Getting the dad bod or whatever it is called, but not fat yet.
Still,I don't want to be the guy that looks pregnant.

Diet alone is where most weight loss comes from. Add in some sprints and pick up some heavy stuff a few times a week for best results.

inb4 the other keto-sexuals.

I've lost about 20lbs in about a month and a half doing keto. I'm pretty fat though

Diet alone will cause the most rapid initial loss. But that loss will end well before your goals without exercise

Belly fat is the last thing to go.  Rings will no longer fit, wristwatch will need to be tightened, face and neck will be leaner all before waist size changes.  Keep at it.

Diet + strength training + cardio = non 'dad' body. Simple formula just difficult to stick with.

If you don't want to go full on Keto, carb cycling, and exercise works.

5 months. Still got work to do, but its really easy. Eat bacon. Win.



Lost 62 LBs in 5 months with diet. Plan to lose another 40 over the next 6-12 months. With diet.

ETA: I guess your question was how hard is it.

Answer:
Easy if you can stick to something with a goal in mind and can change your existing habits. Hard if you can't do those things.

All true. And I remember hearing "You'll always remember where you were when your pants fell off." That's also true.

Some days I feel like a Jeff Volek disciple.

If you drink, stop. They don't call it a beer gut for no reason.

When you're fat the pounds fly off with diet alone. Unfortunately after the diet gets you down to 15-20% body fat the last to go is belly fat and that takes  dedication to diet AND exercise. A diet alone trim stomach will waste your strength down to nothing unless you are incorporating exercise to either build or at the very least, maintain strength and muscle. 

Sweat.

IF is killing it for me. Very easy to do and you can loosen up on diet restrictions. Been doing 16/8 daily and a 24 Monday.

not particularly hard, just not fun.

down 38 in 5 1/2 months. diet only. does look like the belly fat is going to be the last to go.

cocaine

WTF does that even mean????

I've lost 15lbs in the last month on diet alone.

First place the weight went on is the last place it will come off. Keto and excercise. Keep at it.

Don't eat for 16 hrs. Only eat during an 8 hour window. Fast for 24 hrs on Mondays.

The HIV diet works wonders!

Cut out soft drinks and now only drink water. Cut down on portions and eat twice a day, breakfast and dinner. Walking a lot (used to run, bad knees says no to more of that). In four months I've went from a high of 247 lbs at 5'10", to exactly 200 lbs as of this mornings weigh in. Still have a little bit of a belly, but nothing like I did before ( I can see my junk! ) but the love handles are gone and I have dropped several pant sizes and a belt is required until I buy new pants, which will wait until I see where I end up and stabilize at. I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

FPNI:  diet is the primary way to lose fat.

Oh hot damn a GD weight loss/nutrition thread, these always go so well! Diet is where you get the best bang for your buck for weight loss for most, everyone has their own pet methods but at the end of the day if you're in a consistent caloric deficit you'll lose weight. Be on an appropriate lifting regimen and you'll preserve most/all muscle in the process, and add to your deficit with exercise if desired. It's really not that difficult once you get the hang of it.

I like to be between 10-15% bodyfat at any given time, and while I'm a lot better at putting on the weight than taking it off (Papa John's is my spirit animal) I found I do best with PSMF style dieting like Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Loss. On a PSMF I can do a consistent 3lb/wk of true fat loss. A larger person than me could expect to see considerably higher numbers than that. That works for me, but it's hard as shit and most people can't hack it and I don't fault them for it, the most important thing is to find what works for you.

So it's seems as if keto is the way to go around here. Where are the best place to get recipes?

True. But I think someone is doing themselves a huge dis-service by fixating on the number on a scale.
Fitness and having a great physique is more than just "losing weight". I know tons of extremely unhealthy skinny people!
It should be a complete approach that targets diet, nutrition, training, etc.

I heard it once said as, "If you want the physique of an athlete, you need to train like an athlete." And of course eat like a training athlete. 

Meth.

@nsl

Hey man, you will hear all kinds of stuff about losing weight. Special diets, infomercial crap, this and that.

But it's real simple.

Eat less.
Eat healthy whole foods.
Drink lots of water, 1/2 to 1 oz per pound you way.
And exercise.

I eat healthy, eat less and simply walk 2.5 miles in the morning and 2.5 at night.

