The latest weight loss topic.

Captain Fantazmo Laserbee

So I recently got tired of being a fatass and decided to change things for the best if at all possible. Oh yeah, and I had a few questions for you all. (edit)

I wanted to ask firstly about the stomach. I've heard that your stomach stretches as you overeat over time. I believe that mine has been stretched a good bit, if this is the case. That is, I am capable of eating a lot of food, and by a lot, I mean a lot. If I eat less food for a while...will my stomach return to normal? Will I go back to being filled up by a normal amount of food? How long does this process take?

And what should I eat? I'm used to eating whatever. I'm the kind of guy who opens up a can of bean-with-bacon soup and eats it out of the can for supper. I subsist on ramen noodles, various other noodles, macaroni, rice (I know, I know...carbs. >.< ), and other things that can be prepared in little to no time. I am capable of cooking...probably anything. Short of baking (Because I don't own a cookbook or know any recipes - for baking that is)

I like to eat, I like to cook, I take a lot of pride in my cooking, but a lot of times my laziness gets the best of me. So this brings me to my next item. What should I be eating, and how much should I eat? I know to avoid processed foods...maybe it would help if I gave some idea what I like to eat in the realm of actual food. I still love rice, fish, noodles, meat, most veggies, stir fry, I loathe broccoli(sp), I'm open to pork, sandwiches, I'm not afraid of wheat bread...I guess there's not a whole lot I won't eat.

Also...I'm not sure what the best way to measure the impact of foods on weight is, but I guess I should assume calories. How do I go about setting a goal for myself? I've been trying to stay under 2000 lately, but part of me says this is too low. I've done the math, and before my little decision, I figure that on some days I probably exceeded 12-13k calories, and I'm not *morbidly* obese, so I can only assume that my metabolism is fairly moderate (Otherwise I would be a goddamn beast).

Exercise. The most important part? I'm a pretty strong guy, but I'm also pretty out of shape. Video games, sitting and playing guitar, WoW...fucking WoW..., and other non-strenuous activies dominate my schedule. I don't work at the moment because I'm caring for my grandma, who is dependant on me, and I don't go back to school until fall '07. I could walk, I suppose. But I would be open to most any suggestions, especially something I can do in private. And something I can do in the other room while still being there if granny needs me. Like shadowboxing or something. Shit, I dunno. What are you looking at?

And thanks in advance. I gotta go sleep now.

Shogun

Yes your stomach can shrink and stretch over time.

Thanatos

For exercise, go around to thrift stores, see if you can find stationary bikes for cheap. You can do it while watching TV, it's inexpensive, and it's good cardio.

As for diet: the most common diet in the U.S. right now is the "self-developed" diet, where you simply set nutrition goals for yourself, and work your own way out of getting there. A good start is to focus on getting probably somewhere around 2200 calories a day (I'm assuming you're a male in the 18-25ish range). Aim for a split where you get 30% of your calories from fat, 30% of your calories from carbohydrates, and 30% of your calories from protein (this means you need about twice as many grams of protein as fat).

Also, try to get about 25 grams of dietary fiber a day. You can do this through sandwiches made from wheat bread pretty easy.

As for easy recipes, you can get a George Foreman grill, and grill up chicken or fish pretty easily. Make yourself fish or chicken sandwiches with whole wheat bread. You can hard-boil eggs a week ahead of time for breakfast. Total (or generic Total) with 1% milk is a healthy way to start the day.

Also, try to eat frequently. Aim for 5-6 meals per day, with the biggest one being breakfast (500-600 calories first thing in the morning). Personally, I eat two hard-boiled eggs, and a double-serving of Total with 1% milk in the morning.

Other good meals include tuna on crackers (Starkist makes flavored stuff that's hella good), fruit with non-fat cottage cheese (Knudsen makes the best that I've had), or yogurt with Grape Nuts/Granola (make sure it's got at least as much protein as sugar).

CangoFett

Christmas week was I over 210

Right now im 195, and would probably be lower if it werent for the fact there are like, 4 birthdays in January in my family. Darn cake.


