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That means no Currys, which is the hardest of all, ive stopped eatig junk food and drinking fizzy drinks for over 5 months now, so Im looking on the up.
Any one else here dieting ? Or have been successful on a diet ?
..lose the first 25kg and you can go back to smoking
[edited by: lawman at 12:06 pm (utc) on Jan. 5, 2009]
Maybe it could've been easier with the smoking, but then again, I really felt the difference in my lungs and that was a nice change. Of course, once I had that covered, I instantly got a pack and started again - hasn't changed the weight (at least not that I noticed a connection). It's probably just that I don't have a clue about those things and so they don't really work on me ;)
That means no Currys
I couldn't live without curry - but if you make your own I think it can be quite a healthy meal. We have a homemade curry every week. If you use lean meat/chicken, or chickpeas/lentils and pack it with veg, use little or no oil, some ready made curry paste or powder, or even better make your own, I think it's quite nutritious.
I've converted to brown basmati rice which is actually quite tasty and good for you. Serve with low fat yogurt (cucumber chunks optional) on the side.
Delicious!
If you do have to have a takeaway (and we all need one sometimes!) Chicken tikka with salad and chapattis is a good choice.
by cutting my calorie intake down to around 1000 - 1200 a day.
Realistically you will never succeed in doing that for a year.
If I were you I would try more for 1500 to 1700 a day, and changing your diet to a "long term" healthy option.
Forget the fancy diets (grapefruit or protein only or...) and get onto a healthy choice of foods for the long term.
Yes, if you want curries make your own curries from raw original materials - you know what has gone into them that way.
The secret is as much in keeping quality up, as keeping quantity down. And like it or not, you need to change your diet to something that is not just for 2009, but for the next "n" years!
I've learned that exercise doesn't do much for weight control. It's pretty much how much you eat and what you eat that puts on the weight or takes it off. Lots of good reasons for exercise, but weight control is not one of them.
Wake up, go to work, eat my first small meal (less than 200 kcal) at around 2-3.00pm and, at 7-8pm, eat a lot 'cause I was hungry.
I can safely say that this is not the way to go :)
I then switched to eating 5-6 times a day (every 3 hours roughly) and going to the gym. I lost all my excess kg in a week or two and have been stable since then, even when I stopped going to the gym for 3 months after the summer hols. I haven't been this "light" since I was 18 and I am never hungry and therefore cut the snacks and chocolate bars I use to enjoy too much of.
I've learned that exercise doesn't do much for weight control. It's pretty much how much you eat and what you eat that puts on the weight or takes it off. Lots of good reasons for exercise, but weight control is not one of them.
There you have it !
The other thing I do (I am someone who struggled with weight for years) is to weigh myself WITHOUT FAIL on the 1st of each month. That way you can head off weight gains before they become really serious.
I bought myself one of those accurate, state of the art scales which record weight, fat, muscle mass, water content..it even tells you your "body age" compared to your "real age". You cannot cheat with this machine
By the way for those readers that do not comprehend that you have put on 5 stones, that is 70lbs or 32 kilos in international currency. A not, if I might say so, inconsiderable weight gain.
And as a further educational note for our international audience (I don't think even our ever vigilant moderator can take exception to this), Wikipedia does not define "Essex Boy" which i am sure you know, but does define "Essex Girl"
Essex girl" is a pejorative term used in the United Kingdom, to imply someone is a stereotypically promiscuous, blond, unintelligent woman from Essex.It stops short of saying they are fat, but the implication is there ;)
Since October 2008 I somehow got off track :( and regained 10 pounds. So, now I'm back at it to lose that 10 pounds and an additional 30 pounds by years end.
I then switched to eating 5-6 times a day (every 3 hours roughly) and going to the gym. I lost all my excess kg in a week or two and have been stable since then, even when I stopped going to the gym for 3 months after the summer hols. I haven't been this "light" since I was 18 and I am never hungry and therefore cut the snacks and chocolate bars I use to enjoy too much of.
