i aam going on a diet

I feel partly responsible for this puttting up the body mass index calculation.

• go running once a week just til your pretty out of breath (like you remember from running round the park as a kid)
• choose a habitual snack (say crisps/chocolate) and every time you want it, have an apple/banana/orange instead.

I'm 1.92m (6'4'') and 85kg (13 stone 5 lb) and set out to lose 13 kg three years ago, as I was out of shape at 15 stone 4 lb. I didn't look *fat*, but certainly felt heavy and sluggish. I was already playing a fair bit of soccer, but eating too much, so I cut down across the board by having smaller portions of everything and no chocolate, biscuits etc. At the same time I started running. First I went for 20 minutes at a time, 3 times a week, which is really all you need to do to start losing weight. If possible build it up to 4 x 20 minutes or 3 x 30. Doing this I lost the weight in about 10 weeks. The feeling of hunger wears off after about a week and you can blunt it by drinking more water.

I kept up the running, and I've stepped up the frequency and distances so that I can run 10 miles without any problem. I do 4 miles most lunchtimes in the week. That's not for everybody, but it means that I can eat and drink anything I like, in just about any quantities.

If you're going to run though - WATCH YOUR KNEES!! Take it easy if you feel pain around the knee and get some decent running shoes to absorb the shock.

It's not a question of recontextualising your mindset, so much as a question of health. Mental Health and Physical Health are so tied up in one another, you cannot separate them. Even if you don't become a skinny minx through exercise, it will stimulate the production of serotonin, which will just make you feel better in general, and therefore feel more loving towards yourself.

That's my answer and I'm sticking to it. It works for me.

Yes, I know it's wrong to discriminate against fat people (and I can say this because I *AM* one) but there is a pervasive sense that if you are fat, it is somehow through lack of willpower, or more commonly laziness. Yes, this is a fallacy, and there are lots of people who are obese through no reason of their own. *BUT* there are enough people who ARE obese through their own laziness, lack of willpower and common or garden IGNORANCE about plain simple nutrition.

Blah blah blah blah blah. I know this is making me no friends, and just confirming enemies, but I've been average weight, and I've been fucking fat. There's nothing more annoying than an reformed smoker or reformed alcoholic, and weightgain police are just as evil.

The 'diet coke' thing is ludicrous but on the other hand when you drink as much fat coke as me you can't help but feel it would make some difference. I lost half a stone when I went veggie for a month in April and felt great (though had terrible heartburn) but it's too easy to slip back. I need some kind of willpower pill.

Seven stone/100 lbs for someone of my build and height is *perfect*. My waist is tiny and the weight goes to one place only, ie. below the waist. It means that I have to have all waistbands tailored and can never find my proportions reflected in the clothes on the rack, and it looks ridiculous because I am small on top if I become LARGER on the bottom. So if I gain half a stone/seven lbs. my body weight rises by seven per cent, too much, bleaurgh.

Everyone wonders why I can't show willpower but they are confusing this quality with STUBBORN, which I've got in spades.

From does exercise make us thinner?:
dieters who restrict carbohydrates but not calories invariably lose more weight than dieters who restrict calories but not necessarily carbohydrates. Put simply, it’s quite possible that the foods -- potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, pastries, sweets, soda, and beer -- that our parents always thought were fattening (back when the medical specialists treating obesity believed that exercise made us hungry) really are fattening.
Dammit, one of potatoes, pasta, rice or bread are part of almost every meal I eat.

not beer?

god if I drank beer as much as I eat bread and potatoes I'd be a fat, tall shane macgowan

In fact, I've just remembered I had what is basically a fried potato sandwich for breakfast today.

hey you know what other than exercise makes me hungry? sitting on my ass for a few hours.

e was “short, fat, and bald” when he started running in his thirties and he is short, fatter, and balder now, at age 68. In the intervening years, he estimates, he has run close to 80,000 miles and gained about 30 pounds.

"in his thirties" - you think maybe the dude might have started too late? might have "estimate"d incorrectly? i'll see your highly significant 30 pounds over, you know, forty years, and raise you negative 20 pounds in 9 months running at best a handful of miles in a week.

these studies are stupid if only because they fail to differentiate b/w the varieties of carbohydrates we /should/ eat, and those that people /do/ eat.

There's a theory we don't need carbs at all. I'm very suspicious of it, despite the fact that for an extremely long time I didn't eat carbs (except maybe once a week). So who knows, maybe I should go back to that soopahdoopah healthy diet once I deliver our baby? That said, I findi t hard dieting when I'm in a relationship. :-(

i wouldn't give up or severely restrict carbs anyway, it would have too much effect on my quality of life and make me too picky an eater. i eat everything and love it. lots of people manage to be in good health and great shape and still eat pasta. so whatever.

(i am way healthier than when i posted here 6 years ago though, despite being way fatter as well. yay high school is over!)

Remy makes a good point that you need to differentiate between your carbohydrate sources. Go for brown rice and brown bread over the white versions, cos the higher fibre content means they'll fill you up more, and also because they release their sugars more slowly, you're less likely to store the energy as fat.

so, if i cut out potatoes, pasta, rice, WHAT do i eat for dinner?

i cook most of what i eat myself, and always with one of the above as a side. this doesn't seem to be a problem, as long as i keep an eye on the portion size.

cake, biscuits and ice-cream are the real problem.

i must try running, but, as above, there aren't that many places near me to do that with impunity from either traffic or possible violence.

YouGov poll says that people in the UK would rather die than do any exercise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6994632.stm

It's correct, actually. The corpses piling up around the six or so gyms I can think of within a one minute radius are testament to that. YouGov is the new Wikipedia!

Must smell sort of funny surely?

That's the stink of the no-carbers manky ketone addled breath innit amiRITE!

have started first diet ever in a bid to lose about 2 or 3 stone. if i keep to around 1500 calories per day (5'9, 13st) with exercise 3x week, how fast will the flab drop? should i be eating fewer calories? fat consumption per day is around 20g or so. is this healthy even?

am managing to cope with new way of thinking about food (as a kind of points system) and chucked all bad stuff away and bought only veg, fruit, lean meat, low cal hot chocs, etc. hoping i can stick to this permanently, as a way of life. not planning to be too strict, ie still eat out on special occasions, still drink at w/e.

have heard horror stories about people eating around same number of calories, working out in the gym and not losing anything because their body has kicked into 'starvation mode' - and once she started eating more the weightloss started. what are the factors for this to happen?

(sorry if this isn't appropriate for this thread! if not, is there a rolling diet chit chat advice thread?)

that sounds like not enough calories? i'd say eat normally (but healthy foodz) and exercise more, if you can (which will make you eat less anyway). that's just me, though, i don't really know.

saw a dietician yesterday. i am now 76,6 kgs but want to drop about 18. so not looking forward to this.

If you eat fewer calories and use up more calories via exercise, you should lose weight. I think the "starvation mode" stuff usually comes when people cut calories too much and then don't exercise - both things are slowing down metabolism. The only way I can think of that you could eat less and exercise more and gain weight is if you were doing some crazy heavy duty weight lifting.