The big thing for me was finding the distincting between being hungry, and having an appetite. If you're hungry, eat. But dont decide to grab a midnight snack of a microwave burrito just because you picked up some microwave burritos the other day and man they look delicious, I wonder how good they are. I mean, they were 49 cents.

Be sure to do what works for you. A lot of people say eat 5-8 small meals a day. If thats workin for ya, awesome. Personally, I havent been eating much lately. Maybe a light breakfast like an apple, and a slice of toast with honey. Lunch may be a sandwich, or nothing. And dinner would be something like a small steak. At no point am I going hungry however.


Also, exercising helps alot. Going to the gym is good, but if you cant, just run around the block a few times, do pushups, if you have something you can do pullups on, do those. If you cant do many pushups, do many over the course of the day. I try to do around 50 pushups a day, but they are pathetically in intervals of 10-15.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

I'm by no means an expert on this, but here are some things that have worked for me in the past.

Try to give up as many empty calories as possible. For most people this means soda, candy and alcohol. Drink more water, and replace random snacks with fruit or little veggies (baby carrots, etc.)

Carbs aren't bad in themselves, but you have to burn them, or your body winds up storing them as fat. If you're not going to commit to regular, real exercise, you're probably going to have to cut down on them.

A 2000 calorie diet isn't realistic for me either, but you can work your way down from whatever number you're at if you start tracking what you eat. I once set a goal of eating fifty fewer calories a day, every day, for two weeks. It wasn't very difficult to do, and by the end of the two weeks I'd cut my intake considerably.

As for exercise, maybe a cheap exercise bike? I can go forever on a bike, listening to music or watching ESPN. Otherwise, see if you can't find a routine that works your core muscles; yoga, pilates, or even push-ups in large numbers (although you have to be disciplined about doing them correctly.)

citric

Go to the library and check out like five cookbooks that look really good to you. Except be bold too: if you want to eat veggies (and you do, because if you eat a 'balanced' meal you'll feel full without having to eat so much!!! very important!) then the rest of the world is leaps and fucking bounds ahead of America. Indian cookbooks especially will tell you how to make veggies delicious. Also Thai. Really great cookbooks include Moosewood's (any), Mahdur Jaffrie's World Vegetarian (cut down on the amount of oil and salt she says to use, it's really really not necessary), and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by someone whose name I can't remember but whom I call the Ice Queen.

Healthy balanced meals WILL satisfy you as much as crappy carb-laden massive meals....

Edit: Oh yeah, eat soup. And cabbage. And cabbage soup. More filling, less detrimental.

Captain Fantazmo Laserbee

Hmm. Okay. Some good ideas. Not sure the exercise bike will fly, but I'll check it out. Pushups I can do, too. No problem there. Heh, I could pedal an exercise bike while playing my 360.

Sandwiches. Is there anything I should stay away from? I'm gonna guess that a good sandwich would have some form of meat, perhaps some lettuce, some tomato, depending on the meat, and perhaps a bit of cheese or mustard. For these sandwiches, would cooking up some chicken to use specifically for them be a bad idea? What do you eat on your sandwiches?

Thanatos

TheJeff wrote:

Hmm. Okay. Some good ideas. Not sure the exercise bike will fly, but I'll check it out. Pushups I can do, too. No problem there. Heh, I could pedal an exercise bike while playing my 360.

Sandwiches. Is there anything I should stay away from? I'm gonna guess that a good sandwich would have some form of meat, perhaps some lettuce, some tomato, depending on the meat, and perhaps a bit of cheese or mustard. For these sandwiches, would cooking up some chicken to use specifically for them be a bad idea? What do you eat on your sandwiches?

Personally, I hate wheat bread, so I don't eat sandwiches, I eat whole wheat wraps. And yeah, I'll grill up about 3 pounds of chicken at a time on my Foreman grill, and eat it over the course of a few days. Chicken and fish are pretty much the best meats for you, but turkey, ham, or even roast beef work fine. Moderation is, of course, the key.

Thanatos

CangoFett wrote:

Right now im 195, and would probably be lower if it werent for the fact there are like, 4 birthdays in January in my family. Darn cake.

...

Be sure to do what works for you. A lot of people say eat 5-8 small meals a day. If thats workin for ya, awesome. Personally, I havent been eating much lately. Maybe a light breakfast like an apple, and a slice of toast with honey. Lunch may be a sandwich, or nothing. And dinner would be something like a small steak. At no point am I going hungry however.

