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Help Losing Weight
Reservoir Angel
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The title is pretty much exactly what it is about.
I need to lose weight. Well, not need to. Want to. For years now I've been wanting to slim down. I'm 5ft 11" tall and weigh 13 stone (give or take) which is, according to some BMI chart my mum got when she started her diet programme, is a bit overweight.
But there is a problem. According to my mum (who admittedly does lie a lot to control things) some people are just naturally fat and can do fuck all about it.
So...what do I do to slim down?
I need to lose weight. Well, not need to. Want to. For years now I've been wanting to slim down. I'm 5ft 11" tall and weigh 13 stone (give or take) which is, according to some BMI chart my mum got when she started her diet programme, is a bit overweight.
But there is a problem. According to my mum (who admittedly does lie a lot to control things) some people are just naturally fat and can do fuck all about it.
So...what do I do to slim down?
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It's a little intimidating, I know (trust me, I lurk in there, myself sometimes), because most everyone in there is on their game and knows what they're doing and talking about, but ask questions, they will help you!
For me, personally, I made an effort to cut at least 500 calories/day from my diet... which was mostly junk food/fried food/pop/sugary drinks/fancy starbucks drinks ... and I've lost about 25lbs in 2.5 months.
Start small if you're nervous, but just make sure you commit to it!
Good luck to you!
To start, cut out as much of the crap in your diet as possible. No more soda, processed foods, fried foods, excetera...
As for fitness, the Fitness thread is a great resource.
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For example, I'm 5'10" and 4 weeks ago I weighed 175. After exercising in the morning (60 minutes of bike riding outside), plus a diet of about 1500-1600 or so calories, I'm down to 166. Normally I should eat around 2200 or so, give or take. For me, I'm able to do it because my wife is even more restricted (being a female and shorter), so I eat the same foods plus some light snacking, since there's no way I could subsist on 1000 calories a day.
Otherwise I'm just avoiding snacks and make sure my food has a good amount of protein, so I don't get hungry. My snack typically is some yogurt, because it's high protein and not TOO bad on the calories, while still being delicious.
While your mom has a point for rhetorical sake -- yes, some people are predisposed to being larger -- there's no reason that you have such an affliction, and even those who are naturally larger are able to lose weight. Not to mention that if you did have such an affliction, you would likely weigh far more than 13 stone.
It's like 200 calories a pop, delicious, and you can really eat as much of it as you want.
(No so much the dressing, but you can replace that with Fat free and so on)
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I'm sure that a lot of this is covered in the Fitness thread, but your diet is your main concern:
Cut out the obvious crap; fatty foods like cheese and friend food, non-lean meats, things that are high in sugar or carbohydrates.
Avoid pasta based dishes. Carbs are not your friend when it comes to weight loss.
Potatoes are starchy little bastards. Avoid them, and white bread. Consider switching to brown; even then, limit your intake.
Milk. Switch to skimmed milk if you can. Use sparingly.
Condiments! Check out the difference between normal and light versions of things like mayonnaise. You'd be surprised at what you can cut out. Avoid sugary condiments entirely if possible.
If you drink a lot of carbonated beverages, I suggest cutting those out. Also, fruit juices: Not many people realise that there's as many calories in a glass of apple juice as there are in a glass of full-sugar coca cola. If you're the type to drink copious amounts of fruit juice (as I once was), quit it; they're full of sugar, even if it's natural sugar.
And that's what it boils down to really: Calories. If you eat more than you burn, you put on weight. If you burn more than you eat, you lose weight. You can't put on weight if you haven't got the energy to store as fat, likewise, you if your body needs to use energy, and your intake is insufficient, it will need to draw it from your fat stores. Energy cannot be created or destroyed: This is a fundamental rule of thermodynamics, and believe it or not, no-one out there is breaking it by constantly gaining weight without eating the calories to match it. Some people seems to burn calories at a faster rate than others, but at the end of the day, you can still control your intake to match your body's Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).
Or you can alter it.
