And Paleo, atkins, caveman, low carb, etc diets work because they get you thinking about what you're putting in your body. You don't have to have strict adherence, but that kind of thinking helps a ton in regards to weight loss. Ignore all the bullshit about how low carb makes you feel better, but be cognizant of the fact that removing the box of cheeze its and soda from your diet will improve your health, and make you feel better too.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The best luck I've ever had with eating healthier for weight loss is with calculating and counting all the calories I eat and also weighing myself daily.
You just sort of naturally seek out healthier food as junk generally has a lot of calories but doesn't fill you up much, and feeling hungry sucks.
And then don't worry if you eat something that isn't "healthy" as long as your either keeping under your daily calorie goal or not gaining weight. Trying to label every food as either good/bad is just going to make you crazy in the search of some perfect diet and remove any happiness from eating. No use fixing your body if you end up depressed at the thought of having to eat.
Sub out apples? I thought they were good for you? Man, every food seems to be bad in some way or another.
Baby carrots, huh? I guess. Healthy = bland or gross it seems.
I'm also eating clementines as snacks. Too high in sugar? How would fruit smoothies fit into a diet? Are they good/bad for you?
Fruits are high in sugar. It's natural sugar, so it's better than something like candy, but it's still sugar and that's carbs.
When people recommend food trackers, that's because you can track your caloric ratio. How much are you eating in carbs, fats and proteins? If every day you're eating two apples, a banana, a string cheese, and cereal.. I'm guessing you're pretty high in carbs.
You can count calories all day long, but if you're eating 50% of your calories in carbs (depending on your dinners, that's probably where you're sitting or higher), that's not good.
I recommend finding an easy app to track your food (people have suggested several) and for the first week don't change anything about your eating habits. It's a lot easier to make changes if you know how much of a change you're making. If you just jump right in and try to change your diet immediately, you'll never know how bad you were eating before and whether or not your new meals are much of an improvement anyway.
Another thing, do you work an office job? I put on a bit of weight after starting an office job, and no matter how well I eat, I need to be active as well to not gain weight. I was off with my son for 4 months, didn't change a thing about my diet (maybe drank a bit more beer) and lost 30 pounds. Now that I'm back at work it's starting to creep back on. While diet is king, if you're sitting around doing zip all day it's going to make a huge difference just taking the dog for a 20 minute walk every day.
Edit: And do you drink coffee? A lot of people grab take-out coffee and don't realize just how much sugar/cream/milk they put in there. A large Tim Horton's coffee with two sugars has.. how much sugar? "Two"? It's actually 7 teaspoons. They portion the sugar count based on the size of the cup. Consider drinking your coffee black or adding a bit of sugar yourself later, so you know what you're drinking.
Edit:Edit: And Re: your gross comment. If the healthiest foods were just as "tasty" (often read: fatty/sugary) it wouldn't be so hard to eat healthy, would it? Eat yo' vegetables!
A large apple at just 116 calories seems like a great, healthy snack, right? Well, that's 23g of sugar. That means that apple's energy is made up of 78% carbs, not including carbs from the fiber. It's more or less all carbs. A carrot is maybe 30-35% carbs.
You're making a lot of sense there with all the car discussio you're making a lot of sense there with all the carb talk. I haven't really worked out since our daughter was born three months ago, and I can really feel it.
I work at Nintendo so there isn't a lot of physical activity going on during the day. After I get home, I take over dad roll so my wife can get things done and rest. I'm guessing I'm not going to lose any weight until I get back on that elliptical bike or walking in general.
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If you can't increase your calorie expenditure easily, then you need to decrease your calorie intake. It's not just eating smart, it's also eating smaller portions. As we age we can't, and should not be, eating as much as we did when we were young.
Also, rather than taking time to exercise, build it into your lifestyle. Elevator at your workplace? Don't take it, walk up those stairs!
I work at Nintendo so there isn't a lot of physical activity going on during the day. After I get home, I take over dad roll so my wife can get things done and rest. I'm guessing I'm not going to lose any weight until I get back on that elliptical bike or walking in general.
There's a ton of things you can do that don't take much time, if any.
I have a stand up desk, both at work and at home. Standing up for an hour burns 30-50 more calories compared to sitting down for an hour. Even though I have bar height chairs, I still end up standing about 50 minutes per hour, so that's a lot of extra calories burned over a week.
I don't have time anymore to get to the gym, ever since my gym closed and my workout friend joined one much further away. So I've had to make do lifting at home, but pushups, pullups, dips, curls, they really don't take that much time. Worst case, I push out a quick 20 minute set, and do another 20 minute set later. Even if the 2nd set never comes, that's still 20 minutes of strength training, which is better than nothing, particularly if you do it 4-5 days a week.
Even during the holidays, spent at the parents with my siblings and their children, effectively leaving no time for myself, I probably picked up my 50 lbs nephews a couple hours every single day. Elementary kids seem to love wrestling, being tossed around, or spun in the air, or at least my nephews do. And it made for a major workout each day.
Hell, I've been caught doing pushups at work, during down times, like when I've got a compile running.
Basically, what I'm saying, is that if you want to be active, you'll find ways to be active.
I would also like to know of a good healthy vegetable snack for later in the evenings. I was thinking of making a coleslaw (vinegar based, not the mayo one), and using stuff like cabbage, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, and the like.
I am wondering because though I like baby carrots and all that, it does get tiring, so I was thinking of a different way to get it.
I mainly trying to increase in strength myself, and not so much loss a lot of weight. I am wanting to go the route of gaining muscle to have muscle to use it to burn fat. I don't want to be one of the crazy "carved from marble, Olympic god" guys, more of a strong man guy. Built like a truck. I kind of am already, and was more so a few years ago, but then life happened.
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Sub out apples? I thought they were good for you? Man, every food seems to be bad in some way or another.
A large apple at just 116 calories seems like a great, healthy snack, right? Well, that's 23g of sugar. That means that apple's energy is made up of 78% carbs, not including carbs from the fiber. It's more or less all carbs. A carrot is maybe 30-35% carbs.
The carb content of apples is only important if you are following a low-carb diet. Otherwise, it genuinely doesn't matter. Unless you eat an apple every hour or something, in which case you probably have no teeth but great bowel movements.
You can over-obsess over the "right" diet. A diet that makes you feel guilty for eating an apple is not a diet that is sustainable in the long run. It's fries and cola and bread and cake that make a person fat; not apples. This way of thinking can lead you to buy a processed "healthy cookie" that has better stats than an apple. Or just flipping out from self-deprivation and eating a chocolate cake (apples, cakes, all sugar, right? No difference, right?)
You need to reprogram your tastes for healthy sweet flavours like fruit, not cookies, "low-carb cookies" or not.
