Losing weight

[pink]

I know there has to be a ton of good advice out there so hit me with it. What worked with you? What didn't work? Good workout videos??? Help me out here folks.


My first order of business...cut down on consumption of pop. I'm starting to track how much pop I drink and cut down on it.

 

[dolf]

just stop drinking it altogether.

and then buy smaller plates.

 

[Noor]

One of my friends starts losing weight and her health improves every time she stops drinking anything with carbonation in it.
I don't drink pop so I don't know. I tend to lose weight through illness, not a recommended way.

 

[Noor]

Suggestions:
Walk 10,000 steps a day.
Have clear broth or a veggies salad before each meal.
Turn the heat in your house down to 68 or lower.
Eat an apple every day.
Do a belly dance tape.
Lift hand weights.

 

[Balladeer08]

I know there has to be a ton of good advice out there so hit me with it. What worked with you? What didn't work? Good workout videos??? Help me out here folks.


My first order of business...cut down on consumption of pop. I'm starting to track how much pop I drink and cut down on it.

The combination of reducing calorie intake and increasing calorie output works best. Which means eat a bit less, exercise a bit more.

Drink a glass of water before you eat. It will make you feel full, has no calories.

If you go to the store, don't park by the entrance, park as far away in the lot as you feel is safe. You can get in a walk that way.

Little things add up.

The best way to exercise is find something you think is fun to do, because then you are more likely to do it. I bought a Trikke off Craigslist, I think it is just a blast. Knew a girl who loved Jazzercise. Whatever works for you.

Building a good playlist to listen to helps, something that goes with the exercise you are doing. I exercise while listening to music, instead of listening to music when I exercise. The difference is important. 8)

 

[Que]

When I was married, we lost, together, the equivalent of a person. For a man I was never huge, but I was unhappy with my growing softness. She lost 70 lbs in less than a year and kept it off I would say 3 years or so.

We did the Jack Sprat and Wife diet that we invented. I found that Atkins works for me, cut out as much simple carbs as I could, sugar, potatoes, bread and rice. For her she does better with fat free everything.

So we did both. Lots of protein and vegetables.

We used pam spray instead of oil when possible, I cant believe its not butter spray for flavor. Egg white omelet with veggies and sometimes 1 oz of fat free cheese for breakfast.

Chicken breast and steamed vegetables for lunch. The chicken can be endlessly interesting by simply changing what you season it with and or marinate it in.

Dinner was what-ever I would have normally made, just mind the portions. Dolf's idea of smaller plates ia a good one. Also take the time to make the plating attractive. Eat with your eyes.

Because I had grown up too skinny I never read labels. Read them. When you have a choice go for the one with less grams of sugar.

Pasta we LOVED Barilla pasta-plus in the yellow box. It has very few carbs and lots of proteins. the texture is not quite the same the flavor good almost nutty, better than whole wheat pasta for you and tastes better. Made with lentils and things.

Also do not use sugar substitutes IMO, they make you crave sweet even more. If you need sweet eat some fruit, some raisins or have some grapes. She used to freeze grapes and crunch them like Popsicles. Stay away from soda and fruit juices.

 

[Noor]

Plates

Plates and bowls can be huge these days. Most of my dishes are at least 30 years old except a set a friend gave me last winter that has snowmen on it. She gave it to me because her nieces and nephews complained that the bowls and plates were too small. They are at least 1.5 times the size of my other dishes! So far I only use the bowls to stuff in the microwave.
I am having a problem actually eating enough right now so I am trying to be very methodical about it. I try to have a protein, a starch and two veggies or fruit at each meal. Since I can't eat eggs right now and possibly anymore, it makes breakfast and stuff hard. I miss having eggs. I never eat anything battered and fried because I can't have wheat.
Currently I eat oatmeal or rice for breakfast with fruit and toasted almonds. Sometimes sheep yogurt if I can get it. At some point in the day I eat a potato, some rice and oatmeal for my starches, my veg tends to be broccoli, green beans, cucumbers, and carrots. I often use sweet potatoes in place of potatoes.
My main meal is at lunch and I have soup at night, in the summer I had salad at night.

I eat only sitting down at a table and since I have to hand wash my dishes anyway I use nice dishes and glassware. Also cloth napkins, but I have always done that.
I try to only eat at meal times, or have fruit for a snack- right now I have apples and persimmons. This helps me eat enough and stay balanced most times, it might also work for losing weight if you look at it as a limiting thing rather than an inclusive one.