Building muscle is good and there's a whole theory that having more muscle helps your body burn more calories at rest (in other words, speeds metabolism). Weight loss exercise is usually aerobic, though.

I really think the key is exercise; if you find something that works for you and do it consistently, you burn calories and increase your metabolism. In my case, it is walking on the treadmill at a 3.8 to 4 mile per hour pace three times a week. I used to walk 3 miles at a time, but now always go 5.5 miles. I watch lots of movies while I do this, for the sake of distraction. I also lift weights twice a week, which is boring, but good for bone health, and also I finally have some definition in my arms for the first time in my life.

ah yes ive just read about the hypothalamus kicking the body into starvation mode when calories intake drops to below 1500 and there's no exercise (exercise shows the body that things are ok and muscles are still working).

does anyone know of a good website full of dieting facts/tips? i guess the main thing is to not think of it as a diet (and so enter into yoyoing stage) but as a new way of eating for life. i feel like i have done this but im waiting for the day when i wake up feeling completely disillusioned with it all and trying in advance to ward it off.

1500 calories from healthy food is ok for an average person isn't it?

keep us updated stevie! i also want to lose about 15-20 kg, it sounds like such a huge amount! anyone else on a diet out there?

hey there. i'm just trying to lose two-three inches off my waist, but as i've been carrying it for 7 or 8 years it's more about changing what i eat. slow progress since christmas.

are you calorie counting or just replacing bad foods with good ones?

the only thing i'm looking at is fat/saturated fat content, so i'm really just trying to drop all the crap i'm eating. it's easy on a day-by-day basis, but after a week or so i just drop into old habits.

hopefully i'll start to see results within a few weeks and it'll be easier to motivate myself at that stage.

on sunday night we went through the whole ritual of throwing all sweets/crisps bad stuff in the bin, and bought in a load of fruit, veg, healthy & low-cal things. it has only been like this for 4 days or so but seems to be going ok, i can imagine living like this forever - with treats more often once i'm at an ideal weight. the calorie counting thing is proving fascinating too. i quite like systems and quota things so i rather enjoy the points system of calorie counting. both myself and my partner are doing the same thing, which does make it easier i think.

the main thing im enjoying is getting rid of that overwhelming sense of guilt which lingered over me after practically every meal. i like the control of knowing exactly what im taking in and how good/bad it is.

i did read that weight loss happens rapidly at first but then begins to slow down, which is worrying. does anyone know the reasons why, and the figures for when/how this happens?

I'm on a bacon diet.

uh, because if you kept losing weight, you would die?

i did read that weight loss happens rapidly at first but then begins to slow down, which is worrying

The general wisdom is after the first week or two, you want to be losing between half a pound and two pounds a week.

generally, it's because after a week you start eating ice cream again.

if an overweight person is eating 3500 calories a day do they continue to put on more weight all the time or does it plateau at some point? is this the same with losing weight too?

what is the bacon diet?

rose, google "basal metabolic rate" and find out your BMR for your age, sex and current weight. That is the standard amount of calories your body needs to perform basic functions. If you want to lose 1 pound a week, create a 500 calorie deficit every day between cutting calories and exercising. If you want to lose 2 pounds a week, create a 1,000 calorie deficit per day by cutting down calories and exercising.

For instance, my BMR is 1622.8 calories per day. That means even if I did nothing all day but lay on the couch blinking my body will still burn this many calories. For me to lose a pound a week I'm going to cut down 300 calories everyday (aiming for 1,300) and exercise to burn the add'l 200 (doing treadmill for 40 minutes).

So to Jordan's question 1,500 calories is not low at all for a woman.

bacon diet = tastiest diet ever

Oh my god, you guys... what have you been reading?

Ok, where to begin. S.rose, if you exercising 3x a week, 1500 is probably a little low, but might be an ok daily target because you're probably going to end up going over 1500 sometimes anyway. You're looking for something between a 500-750 caloric deficit a day. One thousand calorie deficit a day is about 2 lbs of bodyfat a week, and that's the fastest you want to try to lose weight, but you do that by adding to your workout. You do not want to starve yourself by going lower than 1500, because you'll be super hungry all the time and feel like shit. But you also do not want to overexert yourself in the gym to the point that you injure yourself or you're too sore to work out.

It is a fact that muscle burns calories around the clock. You're technically right that more calories are burned in the gym via aerobic exercise, but those calories are dwarfed on a daily basis by what your body burns the rest of the day, and if you build muscle, that muscle burns calories all the time. And we're not talking about getting body-builder muscle-bound. All the time, I hear people say "oh well I don't want to lift weights, I might get bulky." Good friggin luck, it just isn't that easy to "accidentally" build a lot of muscle. You want to do a variety of resistance exercises that engage your whole body, and there are lots of different strategies for doing that but a simple one is to do 2 or 3 sets of each, with enough weight that you can only do 12-15 reps. There is no point in using so little weight that you can do 30 reps in one go, and you don't want to use so much weight that you can't control it and risk injury. Also, go slow. Smooth, slower motions avoid cheating with inertia, and require more of your muscles to control the weight.

You definitely want to do some aerobic exercise, because it's good for your heart and it does burn calories, but if you don't do any type of resistance training then the ONLY progress you'll ever make is the calories you burn in the gym and the calories you cut out of your diet.

reading this thread is an exercise in restraint

I just try to work bacon (or any pork product, really) into a greater percentage of my overall food intake. It's easy once you get the hang of it! You do have to toss all the inferior products, though, so you only get the best. Set aside a day to throw away that supermarket bologna and the leftover tuna fish to clear space for the hickory- and apple-smoked product and the white paper packets of prosciutto.

kinda wishing i hadnt responded to this thread as there is nothing more annoying than weight loss advice (espec from a fattey like me)

i play football (soccer) for two hours every week. is that enough exercise to lose weight? because i get terrifically bored of any 'rep' exercises like situps, or weights.

if an overweight person is eating 3500 calories a day do they continue to put on more weight all the time

Depends on their activity level, but they'd eventually plateau around 340lbs.

One thing it might be helpful to realize, is that while muscle burns calories all the time, fat burns practically nothing - so it doesn't require many calories to maintain a large supply of bodyfat. So if you have two people who have basically the same skeleton, muscle mass, and activity level, but one of them has a low bodyfat percentage and the other carries a bunch of bodyfat, then if they eat the exact same maintenance-level diet, then the fat one stays fat and the trim one stays trim.

So you go on this 1500 calorie diet thing and exercise and stay at it for a couple months, then there will come a time when you'll *have* to eat more than 1500 calories to avoid wasting away.

i think it bears mentioning, however, that calories aren't calories aren't calories; getting a target number is useful, perhaps, for illustrating how much or how little food you should eat in a day, on average, but there are definitely times that your body is going to demand more or less.

moreover, calories obtained from good, whole food are invariably better than those obtained from processed garbage.

i've just read two michael pollan books back to back and am all wound up about it

but whatever, i'll do it anyway: dieters, read in defense of food. being healthy really ought to involve not eating garbage (and groking what is and is not garbage SHOULD be innately intuitive), and getting regular physical activity.

eat vegetables and walk more. you won't magically shed pounds in time for swimsuit season or whatever, but keep it up for life and you're pretty much guaranteed to be healthier in the long run.