Anyway, large apples always taste bad. They are bred for size and perfection of skin. The medium-sized ones have more flavour. The best apples are always the ones most irregular in size.
I found that the best part of counting calories for me through the MyFitnessPal app was that after a couple months of it, I had a really good idea of how much certain foods impacted me even when not using the app. I previously slammed down random subs or other delivery-fair like pasta/burgers for lunch almost every day, without realizing that a steak and cheese sub was like 1200 calories. Similarly, when I went to eat out, I had no idea that the bacon mac and cheese was truly that terrible for me. It is. It is that terrible.
Now I can generally pick my meals a lot smarter without constantly referencing the app because I've built up some knowledge around how calorie-dense a lot of common foods are, which helps out a ton. I also started saving quite a bit of money by avoiding the take-out kind of stuff that wasn't doing me any health favors to begin with.
Not sure if you're a drinker or not, but I also learned some small changes that made drinking no less enjoyable, but much less harmful for me calorie-wise. Keeping in mind that it's all still empty calories, a Guinness, for example, is only 125 per twelve ounces. Sam Adams and similar lagers? 175.
Sub out apples? I thought they were good for you? Man, every food seems to be bad in some way or another.
A large apple at just 116 calories seems like a great, healthy snack, right? Well, that's 23g of sugar. That means that apple's energy is made up of 78% carbs, not including carbs from the fiber. It's more or less all carbs. A carrot is maybe 30-35% carbs.
The carb content of apples is only important if you are following a low-carb diet. Otherwise, it genuinely doesn't matter. Unless you eat an apple every hour or something, in which case you probably have no teeth but great bowel movements.
You can over-obsess over the "right" diet. A diet that makes you feel guilty for eating an apple is not a diet that is sustainable in the long run. It's fries and cola and bread and cake that make a person fat; not apples. This way of thinking can lead you to buy a processed "healthy cookie" that has better stats than an apple. Or just flipping out from self-deprivation and eating a chocolate cake (apples, cakes, all sugar, right? No difference, right?)
You need to reprogram your tastes for healthy sweet flavours like fruit, not cookies, "low-carb cookies" or not.
Anyway, large apples always taste bad. They are bred for size and perfection of skin. The medium-sized ones have more flavour. The best apples are always the ones most irregular in size.
How is it helpful to take one sentence from an entire post out of context here? If you read the rest, you'll see I'm not saying you should feel guilty for eating an apple. I'm not even saying you should "diet". My point was that loading up on fruit is not a good idea because it's basically just carbs. And unless the rest of your day is high protein, that's a problem. You should be educated about what you're putting in your body outside of just "calorie counting".
So yes, two apples and a banana every single day is a bad idea. Especially when I see processed string cheese, yogurt, cereal, potato chips, and zero vegetables in the meal plan except for what might sneak in at dinner (most definitely not raw and probably cooked in oil?). So, with little education as to what is wrong with the rest of that diet, eating fruits because it makes the rest of that seem fine is a bad idea.
Feel free to set straw men on fire all day, here, but I specifically said that fruit contains good sugar and it is not the same as added sugar. And not one place in my post did I say anything about cookies or cake. I don't think anyone is suggesting these foods or their "diet" alternatives--which almost always contain other harmful shit like debatable cancer-causing artificial sweeteners.
Watch what you're eating. Learn what the energy is made up of. Eat sugary fruits in moderation. I think that's pretty standard, solid advice.
Edit: And I'm not suggesting a low-carb diet at all. In fact, I'd suggest around 40% of your calories come from carbs. But that's going to be really, really hard when you're loading up on fruit.
Sub out apples? I thought they were good for you? Man, every food seems to be bad in some way or another.
A large apple at just 116 calories seems like a great, healthy snack, right? Well, that's 23g of sugar. That means that apple's energy is made up of 78% carbs, not including carbs from the fiber. It's more or less all carbs. A carrot is maybe 30-35% carbs.
The carb content of apples is only important if you are following a low-carb diet. Otherwise, it genuinely doesn't matter. Unless you eat an apple every hour or something, in which case you probably have no teeth but great bowel movements.
You can over-obsess over the "right" diet. A diet that makes you feel guilty for eating an apple is not a diet that is sustainable in the long run. It's fries and cola and bread and cake that make a person fat; not apples. This way of thinking can lead you to buy a processed "healthy cookie" that has better stats than an apple. Or just flipping out from self-deprivation and eating a chocolate cake (apples, cakes, all sugar, right? No difference, right?)
You need to reprogram your tastes for healthy sweet flavours like fruit, not cookies, "low-carb cookies" or not.
Anyway, large apples always taste bad. They are bred for size and perfection of skin. The medium-sized ones have more flavour. The best apples are always the ones most irregular in size.
How is it helpful to take one sentence from an entire post out of context here? If you read the rest, you'll see I'm not saying you should feel guilty for eating an apple. I'm not even saying you should "diet". My point was that loading up on fruit is not a good idea because it's basically just carbs. And unless the rest of your day is high protein, that's a problem. You should be educated about what you're putting in your body outside of just "calorie counting".
So yes, two apples and a banana every single day is a bad idea. Especially when I see processed string cheese, yogurt, cereal, potato chips, and zero vegetables in the meal plan except for what might sneak in at dinner (most definitely not raw and probably cooked in oil?). So, with little education as to what is wrong with the rest of that diet, eating fruits because it makes the rest of that seem fine is a bad idea.
Feel free to set straw men on fire all day, here, but I specifically said that fruit contains good sugar and it is not the same as added sugar. And not one place in my post did I say anything about cookies or cake. I don't think anyone is suggesting these foods or their "diet" alternatives--which almost always contain other harmful shit like debatable cancer-causing artificial sweeteners.
Watch what you're eating. Learn what the energy is made up of. Eat sugary fruits in moderation. I think that's pretty standard, solid advice.
Edit: And I'm not suggesting a low-carb diet at all. In fact, I'd suggest around 40% of your calories come from carbs. But that's going to be really, really hard when you're loading up on fruit.
...And yet I'm somewhat skeptical that 'loading up on fruit' is what causes the excess of carbohydrates in most diets, including I would presume the OP's diet. So what's the point of harping on about them? Maybe they are or are not the best thing to have, but they certainly aren't the causal agent for being overweight (it isn't sugar per se that is the problem; it's the fact that most sugary foods encourage over eating, on top of being relatively high in caloric value per gram. Fruit doesn't do the same thing, partly because of the fiber content, partly because of the acidic content).
I'm going to have to join the choir and tell you what you probably already know: sugar based sodas have to go. They're simply too high in calories and too difficult to manage in moderation, because they provoke an appetite response rather than satiating it.