Personally, I used to do weight training and cardio prior to a tendon injury that put me out of action for a few months. Weight training increases your muscle mass; whilst muscle weighs more than fat, it also burns more calories than fat in order to maintain itself. Through a good weightlifting programme to increase your muscle mass, combined with a cardio programme to promote fat loss, you can effectively raise your BMR to a higher rate, and improve your ability to burn calories whilst looking and feeling a lot fitter. I'd check the fitness thread for more detail though.
How healthy is Iced Green Tea? Specifically the diet variety. I ask because I could quite literally drink that stuff for the rest of my life, and looking at it, it seems better for me than water.
(I'm talking about the Arizona Iced Diet green Tea with Ginseng)
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Kind of.
Simple carbs are not your friend.
Complex carbs are totally your friend in moderation. And Fiber. Fiber out the ass(Badump tschhhhh)
Plus I'm kind of going over all this ground again; I'm seeing the doc tomorrow to see what else can be done about my injuries. I miss my lifting terribly, as do my muscles.
Oh, and fitness thread, fitness thread, fitness thread!
I added weight lifting to my excercise about 2 months ago and the results have been excellent. I dropped down a few pounds, but more importantly I'm building noticible muscle in my arms while my gut has gone down a few inches.
More importantly, I actually look forward to hitting the gym as I mix up the excercises each day, and they really push me to a good exhaustion point.
If you search my posts, you'll see i've previously posted in the various fitness threads over the years. (Not) Suprisingly, what I am about to write echos what has been said in this thread and in countless posts in the fitness thread.
I decided that I needed to lose weight, and found it very easy and fast to get down to a 'comfortable' 14 stone, 7lbs. I'm yo-yo'ing around this weight at the moment, and have slacked off my fitness regimes.
Basically, there was no great secret to losing almost 2 stone in about 3 months.
*Specifically* these are the steps I took.
(1) stopped eating junk food (even occasional trips to McDonalds/KFC/BK etc)
(2) Planned my meals - concentrating much more on vegetables and white meats rather than red meats (even though I LOVE steak) - started drinking and using skimmed milk rather than full fat.
(3) Ran 3 miles around my local area, maybe 3 times per week.
(4) Played an hour of intense 5-a-side football once per week.
(5) Drank water instead of coke/pop at work, water is now my main fluid intake rather than Dr Pepper etc.
(6) Stopped snacking late at night
(7) Tried to eat a light breakfast every morning before work (to kick start metabolism)
(8) Occasional trips to the gym once per week to lift weights and generally work on tone.
(9) Small reps of sit ups and press ups at home each day (like 200 sit ups, and maybe 50 press ups)
(10) Stopped going out and getting stupid drunk 3 nights per week! Alcohol is now drunk in moderation, occasionally I might have a lot one night, but I balance it against the calorie intake. 1 Magners cider is like 350 calories, a lot when you are aiming for 12-1500 a day.
If I could get remotivated to keep going, I'd lose even more weight. The main challenge was getting my eating right, and trying to eat less calories than I was consuming before.
As a rule of thumb, I try not to go above 1200 calories a day (if I'm just having a normal day, and not exercising) instead of the 3500 calorie blow out days I was used to when working away from home.
My mother is overweight. During the summer she is outside all day working in her garden, cutting grass, etc. She eats extremely light meals (i.e very small bowl of cereal in the morning, tomato sandwhich for lunch (just whole wheat bread, fresh tomato out of the garden, a small amount of salt, and lettuce out of the garden)
For supper she has a little bigger supper, but it is still fairly healthy. Tons of vegetables (generally beans, peas, or corn, 1/2 potato, beats) and a main meat dish, so could be steak, pork chops, lasagna, speghetti, fish, etc).
She rarely ever snacks.
So I just don't get how she could be overweight from working outside for 8-12 hours a day, and not eating shitty foods. She gets depressed sometimes when she sees other women her age eating twice as much as her, doing 1/2 as much physical work and are skinny. My mother used to be skinny, up until the point she gave birth to my younger sister, ever since then she has been having weight troubles.
I've found that if I eat right before I go to the grocery store I spend considerably less money at the store and I find it much, much easier to walk right past the junk food when I'm not hungry.
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Also, do weights as well as cardio. Weights will cause your muscles to get sore and grow and that causes you to burn more calories at rest and while you sleep.