I can attest to the "don't eat too little" statements.

I was trying - stupidly - to 1) work full time, 2) study for the bar exam and 3) lose weight via decreased caloric intake - I'm 6'3", and about 240 pounds, and I was eating around 1200 calories. No time to exercise, so it was really the Overwork & Starvation Diet. awesome!

Needless to say, I crashed last week - got a tremendously bad bout of the flu that has cleared up only in the past day or two. I've started eating a good bit more (~1800 calories, give or take, although probably more on average) and feel TONS better - more energy, more mental acuity, and I think I'm actually losing weight MORE quickly.

The best advice is to take it slowly and steadily. Any "diet" that is not permanent change is technically a crash diet, and those never work.

thanks for all the advice everyone, esp kerm - are you a dietician?

BLAM, that advice is exactly what i've been trying to drill into my mind - this isn't a 'diet', it's a permanent new way of eating. any other way seems pointless.

the information about the "basal metabolic rate" is very helpful, just what i've been wanting to know. mine is 1858.6.

one thing i'm wondering about is that despite aiming for 1500 calories per day, im usually eating a substantial amount less, approx 1300 (sometimes a hundred or two less even) per day. is this likely to cause any problems? i have found myself feeling slightly headachey but the urge for more food isn't there (i've been eating biggish meals with low calorie content), but should i *make* myself eat more to reach that 1500 level? (perhaps it's post-gym tiredness, i worked off around 400 cals on the bikes and some low level resistance training)

one of the things i did wrong: i didnt eat enough bread. now i have to eat four slices in the evening. slow sugars will keep me from eating cookies. also eat less pasta but more cooked potatoes. atm there is not much need to count cals. the goal is 65 kg in july and 60 in the long run. but i want to be 58/59 again.

also: drinking

if you get drunk at the weekend is that likely to undo all the week's good work? plus, with such a reduction in calories am i likely to get more drunk, more quickly?

and this might sound silly, but does 10 ml = 10g? (my measuring jug doesn't let me work out such small amounts)

gbx otm

You have a BMR of 1523.35.

OH NO!

You have a BMI of 22.3. You may want to try the south beach diet.

WHAT don't fucking tell me I need diet!

esp one I cannot afford!

Good friggin luck, it just isn't that easy to "accidentally" build a lot of muscle.

God, it's hard for me to do ON PURPOSE! I get it, I'm a girrrrrrl, I'm not going to get big muscles. That's probably all to the good, but how heavy do my weights have to be to get my arms to look decent when I'm not flexing them deliberately?!

Also, gbx OTM (as usual) up thread, but how to get decent, appealing vegetables in MN in winter. (god, or even get my family to eat whole wheat bread instead of white... even sometimes!)

All the time, I hear people say "oh well I don't want to lift weights, I might get bulky." Good friggin luck, it just isn't that easy to "accidentally" build a lot of muscle.

Kerm super OTM. Weight lifting is the only exercise I like besides walking my dog, and I'm always trying to convince my gal pals to hit the machines. They are all worried they'll look gross female bodybuilder style but hahahaha maybe one tenthousandth of the female pop can do that! (Statistic c/o my ass.)

There is one super best thing about weight lifting that is not a health benefit (I kind of space out when people start enumerating those; gets to be like hearing people discuss their mortgage rates). That is: you don't have to be coordinated at all to do it and it makes you super confident! Like at one point I was easily lifting 100 lb boxes and was thinking, "If some dude tries to rape me or something I can throw him over a fence!" Exaggeration, but still it feels both practical and powerful to be strong!

haha perfect xpost

Also weight lifting = awesome for your bones. I'm super paranoid about osteoporosis after looking at what a "porous bone" looks like. Also b.c. my mom has osteopenia.

"If some dude tries to rape me or something I can throw him over a fence!" Exaggeration, but still it feels both practical and powerful to be strong!

Abbott, this is entirely awesome.

It is pretty much the perfect thing. I hate just running because it feels silly, as there's nowhere I need to run to (and I don't like running). I hate sports because I am highly uncoordinated, like had to do physical therapy kind of stuff about it as a kid. But weightlifting requires no timing/coordination/will to be competetive, and each little weight lift feels like one step closer to being more awesome! It really makes me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something.

I wish I had a better attitude about weight lifting. I think the effects are great, but actually doing it is kind of boring. (Whereas walking on my treadmill = watching some of the billion movies I've missed in the last decade).

I will try to adopt your attitude!

when joinin my current gym i was told that bikes, treadmill, and other cardio machines are the ones to lose weight, whereas the weight machines are only good for building muscle. is this not true? can they help lose flab too?

apparently 1ml only = 1g when it's water. it's different for different liquids but not sure how much. can't see, say sugar free orange squash being much different. any tips for how to measure small (ie. 50ml-150ml) of liquid?

If don't want to run right out and buy those two Michael Pollan books (although you probably should) you can just read this fantastic piece on the NYTIMES.com. If you can't access it for whatever reason I can either post it on here or email it to you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?_r=1&scp=27&sq=Pollan&st=nyt&oref=slogin

aerobic = going to burn more calories while exercising

weight lifting = going to help you raise your basal metabolic rate so that you burn more calories while you're just lying there, doing whatever

Ideally you should do some of both, as I understand it.

Hahaha I was just reading that article the other day but on his site!

http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=87

xp to Alex
It is pretty much of the perfect thing.

Wow it looks like In Defense of Food is like article: extended cut. I very much want to read it!

Oh good it's available somewhere for free. The ten or so steps down at the bottom are probably the best dietary advice you'll ever get for free.

my sis is super into weight lifting and is pretty proud of the fact that she can carry some of my 200 lb+ male friends like brides over the threshold

and also she pushed my car out of a snowdrift once.

stevie, why do you need to eat more bread?

more bread=slow sugars which will prevent me from eating bad sugars.

My only dietary advice but it's damned good based on my experience -- cook as much of your own food as possible.

Don't eat anything 3 hours before going to bed. Limit your portions. Do this regularly. Be very strict at first. After a few weeks it will become more natural to eat less. Cook your own food, like Ned says. Find an extra 20 minutes a day to exercise. Walk the dog longer. Walk the stairs at work. Whatever. Start cooking with less fat. Start cutting out sugar and snacks.

Start doing some or all of these things and pick a manageable area to start disciplining yourself.

The alcohol you consume is part of your diet.

Finally, make a concrete goal of at least 6 months to a year, or longer. Don't plan to lose more than 2 lbs a week. Don't weigh yourself more than once a week. Weigh yourself at the same time, every day of every week. Track your progress.

The only real way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. Learn to count calories. I've heard weight watchers is one of the best ways to do this.

A deficit of 3,500 calories = 1 lb lost. A deficit of 1000 calories a day = 2 lbs/week.