I honestly think you should first just take sodas out of the equation for a few months and see how things start to shake out from there; if there are still problems, then perhaps your entire diet does need a rethink - but most of the time it is soda that is the fundamental problem, and things can & will stabilize after you stop drinking it (you intake less calories by not drinking the soda, but this also has the knock-on effect of making you less hungry throughout the day, so you start eating even less calories & you crave fewer portions during meals).
Diet sodas are not exactly the best thing ever, but they can help you to get off of sugar based sodas and I will die on the hill defending them as a means to get away from sugar. @Quid 's suggestion for smoothies is also great. Personally, I switched to tea a while ago (more due to oral health concerns than weight, but whatever - health is health!).
Also, you mentioned having Soylent:
Just remember that products like Soylent are intended to be meal replacements. If you drink a Soylent shake, that's intended to be the equivalent of eating lunch or breakfast (and people will no doubt want to debate whether or not that product can do what it's advertised to do, but that's a conversation for a different time); if you drink a shake and then also have a meal on top of that, you're losing out on the intended benefit and probably consuming a lot of extra calories.
Get MyFitnessPal. Seriously. It lets you scan the foods you eat by barcode (if they have them, otherwise it's really easy to search generics) and automatically log them, then when you start establishing habits you can almost instantly add from your list of go-to's. It's insanely easy to analyze what you eat, and it forces you to pay attention to serving sizes (so important!). It also lets you track key nutrition on ongoing graphs; looking at my 30-day graphs earlier today, it was really obvious that despite meeting my calorie goals, I'm still eating too much sugar fat and carbs, and lacking in protein. I looked at my logs for the days I met/didn't meet my goals, and it was instantly obvious what I need to do: tomorrow I'm going to get some chicken, and not buy grapes anymore unless I really really want them.
I figured out how to set a calorie goal from here (that subreddit could be useful too; I only check it occasionally but their FAQ is great), set out to lose 2lbs/week, and in 12 weeks I've successfully lost 25lbs without adding any exercise to my routine (that's next, though). I also actually took 4 months off in the middle (traveling abroad + eating delicious local curries on the corporate card, then soaking up delicious American foods on my return), but the 6wks of MyFitnessPal before my trip put me in a better position to be cognizant of what types of food I was eating and in what proportions. I didn't lose any weight in the gap, but I didn't gain any either, despite 3 months of 24 hour access to free room service curry, biryani, gulab jamun, kulfi...
@The Ender, I only drink Soylent as a meal replacement, currently breakfast although I did do breakfast and lunch in the past. Might go back to it.
And I haven't regularly drank sodas since 2010. I swapped in Coke Zero and Diet A&W for a year or two before cutting them too. I'd say I'm drinking water about 90% of the time, with the exceptions being when we go out.
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Sub out apples? I thought they were good for you? Man, every food seems to be bad in some way or another.
A large apple at just 116 calories seems like a great, healthy snack, right? Well, that's 23g of sugar. That means that apple's energy is made up of 78% carbs, not including carbs from the fiber. It's more or less all carbs. A carrot is maybe 30-35% carbs.
The carb content of apples is only important if you are following a low-carb diet. Otherwise, it genuinely doesn't matter. Unless you eat an apple every hour or something, in which case you probably have no teeth but great bowel movements.
You can over-obsess over the "right" diet. A diet that makes you feel guilty for eating an apple is not a diet that is sustainable in the long run. It's fries and cola and bread and cake that make a person fat; not apples. This way of thinking can lead you to buy a processed "healthy cookie" that has better stats than an apple. Or just flipping out from self-deprivation and eating a chocolate cake (apples, cakes, all sugar, right? No difference, right?)
You need to reprogram your tastes for healthy sweet flavours like fruit, not cookies, "low-carb cookies" or not.
Anyway, large apples always taste bad. They are bred for size and perfection of skin. The medium-sized ones have more flavour. The best apples are always the ones most irregular in size.
So yes, two apples and a banana every single day is a bad idea. Especially when I see processed string cheese, yogurt, cereal, potato chips, and zero vegetables in the meal plan except for what might sneak in at dinner (most definitely not raw and probably cooked in oil?). So, with little education as to what is wrong with the rest of that diet, eating fruits because it makes the rest of that seem fine is a bad idea.
You are well-meaning, but people who have extremely healthy diets often give bad advice to those who are trying to improve bad diets. A person whose body is a temple might not touch apples because of the sugar, but tell that to a guy who mostly eats processed food and he'll just take away "fruit is bad" not "vegetables are good."
+1
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
A bit late to the thread perhaps, but I read an interesting article today that you might find useful. It's basically about how inaccurate (or rather, unreliable) the calorie is as a unit of measure, but has some useful and interesting information in here too. Might be useful in changing particulars of what and why you eat.
A bit late to the thread perhaps, but I read an interesting article today that you might find useful. It's basically about how inaccurate (or rather, unreliable) the calorie is as a unit of measure, but has some useful and interesting information in here too. Might be useful in changing particulars of what and why you eat.
That was a very interesting, yet frustrating, read. There are so many factors to consider in weight loss and even more variables being found all the time. Calories may be a lie too? Sigh...
On a positive note, my life has changed a lot over the last week. The wife bought me a Fitbit as a birthday gift and I've been wearing it for a few days. Personally I don't really care for it, as it seems more like a nagging reminder to work out more than anything else, but I'll give it a try. Maybe it'll make a difference.
More importantly though, I finally called it quits at my job and have shifted into my new job as a stay-at-home-dad. This change has taken away all of the snack items and long days of sitting at work. Even better, I've been able to get in 45 minutes on the elliptical bike every day (25 degree incline, 6 resistance out of 10). Before it was a struggle to work out in the morning with a 3-month old keeping us up at night. I'd try in the afternoon, but it was the last thing on my mind after work. I just wanted to be around my wife and daughter. Well that is no longer a problem!
Weighed in today at 214, which is a loss of 3 pounds. I'll take it.
I've also started eating larger meals 3 times/day instead of the smaller, bite-sized meals throughout the day. I feel a lot less hungry and the desire to snack is less. We haven't significantly changed the diet in the house, although there is a lot more fruit hanging around.
Now if I could only get a straight answer on the whole fruite/calorie/sugar thing. There seems to be so many variables involved as well as different dietary plans. Carbs vs no carbs. Some sugars are good, while others bad? Fruits are good/bad? Your body is a temple, only eat grass! That calorie is good, but that one is wicked! Crazy...
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Now if I could only get a straight answer on the whole fruite/calorie/sugar thing. There seems to be so many variables involved as well as different dietary plans. Carbs vs no carbs. Some sugars are good, while others bad? Fruits are good/bad? Your body is a temple, only eat grass! That calorie is good, but that one is wicked! Crazy...
