Losing weight (Advice and encouragement)

Konnorn

I don't want to keep clogging up the LOVE thread with this, so thought I'd start a new one, just for this purpose.

So, I'm hoping to lose some weight and I've actually gotten excited about it after reading what was said in the LOVE thread. It will have to wait until Januari 1st though, since I really don't want to cut down on all the nice stuff over the holidays. Facing this task, I have a few struggles that I know will be difficult for me though.

 

I love coca cola. Huge addict. It's my only means of getting caffeine and I do get headaches if I don't get my coke on a  somewhat daily basis. I am thinking about switching my coke for juices though. I love dinking water, but it's just nice with something with a flavor. We don't have Mio here in Sweden, so I think juices will have to do, as long as I check the sugar content before.

 

I eat one or two meals a day. HUGE mistake, I know. I need to learn to eat smaller portions and more often. I very rarely eat junkfood and eat a lot of vegetables and such, I just eat wrong. One big portion in the middle of the day and perhaps something small in the evening. I have health shakes that I bought before my operation and I am thinking about using those as a way to get breakfast to begin with, since I'm not a huge breakfast person. Perhaps, with a little training, I'll get used to it though.

 

And finally. Discipline. I very easily get lazy. I can't afford going to the gym, so I will have to find free ways to get my exercise, such as walking. I just need to put my foot down and actually go for a longer walk once a day, despite the weather. I also have a pretty high doorstep in the basement that I can use for stepups and one of those rubber bands that can be used as dumbbells and things like that. I just need to actually start doing it all and that is a big struggle for me.

 

Perhaps there are others out there in the same position, or you are one of those who has lost weight and are willing to help with advice and encourgement.  Then this is the place to do it!

Nola

Music + jogging/fast-walking/anything. If I did not have my ipod, this probably wouldn't have worked for me, because having a beat to lose myself in when I'm exercising helps big time. 

If you make it a habit in your daily life and consistently remind yourself, think about the end goal and how great'll be, it helps form it into an average routine. Stretch before and after anything.

Soda is a huge no. This sadly, includes coca cola. Juices are excellent.

Arbre

Read the calories on -everything-.  You'll be -really- surprised about what you're putting in your body.  The theory is that the average adult male needs 2000 calories a day to maintain, so less if your female or short, and less if you're trying to lose weight.  When a soda has 200 calories, that's over 10% of your daily intake.

Kaeus

If you have a smart phone or are willing to spend a little time looking into what you eat, I would heavily suggest using http://myfitnesspal.com to track your intake of calories. Just using that alone to keep under a healthy daily limit (I did give up sugar soda and at least swap to diet), I've dropped about 50 pounds with essentially no serious exercise. I also ate 2 main meals mostly, with the occasional small breakfast if I was feeling it (never been a breakfast person).

It has the option to search for foods already in the database (restaurants, generic types of foot, certain brands, etc) and you can always enter your own. You can also scan bar codes if you have that option for cooking. It did a great job at informing me on what I was eating and helped me in adjusting how I looked at food choices. It also gives you a suggested daily max based on your weight, and can adjust that down as you begin to lose weight.

Luna

Unless I'm careful, I'm liable to overeat, especially on comfort food when I'm feeling down for whatever reason. These are my tips for dealing:

- Cut out soda completely. Don't replace it with juice either, juice shouldn't be a staple in your diet unless you squeeze if yourself. Always have a water bottle on hand- use lime or lemon to give it a little flavour if necessary. Make it a point to drink some water before every large meal.

- Try to buy snacks and sweets only in very small amounts, if you can't cut them out completely. If you need to buy snacks in a larger bag than what you should be eating in one go (which isn't a whole lot), split a it into smaller servings using airtight bags/containers.

- If you live alone or are usually cooking only for yourself, be careful that you only cook as much as you should be eating for any given meal. If you cook more, put the excess away in a container in the fridge before you start eating rather than afterwards- the latter is an invitation to overeat with second helpings.