Lastly, cut out the unhealthy foods. You know what they are.
www.livestrong.com is a great site for that. You can track what you eat on there, as well as your activity. It will also give you a decent approximation of what you should be eating in a day, calorie wise.
Using a tool like that in an honest manner will tell you if you really are a person who "just can't lose weight"
You'll find out that calories "leak" into your diet in weird places. For most people, it's not their meals that do them in - it's the extra grazing we do, the couple beers at night, the wings at a buddy's house, that kind of shit. You also find out that the things torpedoing your calorie count are not the things filling you up in many cases.
13 stone (why do you people do that, anyway?) isn't grossly heavy for 5'10" (assuming you're a dude)- if you have an issue, it's probably with composition. The best way to do this is actually strength training with moderate cardio. There are some really good strength training programs that you can find for free - personally I'm using one called "stronglifts" right now. It stresses full body, functional strength and getting results out of a minimal number of exercises.
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Same reason the chubby girls going at a medium pace on ellipticals stay chubby- they're not actually working out. Not in a meaningful sense anyhow. Unless your mom is doing hard manual labor outside all day gardening is not going to help her drop much weight. Light outdoor work plus a good diet will keep in okay shape if you're already there, but to drop any kind of weight your mom is going to have to step it up a few notches. Running, swimming, or biking plus some weightlifting/ yoga/ pilates and maintaining a proper diet are going to be necessary if she wants to get near her pre-baby weight. It will probably take a while to start seeing a difference since she's already overweight, sounds near menopause, and doesn't seem to have much of an aerobic base. It's like rolling a stone downhill- once you overcome inertia it starts to get easier. The reason most diets/ workout plans don't give people the results they want is because most times people don't give them long enough to work and/ or they aren't pushing themselves hard enough. If it took your mom months or years to gain the weight it's not going to go away overnight.
Another reason most 'diets' fail is that they're not designed to be viable as long term diets: Most are designed to cut out entire food groups, or crash your calorie count down, which can lead to rapid weight loss in a few weeks, and people temporarily feel good about themselves.
Then they either get ill from keeping the diet up, because they're lacking the nutrients/calories they need to actually live, or because they feel like they can go back to their old eating habits. The problem there is that due to the recent calorie deficit period your body has endured, it assumes that food is scarce, so you pile the pounds back on, plus more, as your body tries to store additional energy reserves.
Hah, yeah. It's always funny to see people on ellipticals at zero resistance basically just letting the momentum of the machine carry their legs while they watch TV.
Let me rephrase myself then. What you mentioned is true of crash diets or fad diets like Atkins or South Beach or whatever, but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about actual intelligent diets coupled with a legitimate workout. Generally, and especially with people years away from what we'd call in shape, it takes a month or two to start to see results and longer than that to see true gains. Most people in that boat lose heart sooner than they lose weight, convince themselves they just can't lose weight, and so continue to gain it.
I'll use my father as an example: at his heaviest he was about 5'8, just over 200 or so w/ between 25-30% body fat. Used to run but got away from it, and eventually the office life caught up with him as he aged. Decided about 5 years ago he'd had enough and resolved to get back to the body he remembered. Started eating a lot smarter, watched what he ate, and started working out again. About 2-3 months in he looked a lot better and had more energy. About 5-6 months in it became readily apparent he'd lost some weight. He finally got down to around 170 and has stayed within 10-15 of that since. It wasn't easy, and he still struggles to stay in shape, but he never would have got his plan off the ground if he thought it would be a short term turnaround.
Daily exercise is the biggest one, that people have already talked about. Find something that works for you, whether it's walking or running or cycling or w/e.
The other thing that helped me was identifying individual bad habits that led to wait gain. Replacing unhealthy, unfilling snack food with fruit or baby carrots or celery or something made a huge difference. It came down to what I had around the house; whatever I had I would eat, and at some point I realized that by being diligent at the supermarket I could keep myself from indulging in bad habits. An hour or so of willpower once a week had a large impact on my eating habits.
You can do this little stuff one thing at a time (replace soda with water or at least diet, eat out less often, stop using butter, etc.), and eventually come out with a much healthier lifestyle.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
But yes, it's totally down to the kind of diet we're talking about: Whether it's the proper meaning: What you eat throughout the day, or its media meaning: Faddy crap that never helps in the long run.