Just use MyFitnessPal and track your calories. If fruits keep you from feeling hungry and you stay under your daily calorie goal, they're fine. If you're staying below your calorie goal on the app, you're going to start relying on veggies and fruit because they're filling and lower calorie than pasta, snacks, etc. anyways. Deep calming breaths.
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+10
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
You've gotten pretty straight answers in this thread. Eat less, work out more, plan your meals. What you eat should be balanced for what else you are eating, tasty, and within your target calorie count. Calories may be an imprecise unit of measure, but generally speaking if you are targeting reducing your consumption by 500 calories a day and use something like MyFitnessPal you will see some sort of benefit.
The wife bought me a Fitbit as a birthday gift and I've been wearing it for a few days. Personally I don't really care for it, as it seems more like a nagging reminder to work out more than anything else, but I'll give it a try.
The wife bought me a Fitbit as a birthday gift and I've been wearing it for a few days. Personally I don't really care for it, as it seems more like a nagging reminder to work out more than anything else, but I'll give it a try.
This is a feature.
Feeling my pants being a bit too tight around my waist is getting the job done for now. But I guess that will go away eventually.
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A bit late to the thread perhaps, but I read an interesting article today that you might find useful. It's basically about how inaccurate (or rather, unreliable) the calorie is as a unit of measure, but has some useful and interesting information in here too. Might be useful in changing particulars of what and why you eat.
That was a very interesting, yet frustrating, read. There are so many factors to consider in weight loss and even more variables being found all the time. Calories may be a lie too? Sigh...
What I take away from that is that more unprocessed, raw foods are harder to digest, but just as filling as cooked, processed foods. So if you need a snack, 100 calories of carrot sticks is probably much better than a 100 calorie cookie. And it explains why dieters swear by salads and yogurt.
100 calories worth of carrot sticks is basically a whole bag of carrot sticks.
Good luck hitting 100 calories without dying.
And yeah, that's why, it's really difficult to 'over eat' while eating vegetables and salads. It's only when fruits, oils (dressings), and meat comes into play that it becomes easier.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
100 calories worth of carrot sticks is basically a whole bag of carrot sticks.
Good luck hitting 100 calories without dying.
And yeah, that's why, it's really difficult to 'over eat' while eating vegetables and salads. It's only when fruits, oils (dressings), and meat comes into play that it becomes easier.
But it might be less of an effect than you think. Fruits are still raw and packed with fibre. Meat (not fried) has less calories than you'd think. Oil, I guess is fattening, but you don't need much of it in a dressing, and it helps absorb the vitamins from the raw vegetables.
If you believe what the article says, even a salad with dressing and meat and nuts will still be less fattening than a Big Mac of theoretically identical calories, because the calories in it are less easily digested.
+1
FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
100 calories worth of carrot sticks is basically a whole bag of carrot sticks.
Good luck hitting 100 calories without dying.
And yeah, that's why, it's really difficult to 'over eat' while eating vegetables and salads. It's only when fruits, oils (dressings), and meat comes into play that it becomes easier.
But it might be less of an effect than you think. Fruits are still raw and packed with fibre. Meat (not fried) has less calories than you'd think. Oil, I guess is fattening, but you don't need much of it in a dressing, and it helps absorb the vitamins from the raw vegetables.
If you believe what the article says, even a salad with dressing and meat and nuts will still be less fattening than a Big Mac of theoretically identical calories, because the calories in it are less easily digested.
And now we're back into the territory of "obsession" overwriting efforts.
You should never just "count calories". On the flip side, you shouldn't be obsessing over how those calories were calculated or how you're going to break it down or that maybe you're not digesting your food because you didn't chew exactly 30 times.
A really simple approach to understanding calories without obsessing over them is caloric ratio. And it's very, very easy to understand.
Carbs and proteins equal 4 calories per gram. Fat is 9 calories per gram--all give or take but perfectly reasonable figures to use for any human being looking to eat better and not like a machine. Most will say to shoot for 40% carbs, 30% fat, 30% protein. And you'll find you settle into that range almost automatically if you eat reasonably.
To use the Big Mac/Carrot example: a Big Mac, at 560 calories, is over 50% fat (33g). To eat that many calories in carrots, you're eating 1380 grams (about 20 average-sized carrots), but only 4% of those calories come from a fat. Don't look at the Big Mac and think it's fine to eat for dinner because it's only 560 calories and would fill you up (Hey, that's only 30-40% of your daily allowance, right?). Look at it as high fat item that's going to be really hard to balance out with the rest of the food you eat that day.
But hey, aren't those carrots then like.. mostly carbs? Won't that throw off your ratio, too? That's why you don't obsess over it. But also you're not about to eat 20 carrots one day anyway. And shouldn't. Because what?
You don't have to start crunching numbers to keep a realistic caloric ratio in your diet. I haven't seen a single diet tracking app that doesn't already do it automatically.
Edit: My point is that you're frustrating/freaking Dover out with articles about the granular-level inner workings of what makes a god damned calorie when all he wants to do is wear a smaller waistband. Pick a reasonable method and go with it. Don't read articles that are just going to make you want to say fuck it all.
Portion control is the name of the game, if you know how many calories something is just by looking at it quickly, that's ultimately better than counting calories.
I do advocate counting calories or making a food log though, because that's the best way to make sure you're not eating too much. You have no idea just how many things you put in your mouth a day unless you actually record it.
Basically, very basically, calories in/calories out. Keep calories in lower than calories out, and you will lose weight.
You can adjust 'calories out' by being more active, but the best way to lose weight is in the kitchen.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Actually, I'm just going to eat healthy foods in smaller amounts and exercise until I reach 200 pounds. After that, I can get into finer dieting details.
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The whole fruit/sugar debate has seemed heated so I'm hesitant to jump in buuut....
My partner and I recently bought a nutribullet pro blender and we've been making many, many smoothies ever since. Best thing about smoothies is they're damn tasty and making them yourself is pretty satisfying. The most delicious ones are really fruity, basically like a homemade jamba juice.
Doing a bit of research though, sugar is pretty bad for you. Like you definitely should be cutting sugar out and check the food labels of everything for hidden sugar.
Sadly, this actually does include fruit (to some extent).
This has been a hard pill for me to swallow, as I love fruit (and sugary foods, but that's a different battle) but slowly we've been putting in fewer fruits and more vegetables and leafy greens.
Kale can be rough but spinach is actually pretty delicious!! One piece of fruit is usually enough to sweeten the smoothie a bit without overloading it with sugar.
