandatory place in your life. Although it’s not what I wanted, walking away was the best thing for my mental health. Now that my father has passed, I seldom think of my mother and brother.

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