How do you deal with gaining weight

26 comments

1. I think people overestimate how much exercise can offset calories. When you get older your metabolism slows down, so unless you REALLY step up the exercise game, you’re going to have to cut calories.

   Realistically, having beer/alcohol and the diet you mentioned are not compatible with your body composition goals. The question is, what matters more to you?

2. I do a competitive sport where I get strangled by big blokes if I gain weight. If I don’t gain weight I have a reasonable chance of defending myself. It’s quite motivating.

3. I went from 170 to 186 since Covid started. I still haven’t dealt with it, but honestly I think more excercise and less junk food should help me with this issue.

4. Count your calories for a whole month. With little expectations or even goals. Just count everything.

   There are free apps you can use where you can scan labels. Just search for food in the appstore.

   You will learn automatically what your choices are.

   You will learn that you can eat anything, but not everything all of the time in big amounts.

5. You weigh yourself a lot you and reduce the amount of food on your plate.

   Maybe that cheesesteak gets cut in half and it’s lunch for two days.

   It takes effort, and some days you fail, but if you’re focused on it and really put in an effort you should see results.

6. This is a battle you’ll be fighting from now on as your metabolism slows with age. Aside from watching what you eat and taking a daily multivitamin, good-old-fashioned sweaty calorie-burning is the only thing that’s going to yield results. I hop on a stationary bike for 30 minutes every other day and push myself to maintain 85% of my maximum heart rate for the entire time. It’s not exactly fun but it feels good when you’re done and will keep you at a healthy weight. Here’s a useful target heart rate calculator: https://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/heartrate

7. OP, how tall are you?

8. This is all great advice, thanks guys.

9. I started counting calories a while ago, using the app MyFitnessPal. Eventually I kind of got the hang of what I can eat in a day/week/month to maintain my weight.

   The good news is, you don’t have to give up beers or cheesesteaks completely, but doing both every day is probably not an option. I find that, depending on what else I eat during the day, I can typically spare enough calories for a big dinner OR a few drinks OR dessert. Look at the big picture as well; if you go nuts once in a while on the weekend or something, that’s fine, you just want to make sure you’re not doing that too often.

10. You don’t.

11. From what you’ve said, it seems like your goal is to lose bodyfat.

    This is a very achievable goal, but it depends on how you want to do. You can either: decrease calories, increase exercise, or do both. I’d encourage you to do both, as there are lots of long term benefits of ‘getting stronger’ (which is not the same as putting on lots of muscle).

    You may want to think about increasing the amount of resistance or cardiovascular training you do. Walking and exploring is good, but you need to do an awful lot of it to put a dent in your total calorie requirements. If you find an exercise you can tolerate for 30-45 minutes, give it a go 3-4 times a week and see if you begin to enjoy it after a month. If you don’t, you may wish to consider a different activity.

    Calorie wise, I suspect your consumer a lot more than you think. It’s great that you’ve substituted cheesesteaks and pizza for PB&J, but PB&J is still pretty calorie dense (especially if you like the amount of PB that I do!). You might want to think about incorporate some high quality proteins to increase satiety, and more vegetables to increase volume and nutrient profile. As another poster has already said, count calories for a month and you’ll quickly be able to see what’s going on from an intake perspective.

12. Peanut butter and jelly isn’t going to be a healthy alternative, even with sugar free jelly and low fat peanut better. If you really want to balance your diet out, get used to eating 3-4 meals of lean protein each week (chicken or turkey) and then you can have your cheat meals. The older you get, the less cheat meals if you want to remain fit.

13. I got married at 135lbs when I was 21. I turn 41 this week and am 260lbs. I dealt with it by buying bigger clothes.

14. Just more of me to love, baby.

15. Unless you’re a professional athlete, you cannot out exercise a bad diet. Exercising helps of course, but it starts with what you’re eating or drinking.

    If you want to remain in good shape, and look good (they’re not the same thing). You need to start managing your food intake from now, alongside exercising/working out.

    It doesn’t have to be that restrictive, you said you like 2 beers a day, drink 1 instead.

    Reduce your sugar intake as well. Start eating more fruit and vegetables.

    Start making changes gradually, the transition will be a lot easier than making dramatic changes in a week or so.