I mainly drink filtered water, and at most 1 cup a day of diluted cherry juice. Some days, if I go out I will have tea, but I am not really supposed to.

I remember when I was on an exchange diet years ago and they did this plate thing. It was maybe a 10 inch plate and for each meal you divided the plate in 1/4's, so it was 1/4 starch, 1/4 protein and 2/4 veggies plus a bit of fat.

 

[Noor]

Everything old is new again

Looks like stuff from 30 decades ago is making a come back:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/

 

[CandiCame]

Losing weight is easy, but tedious. I think that's why people have trouble. They go into it thinking it's hard, when in fact it's... not. And trying to make it difficult to match your idea that it should be, with things like diets, fuck you up. All you have to do is eat less, and move more. Go to the doctor and get a recommendation for a nutritionist to find out what your target daily caloric intake is, and then make sure you're at -500 a day. No fad diet is gonna do that. No 30 second workout is gonna do that.

There is NO OTHER WAY TO MOVE THAT ROCK.

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/2/26503/851641-toph6.jpg

But yeah. Find out what your target caloric intake is. That's how many calories you burn just working your organs, sitting around breathing. That's how many calories you need to survive. You're aiming for 500 less than that. Whether that's by eating less or moving more is up to you. If you do less than -500, like try to survive on 200cal or whatever a day, your body will assume that you're in a famine and shut down the shit you don't absolutely need to survive. That doesn't mean that you won't still lose weight, so if that's your only goal, that's cool, go lower. If your goal is also to be healthy/not have your body die, you shouldn't go lower than -500.

I'm actually the caregiver for my anorexic grandma, so I know WAAAAY too much about healthy body weights. I'm on a first name basis with the nutritionist I have to go with her to every week. But, my father (not her son, she's my mom's mom) is actually in surgery right now because he's fatting himself to death, so... my family is really stupid at feeding ourselves. That's why BiteSize is on a whole food diet unless it's a special occasion and we go out.

You can google calorie calculators to tell how many each activity burns. For example, my body uses 1300 cal just to not die. So to lose weight I need to aim for 700-800 cal a day. I don't wanna do that because that's like one muffing and I will just eat an entire pizza for no good reason. I inherited this thing from my dad where my body doesn't understand limits, so I never stop feeling hungry- so I rely on math. The 80% full thing won't work for me, because I will eat five plates at a buffet until my friends are like, "Dude. We're leaving. You're done." And then I leave and see the Wendy's across the road and the first thing out of my mouth is "Hey! Let's get a Frosty!"

WRITE THAT SHIT DOWN IN A FOOD JOURNAL. You can eat all you want, but you have to work it off. I will totally do cardio until I throw up if it means I can eat an entire sheet cake to impress my friends. That's not particularly healthy, but it works. My weight has moved up and down from like... under 100lbs when I was on drugs really bad, up to 210, and now I'm like... 145-150, which is where I'm supposed to be because I'm short. So basically... if you need help I might be able to offer things, but there's no trick to it. Eat less, move more, do the math.

 

[CandiCame]

I knew I had one on my favorites on my phone. It's this one:

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

I barely ever use it now because I have them devoted to rote memory.

 

[Mike_Yates]

About 7 years ago, I lost 100 lbs and started bodybuilding shortly afterwards. But seriously, I used to be a fat piece of shit.

I've regained about 35 lbs of that, in pure muscle mass. Especially in my arms, chest, and abdomen.

I am 6'4 ~230 lbs.

 

[John Doe]

About 7 years ago, I lost 100 lbs and started bodybuilding shortly afterwards. But seriously, I used to be a fat piece of shit.

I've regained about 35 lbs of that, in pure muscle mass. Especially in my arms, chest, and abdomen.

I am 6'4 ~230 lbs.

Is that supposed to be helpful?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Your body isn't fooled by water and other stuff with zero calories.

So I eat low cal food I like. Boiled eggs, greens: turnips, collards, and mustard, baked potato, oatmeal, skinless chicken, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, pork, and 4 ounce pieces of grilled beef. A typical lunch is baked potato, 4-8 ounce meat, a veggie like greens or broccoli, and a salad. Supper is usually 2 boiled eggs with two packs of oatmeal. I lose 2 1/2 pounds per week.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

From 2010 through 2011 I lost nearly 100lbs through diet and exercise.

Get a food journal and keep track of everything you eat religiously. I used the MyFitnessPal app for my phone simply because it goes with me everywhere I go. I still use this today.