This is right on the money, which I had to pay a professional nutritionist to discover. "If you are hungry, then something is wrong. It's not just that being hungry is no fun, but if you are hungry, you body is going to start burning the wrong kind of proteins. And you will not lose weight nor will you gain muscle mass," she explained.
But, it matters what you eat. Refined sugars, not good. Blah, blah. You know the drill. But, for those between meal snacks, she had only one word: almonds. Dry roasted, low salt (not no salt, unless you just want to punish yourself). A touch of hunger? Have a small handful. And, I hear there is an almond gut right now, too.
Calorie counting is the way to go for the first six month. You have to educate yourself. The web is a wonderful tool in this regard. In the US, I used "caloriecount" at About.com. (It's hard to find, but it's still there--I just checked.)
Note to others: At first the pounds melt off, then the body adapts and you really have to stick to it. It's slow going. It takes a high integrity person to keep on keeping on. Gets discouraging. And boring, quite frankly. No one talks about how boring it can be. (What is there to say about boring, eh?)
Or have been successful on a diet?
35 lbs, 4 months, Wii Fit. Case closed. :-)
You can eat all you want. Just eat more rice and vegetables. Eat meats, just leaner cuts. And do not eat after 6 PM. This is very important.
Cutting out the junk was hard, I was a hardcore Pepsi junkie, like . . . two 2-liter jugs a week. I weaned myself off onto water. That was the hard part, so you're right in cutting out the junk. Makes a big difference.
The Wii fit makes it more rewarding because you can see the change, measure it daily. I'm down to a few small handfuls now, I float up and down a pound or two but have reached "the zone" so am not too concerned.
So I'm not dieting as I'm actually more hungry burning a thousand calories on a machine. Moderate exercise and moderate crap intake means better fitness in my opinion.
exercise doesn't do much for weight control
I'm not sure that's entirely true, it's just that we live such sedentary lives now that 30 minutes exercise now and then doesn't have much impact. If you look at history, people actually ate more calories say 50 years ago than we do now, but they burned off massive amounts in hard physical labour.
In this day and age I think not having/using a car helps keep your weight down, but I know that's not practical for everyone.
... you body is going to start burning the wrong kind of proteins.
Also if you don't eat regularly and get hungry often, your body will compensate and store food and build fat for next time you should have eaten but didn't. What an amazing machine our body is.
Before I started my 'diet' I read a lot on the web. Different food groups, what you need to build lean muscle etc... Looking at the bodybuilding tips and diet on about.com is a great way to learn about your recommended daily carbs, proteins, fat and water intakes.
30 minutes exercise now and then doesn't have much impact
I start to worry that he is back onto intravenous curry every hour on the hour every hour, and has put on another 10 pounds since the thread began.
exercise doesn't do much for weight control
Common sense suggests that using more calories must help lose weight. It is good for your health in any case. I have started going for walks recently, now I live in a town where walking is tolerable.
Here is a explanation that looks plausible that I have found
Every mile walked or run burns 100 calories more or less. Another way to look at it is every half hour of brisk activity burns about 300 or so calories, depending on how much you weigh now and how vigorous the activity is.If you increase your activity by 500 calories a day and do not increase your eating, you will lose 3500 calories a week, the equivalent of 1 pound. Alternatively, if you reduce your eating by 250 calories per day and increase your activity by 250 calories, it’s still a net loss of 500 calories per day or 1 pound per week.
That is suggesting nearly an hour a day of "brisk exercise" to loose 1lb a week or reduce your calorie intake by 500 calories a day for the same 1lb a week weight loss, or mix and match in between.
The problem with an hours worth of brisk exercise a day is that it will give you a very brisk appetite, and the risk of undoing all that good work
IMO a weight loss program is only half the work, exercise is the other half. If nothing else, vigorous aerobics will accelerate weight loss like nothing else.
