What do you think?

@Burke17 so far just counting calories has been working and eating smaller meals. Plus, eating smaller meals has helped reduce my acid attacks so win win for me and just want to try and be healthier overall.

@twiigss Caloric reduction is the only way to lose weight. The studies are numerous, and conclusive. Exercise is the only way to be healthy. Weight loss alone doesn't accomplish health. So, dial in your caloric deficit instead of merely guessing. Most diets, or caloric deficit efforts, end in failure, and a return to the original weight. This is why weight lifting is so very important. You must alter your body composition, and make long term sustainable changes in your behavior. Exercise is paramount in behavioral changes. Evan if you hate it, and most do, you absolutely must get used to doing it.

@Burke17 Before I started working all the overtime I've been working, I was good on a solid 2 months 5 days a week exercising. But with all this overtime, I unfortunately got off the exercise schedule. So once I have the time to do it, I know, make the time, It's hard to do when you have only 2.5 hours roughly to do all the things you want to do. I have my goals and plans set, it's just getting back to completing them. I was at 177 before I started doing this, and for me, I've been set on the foods I eat and the amount I eat each day and for me personally, it's been working and has been successful.

@twiigss I can do my lifting session in 22 minutes. Cardio is effective at 20 minutes. You have to want to do these things. They don't happen on their own.

@Burke17 I was doing both cardio and weightlifting for 2 months straight. I got on the overtime and it severely cuts my schedule short.

I want to do those things, how my schedule is structured, I don't have enough time to.

@twiigss OK, I understand, but research results are quite clear. Food deprivation (diets) fail at about a 95% rate over 5 years. You must change your body via exercise, and then eating behaviors, to have a chance of success. Time management, or not. Taking stairs two at a time counts. Walking further from parking counts. Move, move, move. Most of us sit at computers. Not even remotely healthy.

@Burke17 I have a friend 4 years older than I who doesn't do any exercise at all. He doesn't have a scale and when I was visiting him I said, how do you know your weight if you don't have a scale? He says, oh I just know if I feel a certain way then I know my weight.

I said, huh?? That's not how that works. If you want to know your weight, you need a scale. I was in front of scales at a store, even offered to buy him one, nope. He wanted nothing to do with it. Tried explaining to him, having face to face interactions with others can help keep your brain fresh, completely dismisses the idea of that. For me at my job, I'm always having daily, face to face interactions and it helps me out.

Whatever changed for my friend, it's not good. It's like he doesn't care, about anything anymore. His house isn't in the best of shape, when I offered to help him straighten a room up he says, "nahhh it's okay, I'm gonna get to it later" I said, oh so you mean never. But he chuckled and didn't say anything.

When we were out getting food, I was paying for a shot I had as they were bringing out the bag of food. They're giving it to me and I told my friend, here hold this quick, he starts freaking out that he has to carry this bag, I said, you gotta carry it right now I'm trying to pay for this. But his behavior was odd when we were out at a mall, I was calling his name but he was just completely zoned out. He said his hearing is getting worse which, okay so is mine, but this was different, you could see something different in his face. I just wonder if he's developing early signs of dementia or something?

It scares me and that's why I'm doing everything I can do, to stay healthy, not just body healthy, but brain healthy as well.

@twiigss Your concern about dementia is valid. Dementias develop over 20-30 years. Exercise can delay the onset by at least 10 years, sometimes longer, unless you inherit two copies of APOE4.