Some of my favorites are: spinach, banana, celery, carrots, and almond milk or: banana, peanut butter, handful of mixed nuts, and almond milk. I add protein powder as well when I've been exercising. We bought a tub of some that's both dairy and sugar free but still tastes incredible! I'm lactose intolerant so dairy is tough for me.
You can do it!! Over the past few months of eating healthy I've learned to cook a whole new range of foods I would have never looked twice at before (like quinoa which I used to think was disgusting). Eating bland and boring will foods will make you resent eating healthy and to be honest adding in things like more fresh vegetables should make food more interesting!
+1
FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
Portion control is the name of the game, if you know how many calories something is just by looking at it quickly, that's ultimately better than counting calories.
I do advocate counting calories or making a food log though, because that's the best way to make sure you're not eating too much. You have no idea just how many things you put in your mouth a day unless you actually record it.
Basically, very basically, calories in/calories out. Keep calories in lower than calories out, and you will lose weight.
You can adjust 'calories out' by being more active, but the best way to lose weight is in the kitchen.
I mean don't count in the sense that seeing a 500 calorie item as a better choice than a 750 item because it has less calories.
You should really learn what kinds of calories and the combination thereof are better choices.
JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
edited February 2016
The only thing broken about the calorie is that it isn't a decicalorie, for easier math.
Don't listen to any weight control advice that isn't centered on calories in vs calories out or purports to short circuit it as a precept.
The human mind has invented multiple industries in an effort to rationalize its way out of this maxim.
But it's quite simple: to lose weight, eat less than you burn.
To gain weight, eat more than you burn.
To structure that weight as muscle, do sensible, low volume resistance training with relatively high weights on compound lift.
To teach your body to feed your body more oxygen, do moderate cardio for sustained durations or hi intensity interval training.
Don't do crossfit. No one likes them.
No macro is magic. No macro is poison. Eat some carbs, some fat, some protein, and a lot of fibre every day. Don't worry too much about the split until you're further in. Americans are not protein starved, Americans are not starved for anything.
Don't listen to people who tell you it costs more to lose weight or eat right. Eating right involved doing less. It is not eating as many things. It is thinking about food less, by planning a little more
Showing up every day and sticking to any program is more important than picking a perfect program.
Measure well and often. What you measure you can change. You will learn an immense amount by scrupulously measuring what you eat. A good food scale will be the most enlightening thing you buy on this journey.
The number one thing you have to change is priorities. Specifics follow priorities, because if improving something is a genuine priority, you will refine your own process.
People often say "I want to make money" when what they mean is "I'd like to have money"
The whole fruit/sugar debate has seemed heated so I'm hesitant to jump in buuut....
My partner and I recently bought a nutribullet pro blender and we've been making many, many smoothies ever since. Best thing about smoothies is they're damn tasty and making them yourself is pretty satisfying. The most delicious ones are really fruity, basically like a homemade jamba juice.
Doing a bit of research though, sugar is pretty bad for you. Like you definitely should be cutting sugar out and check the food labels of everything for hidden sugar.
Sadly, this actually does include fruit (to some extent).
This has been a hard pill for me to swallow, as I love fruit (and sugary foods, but that's a different battle) but slowly we've been putting in fewer fruits and more vegetables and leafy greens.
Kale can be rough but spinach is actually pretty delicious!! One piece of fruit is usually enough to sweeten the smoothie a bit without overloading it with sugar.
Some of my favorites are: spinach, banana, celery, carrots, and almond milk or: banana, peanut butter, handful of mixed nuts, and almond milk. I add protein powder as well when I've been exercising. We bought a tub of some that's both dairy and sugar free but still tastes incredible! I'm lactose intolerant so dairy is tough for me.
You can do it!! Over the past few months of eating healthy I've learned to cook a whole new range of foods I would have never looked twice at before (like quinoa which I used to think was disgusting). Eating bland and boring will foods will make you resent eating healthy and to be honest adding in things like more fresh vegetables should make food more interesting!
I'm also a big smoothie fan. For fruit substitutes, my husband is allergic to banana and a few other fruits so we substitute banana with a few tablespoons of plain instant oatmeal. I've also tried using leftover baked sweet potato, and it wasn't too bad.
Another thing we've done is take leftover steamed vegetables and broth, and blend them to make "cream of" soups without the cream. Though I think an immersion blender would work better if we had one.
You know how warning labels say "see a physician first?" Do that.
For years I was struggling in my fitness and concentration. It came to a head last year when I got in so much trouble at work I had to be evaluated for ADHD. I was trying to fight it with a new diet and workout routine from a personal trainer, and it partially worked, I was running faster than I ever have in my life. But the mistakes kept coming and now my career is in danger. Family Health said "wait a minute, did you check your blood?" I also started gaining weight out of nowhere.
So back in the states, blood tests found the real problem, hypothyroidism. They put me on meds for the rest of my life, my weight plummeted, my energy and concentration surged, and my new supervisors are very happy with my work. Get with a physician and submit blood work to check every little thing going on, and you could very well find new problems, and solutions, that will amplify your efforts.
I actually just got my blood work done a few weeks back. Everything was great except for slightly high sugar/weight. Honestly surprised me, since I thought it would be much worse.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
The whole fruit/sugar debate has seemed heated so I'm hesitant to jump in buuut....
My partner and I recently bought a nutribullet pro blender and we've been making many, many smoothies ever since. Best thing about smoothies is they're damn tasty and making them yourself is pretty satisfying. The most delicious ones are really fruity, basically like a homemade jamba juice.
Doing a bit of research though, sugar is pretty bad for you. Like you definitely should be cutting sugar out and check the food labels of everything for hidden sugar.
Sadly, this actually does include fruit (to some extent).
This has been a hard pill for me to swallow, as I love fruit (and sugary foods, but that's a different battle) but slowly we've been putting in fewer fruits and more vegetables and leafy greens.
Kale can be rough but spinach is actually pretty delicious!! One piece of fruit is usually enough to sweeten the smoothie a bit without overloading it with sugar.
Some of my favorites are: spinach, banana, celery, carrots, and almond milk or: banana, peanut butter, handful of mixed nuts, and almond milk. I add protein powder as well when I've been exercising. We bought a tub of some that's both dairy and sugar free but still tastes incredible! I'm lactose intolerant so dairy is tough for me.
You can do it!! Over the past few months of eating healthy I've learned to cook a whole new range of foods I would have never looked twice at before (like quinoa which I used to think was disgusting). Eating bland and boring will foods will make you resent eating healthy and to be honest adding in things like more fresh vegetables should make food more interesting!
I'm also a big smoothie fan. For fruit substitutes, my husband is allergic to banana and a few other fruits so we substitute banana with a few tablespoons of plain instant oatmeal. I've also tried using leftover baked sweet potato, and it wasn't too bad.