On the subject of exercise, by far the easiest way to get started is to walk or bike everywhere. I'm very reliant on my gym otherwise, myself. If you happen to live in a university town/city, student gyms tend to be cheap and friendly, even if you aren't actually a student. Highly recommended.

Konnorn

I don't live alone and all meals are cooked together, which can be a huge issue, since I can't push my own eating habits on someone else. Drinking water before meals sounds like a great idea though, I must say!

 

And Kaeus, I had a look at that site. That. Looks. Awesome. I am so gonna use that!

Konnorn

Edit: Also, it's so nice when the one you live with says 'You're never gonna pull it off'. Now that's encouragement. <.< I'm hoping to get some from you on January 1st. If nothing else, I'm gonna prove her wrong.

Mariena

Hi! My goal is to lose 50 pounds. At the end of these 50 pounds lost, I am totally getting a tree tattoo (Motivation!). I have been drinking more water, and less soda. I have found moderation is key to everything, and don't cut anything out entirely right away. It is a serious invitation to drop what you're doing as soon as you're stressed out or a craving hits. It's alright to have amazing things.

Water water water water.

These exercise videos you can do in the comfort of your own living room with relatively little space. Do not be deceived by the simple beginnings, they will kick your ass.




^ I especially like Leslie Sansone. She starts out easy and intensifies her cardio workout. If you follow along at her tempo, you will be feeling it. She also has different options, so if you've done a lot that day, you can do the 1 mile video, or if you haven't done much at all, the 3 mile one (I haven't gotten there yet). My favorite is the 2.

I am 12 pounds down!

Aarbrok

I go up and down like Oprah, but honest to god, just counting calories is easy and its accessible now with nutrition facts posted almost everywhere you can eat.  You dont have to cut out the things you enjoy.  You can have a cheeseburger, get it with a small fry and a water, you can have tacos and burritos, just watch how many you eat, you can even drink but take into consideration that beer, does add to your intake, so instead of having dessert, have a beer with dinner.  It has worked for me, and the only time I really see my diet seeming poor, is when I know I am eating how I shouldnt.

Chantel

I rarely ever post on these forums, mostly because I never feel like I have anything of value to add to the conversation. As the daughter of a nutritionist and a personal trainer/natural body builder, I feel like I definitely have some good tips on this subject.

Thing 1: I've seen a lot of talk about soda, Mio, and sweet drink replacements. If you're looking for something to replacement your sweet drinks with, nothing, nothing, NOTHING can beat some lemon juice (which you can buy in bottles) sweetened with stevia. When I was quitting soda, stevia + lemon water/tea/grapefruit water/ANYTHING was a life saver. You can drink as much sweet stuff as you want, 100% guilt free. For those who don't know what stevia is, it is a natural (not artificial) sweetener that doesn't destroy your body like sugar does, and doesn't have any of the nasty side effects thing like Splenda does. Stevia's only known 'side effect' is possibly minorly increasing your insulin sensitivity...which is a good thing.  There are quite a few different companies who sell it these days, in packet and liquid form, and you can find it at a lot of bigger grocery stores and almost every health food store. Use it sparingly, if only because the stuff is 100 times sweeter then sugar (it's so sweet it tastes gross undiluted)

Thing 2: Bread, like sugar, is another killer when you're trying to lose weight. There are a lot of fantastic rice breads and rice based pastas out there now, and they've come a long way in making them taste not...gross. 

Thing 3: If, and only if, you eat really, really seriously low carb all week, you really, really, really...should have one cheat day a week. Otherwise your metabolism is gonna grind to an unpleasant halt, and all the clean eating in the world won't help you. My best tip is eating really low carb allllll week long, and every time I have a craving, I write it down - and then I eat ALL my cravings on Saturday. It's a pretty great system, because the temptation to break your diet isn't as strong. Why cheat now, and feel guilty, when you can wait four days and not have to feel bad at all?!