Pick a long term diet and you will transform how you eat and exercise and you will actually lose weight and keep it off.

join pro-ana livejournal communities

Weigh yourself at the same time, every same day of every week.

Same bat time, same bat channel!

Mandee you are hilarious.

I just try to make sure my clothes don't start getting too small or large for me.

Don't eat anything 3 hours before going to bed.

what's the logic behind this? is the whole thing about it turning into fat/being harder to shift actually true?

I've thought about it a lot, and I think it's just to prevent you from eating as much. Or to reduce temptation.

According to our nutrition class, a calorie is just a calorie (in terms of energy, not in terms of nutrients) - but I do think that it's easy to consume a lot of junk at night and take in way more than you think you are.

I'm totally guilty of doing this, but part of it is that the treadmill workouts leave me pretty hungry, and the time I do them is inevitably in the evening. Workout, shower, snack... sometimes I kind of wonder why I bother. (Oh yeah, because I would probably snack anyway and something has to offset it.)

Your body is still burning calories while you sleep. It takes about three hours for your body to process the food you eat. If you don't eat before bed, that's eight hours your body is burning calories without intake or storage.

You are burning calories while you sleep.

It's that simple. Sara is right (and she should be, studying to be a nurse), a calorie is just a calorie. There's nothing special about calories your body processes or stores when you sleep, but it's much less painful to burn calories if you're unconscious.

You are burning calories while you sleep.

This is why, when I don't eat a bit before I sleep, I wake up wanting to eat the entire kitchen. (But... I do go overboard.)

FB, I wouldn't put toooo much stock in that nutrition class. The information seemed solid, but all it made me want to do is to live on bacon, chocolate, and vodka tonics.

You know what would make me happy, is if someone would explain to me how I could lose weight without losing it from my chest. I swear that my tummy never shrinks, but my bra size goes down.

I suppose I should blame this on a combination of genetics and having had two kids (and a bit too much dessert love), but still... it's very discouraging.

and man you guys will hate us but me and like three other coworkers last night were complaining about trying to keep weight ON. while eating a shitload of taco bell. I think it's the workload and the eat & run thing? but I can guarantee that even with all the fatty garbage I put away whenever I get a chance I'm very rarely getting 1715+ calories a day which is what discovery health sez my BMR should be

skip breakfast and forget to eat lunch about three days out of the week, is my advice

Sara: You can target which muscles you want to grow, but you can't target where you burn fat. Your body kinda draws on fats stored all over, and so when you start burning up those stores, where it comes from depends on genetics and other fun stuff you don't have control over. It's kinda like every fat cell in your body is in a queue, and they're going to get consumed in order. They're not necessarily going to come back in the same order, though. I've seen a few instances of girls burning off a significant percentage of their bodyfat, and when it eventually came back it came back in what I would describe as "the good places."

And no, I'm not a dietician. What started with studying anatomy for art just developed into doing a lot of research into how this stuff works.

Hah. Tom, I was going to say: skinny ppl usually eat less than fat ppl (often without realizing it).

My main problem: amount of food consumed. I don't snack during the day. Another big problem: in the evening I gorge on my "obsession." During my pregnancy with O it was a bag of chips, now it was choco-speculoos. And drinking fizzy sugar-loaded drinks. So I quit those.

xpost Yeah. It's just depressing to me, partly because I kind of enjoyed being a bit bustier when I was nursing. I am at about 125 pounds and about 5 feet 3 inches, so about where I should be... I just hate the distribution of the fat that there is.

I also have to say that nursing was A+++++ for losing weight. It doesn't seem to work that way for every woman, but I was STARVING after my first child was born and I ate a ton and dropped pregnancy weight really fast.

xpost to Nath - yes, the first thing to do is give up soda pop. Honestly, I would even avoid diet - although calorie-wise it is better than regular of course. I drink mostly water.

I should really give up my dark chocolate obsession.

ok if i eat 1500 calories worth of creme eggs every day for a month am i going to lose the same amount of weight as if i eat 1500 calories of cabbage?

You'd have to chew all day long to eat that much cabbage, so you'd be burning more calories that way.

I also have to say that nursing was A+++++ for losing weight.

alas it didnt burn all the excess cals i was eating now. :-) yesterday my body freaked out cause of the lack of sugar intake. :-) today was much better. what i do: eat regular meals *and* (healthy) snacks in between. gotta say so far it's working. before i would not snack which meant my body was screaming for food (and resulted in eating more actually).

as soon as i am up for it, i'll play tennis and/or jog again. i def need to.

oh what i did wrong as well: use way too much butter/oil. a spoon is 70/90 cals! wtf.

The calorie content of butter traumatized me completely during nutrition class. I don't even use that much of it! But I suppose it makes sense; butter is all fat.

I have a friend whose diets are always cutting calories way too much, not exercising at all, and eating all the calories at night... it's so self-defeating. That all slows metabolism... and even if you manage to lose weight that way, it's going to come back on fast.

As for the sugar intake thing, our nutrition prof was very negative about the low-carb diets. That trend seems to be fading. I never think about low-carb stuff because bread is something that I'm not going to ever be able to give up.

Nath, it sounds like what you are doing is the perfect thing! Wish I could meet up with you for jogging or whatever, but I fear that the ocean between us makes it difficult.

I love butter more than anything in the world. And I don't think I'm going to cut down on butter, esp when the things I use it w/are generally quite good for you, such as sweet potatoes.

seek

seek ye not the fatty, but the rich, and in richer waists lies a fatty core, for he who lies in the muck shall soon muck up the lie, and vice versa!
When you gaze into the pie, the pie gazes back into you!

Hanle y Deus has spoken. Go in peace and consume some more.

i weighed myself today. set a new record. i don't feel or look any fatter though.

sara, i wish we cld jog and knit together. knitting = 100 cals/hr! :-)

I wonder if I burn off more knitting calories when I screw it all up and then get upset about it and swear a bunch...

But yes, that would be awesome! Also, having another person to exercise with might actually provoke me to jog instead of just walk. (A. runs, but of course while he does that I stay home with the kids...)

any tips on dieting and drinking? i like to drink lager, sometimes shandy - but both have crazy high calories in, like 200 per pint, so im having about 1000 in one night. are these calories easy to burn off?

They shouldn't be any easier or harder to burn off than other calories; it is just a lot of them. So eat less and exercise more on those days to create the calorie deficit you need.

Another option is, of course, to drink less often or to drink less when you do.

Alcohol itself has a good number of calories and no nutrient content, so it is not a great choice on a diet. Which isn't to say that you can't have it; just that you shouldn't have as much of it.

The whole "nutrient density" concept is kind of important, I think. Foods that are nutrient dense are ones with lots of nutrients and fewer calories - like, say, skim milk, broccoli, whole wheat bread, other healthy stuff.

Foods that are NOT nutrient dense are probably what you want to try to cut down on if you want to lose weight and and eat healthily: cake, cookies, and also probably alcoholic beverages. But you can still have them - you just have to be aware that you need to create the calorie deficit somewhere else.