I lost 80 lbs in 8 months a year and half ago.

Oh and dont eat fast food or junk food.

Easy, cheap and really works. I call it the no bullshit approach.

Good luck man!

It will be easy enough.  Keep a food log to give you an idea of how much you are actually eating.  Calculate your BMR for your current weight & height.  If you are eating significantly more calories than your BMR, cut the amount of food you are eating.  However,  make sure you eat at least BMR number of calories (keeps you from losing muscle).  Replace high glycemic, starchy carbs with low glycemic ones.   Give it two weeks and the weight will start melting off.

For the two weeks, no pasta, bread, pastries, cereal, chips or crackers.  No alcohol.  No white potatoes.  If you do eat bread, it has to be sprouted grain or Ezekiel 4:9 bread (see frozen bread section at your local supermarket).  No processed grains like rice or oats.  Steel cut oats are okay in small quantities.  Avoid high glycemic fruits like melons, bananas, peaches or kiwi.  You can eat all of the berries you want, like blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.

What else can you eat, you ask?  Lean beef, bison, chicken, fish and pork.  If you don't eat fish, take purified fish oil.  Any green or leafy vegetable is good for you and you can eat as many green veggies as you want. Increase the amount of good fat in your diet (no trans fat; limit Omega 6's) and moderate your protein intake.  Limit fatty cuts of meat like hot dogs and hamburgers.  You can eat eggs, lots of eggs.  Hard or shredded cheese in moderate amounts is good.   Beans are good for you and you can eat as many as you want.  Try buying beans in bulk packages and soaking them overnight in water before cooking.  Canned beans have too much sodium.  Limit dairy to whole milk and Greek nonfat plain yogurt (add berries to the yogurt for flavor).

If you normally do not eat a lot of veggies, you may have some "symptoms" that you normally do not have.  Let your body purge itself and get used to good, proper nutrition.

Hope this helps!  If you strictly follow what I outlined above, you will definitely see results.  Good luck and let us know how you do.


PM me if you have any questions or need more info.

ETA:  Sweet potatoes without butter or brown sugar are better for you than white potatoes.  Avoid white potatoes at all cost, this includes french fries.  If you do eat white potatoes, use salsa and plain greek yogurt on the potatoes instead of sour cream and butter.

As others have said, 80 - 90% of your weight loss will come from diet.  Exercise can help, but you look at how many calories you are likely to burn with any reasonable level of exercise and it doesn't take long to figure out that you've got to cut your caloric intake to make any real progress in losing weight.

What is your height and weight?

ETA:  just 1 pound of fat is 3,500 calories.

If you can get into a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day, then in theory....IN THEORY... you will lose a pound of fat at the end of a-week.


How you get to a 500 calorie deficit per day is up to you:

A.  eat 500 fewer calories per day

B.  eat 250 fewer calories per day AND do some exercise which burns off 250 calories

C.  do more exercise/activity that burns off 500 calories.

That is ASSuming that basic thermodynamics jives up perfectly with the human body.

I am of the opinion it is not that simple.

I think spiking your blood sugar by eating/drinking sweets and carbs triggers an insulin response which keeps another hormone (HSL) from being released.

HSL is responsible for freeing up your stored fat (a triglyceride).  If I understand the physiology of it all, these triglycerides get broken down...and I guess in the liver they get broken down into fuel (glycogen) for the rest of your body.

I went down to a 1500 calorie diet and still wasn't losing weight. Once the cardio and weight training started happening it's coming off quick and I feel a million times better.

Seven days ago, I was 17 pounds heavier.  All I did was eat low carb.   

I'm down 33 pounds in 6 weeks following keto.

not hard at all really.  

I hit hit the gym 2-3 times a week as well.

That's complete bullshit.
I quit drinking beer 6 months ago to lose my "beer gut" and started drinking whiskey and nothing has changed.

Didn't work for Mayor Barry.

A lot of that is water weight.

ETA:  I'm not trying to discourage you, just being realistic.

Agreed.  Diet is 80-90% of weight.

I was about 20lbs overweight.  Now I'm about 10lbs overweight.

Dieting is a chore, you just have to put in the work and suffer.  No way around it.