Thing 4: Eat your protein. Fish, eggs, chicken, and turkey. DO IT NOW. And while you're out, have some bacon. Eating a low fat diet does baaadddd things to your brain (literally). Never, ever, ever eat saturated or trans fat. But bacon and nuts and all related containing-good-fat items are not -that- bad for you, contrary to popular wisdom. 

Thing 5: The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Clean up your eating first, and then start to add in exercise. You only have so much willpower to go around. Besides, if you eat clean, you'll have more energy to exercise. In the MEAN TIME, walking and lifting weights TOTALLY COUNTS. 

Rammus

A pretty general formula for calorie intake is current weight X 10 = amount of calories to consume per day to lose weight.  Use that as a base.

Don't eat fried foods, syrups, or fatty meats(cept fish).

Read about simple and complex carbs, replace simple carbs in your kitchen with equivalents of complex carbs.

Start taking a multivitamin if you don't already.

I am quite sure if you removed coca cola from your diet and started drinking eight glasses of water a day you'd see a dramatic change rather quickly in both energy and weight.  Coke is loaded with sugar, which is a simple carb.  Simple carbs are absorbed rapidly and if they are not expended shortly after they typically get stored as fat. Being a liquid, the glucose is almost immediately stored if not expended because it doesn't take much to break it down. You cannot make excuses, if it was easy then everyone would be in shape.  You really have to dedicate yourself and exert some willpower.  This sort of thing isn't something you can just do sometimes, or when it is convenient.  It has to be a new lifestyle and you have to stick with it if you want results.

I pay $10 a month to go to a gym.  If that is too expensive for you, there are a lot of community places that charge based off your income.

Arbre

There's this thing at the mall, a trampoline with two arms that go up about halfway to the ceiling (it's a high ceiling) with.. basically bungee cords on it.  The maximum weight limit is 180.  I told Justin when I got to 180, I was bouncing on that thing until I die, I don't care how much it costs (a lot.)

Hadoryu

The important things:

1) http://myfitnesspal.com

- Get yourself the mobile app. Update it religiously. This alone will make the biggest difference in keeping your diet in line. Do not go for a quick weight drop, you'll end up missing your goals, you'll get discouraged and stop.

2) Calories in, calories out.

- It doesn't matter if you eat once a day. Starvation mode is a myth. 'Higher metabolism' from more frequent eating is a myth. It does not matter when or how you eat. Do your calorie math and if you're coming out at a calorie deficit, you'll lose weight. That's all there is to it. Your macronutrient balance doesn't make a difference either, you can get your calories from plain butter and you'll still lose weight. But most importantly, you'll learn that you can't make up for diet with exercise. Two slices of bread means 30 minutes running on the treadmill. It's not worth it.

3) Despite point number 2, eat more proteins.

- Carbohydrates do not satiate you as well as proteins and fats do. Overeating carbohydrates also stimulates insulin overproduction, which can lead to unpleasant ups and downs in your blood sugar and to diabetes (insulin resistance). A good protein intake will also prevent you from losing much lean body mass. Soda is completely terrible in that regard, high in calories, next to no satiety and plays tricks on your energy levels while bloating your stomach and guts. If you MUST drink soda, drink diet. My suggestion would be to replace all your sugar with artificial sweeteners (aspartame is literally 0 cal and doesn't provoke an insulin response) and start drinking coffee if you need the caffeine.

4) Work out, but not to burn calories.

- Working out will prevent you from shedding lean body mass. We're talking resistance training here at the 5 or so rep range. You don't have a gym, but there's still  a way for you to get your training done: http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/

- If you want to pick up an activity, pick up something that's fun for you to do. Running on the mill isn't fun and climbing stairs isn't fun. Dancing is fun. Tennis is fun. Basketball is fun. Karate is fun.

5) Your biggest issue will be motivation, once you know what works and what doesn't.