You're on what's called a "starvation diet," Cango. You eat well under the number of calories your body needs, and it burns up your stores of calories in order to make up the deficit. As you can see, it's a very effective way to lose weight. Unfortunately, most of what you lose is probably muscle. If you don't care about that, then more power to you. However, it's not a particularly healthy way to go about losing weight.

Corvus

TheJeff wrote:

Hmm. Okay. Some good ideas. Not sure the exercise bike will fly, but I'll check it out. Pushups I can do, too. No problem there. Heh, I could pedal an exercise bike while playing my 360.

Hey, it worked for this dude playing WoW. A console would be even easier. If you want to loose weight, you're going to need to do some cardio exercise.

CangoFett

Thanatos wrote:

CangoFett wrote:

Right now im 195, and would probably be lower if it werent for the fact there are like, 4 birthdays in January in my family. Darn cake.

...

Be sure to do what works for you. A lot of people say eat 5-8 small meals a day. If thats workin for ya, awesome. Personally, I havent been eating much lately. Maybe a light breakfast like an apple, and a slice of toast with honey. Lunch may be a sandwich, or nothing. And dinner would be something like a small steak. At no point am I going hungry however.

You're on what's called a "starvation diet," Cango. You eat well under the number of calories your body needs, and it burns up your stores of calories in order to make up the deficit. As you can see, it's a very effective way to lose weight. Unfortunately, most of what you lose is probably muscle. If you don't care about that, then more power to you. However, it's not a particularly healthy way to go about losing weight.

Really? I mean, at no point am I going without food that I'd like, im just avoiding the mindless eating of chips while watching reruns of the x-files on TNT. Since I've started, Ive gone from barely being able to do 1 pushup, to doing about 15, and from hanging on a bar looking like an idiot to actually doing a pullup.

MiracleManS

This is more anecdotal than anything, but I seriously suggest trying to follow the glycemic index. If there's one thing I've found for losing weight, it's that. If you can manage to keep your blood sugar at a fairly constant level, you'll find that your metabolism increases as well as your ability to burn fat. I've eliminated almost all sugar from my diet (refined, processed sugars that is) and I lost on the order of 15lbs in 4 weeks. I'm sure some of that is water weight, but I'm inclined to think that my current weight stability at around 175 is due to eating smart.

Thanatos

CangoFett wrote:

Thanatos wrote:

CangoFett wrote:

Right now im 195, and would probably be lower if it werent for the fact there are like, 4 birthdays in January in my family. Darn cake.

...

Be sure to do what works for you. A lot of people say eat 5-8 small meals a day. If thats workin for ya, awesome. Personally, I havent been eating much lately. Maybe a light breakfast like an apple, and a slice of toast with honey. Lunch may be a sandwich, or nothing. And dinner would be something like a small steak. At no point am I going hungry however.

You're on what's called a "starvation diet," Cango. You eat well under the number of calories your body needs, and it burns up your stores of calories in order to make up the deficit. As you can see, it's a very effective way to lose weight. Unfortunately, most of what you lose is probably muscle. If you don't care about that, then more power to you. However, it's not a particularly healthy way to go about losing weight.

Really? I mean, at no point am I going without food that I'd like, im just avoiding the mindless eating of chips while watching reruns of the x-files on TNT. Since I've started, Ive gone from barely being able to do 1 pushup, to doing about 15, and from hanging on a bar looking like an idiot to actually doing a pullup.

Well, everyone is different. Some people can build muscle doing that. I suppose it also depends on what you mean by "a sandwich" and "a small steak." Generally, if your main goal is to lose weight, you want to be eating 2200 or so calories. Count, see how much you're getting. It's possible that what you're eating is dense enough that you're not losing that much muscle.

It's also possible that the weight you lost made it easier enough for you to do those things that you can pull them off. Weight is an exponential thing, not linear; I can do three sets of 10 reps or so with 150 pounds; if it were linear, I should be able to do about 3 sets of 5 reps or so with 300 pounds; I doubt I could even do 1 rep with 300 pounds.