One of the reasons my mum drinks shochu (instead of sake) because it's low calorie (and healthy).

The dietician stressed that you *have* to include (alcoholic) drinks because they add up. Many ppl tend to forget this.

I joined weightwatchers yesterday, went to a meeting. I find that i've lost 15 lbs from last summer, and changing jobs probably had a lot to do with that.

Food intake is only so much of my issue, it has far more to do with how much beer i drink.

how much beer do you drink?

are low calories beers REALLY low calorie? wish more bars would serve them, and some way around the whole "please mister barperson can i have a lager for fatties thx"

I really need to do this but my last attempts at dieting failed with no weight loss (two serious count-every-calorie attempts = shifted a couple of pounds in the first few days, two or three months later I felt a bit healthier but had lost exactly 0 more pounds, gave it up in frustration and started eating even worse than before; plus countless spells of just cutting out the obvious crap, no snacks or sweet stuff, booze only very occasionally), and I already feel hungry all the time and I know from experience that trying to snack on healthy things means feeling selfconscious in the office as I crunch through carrots non-stop all morning and still my gut rumbles loudly from 10am to lunchtime, so I am totally failing to find the motivation.

(Sometimes I think that if I wanted to reach and stay at a less unattractive weight I'd have to never drink ever again, which seems kind of hard given how much social life revolves around bars. Anything sugary is obviously out, I don't believe diet drinks help, bottled water is expensive in bars, can't get tap water for every round or the bar staff are soon too pissed off to serve you, etc...)

Whinge over.

My coworker did once complain about our other officemate eating carrots noisily, so I'm not just being paranoid. I'm sure I'm already down as that woman who eats all the time, because really I cannot stand to have my stomach growling audibly in public and it's the only way to stop it.

haha, i drink a LOT of beer. And lite beers are considered less in whatever makes you fat, according to weightwatchers.

i guess the answer is to go with vodka & soda.

space cadet, your story is worrying. is there a specific reason that you didn't lose weight? im finding sticking to new way of eating ok at the moment, eating 300 or more calories under my basal metabolic rate, exercising around 2 or 3 times per week (losing around 500 cals each time) but am i likely to find the weight harder to shift as time goes on? in 3 or 4 months i really want to get to the low end of the BMI rather than the top end which i reside in at the moment, but scare stories like yours make me wonder if it's worth it!

how many calories are in a vodka and diet coke?

i wish the title of this thread was
i aam gooing on a diiet

If you starve yourself your body thinks there's a famine and starts trying to conserve calories. Your hormone levels change, your resting energy level changes, you feel like shit, and you don't burn fat stores. You can only restrict your intake so much before you start being counter-productive. You have to make sure that you're getting enough to eat, period. Figure out what a healthy diet for you is, stick with it, and increase your activity level every chance you get. Exercise properly, walk more, stand up more, look for opportunities for physical labor and activity - you don't have to be getting sweaty and exhausted for an activity to burn calories, just try not to sit around.

s.rose, I really think the plan you've laid out sounds fine, but just work at it and evaluate it as you go. If you're miserable all the time and have no energy and feel terrible and are making no discernible progress after a few weeks, then the plan needs adjustment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smsus3JIiz4

(xpost)

If you starve yourself your body thinks there's a famine and starts trying to conserve calories.

does this apply to cutting calorie intake as a whole, or only when you go below a certain threshold, say 1000 cals?

seems that vodka & diet coke has just 56 cals so it looks like that's what i'll have to wean myself onto. insane how one night drinking lager can wipe out my cal intake for the entire day.

I'm starting what I hope is a 7 week Atkins diet. It'll be done by spring break.

I say the best bet is too starve yourself, then not starve yourself, then starve yourself again....

there's no threshold -- but any drastic and immediate change in diet can fuck up your metabolism.

No hard threshold, but a fuzzy, gradual threshold... you can't go 30% below your base metabolic needs for very long without turning into a cranky zombie.

And cycles are good, variation is good... Plan around averages, but mix things up day-to-day.

I don't want to scare anyone when it's just that I was doing it wrong! You sound like you've got it fairly well worked out, s.rose.

I guess the non-serious attempts were just not serious enough, but the serious attempts went overboard? I lost four pounds in two or three days, which is faster than you're meant to, and then none at all, which makes me think I was not eating enough and my metabolism adjusted (further evidence: when I packed it in and went on an eating spree I actually lost a little more weight). So I'm going to need to work out a happy medium. I thought I had tried some intermediate stages, but I guess I was overlooking a little more snacking than I thought in the non-serious attempts.

(That or I just didn't get enough exercise, because I don't feel like I have much spare time and I'm horribly out of shape and permanently exhausted already so I hate even trying it. I was really just walking because it's about all I can stand to do.)

ive given up on trying to eating perfectly. it makes me eat way worse because sweet n fatty food suddenly becomes some sort of prize. so stupid.

anyway, i do like how i feel when im using up all my nervous energy so, since its hard to get out with a kid, i made my first home shopping network purchase last week and bought a treadmill with personal trainer memory cards for both weight loss and body shaping. i hope it settles me down a little.

I've been excitedly telling people this since December but to recap: I'm finding that living in a really really cold building and sleeping in the cold too is making me able to eat whatever I want, pretty much WHENever and not gain any additional sizes (don't have a scale but my clothes still fit, so...). I could prob lose if I ate less but being hungry makes me COLD.

Also I love food so much.

do you mean the cold makes your metabolism go faster to warm you up?

i REALLY want a treadmill. i'd like to be done with gym memberships once and for all. what model did you get, ss?

its a proform machine called "iFit" (lame, i know). i think it has a pretty good motor, its got a nice long stride and the gradient(?) can move up and down without getting off the machine. also it has an ipod dock which i kind of need because i get bored quickly when im exercising.

good prices on that brand at sears. if (big if) i could figure out how to squeeze one in the apt, i'd be all set.

From Japanese medical journal:

Abstract:
This study aimed to assess the relationship between basal metabolic rate (BMR) and metabolic heat production, and to clarify the involvement of BMR in determining the phenotype of cold tolerance. ... These findings suggested that individuals with a lower BMR were required to increase their metabolic heat production during cold exposure, and that those with a higher BMR were able to moderate increased metabolic heat production during cold exposure because they were able to reduce heat loss. This study showed that BMR is an important factor in determining the phenotype of cold tolerance, and that individuals with a low BMR showed calorigenic-type cold adaptation, whereas subjects with a high BMR exhibited adiabatic-type cold adaptation by peripheral vasoconstriction.

Uh...intersting?

seriously, i am having a bit of trouble dealing with the aroma at the new gym.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/2360894/

ok this might seem like a stupid queston but please bear with me - i just cooked a great shepherds pie. the raw ingredients were 420 calories but on the plate it just looks and feels like it should be so much more. does cooking food add calories somehow or is that just nonsensetalk?

also, i keep hearing about people who lose a lot of weight and end up with flaps of skin that they need surgically removing. am i likely to get this by dropping 2 or 3 stone? what's the worst that will happen, stretch marks or sortof looseish skin round fatty areas like love handles?

haha wtf

depends on how much weight. i actually had a few stretch marks once when i like pigged out for a year. but they went away, i can't even see them now.

cooking food doesn't add calories unless u cook with too much fat.

i'm going to lose 8 pounds in the next 2 weeks.