At first I started walking twice daily for half an hour. After a couple of months I started using the couch to 5K program and soon I was running 5 kilometers three to four times a week. This combination took me from 270lbs down to 185.

Candi was right, it's simply eat less, move more. There is no magic recipe. Find what works for you.

 

[CandiCame]

Another thing you might wanna do is get yourself checked for addictive personality disorder or thyroid disorder. I've got both and they both fuck up your ability to regulate your apetite. If you've ever had radiation therapy, like if you've had cancer and went through treatment or something, it's super likely that it'll fuck up your thyroid and therefore fuck up your ability to regulate hunger response. So if you're always hungry you should get that checked, not because they'll find a way to fix the hunger thing (they just tell you to suck it up basically, after you go to a specialist) but it can fuck up other shit if one of your organs just completely decides to fuck off and stop doing it's job.

As far as the addictive personality disorder, they CAN fix that with medicine but it's really annoying because if you go to the doctor and you're like, "So how many narcotics should I have per day? 0? Ok I'll just throw them all out and not binge then." But if you're like, "How much food should I have? Oh, 1300cal? Well I guess I'll keep it in the house then... where I can look at it... and smell it... and not eat it even tho I'm fucking starving because my thyroid's fucked up... FUCK IT I'M EATING EVERYTHING"

And... that sucks. Because then not only are you fat, you've eaten everything. Things that you had no business eating. Things that aren't yours... the binge...

 

[gardenia19]

Good luck. I've been trying to quit drinking pop. I'd like to do more to lose weight but I don't have the energy for it by the time I get home from work. I lost a bunch of weight two years ago. I wish that had stuck.

 

[unregistered]

 

[SkAoUt]

Changing habits are difficult.

My job (I keep telling myself I'm semi retireded) kept me on the road for half a year working long hours. I was eating junk. Pizza, beer, steak, burgers, Timmies breakfast sandwiches etc...

When I finished my work season I went on a cleanse to detox. I don't really believe in that shit but I had to change my eating habits radically. Which is how I lost 10 lbs last month.

I cut out sugar and flour basically. It wasn't too terribly difficult as a female friend and I did it at the same time (the buddy system is rather helpful)

And I've been doing a bunch of walking. Soon to be ramping it up to a bit more strenuous exercise.

If I can do it so can you (speaking as one of the laziest people you'll ever meet online).

 

[pete]

I know there has to be a ton of good advice out there so hit me with it. What worked with you? What didn't work? Good workout videos??? Help me out here folks.


My first order of business...cut down on consumption of pop. I'm starting to track how much pop I drink and cut down on it.

good luck, pink.
I know it won't be easy but you can do it!

 

[unregistered]

 

[CandiCame]

How the fuck are you people living without sugar? It's literally the only thing that your brain lives on. You can keep neurotissue living on just sugars and oxygen. That is exactly what I would advise AGAINST doing. Don't tell yourself that there are 'bad' foods. As soon as you tell yourself you can't have it, you'll want it. There's no reason to torture yourself.

Cutting out sugar will literally kill you because your neurotransmitters will stop working. That's one of the reasons it's BAD when your blood sugar drops. All the foods on a whole or natural food diet are going to be high in sugar, fruits and veggies are mostly sugar. HUMANS REQUIRE SUGAR TO FUNCTION. HUMANS REQUIRE FAT TO FUNCTION. HUMANS REQUIRE CARBOHYDRATES TO FUNCTION. The only reason you should ever cut something out of your diet is because a doctor tells you to.

Edit: This really, really bothers me, I guess because of the whole taking care of an anorexic thing. Watching someone who literally can't get proper nutrition because of debilitating mental disorder has, I believe, led to me getting pissed when perfectly healthy people give bad nutritional advice. "I cut out sugars! My nervous system doesn't work, but I look great!" or "I cut out carbs! My liver doesn't work but I look great!" Because they cut out the problem. I'm totally cool with vanity but I WOULD NEVER TELL SOMEONE ELSE TO DAMAGE THEIR BODY WITHOUT TELLING THEM THAT THEY'RE GONNA DAMAGE THEIR BODY. It's not ethical. I won't even give a chainsmoker a cigarette without at least saying, "These things'll kill ya."

 

[RobDownSouth]

After doin' a mini-binge on leftover halloween candy, I went the entire month of November without any sweets, dessert* or carbonated drinks. I honestly feel a lot better now.


*I did have one very small piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[CandiCame]

5'4", yo.

Omg you're so tiny! That's awesome. We should start an elf club.