Your father's story rings true though; if people expect immediate results, then they're sadly out of luck. Paraphrasing you: It's a lot easier to lose heart than it is to lose weight (also, I'm keeping that phrase for the future, thanks!).
People also don't seem to consider that the changes they need to make will need to be long term to keep effect. You can't go back to eating fried chicken three times a week after you've lost the weight, unless you either want to pile the pounds back on, or you've become a professional body builder in that time who needs 10000 cals a day to train and function :P
Well around May of 2008 I decided I needed a change. There were a variety of reasons for this sudden change of heart, not least of which was that there are tons of absurdly hot girls at my grad school and I was tired of being too insecure to talk to any of them.
I'm a creature of routine, so I knew I had to start with small steps if I was going to make changes that I wanted to make permanent. The first month, I switched from regular soda to diet soda (and a few months later I cut myself off soda virtually altogether, so I just drink water and milk now), and went from 2% milk to skim. I also started buying things like tuna and fruits instead of my usual ramen noodles.
Like others have said, you really need to be honest with yourself and keep track of your daily calorie intake for a few days to see what your usual diet is bringing in. Before, I thought I was taking in maybe around 2300 calories or so, but when I did a mental log I realized it was more like 3500 on a daily basis.
Consider switching to a strict schedule of frequent small meals throughout the day (say, a 300 calorie meal every 2 hours or something). Supposedly this helps keep your metabolism burning more than if you just had 3 big meals every day, and I can also say that it helped me from being hungry in the big gap between my old traditional meals. I'd say I got 1900 calories a day during this period. Also, don't skip meals or anything dumb like that, all it'll do is slow down your metabolism and make you more likely to binge on food later. Some of the fattest people I know always skip breakfast.
Also, even though I can use my university's gym, I live like 20 minutes away from it. That's not much at all, but knowing myself, I knew that I would frequently use the drive as an excuse to miss workouts. So I went on Amazon and bought the cheapest stationary bike I could find (like 120 bucks after shipping), and set it up in front of my TV at home. This way, whenever I got home from campus and saw the bike sitting there, I really couldn't justify to myself not using it. For 4-6 months I did 45 minutes of that bike virtually every day.
By cleaning up and regimenting my diet, and just adding the bike cardio (before, I was completely sedentary with no exercise beyond walking to my car in the morning), I lost 65 pounds by December 2008. So at that point I weighed 165 pounds.
So how am I doing now, a year and a half out from the big weightloss decision? Well in January I decided to put on some muscle and get jacked (still a work in progress). Started lifting weights instead of cardio primarily, but I still do a couple cardio days a week. This period really taught me that I should have been lifting weights from the beginning, because I found out I'd become waaaaaay weaker than I had been (burned up quite a bit of muscle along with the fat during my cutting phase).
After pounding whey protein shakes and doing squats/deadlifts/benchpress for half a year, I'm up to 185 pounds. I'm quite confident that the weight gain is mostly lean muscle, as my waste size dropped during that same period.
Two days ago I got hit on by a very cute undergrad, the type of chick I would never have even approached back in the fat days.
Feels good man.
I should add that whatever routine that you work out for yourself, the important thing is to stick with it. It took like at least a month for me to see any difference on the weight scale at all, but after that I guess my metabolism just gained momentum and it was a steady stream of fat melting off.
Thanks man. I try not to pretend like I'm a weightloss expert, but I do like to think that I can help other people who are maybe just starting out on this weightloss journey (wow that looks lamer typed out than it sounded in my head).
I left out lots of specifics in my little story, so if anyone has any questions on it, let me know.
What would you say your diet is throughout the day? Did you cut down on your portion sizes as well as changing the food types you ate? I found that it wasn't just a case of eating the wrong things before (although I did figure out that one of my failures was I ate far too much cheese); my main problem was that I was eating more than I actually needed, sometimes twice as much in some cases.
Also, general question: I've realised lately that I drink an awful lot of coffee; I can't find much saying it's particularly good or bad, has anyone else heard anything?
