My personal experience definitely reflects that TED talk. One week of holiday feasting is all it takes for my body & mind to go all "FINALLY SOME CALORIES! MOAR PLS!".
It's not like I ate more on those days than I had on certain days during the past months, but the calories on those latter days were always offset by either exercise the same day or eating in greater moderation the next day or two. Just seven days of more eating with less exercise was enough to bring back bad habits for another week. Stupid primal instincts.
So clearly my current "eat less, exercise more" regimen is something I'll have to stick with for the rest of my life to have a lasting effect.
The "don't obsess about food, but eat in moderation" definitely works best for me for the eating part of my regimen. Keeping up the exercise is also easier once you get over a threshold; I'm now even starting to experience some sort of "runners high" after long sessions of rowing. (hmm endorphins)
So I need to lose 50lbs.
How do I do it? Give me a plan guys. (Diet & Exercise!)
What doesn't seem to work with me? Paleo & Keto diets. Any kind of diet where I have to completely cut something out doesn't seem to work. I'm a hobby chef so I can't just cut out entire food groups like those guys do. Help!!
How often should I work out? How long should my workouts be? I've been to the gym three times since the first and each time I've done 30 minutes worth of bike or elliptical...I feel like that isn't enough!
So as a wannabe hobby chef myself I just tell myself I can eat whatever I want in terms of contents. Instead I focus on keeping the amount I eat sensible, and I always try to offset a less healthy meal with either/or
(a) smaller, healthier meals in the other parts of the day
(b) smaller, healthier meals the next day(s)
(c) intense cardio exercise. The small snacks I use when I feel somewhat hungry between meals are a few cashew nuts (no more!) or a banana. (Drink lots of water as well, I always have a bottle around)
I very much agree with the notion that eating is the most important part of weight loss, but exercise definitely helped me too. More importantly, exercise made keeping up my new eating regimen more doable and even enjoyable as it gave other benefits besides the weight loss (strength&endurance mainly).
I favor long (30~60 minutes) cardio sessions at a high intensity, as they will burn the most calories and build the greatest endurance, which is something most overweight people lack the most ! (example: last few years when we went hiking I was always struggling to keep up in the uphill sections, now after 6 months of rowing and losing weight I was basically leading our group)
So for that end I bought a rowing machine (Concept2), which you should find in pretty much any gym as well. Nice intense exercise using pretty much all major muscles, without any stress on joints so pretty much risk free in terms of injuries (!). Swimming will work just as well in terms of calories burned/hour. Other types of good exercise would be (indoor) cycling, ellipticals, those climbing machines and just plain old running
What is most important in my opinion is to find some sort of exercise (or a combination of exercises) you like and stick with it!
I don't really love exercise. Yet I try to do 30+ minute sessions five times a week. To make that enjoyable for myself, I always have either music on or some TV/Internet stream I can watch while exercising, I use some fans to keep the sweating reasonable and I use the tools available from Concept2 (tablet integration) to log all my efforts so I can document my progress. If you're at a gym, look into sweat-proof earphones. If you're running/cycling outdoors, like into smartphone apps like Strava. Just make sure you take away as many barriers to exercise as possible
Other important tips for starting intense cardio are to start in moderation; give yourself around a month of lower intensity exercise at the same duration to get used to the motions/techniques and build a base level of fitness. You can use a heart-rate monitor to keep yourself from exceeding 70% of your max heart rate during this period. Furthermore, eating is actually important ! Exercise at high intensity (heart rates) for long periods of time without having eaten anything will probably lead to binge eating afterwards as your body screams for fuel. So don't skip breakfast, or reduce the intensity level if you haven't eaten as much as needed. Also, depending on the exercise you might also increase your muscle mass as well, which causes you to actually gain weight on the scale initially so don't freak out.
TLDR summary would be (1) don't obsess about food (2) eat in moderation, stop when you've had enough (3) compensate for the worst meals (4) find out which exercise(s) you like and take away all barriers (5) exercise around 3 hours a week
Finally keep in mind it's a (life long) marathon, not a race. Losing 30 lbs took me 6 months, losing another 20 will probably take me another 6 months.
The confrontation of weighing myself daily (and keeping a spreadsheet) has been a good way for me to keep track of my goals and stick to my plans, just keep in mind there will be significant differences between consecutive days for all sorts of reasons !