GO!

haha i was just abt to say - is this a race?

for me it is =P i'm racing my waist.

i already dropped a few kgs. but i expected that: stopped drinking sprite and eating cookies. that alone is a daily reduction of 1000 cals.

wow, down 1,000 in one day - that's a loss of about 3 stone over one year.

is it only necessary to count calories and fat content in food, or should you be looking at sugar too? are some calories worse than others?

this http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9F04E2D61F3EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63 is interesting, has it been disproved in the 5 yrs since or is fat not really all that bad?

does anyone have more information about the speed of weight loss, like once you reach a certain bmi it becomes much tougher to lose more?

Fat isn't bad, it's just calorie-dense. You need some in your diet to live, otherwise your cell membranes and your brain/nerves stop working correctly. Refined sugars are probably anyone's worst choice for a foodstuff, whether you are on a diet or not. They offer a lot of quick energy, but not much else in the way of nutrition. Go for less refined carbs (more whole grain products), watch out for hidden sugars and other highly refined carbs (guar gum, xanthan gum, HFCS - stuff in pretty much every processed food in the US), and keep your calorie consumption around your target.

thanks jaq, does this mean that wholegrain bread, despite having more calories than a similar-sized slice of white bread is actually better for you? is it because it keeps you sated longer?

is the above-linked article about the neg qualities of carbs and pro qualities of fat something to keep in mind or is it written by a crank? the atkins diet is no way to eat forever, surely?!

In ''The Physiology of Taste,'' for instance, an 1825 discourse considered among the most famous books ever written about food, the French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin says that he could easily identify the causes of obesity after 30 years of listening to one ''stout party'' after another proclaiming the joys of bread, rice and (from a ''particularly stout party'') potatoes. Brillat-Savarin described the roots of obesity as a natural predisposition conjuncted with the ''floury and feculent substances which man makes the prime ingredients of his daily nourishment.''

brown bread will give you energy for a longer time than say white bread.
sugar are "worthless" they give you energy fast but it drops very fast (as opposed to f. e. brown bread which is slow). also they don't contain any vitamines.

Wholegrain bread offers fiber and (generally) more vitamins and minerals than white bread, so more nutrition (rather than just energy/calories). The idea that fiber and whole grains stay in your system longer so you have a longer sense of fullness might help for some, but you'd have to be more tuned into your body signals for your clues for "want more food" than most people (americans at least) are. Most of us are more triggered by social/environmental clues (that plate's not empty yet, I'm not done yet) than we are by awareness of hunger/satiation.

Atkins/South Beach/other low carb diets work in the short term for some people, maybe because of the lack of variety, maybe because of the ketosis. But it can cause trouble for people too - kidney stones, gout, constipation. The idea of the glycemic index seems to have some validity - and again it's more refined carbs generally that cause trouble with blood sugar. Before insulin was isolated, a low carb diet was the only way for people with diabetes to survive, so the idea's been around for awhile. But it doesn't offer the best nutrition. It didn't work at all for me, fwiw, just made me feel like crap, but it worked great for my (mildly diabetic and seriously overweight) husband. But, again like most people, when he started eating normally again, he gained back more than he'd lost on it.

researchers have just discovered the 'beer calorie'
it is just like a regular calorie except with more beer!
and if you balance it out with the 'butter calorie' and the 'awesome fucking sandwich that someone else made for me with love and this crazy mustard from like franco-russia calorie' and the 'sometimes you just want a salad okay calorie' as well as maybe the 'sushi calorie' and some kind of cognitive behavioural therapy or comparable alternative like tv or shooting stuff or running i think everythng will be o dot k dot

p.s. don't eat snack cakes or diabetes

xpostsx

I mean if you want to go back to Brillat-Savarin (who is one of my heros), you could also go back to Fletcher and Kellog and CHEW EVERY BITE 100 TIMES. EVERY. BITE. There are songs to accompany the chewing, but you should only sing them in your own head as you chew chew chew chew.

blargh chewing

btwn that and the yr favourite philosophers thread i think early-mid 20th century western culture should just throw away whatever it thinks it's based on b/c really it's based on anti-social nutbar crazy talk

Why do you think we're all here!

speak for yourself nutbar

;)

but i mean 100 TIMES
that'd better be one aawesome song

man, this weightwatchers shit is hard to track all the beer after a while

fortunately beef jerky is low in points

kingfish, drink diet coke & vodka instead of beer!

out of interest does anyone know the food with the lowest calories but largest weight (other than fruit)?

day 2 of diet!!! but i think i'm gonna have pizza for breakfast...

I AM EATING HEART DISEASE FOR BREAKFAST

okay i went with bacon egg and cheese on a bagel

munster cheese

YUM!

diet coke and vodka is called a "skinny bitch", no? i wonder what red bull and vodka is called?

taxi home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodka_Red_Bull

comprehensive, if questionable, list of vodka red bull names. my favorite is the "ric flair."

I'm back to healthy eating after putting on all of the 50lbs that i lost and am plotting my progress here www.nomorefattyleigh.wordpress.com

lol taxi home

I wrote a list of foods I liked two days ago when I had nothing to do at work. I put "sashimi" and "bananas" on there 3x without realizing it!

I found the fancypants organic grocery here has 'reduced for quick sale' groceries for super cheap! They package up veg or fruit that is a day or two old or 'irregular' in shape and not attractive enough to display. So I got a pound of shitake mushrooms for $1 and a pound of sugar snap peas (a favorite) for $1! I made a delicious curry. The place is right near where I park for university, so I stop by every day on my way home to check their veg out. I got 3 portobello mushrooms for $1, so good baked in the over with swiss cheese. That is maybe the one thing vegans have right. They actually are better than burgers.

What I am saying is I now have no financial obstructions to eating healthy. Which is RAD!!!

so rad!

http://www.beerbellyblog.com/
some good tips

Today is day 4 of my atkins diet. I'm having a hard time eating enough calories. I need more different types of food. If I had the money I'm sure I could be eating much better.

Atkins advantage bars taste better than real candy bars.
http://www.vitacost.com/Store/images/images100/637480309837.jpg

I'm also wondering about the extra skin issue. Kinda sucks.

i don't know, i've talked to people who lost a lot of weight and it wasn't a problem. also, doesn't this happen when women are pregnant? and not all moms have huge folds of skin on them or anything...

It happens if you lose like 100-300 lbs really fast.

mm

wats for dinner?

two slices of bread with low fat cream cheese

Some sweet potato soup from a recipe sent by libcrypt! I have capasaicin all over my fingers from cutting up peppers. How is this stuff supposed to help with arthritis?

i'm so scared of arthritis.

i ordered out: thai chicken coconut curry over spicy green rice, with a salad on the side.

i know this doesn't seem like a diet... i'm snacking a LOT LESS!

i am curious about the effect on BMR by weight loss. its said above that to keep up the BMR while eating less calories you need to do heavy weight lifting - does anyone have a decent guide to what kind of weights are best, for what length of time, how many reps, and for what bodyshape?