- Make it fun and make it so it doesn't weigh on you. Make it sustainable. You aren't going to go on a diet and then stop being on a diet. You are going to change the way you think about food and what you put into your body forever. If you're going into this as something temporary, don't bother. If you're doing it in a way that you have to 'just make it for x amount of time,' don't bother. Either make it sustainable or don't bother starting.

Mastema

I stopped eating red meat (still eat white meat), and imported junk as its all over process. I have lost 20kg in 3 months without any excersise at all by doing this. Also Stevia is great we have used it for a long time in Australia, and a lot of companies use it in there foods now too. I also stopped with any soft drinks or fruit drinks that you can buy from a shelf, is imported or part concentrate and only drink 100% fresh juice I make myself. The reason I do not drink those types of jucies is due to the sugar and crap that is added to make them last more than a week.

Nola

Stevia is delicious. 

Soups are good too. I generally go for organic soups. 

Lupin

I've always had trouble committing to any major exercise routine, except my one passion, rollerskating. So next year I've signed up for roller derby. I'm hoping a team sport will keep me more committed. Most people don't realise that skating is a high cardio exercise and that it is gentle on joints. My dad has arthritic knees and it's one of the few exercises that doesn't cause pain. Now the hardest part is come up with a derby name.

Arbre

I used to work for a skating rink.  That stuff can wear you out.

Camille

I stopped eating entirely about three weeks ago. So far it's going great, I'm just a little woozy from time to time.


Okay, okay, in all seriousness, two years ago it became a necessity for me to walk about two miles (~4 km), added up between walking to school and then work after that. With no added exercise or change in diet, I lost about 30 pounds just from all that walking.

About a month ago I decided to capitalize on this, and hit the gym. Still no major changes in diet. I've whacked off another 10 from that, as well as gained some upper body strength so I can pick things up now.

I plan on lazing around over winter break, and when spring comes, hit the ground running. That exercise will still be there, and I'll start making changes in diet. Baby steps, people.

Valenae

I usually find a sport or other physical activity to be a part of. Right now I'm interested in boxing. Boxing, kickboxing, or some sort of martial art might be a nice way to get involved. Not to mention it is a good way to hold yourself accountable! I used to be a size 24 and now I'm a size 16. At 4'10" I'm not anywhere near healthy but its a work in a progress. I'm the same way with soda only my vice is Dr. Pepper. The longest I quit was three years before picking up a soda around finals only for the extra energy. The way I quit last time was just stopping. Before that I tried to decrease the amount I drank until I wasn't drinking any but that didn't work. If you have issues with putting your footdown I recommend the cold turkey approach.

 Also - making things easy for yourself. Pack your lunch the night before and leave in the fridge for the next morning. Assign obligation to taking it with you and reason yourself out of deviating. "I don't have the extra money to pick up that candy bar." "My ass will not shrink on its own. What's more important to me - wearing a bikini and feeling healthy or the five seconds of choco-bliss that brings me one candy bar closer to diabetus?"

Find that routine that works for you - write-up some self affirmations or find a skinny picture of yourself and tape it to the mirror. 

Don't skip a day in the first four months of your new routine. The first four months are the hardest and studies show that it takes seven associations to encode in your brain. After the first four months it is likely you have practiced every part of your routine, rehearsed your self affirmations enough, and grown to enjoy the act of pushing yourself to your limit physically that you'll make a successful transition from unhealthy to healthy! (Four months sounds like a lot but it is enough time to figure in all of the fumbling to find a routine.)

Anyway - good luck!

Exayne

what a load of s**t, who cares! just be happy!

Valenae

Healthy = a longer time to be happy.

Zun

Exayne said:

what a load of s**t, who cares! just be happy!

And the people who want to lose weight, care. Telling people their problems don't matter, they should get over it, be happy regardless...they aren't useful things to say. Rather, they're supremely detrimental. So let the conversation continue and no more of this bollocks.