Another thing we've done is take leftover steamed vegetables and broth, and blend them to make "cream of" soups without the cream. Though I think an immersion blender would work better if we had one.
I have a ninja. Yes, the one from the dopey infomercials. It's seriously great. Beats the pants off anything in the price range. I have the 1000w mid tier one.
People often say "I want to lose make money" when what they mean is "I'd like to have money"
For some reason this typo or autocorrection slays me. "All the time I hear people say 'hrgl glorp braph blorple' when what they actually mean is 'I just don't want to donate blood.'"
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Apples are fine. Arguably better than carrots. No one ever got fat eating apples. I never eat bland or gross food.
You just sort of naturally seek out healthier food as junk generally has a lot of calories but doesn't fill you up much, and feeling hungry sucks.
And then don't worry if you eat something that isn't "healthy" as long as your either keeping under your daily calorie goal or not gaining weight. Trying to label every food as either good/bad is just going to make you crazy in the search of some perfect diet and remove any happiness from eating. No use fixing your body if you end up depressed at the thought of having to eat.
Fruits are high in sugar. It's natural sugar, so it's better than something like candy, but it's still sugar and that's carbs.
When people recommend food trackers, that's because you can track your caloric ratio. How much are you eating in carbs, fats and proteins? If every day you're eating two apples, a banana, a string cheese, and cereal.. I'm guessing you're pretty high in carbs.
You can count calories all day long, but if you're eating 50% of your calories in carbs (depending on your dinners, that's probably where you're sitting or higher), that's not good.
I recommend finding an easy app to track your food (people have suggested several) and for the first week don't change anything about your eating habits. It's a lot easier to make changes if you know how much of a change you're making. If you just jump right in and try to change your diet immediately, you'll never know how bad you were eating before and whether or not your new meals are much of an improvement anyway.
Another thing, do you work an office job? I put on a bit of weight after starting an office job, and no matter how well I eat, I need to be active as well to not gain weight. I was off with my son for 4 months, didn't change a thing about my diet (maybe drank a bit more beer) and lost 30 pounds. Now that I'm back at work it's starting to creep back on. While diet is king, if you're sitting around doing zip all day it's going to make a huge difference just taking the dog for a 20 minute walk every day.
Edit: And do you drink coffee? A lot of people grab take-out coffee and don't realize just how much sugar/cream/milk they put in there. A large Tim Horton's coffee with two sugars has.. how much sugar? "Two"? It's actually 7 teaspoons. They portion the sugar count based on the size of the cup. Consider drinking your coffee black or adding a bit of sugar yourself later, so you know what you're drinking.
Edit:Edit: And Re: your gross comment. If the healthiest foods were just as "tasty" (often read: fatty/sugary) it wouldn't be so hard to eat healthy, would it? Eat yo' vegetables!
A large apple at just 116 calories seems like a great, healthy snack, right? Well, that's 23g of sugar. That means that apple's energy is made up of 78% carbs, not including carbs from the fiber. It's more or less all carbs. A carrot is maybe 30-35% carbs.
I work at Nintendo so there isn't a lot of physical activity going on during the day. After I get home, I take over dad roll so my wife can get things done and rest. I'm guessing I'm not going to lose any weight until I get back on that elliptical bike or walking in general.
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Also, rather than taking time to exercise, build it into your lifestyle. Elevator at your workplace? Don't take it, walk up those stairs!
I have a stand up desk, both at work and at home. Standing up for an hour burns 30-50 more calories compared to sitting down for an hour. Even though I have bar height chairs, I still end up standing about 50 minutes per hour, so that's a lot of extra calories burned over a week.
I don't have time anymore to get to the gym, ever since my gym closed and my workout friend joined one much further away. So I've had to make do lifting at home, but pushups, pullups, dips, curls, they really don't take that much time. Worst case, I push out a quick 20 minute set, and do another 20 minute set later. Even if the 2nd set never comes, that's still 20 minutes of strength training, which is better than nothing, particularly if you do it 4-5 days a week.
Even during the holidays, spent at the parents with my siblings and their children, effectively leaving no time for myself, I probably picked up my 50 lbs nephews a couple hours every single day. Elementary kids seem to love wrestling, being tossed around, or spun in the air, or at least my nephews do. And it made for a major workout each day.
Hell, I've been caught doing pushups at work, during down times, like when I've got a compile running.
Basically, what I'm saying, is that if you want to be active, you'll find ways to be active.
I am wondering because though I like baby carrots and all that, it does get tiring, so I was thinking of a different way to get it.
I mainly trying to increase in strength myself, and not so much loss a lot of weight. I am wanting to go the route of gaining muscle to have muscle to use it to burn fat. I don't want to be one of the crazy "carved from marble, Olympic god" guys, more of a strong man guy. Built like a truck. I kind of am already, and was more so a few years ago, but then life happened.
The carb content of apples is only important if you are following a low-carb diet. Otherwise, it genuinely doesn't matter. Unless you eat an apple every hour or something, in which case you probably have no teeth but great bowel movements.
You can over-obsess over the "right" diet. A diet that makes you feel guilty for eating an apple is not a diet that is sustainable in the long run. It's fries and cola and bread and cake that make a person fat; not apples. This way of thinking can lead you to buy a processed "healthy cookie" that has better stats than an apple. Or just flipping out from self-deprivation and eating a chocolate cake (apples, cakes, all sugar, right? No difference, right?)
You need to reprogram your tastes for healthy sweet flavours like fruit, not cookies, "low-carb cookies" or not.
Anyway, large apples always taste bad. They are bred for size and perfection of skin. The medium-sized ones have more flavour. The best apples are always the ones most irregular in size.
Now I can generally pick my meals a lot smarter without constantly referencing the app because I've built up some knowledge around how calorie-dense a lot of common foods are, which helps out a ton. I also started saving quite a bit of money by avoiding the take-out kind of stuff that wasn't doing me any health favors to begin with.
Not sure if you're a drinker or not, but I also learned some small changes that made drinking no less enjoyable, but much less harmful for me calorie-wise. Keeping in mind that it's all still empty calories, a Guinness, for example, is only 125 per twelve ounces. Sam Adams and similar lagers? 175.
Wow, I'll be 10 years sober on Saturday.
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How is it helpful to take one sentence from an entire post out of context here? If you read the rest, you'll see I'm not saying you should feel guilty for eating an apple. I'm not even saying you should "diet". My point was that loading up on fruit is not a good idea because it's basically just carbs. And unless the rest of your day is high protein, that's a problem. You should be educated about what you're putting in your body outside of just "calorie counting".
So yes, two apples and a banana every single day is a bad idea. Especially when I see processed string cheese, yogurt, cereal, potato chips, and zero vegetables in the meal plan except for what might sneak in at dinner (most definitely not raw and probably cooked in oil?). So, with little education as to what is wrong with the rest of that diet, eating fruits because it makes the rest of that seem fine is a bad idea.
