What works for me: eating meals (real food only, rarely eat dessert), no snacks, and walking every day. Honestly, as soon as I stop walking and start driving, I get into hibernation mode and start craving sugary things. As for food, I don't limit portions, but I've noticed that if I don't eat a balanced meal (some protein and some carbs and some fat), I'm much more likely to be hungry before the next meal.

It seems to me that if you spend a certain (lengthy) amount of time not eating any junk food, you'll completely lose any interest in it. How to do that if you don't have the willpower? Not sure.

Use the Rise app. It's a real person who will help you make small changes to your diet. You will start to lose weight whether you want to or not. It's not counting, it's just taking pictures of your food, and the nutritionist assigned to you will make other suggestions. Plus they have a "hotline" you can contact for dining out or event "emergencies"

Anonymous wrote:I really want to lose weight, but I literally have no willpower whatsoever. Just wondering if anyone can recommend something that I might be able to stick with.

Take this for what it's worth. After all, I'm just so anonymous internet stranger. OP, my advice to you is to not even try. Don't start. You have a terrible mindset and all you'll do is try something for a few days and then quit once life gets in the way. The thing is, life is always going to get in the way. You'll be successful once you want to succeed more than you want to make excuses. People just like you have lost fat. I've lost fat. It's not rocket science but it does take a certain mindset which you seem to be lacking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I successfully lost weight with Overeaters Anonymous. One of the things that they require is that you write down the night before everything you plan to eat the next day, and then you don't deviate from it. This leaves out all of the 'making choices while you are hungry' stuff. I am not disciplined enough to do this now, but ideally, I would have three tupperwares in my fridge every evening with the next day's breakfast, lunch and dinner parceled out -- with no room for deviations.

How does this work for people who work outside the home, travel for work, and have business lunches and dinners?

1. Bring your lunch to work
2. Bring your airport snacks or have some go-to options from the main airport food locations. Get the Eat This Not That book.
3. Again, have a general idea of what is healthy on menus. Again the Eat This Not That books have good guides for decent options at different types of restaurants.

I am guessing that this isn't a long term plan, right? I mean it's one thing to re-set for a few weeks. But sometimes I am more hungry so I will eat more. And some days I am not as hungry so I eat less. I wouldn't keep eating just because I had some food remaining uneaten, right? But I Can see this as a good short term strategy if you really need to rein things in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I successfully lost weight with Overeaters Anonymous. One of the things that they require is that you write down the night before everything you plan to eat the next day, and then you don't deviate from it. This leaves out all of the 'making choices while you are hungry' stuff. I am not disciplined enough to do this now, but ideally, I would have three tupperwares in my fridge every evening with the next day's breakfast, lunch and dinner parceled out -- with no room for deviations.

How does this work for people who work outside the home, travel for work, and have business lunches and dinners?

1. Bring your lunch to work
2. Bring your airport snacks or have some go-to options from the main airport food locations. Get the Eat This Not That book.
3. Again, have a general idea of what is healthy on menus. Again the Eat This Not That books have good guides for decent options at different types of restaurants.

Personal trainer can help because it adds a general sense of accountability about your health.

Intermittent fasting doesn't work for a lot of people because they end up binging when coming off the fast. For me, eating regularly is a lot better. I wasn't eating frequently enough, actually.

Making all your food at home helps, from raw ingredients. Avoid the junk food aisles. Portioning out your meal when you're done and freezing the rest right away helps too.

Make sure your spouse is aware and supportive.

Anonymous wrote:Another weight watchers fan here - I have lost more than 50 lbs. Yes, you spend time thinking about food, but I was thinking about food before and had no real idea of how my body worked. Now I pay attention, on most days, and have the facts before I make a decision about what to eat. It has been shockingly easy.

+1. On Weight Watchers I have to plan my food and balance what I want with what I need (I can have everything but not everything I want every day, or even 5 days out of 7). Before I didn't seem to think about food a lot, but I was mindlessly eating way too much. Given those extremes, i'll take the planning.

I have coupled this with meditation to try and address teh anxiety which fed a lot of my eating. I like the Headspace app a lot for that.

Anonymous wrote:I successfully lost weight with Overeaters Anonymous. One of the things that they require is that you write down the night before everything you plan to eat the next day, and then you don't deviate from it. This leaves out all of the 'making choices while you are hungry' stuff. I am not disciplined enough to do this now, but ideally, I would have three tupperwares in my fridge every evening with the next day's breakfast, lunch and dinner parceled out -- with no room for deviations.

How does this work for people who work outside the home, travel for work, and have business lunches and dinners?

Anonymous wrote:I am typically really controlling about what food I bring into the house. No chips or crackers or cheetos. No commercially prepared cookies. No soda. If I want cookies, I make them. If I want a coke, I go to McDonalds and buy a small. Seems ridiculous, but if it isn't here, I can't eat it.

I have two teenage boys and a husband who's at least 40 pounds overweight. I can't limit the food in the house to what I should eat.

Anonymous wrote:Target "weight"

It really does work for some people. Has worked wonders for me.

What is that?