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/332729/2/istockphoto_332729_two_12_dumbells.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/%3Fid%3D332729%26refnum%3D317946&h=380&w=380&sz=32&hl=en&start=1&sig2=roxqx5fYvE70WM2diVL6eQ&um=1&tbnid=EJTjvF22DoahCM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=123&ei=NX-mR9WYNpKggQOBvemtDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddumbells%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN

How are the diets coming? I kinda messed up on the first two weeks of Atkins induction because I drank alcohol (0 carb at least). Induction is the time when you lose the most weight and I flubbed it up because alcohol postpones ketosis. Anyways I'll estimate that I've lost 15-20 pounds and it has been 18 days. I haven't weighed myself in a week or so so I have no idea actually.

My diet is going GREBT thank you very much. I went from 74 kgs to 65 kgs in a month time. The dietician was perplexed. She had to check my original weight. I quit cookied and fizzy drinks. And I eat a lot more bread but smaller portions (of dinner). HURRAH! She did add yesteday I should eat more bread and fruit.

crikey, and i thought i was doing well (as i said on the gym thread, 8 and 1/2 pounds in 4 weeks), that's excellent stevie. is there any risk in losing so much so quickly?

Nathalie, are you also breast-feeding? I think that makes a big difference!

Laurel, I realize that but the main "culprit" was cookies, sprite and large portions of food. Breastfeeding is my fitness routine. My husband dropped the same amount and, as far as I know, he's not breastfeeding. ;-)

There's no risk in losing that much IF you eat very healthily. I dropped all the crap stuff - well, most of it anyway - and eat more bread'n'food. I know that if you crash diet, which I don't, it can be risky. But I am seeing a dietician and she said it was a big amount but, after checking my food diary, it actually meant I was eating way too much fat 'n' sugar.

Also, the breastfeeding-weight loss thing is mainly in the first weeks. Elisabeth is already four months, so the effect is still there but much less than before. Of course I do realize that as soon as I quit breastfeedig, I'll need to eat less calories to maintain the same weight.

I also started running a bit. And I will play tennis again in september. HURRAH

Good for both of you! Men frequently do lose weight faster than women even on the same diet/routine, though...the breastfeeding could be what's allowing you to keep up with him.

I think my sister's weight loss kicked in later...I remember her being frustrated with her figure for a while after delivery. But ymmv.

Well, I do know my hips haven't *shrunk* yet. Very annoying cause I want to fit in my jeans again. :-)

I mean bones. Hip bones.

i still don't understand the eating MORE bread thing, nath!
if i eat bread more than once a day i will totally gain weight! i guess everyone is different. but do they also recommend low-fat diet to go with that?

winter + stress these days + no bike riding = carbohydrate overkill = route to my own personal fatification which i do not want
but i have no desire to eat salad when it's -15C every day! also i need to find some time to cook proper vegetable+protein-oriented meals again :/

i guess i aam going on diiet?

but i have no desire to eat salad when it's -15C every day

Haha I have the opposite here most of the year round. "I don't want to eat anything hot, and I definitely don't want to have house heat implosion by cooking." So no cooking. I just drink beer and wish I knew how to make gazpacho (without ever looking up how).

my diiet should be the just-move-to-temperate-climate-already-girl-please diiet

haha gazpacho is easy! you can do it. tho personally i can only half stomach cold soup - one of those things brain can't get past

um my diet went down the drain as my boyfriend kept baking more and more cookies, and delicious italian dishes. okay i've also been eating a lot of bagels and french fries and stuff.

what to do??

i guess the choice is whether you are ok with being slightly fattey or not. if not, then we have to understand that the bagel gods will not forsake us for not making sacrifices to them for a while. tho i hear the french fry gods are kind of wrathful.

Ah, yes, I don't have a blender or food processor. That's why I haven't made gazpacho. (Looked up recipe.) But probably when I get married I will get one. And I'm buying myself this upside-down tomato plant grower so I can get delicious omg yum and cheap tomatoes. So: gazpacho party this autumn I guess.

Surmounter clearly your boyfriend is a feeder. Has he been uploading videos of you eating pounds of tetrazini to youtube? (joek...hopefully.)

those planters are crazy!
you will *totally* get some kind of bladed chopping machine for wedding. i just use a cheapo hand blender for everything tho.

ha, he is a feeder! i fear he secretly relishes it b/c he is able to control his appetite more, so he whips up these delicious dishes in part to satisfy his urge to cook, but in large part to watch me sink my waist. of course he denies this.

the french fry gods are indeed relentless!

I just started a diet, and am counting calories, and yesterday i found that nearly 1/3 of my calories came from vodka :( Yet another reason drinking is bad.

i still don't understand the eating MORE bread thing, nath!

Those are good for (my) stool and also they are slow sugars. She wants me to avoid craving/eating cookies (in the evening) so she stresses I should eat more bread.

This weekend has been a slippery slope. I will resume on monday. The problem is that I am not ready to "sin" yet (her words). I should do it once a week, she said, but I can't (yet). As soon as the sugar hits the palate I am a goner. :-)

(More as in: I didn't eat much bread before. A problem most people have when eating bread: they put too much *junk* between their slices of bread. *That* is what makes you fat or ups the calories. Bread also contain cals of course..)

So who has lost more weight? It's been difficult. I realize cause it's the last five/six kilos. I have to focus on the fact I have lost about 8 kilos now. Not on those six I want to lose. That way I will remain positive and once I am ready cut down on pastas and other shit. I lost about one kilos since the last time I visited the dietician. Not a whole lot, but at least I haven't relapsed and gained weight.

I stopped eating bread on the morning and switched to muesli. URGH! It's horse's food, if I didn't pay attention I'd start fucking mewling after said meal. BAH. But with a little honey and perseverance, I can actually... eat it. Did you think I would say enjoy? Well, no way. Not yet. I eat it with soy milk which fits better than cow milk somehow. The muesli meal enables me to NOT snack between breakie and lunch. YAY me. Only BOO aspect of my diet: I discovered belgian choco soy mousse. *sigh*

Oh yes, I threw out my post-pregnancy jeans cause they literally dropped off if I didn't wear a belt. Now I wear my old jeans again. Not my Sevens though as I need to lose at least another five kilo to fit in those slim jeans again without appearing like a sad muffin. hah

So how is everyone's diet going? Apparently I can't lose any more weight but somehow I do. I'm at 62 kilos now which is below the target weight (during breastfeeding). My dietician said I had to stop at 62 (after I stop breastfeeding). I am playing tennis twice a week which is probably causing me to lose weighth quicker? My body is more toned as a result, that's for sure. Everyone has been commenting on it (which is not always a nice thing, like that pervy guy who asked me how I am so slender... af ffs).

62 kgs = 136 pounds.