My opinion based on personal experience: real fat loss only comes from diet. Meaning a deliberate reduction of caloric intake to levels below what you "burn" each day. All the exercise in the world will not compensate for a shitty diet and shoveling excess calories into your body. If you do diet, exercise helps to maintain or even increase your metabolic rate, so it's clearly useful. It's just not a solution in and of itself. Here's what you do:

1. Stop drinking and eating empty calories: sugary drinks (sodas, fruit juice, etc.), alcoholic beverages, sugary treats and reduce or eliminate high carb junk foods in general.
2. Start drinking lots of water.
3. Watch your overall caloric intake! Many people will tell you there are ways to cheat on overall calories. There aren't. This is a simple energy equation: Calories In - Calories Burned = Gain or Loss. You cannot change this reality.
4. Drink lots of water. All the time.
5. Start tracking/charting your weight. You cannot manage what you don't measure.
6. Watch your macro nutrients and make sure you eat plenty of protein and fats and a relatively small amount of quality carbs. I cannot give you exact percentages because that depends on the individual. Remember, good carbs are not the enemy either. You still need them, especially if you work out. You just make sure you don't eat junk and you do not go over your total caloric limit.
7. Give yourself 6-12 months. Crash diets never work. For real, lasting results you have to make gradual changes to your lifestyle and stick to them.
8. Keep drinking lots of water!
9. Intermittent fasting works for me. It could work for you as well. Not sure but it might be worth a try. This is when you skip meals or go without food for an entire day.
10. Rinse and repeat.

At first you will start losing weight and will not see much external change. This is because men have considerable visceral fat reserves. You can easily lose 5-10 lbs just from within your abdomen and see zero change in your love handles (which is external fat). There is no targeted fat reduction from specific areas of the body. External abdominal fat (covering your six pack and around your waist) is typically the last to go. This is why men with visible six packs are always lean and in great shape (at least from excess fat perspective). You cannot have fat hanging off you everywhere else and at the same time have chiseled abs. Not gonna happen. You have to lose all your excess fat in order to start showing muscle definition. Again, the only way there is through a systematic diet that you made your new lifestyle.

Your body loses fat where ever it wants to first. Just limit the calories and burn more than you consume and you'll eventually lose it there. It's not just the belly that's usually laden with fat. You just notice it more.

for every stored gram of glycogen, there is 3 to 4 grams of water.

https://8fit.com/nutrition/glycogen-gluconeogenesis-and-water-weight/

I got down to about 165-168or so and very littte fat around the waist.  Got back to 175-178 and it's all there at the waist. 6'.

So I'd say easily diet over exercise, but don't stop exercising..just realize input is key.

Keto

Cut the carbs
Eat the meat

35 lbs in 12 weeks

keto thread

I don't know if that is sarcasm or not.

Depending on what you drink, you may be spiking your insulin.

I tried to find something scholarly and peer reviewed.  This is the closest I could find:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19125162

which is on mice.(rolls eyes)

Wish I could have found a study using humans.

I will have to read the abstract like 3 more times to let it to sink in.

It sounds to me like if you are already fat, you are insulin resistant.  So drinking alcohol doesn't do anything to your insulin which would in turn change your body fat percentage.

a 1.5 ounce shot of 80 proof vodka is 96  calories

a 1.5 ounce shot of 100 proof vodka is 124 calories:

http://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/vodka-calories


You're still ingesting calories...which will still get converted into (visceral) fat.

As stated, belly is the last to go.
I didn't eat for a month. Antibiotics made me nauseous. It sucked. One of the select few things I remember about those 5 weeks.
Other injuries along with MRSA. Lost over 60 pounds, and looked like one of those kids the Peace Corps or Christian Children's Fund takes pictures of to get your sympathy. Still had a belly and muscle took the hit.
Eat protein, and fats, and little carbs. KETO, Adkins, South Beach, Diabetic diet, or what ever you want to call it. It will work and help with what you want. You will have to exercise, and probably a lot of it to get a six pack, not so intense just to lose some bump.

I went from 216 to 182 just cutting soda pop from 2-3/day to 2-3/week, cutting dessert from every night to once per week, cutting out snacking every day between meals (crackers were my weak spot), and cutting my meal portions down a tad.

Tons of people will tell you keto keto keto keto or go home, and I'm not knocking keto-type high protein low carb diets, just saying often for a lot of people who aren't grossly over weight small changes to their existing diet can accomplish a lot.