I'm 6'0" and for the last, oh, 17 years or so (since I graduated college) I've bounced around the 235#-245# mark. I never hit 250# but I've come close. A couple years ago I bought a stationary bike and some free weights. I started working out and my GF would tell me she could see a improvement. Then I would stop for a few months. Then I started again. Then I stopped again due to illness. The illness only lasted a month but I stopped working out for six.
Well, I proposed in February so I decided that I need to get my crap together! I stopped eating so much junk and started drinking mostly water. A couple months ago I stumbled across livestrong.com and just signed up to track what I eat. You set you weight and goals and track your eating and exercise... it's really cool. I'm sure there are a lot of sites for that but this is the first one I found so, eh. THAT is an eye-opener! Once you realize that a single Hershey Kiss is like 50 calories of my "allowed" 2100 that really motivates me to not eat them.
Sure I have an occasional 3000 calorie day (someone's birthday or wedding) but if you offset that with riding your bike for 1.5 hours and burning 1000 calories then it's not too bad. I try to ride 2-3 times a week in addition to lifting weights.
Long story short, I went from 233# to 217#. I'm only half way there but this is in just 2-3 months. I'll see where I am in October when I get married and again in April when I turn 40 and am in the best shape I've ever been. I was skinny and weak in HS and overweight since college... being thin and muscular will be an odd (but great) feeling!
On a typical day for me:
7:30 am : cup of old-fashioned oatmeal with a teaspoon of peanut butter mixed in, with a glass of water with a scoop of whey protein
10:00 am: I'm bad about this one. Usually it'll be something like a south beach protein bar (too many carbs). What I like to eat if I can is a couple hard-boiled eggs, or another protein shake with like an apple.
12:30 pm: Lunchmeat sandwich on whole wheat bread, baby carrots, banana, maybe some lite string cheese
3:00 pm: packet of tuna with water and some carrots, or more whey protein mixed in skim milk
6:00 pm: After a heavy lifting day, I like to have a bunch of chicken breast that I bake, with maybe some romaine lettuce on the side with a lite vinaigrette. Actually though, since I can't cook (I can seriously barely make spaghetti) occasionally I'll have some frozen shit like lean cuisine. Some of the veggie-heavy types aren't that bad for you at all besides the high sodium present in most frozen foods (and if you can stand the taste).
9:00 pm: last meal of the day, i usually make it a small one of mixed nuts and whey protein in water
As you can see, I try to go for a heavily-protein dominated diet, but I also don't shy away from the carbs at all, or from fats (the peanut butter and stuff). Maybe it's sort of lackadaisical, but my view is that as long as you're getting the right amount of calories, and your diet is comprised of mostly* protein, then I don't worry too much about what percentages of things to eat (as long as the food is "clean" for the most part). I can definitely stand to improve the diet a bit by cutting out the rest of the processed south beach shit.
*mostly protein is defined by many bodybuilders/powerlifters as being 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight that you desire. So for me, I'd like to get up to 195 pounds of muscle, so I should be eating 195 grams of protein a day. That is a shitload, and I'd say I usually only get up to 150 on a good day.
Our problem in the First World comes from basically unlimited food. We can eat what our appetite demands. Some people have appetites that conform to the calorific requirements of their metabolism, and some people feel hungry if they only eat an adequate amount. Some people need a lot of food for their size, and some people can eat like a sparrow and not lose weight.
To lose weight, you need to find out what works for you. Don't compare yourself to other people. Some people find diets effective (not fad diets). Some people find exercise the best. Some people need both. Some lucky people can lose a lot of weight by simply cutting out sugared drinks.
You already know eating an entire bag of potato chips is a bad idea, you just have to remind yourself.
Keep in mind that diet soft drinks and chewing gum with apartame (specifically) in them still trigger an insulin reaction in your body.
This can lead to poor results when it comes to weight loss, such as stalls and plateaus, and other side effects such as headaches.
Yeah, having a rigid schedule is really more of an ideal than a reality for me, and I certainly eat out with friends all the time. What I do now though is just think ahead and modify my eating-out habits. For example, I frequent an awesome chicken place near my campus after workouts with my buddies. Now though, instead of getting the fried chicken tenders, I get grilled instead. I've found that little changes like that really add up bigtime.
At first I totally read this as you having some fish-killing fetish while high.