Feel free to set straw men on fire all day, here, but I specifically said that fruit contains good sugar and it is not the same as added sugar. And not one place in my post did I say anything about cookies or cake. I don't think anyone is suggesting these foods or their "diet" alternatives--which almost always contain other harmful shit like debatable cancer-causing artificial sweeteners.
Watch what you're eating. Learn what the energy is made up of. Eat sugary fruits in moderation. I think that's pretty standard, solid advice.
Edit: And I'm not suggesting a low-carb diet at all. In fact, I'd suggest around 40% of your calories come from carbs. But that's going to be really, really hard when you're loading up on fruit.
...And yet I'm somewhat skeptical that 'loading up on fruit' is what causes the excess of carbohydrates in most diets, including I would presume the OP's diet. So what's the point of harping on about them? Maybe they are or are not the best thing to have, but they certainly aren't the causal agent for being overweight (it isn't sugar per se that is the problem; it's the fact that most sugary foods encourage over eating, on top of being relatively high in caloric value per gram. Fruit doesn't do the same thing, partly because of the fiber content, partly because of the acidic content).
@MNC Dover
I'm going to have to join the choir and tell you what you probably already know: sugar based sodas have to go. They're simply too high in calories and too difficult to manage in moderation, because they provoke an appetite response rather than satiating it.
I honestly think you should first just take sodas out of the equation for a few months and see how things start to shake out from there; if there are still problems, then perhaps your entire diet does need a rethink - but most of the time it is soda that is the fundamental problem, and things can & will stabilize after you stop drinking it (you intake less calories by not drinking the soda, but this also has the knock-on effect of making you less hungry throughout the day, so you start eating even less calories & you crave fewer portions during meals).
Diet sodas are not exactly the best thing ever, but they can help you to get off of sugar based sodas and I will die on the hill defending them as a means to get away from sugar. @Quid 's suggestion for smoothies is also great. Personally, I switched to tea a while ago (more due to oral health concerns than weight, but whatever - health is health!).
Also, you mentioned having Soylent:
Just remember that products like Soylent are intended to be meal replacements. If you drink a Soylent shake, that's intended to be the equivalent of eating lunch or breakfast (and people will no doubt want to debate whether or not that product can do what it's advertised to do, but that's a conversation for a different time); if you drink a shake and then also have a meal on top of that, you're losing out on the intended benefit and probably consuming a lot of extra calories.
I figured out how to set a calorie goal from here (that subreddit could be useful too; I only check it occasionally but their FAQ is great), set out to lose 2lbs/week, and in 12 weeks I've successfully lost 25lbs without adding any exercise to my routine (that's next, though). I also actually took 4 months off in the middle (traveling abroad + eating delicious local curries on the corporate card, then soaking up delicious American foods on my return), but the 6wks of MyFitnessPal before my trip put me in a better position to be cognizant of what types of food I was eating and in what proportions. I didn't lose any weight in the gap, but I didn't gain any either, despite 3 months of 24 hour access to free room service curry, biryani, gulab jamun, kulfi...
Seriously. MyFitnessPal.
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And I haven't regularly drank sodas since 2010. I swapped in Coke Zero and Diet A&W for a year or two before cutting them too. I'd say I'm drinking water about 90% of the time, with the exceptions being when we go out.
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If your'e looking for flavored drinks and don't want caffeine I highly recommend rooibos tea.
You are well-meaning, but people who have extremely healthy diets often give bad advice to those who are trying to improve bad diets. A person whose body is a temple might not touch apples because of the sugar, but tell that to a guy who mostly eats processed food and he'll just take away "fruit is bad" not "vegetables are good."
A bit late to the thread perhaps, but I read an interesting article today that you might find useful. It's basically about how inaccurate (or rather, unreliable) the calorie is as a unit of measure, but has some useful and interesting information in here too. Might be useful in changing particulars of what and why you eat.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-broken/
That was a very interesting, yet frustrating, read. There are so many factors to consider in weight loss and even more variables being found all the time. Calories may be a lie too? Sigh...
On a positive note, my life has changed a lot over the last week. The wife bought me a Fitbit as a birthday gift and I've been wearing it for a few days. Personally I don't really care for it, as it seems more like a nagging reminder to work out more than anything else, but I'll give it a try. Maybe it'll make a difference.
More importantly though, I finally called it quits at my job and have shifted into my new job as a stay-at-home-dad. This change has taken away all of the snack items and long days of sitting at work. Even better, I've been able to get in 45 minutes on the elliptical bike every day (25 degree incline, 6 resistance out of 10). Before it was a struggle to work out in the morning with a 3-month old keeping us up at night. I'd try in the afternoon, but it was the last thing on my mind after work. I just wanted to be around my wife and daughter. Well that is no longer a problem!
Weighed in today at 214, which is a loss of 3 pounds. I'll take it.
I've also started eating larger meals 3 times/day instead of the smaller, bite-sized meals throughout the day. I feel a lot less hungry and the desire to snack is less. We haven't significantly changed the diet in the house, although there is a lot more fruit hanging around.
Now if I could only get a straight answer on the whole fruite/calorie/sugar thing. There seems to be so many variables involved as well as different dietary plans. Carbs vs no carbs. Some sugars are good, while others bad? Fruits are good/bad? Your body is a temple, only eat grass! That calorie is good, but that one is wicked! Crazy...
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Eating less, getting some exercise, making smart choices.
Once you get down to 170 or so and you want to really tweak your numbers, then you can start to lose sleep over that stuff.
Tie your fitbit to myfitnesspal and go to town.
Losing weight and eating better are highly personal things, once you find something that works, stick with it and just keep on keeping on.
I lost 50 pounds in the last year by just doing what worked for me - tracking everything in myfitnesspal and getting in exercise at work during lunch.
Sounds like you got this on lock, just keep it up!
Just use MyFitnessPal and track your calories. If fruits keep you from feeling hungry and you stay under your daily calorie goal, they're fine. If you're staying below your calorie goal on the app, you're going to start relying on veggies and fruit because they're filling and lower calorie than pasta, snacks, etc. anyways. Deep calming breaths.
This is a feature.
Feeling my pants being a bit too tight around my waist is getting the job done for now. But I guess that will go away eventually.
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What I take away from that is that more unprocessed, raw foods are harder to digest, but just as filling as cooked, processed foods. So if you need a snack, 100 calories of carrot sticks is probably much better than a 100 calorie cookie. And it explains why dieters swear by salads and yogurt.
Good luck hitting 100 calories without dying.