    When I start to care about getting bigger, I deal with it by slowing things down, and not buying the foods which make me gain weight. I also drink a lot of water when I feel like things are getting out of control.

    This is in addition to the multiple sports, and fitness activities I take part in. Maybe find a sport, or hobby you can take part in. I’m fitter than the majority of people I know and I’ve not seen the inside of a gym in years.

16. > wouldn’t say my diet was bad

    > pizza and cheesesteaks everyday

    wat? 😂 that is a terrible diet

17. I’ve hovered around the same weight + or – 10 lbs since I graduated college and I’m over 40 now. I was about 180 when I graduated college been down as low as 169 and as heavy as 187, neither the high or the low was sustained for too long. For me the reality of it has always been making whatever changes I need to maintain a healthy weight, sustainable. 169 was up at 5am at the gym for an hour 5 days a weeks and running 3 miles 3 days a week while only drink 4 drinks a week. 187 was around the holidays, so eating heavy and drinking everyday.

    I’ve been running 3 miles a day at least 5 days week for the last 3 years but more importantly, in the last 4 months, I find time to walk. I finish dinner and have 30 minutes, I walk around the neighborhood. Work call where I’m in listen only mode, I walk. This to me is sustainable. Maybe no for another person but in my situation it’s just really easy to find at least 30 minutes a day at the end of it for a walk. Yesterday I had a call with a relative, 64 minutes of walking while on the call catching up. It’s made a huge difference.

    Find what works for you, find the easy things you can change and then progressively work on some of the harder ones. There’s a stat that +80% of people who lose weight gain it back and then some. It’s because it’s so incredibly hard to maintain when you are denying yourself or doing something that isn’t sustainable over the long haul.

18. Poorly

19. Intermittent fasting.

    I’ve been lifting weights since I was 19 (34 now) but always had a bit of a gut (eat like crap, lol). So, in September of 2020 I decided to start IF. First week I lost 5 pounds and have stuck with it since. Have lost more since and the best part, it stays off. Can actually see my abs now!

    Let me know if you want to know my schedule. Happy to help.

20. It’s simple. Just get more exercise and eat healthy food. There is no reason to be gaining weight in your 20s, and I feel like the slow metabolism is a myth that people latch onto to give themselves an excuse. I’m in my 30s and feel great and am not putting on extra weight. Also drop the daily beer habit, that isn’t doing you any good.

21. Intermittent fasting (one meal a day) and no starches. Lots of big salads. I lost 40 pounds in 3 months last year, and during that time I ate ribs 3 times a week on average.

22. Stop drinking and watch how much you lose. Your body metabolizes alcohol and beer different than when you were younger and it absolutely adds weight you don’t want lol

23. > I drink a beer or 2 everyday and I wouldn’t say my diet was bad, bad but it wasn’t great. I would eat cheesesteaks and pizza everyday

    I deal with weight gain by not doing that.

    I do intermediate fasting.. so I gotten myself down to eating one meal a day and drinking lots of water.

    I still drink beer, just not everyday. That’s really unhealthy

24. Exercise is good but it’s not going to keep you slim if that’s your concern. You’d need a really extreme routine that wouldn’t fit into a normal person’s schedule for that alone to be a good weight loss strategy (and even then you’d have to watch to make sure you didn’t just eat more to compensate). You can get serious about a diet (which requires a ton of discipline to actually lose a lot of weight and keep it off; most people do not succeed), you could research medical interventions (the new class of drugs seems to be far more effective than what’s come before), or you could accept getting heavier.

25. > I kind of feel like me gaining weight is just about me getting older

    Nah. I was obese when I was 32. At 51, I’m well within the normal BMI for my height, ~55 lbs lighter, and have much more muscle definition. I just stopped overeating and started exercising. And getting sun as much as I can in the warmer months.

26. OP your diet is shit. You can’t outwork a bad diet no matter how hard you try and you are finally realizing that as you get a skinny fat body. Lean ground beef, fruits, eggs, rice, etc. it’s more expensive to eat bad than it is to eat foods that are good for you. Cut out the booze too. Crushing beers is extra calories that you aren’t burning. Your metabolism hasn’t slowed down — your life style has. Go hit the gym.