Tahl

I, too, have been slowly putting on over the past few months due to myself tearing a ligament in my ankle and the dislocation of my shoulder, and I've been trying to lose it both for my job and my personal satisfaction. I've gone from 226 to 203, thus far, and that's been with almost entirely dieting.

Reading through this, I noticed pretty much all the advice I'd give, except I've got one problem. Exercise. I try to run, my ankle gives out. I try to lift, my shoulder pops out of socket. And to me, just losing the weight isn't my complete goal here. I want to turn it into something. That being said, would any of you happen to have any advice about working out with injuries? How to take it easy, specific workouts that aren't so taxing but still work, etc. 

I'd greatly appreciate it.

Raeche

Yoga?

Nola

^ Yoga is a great way to do it, and stretching helps overall, @Tahl.

Also, consider swimming? I'm not sure what kind of strain it'd put on your shoulder, but I believe it'd be worth the try. Good cardio, too.

Hadoryu

Tahl said:

I, too, have been slowly putting on over the past few months due to myself tearing a ligament in my ankle and the dislocation of my shoulder, and I've been trying to lose it both for my job and my personal satisfaction. I've gone from 226 to 203, thus far, and that's been with almost entirely dieting.

Reading through this, I noticed pretty much all the advice I'd give, except I've got one problem. Exercise. I try to run, my ankle gives out. I try to lift, my shoulder pops out of socket. And to me, just losing the weight isn't my complete goal here. I want to turn it into something. That being said, would any of you happen to have any advice about working out with injuries? How to take it easy, specific workouts that aren't so taxing but still work, etc. 

I'd greatly appreciate it.

You can't turn fat into muscle. You can lose fat or you can gain muscle, but you can't do both. So if you want to lose fat for now, just lower your calorie intake and don't worry about exercising.

If you're interested in putting on muscle, but you can't use your arms or your legs ... well damn, dude. I'm not sure you can do that. You can try some isolated exercises, but honestly? Just let yourself heal and stop putting stress on damaged joints and ligaments. You could make the injury chronic and that's going to mess with your exercising for the rest of your life. Just let it heal and then start lifting again when you're ok.

Raeche

Not an expert here, but this is what I know about yoga:

The thing about yoga is that unlike weight lifting, it trains all sorts of minor muscles that give you balance and control. Building those up help not only help to tone, it helps support your injured bits to make up for the injury. If you're doing it for health and weight reasons, it is a great style of exercise that is immensely practical and boosts your well-being (you won't be in as much pain).

Conversely, the downside is that it isn't that great for people who want to look buff and fill-out their clothing fast. Other forms of exercise or weight-lifting that focus only on certain major muscles would be much faster. Of course, while you look good, that does not necessarily mean you feel good. Lots of people get injuries because they do not keep their muscle development balanced.

Arbre

Find a way to brace your legs instead of your feet, and do situps?

Tahl

Something I tried today was wearing a pretty good ankle brace, and jogging for quarters of a mile at a time. I didn't feel like it was harming anything while I was doing it, so I'm hoping this will work out for me. Yoga IS something I considered, I just don't know where I'd start. Building muscle, on the other hand, is something I should definitely wait to begin. If I can keep up the running and dieting, and begin the yoga, I should be able to reach my goal of 175 and from there I suppose I can look into methods of building muscle without putting my body in danger, while still maintaining cardio, yoga, and a proper diet. Thanks for the input!

Raeche

Not sure if you've seen this vid, but it was circulating on facebook, which is how it caught my attention:

extended cut: 

Not advocating piracy here, but a friend of mine torrent'ed the videos, and so I got to take a look. It really does start out really simple, and takes from basic Yoga to get fitness going.

The guy (Diamond Dallas Page)  is an ex-wrestler, so he tries to man up the image to counter the stigma of yoga being a girly sort of exercise.

Demarcus

Calisthetics  are awesome, and don't require a gym.

Try frying things in coconut oil if you heart fried things. I eat coconut oil by the spoonful. It is delicious and nutriotious.