I do want to get back to my original 127 pounds, fuck what the dietician says.

good for you girl! i'm doing well but my waist is a little more stubborn this year. a little more to go! i need to get a fucking scale (or do i?...)

No no no! Or you'll turn into me: step on it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Well, I don't do it every day anymore, but I'm still watching my weight like a hawk. My husband said I had to keep this weight (cause my face is a wee bit too gaunt looking, is that how you say it?) That said, I still want to drop a few more kilos. My arms and legs are much more toned. I love it. And my bum is melting away. Even better.

see that's the problem -- my face ends up looking all gaunt! 'tis a fine line

i know, you're probably right in that i could do without a scale

We can become the Gaunt Twins. :-D

:)

whats for dinner?

twizzlers for dinner work in a pinch

So my weight is at 61,8 kgs. Hurrah. This means I can have my "sin day" tomorrow. Hotdogs, cheese dorritos and Sprite here I come. hah. I'm slowly going for 59 kgs. Should be doable. :-)

what is worse for your weight and general health: a big greasy takeaway of friend chicken and chips or a night out drinking about 6 or 7 pints of lager?

also does anyone know of a list ranking takeaway foods in order of unhealthiness?

has anyone here read THE HUNGRY YEARS by william leith? brillint book, perfect account of what its like to be fat, looking at why people let themselves get fat, how it relates to his other addictions (cocaine mostly) then turns into an atkins screed halfway through. gotta say, it convinced me. gonna test it out in a few weeks as i feel i go a bit overboard on carbs.

ive not searched for the atkins threads on here yet but has anyone tried it? im worried about the rule of thumb whereby if you do a diet your body uses calories most efficiently and so lets the weight pile on once the diet is over - does this apply to atkins or is it more of a new way of eating forever, a low-carb lifestyle?

I have no idea how, but I am wearing pants that I purchased 12 years ago, and they fit fine.

s.rose -
I did Atkins and lost a bunch of weight, but it came back on instantly the second I started eating carbs again (and I didn't get off the diet and suddenly go nuts; I eased them in - still, literally, the first time I ate bread after a month without it I could feel the change in my body - within a couple of days I had put on 6 lbs.

I have been doing Weight Watchers now and I have lost 3 stone now (in 9 weeks). And it's not hard once you get into it - you can eat whatever you want; just smaller amounts. And after you've done it for about 10 days, you get full really quickly anyway. I don't cheat on it, though - I've switched from beer to hard liquor (mixed with Diet Coke), etc.

But it's worked for me so far... hoping I can keep it off...
Good luck either way!

Yeah, the key to Weight Watchers is portion control. Shit, the key to life is portion control.

Moderation, yo.

update, i didn't bother doing the atkins because hell i really like carbs and i dont want to be denying myself things i like.

so back in jan 2008 i was overweight at 13ish stone, i cut down to 1400 cals or less per day, gym 3x a week and by summer was a decent 11st. i slowly began eating what i wanted but at the same time got better and worked harder at the gym so stuck at just under 11st, chomping happily (but much healthier overall) and working out hard. for the last half of december 08 i pigged out pretty bad, didn't put much weight on but didn't feel so good so i'm back on a fairly strict routine again. my aim is to get to 9.5st but i'll likely settle at just under 10st.

current routine: eating 1500 cals max per day, all decent healthy stuff. 90mins of gym 3x per week and the weight is dropping quite quickly (lost about 4 pounds after doing it for 2.5 weeks), which i guess is because i'm used to the gym and not having to start from nothing.

so yeah this post is mostly for myself, keeping track of my weight via this thread. i expect i'll ditch the 1500 cals thing by summer but still be eating healthily, but allowing for the odd blow-out and drinking at weekends.

how's everyone else doing?

and also:
what is worse for your weight and general health: a big greasy takeaway of friend chicken and chips or a night out drinking about 6 or 7 pints of lager?

also does anyone know of a list ranking takeaway foods in order of unhealthiness?

Good lord, a few months and I'm at 65 kgs. Urgh. At one point I was at my desired 59 kgs. :-( Back on the diet wagon. Double urgh.

what do people actually believe about diet? have we done this on ilx?

the more i read the more conflicting opinions there are.

i guess the nutrition nazis thread kinda counts?

eat like a king at breakfast
a prince at lunchtime
a pauper at dinnertime

eat real food, not too much, mostly vegetables iirc

Burn more than you chew.

eat real food, not too much, mostly vegetables iirc

yeah this is what i do, more plants, etc. is anything beyond this just into the realm of argument/fad diet?

I've lost 34 pounds since Nov. 30th--it's a plan done through my dr's office called "First Line Therapy", and i think it was invented by the people who make this shake you can drink as a meal (Metagenics)...basically, you have to eat every 3 hours, and you have to eat a certain number of portions of different food groups by the end of each day (fruit, veg, concentrated protein which is like tuna or chicken, legumes, etc...) It's sort of a no brainer--no bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, sugar, dairy (i allow myself a drop of skim milk in my daily coffee). I think the hard part for people is laying off the alcohol, which I don't seem to need even though i feel like the most addicted person ever. If anyone is interested in a copy of the daily sheet I fill out, it has the list of all the acceptable foods on it, email me and I'll shoot you a pdf of it. I didn't have to exercise which was the best part...I am 44 yrs old and need to lose 6 more pounds and I'll be "done", although I don't think I'll ever go back to eating the carbs listed above, or sugar. I am much happier in my cage of approved foods than running around in the jungle of deliciously bad for you stuff.

what do people actually believe about diet? have we done this on ilx?

the more i read the more conflicting opinions there are.

― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Tuesday, August 21, 2012 6:50 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

the nutrition nazis will tell you that dont think of it as a diet, think of it as a lifestyle change

anyway, based on received nutrition nazi wisdom and the results of this study which were just recently released: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/calorie-calorie-harvard-study-compares-popular-weight-loss/story?id=16654506

I tend to eat by food groups, try to stay away from sugar/foods that spike your glycemic index (GI)

another interesting thing that I've read but haven't seen corroboration for is that GI is also affected by the combination of foods you eat in a sitting - like combining low and high GI foods in a meal might result in a medium GI effect overall. to me that feels right but I am not a nutritionist. but it would explain why there are billions of people who eat white rice as a staple but seem otherwise pretty healthy.

my roommate is on a 'fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and sliced meat' diet fyi

Sounds like my kind of diet. Just add beer.

even that article is sort of symptomatic of the confusion tho, like "maybe it's this, maybe it's that" followed by "oh actually just eat vaguely healthily."

i've generally been eating more healthily over the last few months but not necessarily following something like paleo really.

i've lost a lot of weight but i exercise decent amount too.

well yeah nutrition is a constantly evolving field, nothing's ever gonna be concrete

but what feels right to me atm is to control portion size, and the types of food you eat, and to mostly stay away from sugar, and if you're gonna eat carbs, combine them with other food types

I find it really hard to maintain weight. My weight has yo-yo'ed quite a bit over the last 10 years, high as 250, low as 140. All I want to do is stay the weight I am right now, but I can either closely watch what I eat, or just ignore it all together.