And yeah, that's why, it's really difficult to 'over eat' while eating vegetables and salads. It's only when fruits, oils (dressings), and meat comes into play that it becomes easier.
This might be helpful OP.
But it might be less of an effect than you think. Fruits are still raw and packed with fibre. Meat (not fried) has less calories than you'd think. Oil, I guess is fattening, but you don't need much of it in a dressing, and it helps absorb the vitamins from the raw vegetables.
If you believe what the article says, even a salad with dressing and meat and nuts will still be less fattening than a Big Mac of theoretically identical calories, because the calories in it are less easily digested.
And now we're back into the territory of "obsession" overwriting efforts.
You should never just "count calories". On the flip side, you shouldn't be obsessing over how those calories were calculated or how you're going to break it down or that maybe you're not digesting your food because you didn't chew exactly 30 times.
A really simple approach to understanding calories without obsessing over them is caloric ratio. And it's very, very easy to understand.
Carbs and proteins equal 4 calories per gram. Fat is 9 calories per gram--all give or take but perfectly reasonable figures to use for any human being looking to eat better and not like a machine. Most will say to shoot for 40% carbs, 30% fat, 30% protein. And you'll find you settle into that range almost automatically if you eat reasonably.
To use the Big Mac/Carrot example: a Big Mac, at 560 calories, is over 50% fat (33g). To eat that many calories in carrots, you're eating 1380 grams (about 20 average-sized carrots), but only 4% of those calories come from a fat. Don't look at the Big Mac and think it's fine to eat for dinner because it's only 560 calories and would fill you up (Hey, that's only 30-40% of your daily allowance, right?). Look at it as high fat item that's going to be really hard to balance out with the rest of the food you eat that day.
But hey, aren't those carrots then like.. mostly carbs? Won't that throw off your ratio, too? That's why you don't obsess over it. But also you're not about to eat 20 carrots one day anyway. And shouldn't. Because what?
You don't have to start crunching numbers to keep a realistic caloric ratio in your diet. I haven't seen a single diet tracking app that doesn't already do it automatically.
Edit: My point is that you're frustrating/freaking Dover out with articles about the granular-level inner workings of what makes a god damned calorie when all he wants to do is wear a smaller waistband. Pick a reasonable method and go with it. Don't read articles that are just going to make you want to say fuck it all.
I do advocate counting calories or making a food log though, because that's the best way to make sure you're not eating too much. You have no idea just how many things you put in your mouth a day unless you actually record it.
Basically, very basically, calories in/calories out. Keep calories in lower than calories out, and you will lose weight.
You can adjust 'calories out' by being more active, but the best way to lose weight is in the kitchen.
Actually, I'm just going to eat healthy foods in smaller amounts and exercise until I reach 200 pounds. After that, I can get into finer dieting details.
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My partner and I recently bought a nutribullet pro blender and we've been making many, many smoothies ever since. Best thing about smoothies is they're damn tasty and making them yourself is pretty satisfying. The most delicious ones are really fruity, basically like a homemade jamba juice.
Doing a bit of research though, sugar is pretty bad for you. Like you definitely should be cutting sugar out and check the food labels of everything for hidden sugar.
Sadly, this actually does include fruit (to some extent).
This has been a hard pill for me to swallow, as I love fruit (and sugary foods, but that's a different battle) but slowly we've been putting in fewer fruits and more vegetables and leafy greens.
Kale can be rough but spinach is actually pretty delicious!! One piece of fruit is usually enough to sweeten the smoothie a bit without overloading it with sugar.
Some of my favorites are: spinach, banana, celery, carrots, and almond milk or: banana, peanut butter, handful of mixed nuts, and almond milk. I add protein powder as well when I've been exercising. We bought a tub of some that's both dairy and sugar free but still tastes incredible! I'm lactose intolerant so dairy is tough for me.
You can do it!! Over the past few months of eating healthy I've learned to cook a whole new range of foods I would have never looked twice at before (like quinoa which I used to think was disgusting). Eating bland and boring will foods will make you resent eating healthy and to be honest adding in things like more fresh vegetables should make food more interesting!
I mean don't count in the sense that seeing a 500 calorie item as a better choice than a 750 item because it has less calories.
You should really learn what kinds of calories and the combination thereof are better choices.
Don't listen to any weight control advice that isn't centered on calories in vs calories out or purports to short circuit it as a precept.
The human mind has invented multiple industries in an effort to rationalize its way out of this maxim.
But it's quite simple: to lose weight, eat less than you burn.
To gain weight, eat more than you burn.
To structure that weight as muscle, do sensible, low volume resistance training with relatively high weights on compound lift.
To teach your body to feed your body more oxygen, do moderate cardio for sustained durations or hi intensity interval training.
Don't do crossfit. No one likes them.
No macro is magic. No macro is poison. Eat some carbs, some fat, some protein, and a lot of fibre every day. Don't worry too much about the split until you're further in. Americans are not protein starved, Americans are not starved for anything.
Don't listen to people who tell you it costs more to lose weight or eat right. Eating right involved doing less. It is not eating as many things. It is thinking about food less, by planning a little more
Showing up every day and sticking to any program is more important than picking a perfect program.
Measure well and often. What you measure you can change. You will learn an immense amount by scrupulously measuring what you eat. A good food scale will be the most enlightening thing you buy on this journey.
The number one thing you have to change is priorities. Specifics follow priorities, because if improving something is a genuine priority, you will refine your own process.
People often say "I want to make money" when what they mean is "I'd like to have money"
It's a subtle difference, but key.
I host a podcast about movies.
I'm also a big smoothie fan.
Another thing we've done is take leftover steamed vegetables and broth, and blend them to make "cream of" soups without the cream. Though I think an immersion blender would work better if we had one.
For years I was struggling in my fitness and concentration. It came to a head last year when I got in so much trouble at work I had to be evaluated for ADHD. I was trying to fight it with a new diet and workout routine from a personal trainer, and it partially worked, I was running faster than I ever have in my life. But the mistakes kept coming and now my career is in danger. Family Health said "wait a minute, did you check your blood?" I also started gaining weight out of nowhere.
So back in the states, blood tests found the real problem, hypothyroidism. They put me on meds for the rest of my life, my weight plummeted, my energy and concentration surged, and my new supervisors are very happy with my work. Get with a physician and submit blood work to check every little thing going on, and you could very well find new problems, and solutions, that will amplify your efforts.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
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I have a ninja. Yes, the one from the dopey infomercials. It's seriously great. Beats the pants off anything in the price range. I have the 1000w mid tier one.
I host a podcast about movies.
For some reason this typo or autocorrection slays me. "All the time I hear people say 'hrgl glorp braph blorple' when what they actually mean is 'I just don't want to donate blood.'"