Diet?

[Nifft]

Btw, no offense to anyone here, but ignore all the low carb nonsense. Your body must have carbs, they are its primary source of energy.

As it turns out, my body does quite well without the carbs.

Energy can also come from fat (efficently) or protein (not so great).

The prefered source of energy for a fat dude's body should be, of course, his own fat. Atkins makes this so, at least in my experience.

But yeah, whatever works for you.

-- N

 

[Justin]

As it turns out, my body does quite well without the carbs.

Energy can also come from fat (efficently) or protein (not so great).

The prefered source of energy for a fat dude's body should be, of course, his own fat. Atkins makes this so, at least in my experience.

But yeah, whatever works for you.

-- N

That's why I said "primary" source of energy.

And you're absolutely correct that you want the body to use stored fat for energy when trying to lose fat. However, that does not mean that you should cut down carbs to absurdly low amounts. Just have a net calorie deficit each day and you'll lose weight, but aim for 40-60% of your calories from carbs. I generally aim for a 50/30/20% ratio of carbs/protein/fat in my diet (in calories, not grams), modifying that slightly depending on various factors and goals, but it works incredibly well.

 

[megamania]

Really it's all about moderation. BALANCE of food types, excercise and the proper mental outlook.

No one plan will work. One will work for a while. Then when you plateau (no improvement) it requires a new plan.

Consult your doctors and dietricians. They have a better sence of what is required.

 

[Brain]

This is precisely what I did three and a half years ago. I lost about 50 pounds in 6 months,
dropped my cholesterol from 292 to 180 (it's under 160 now with a ratio of just under 2) and
I've never looked back. Now, eating healthy is easier for me than eating junk and I can't
fathom filling my body with the kind of garbage I used to, living on Burger King and Wendy's.
Makes me ill just thinking about it.

Just seeing the changes in my body at the time got me even more motivated, a self-reinforcing cycle.

So, let me reiterate my main point: DON'T DIET, MAKE IT A LIFESTYLE CHANGE!

I agree with Justin's point here. A "diet" is something that ends, in the common vernacular. Then when the diet ends, one goes back to their previous, and regains weight. I recommend a lifestyle change that includes counting calories, a fairly balanced, low-fat diet, and becoming more active (excersize and just plain getting up and walking around).

I'll toss my success story in the ring as well. I was 330 lbs. a year ago, now I'm 220 and feeling great.

 

[Justin]

I agree with Justin's point here. A "diet" is something that ends, in the common vernacular. Then when the diet ends, one goes back to their previous, and regains weight. I recommend a lifestyle change that includes counting calories, a fairly balanced, low-fat diet, and becoming more active (excersize and just plain getting up and walking around).

I'll toss my success story in the ring as well. I was 330 lbs. a year ago, now I'm 220 and feeling great.

33% body weight loss is amazing. Congratulations!

I would like to add one other tip that I wish I'd known when I first started. If you want to try to specifically lose fat and minimize lean mass loss, eat your maintenance calories and create the calorie deficit through moderate-level cardio. So if you need to eat 2500 calories to maintain your current weight, eat 2500 and exercise to burn more, thereby creating the deficit. You can use http://www.dietitian.com/ibw/ibw.html to calculate your maintenance calories.

Btw, if you didn't already know this, 3500 calories = 1 pound, so if you can burn, say, about 500 calories per day beyond your maintenance level, you'd lose a pound a week.

EDIT: Corrected the math.

 

[Bront]

Forget South Beach. Forget Atkins. Don't diet! Make it a lifestyle change. Learn how to
eat healthy, watch calories and exercise, both weights and cardio. Talk with a Registered
Dietitian. That helped me immensely!

So, let me reiterate my main point: DON'T DIET, MAKE IT A LIFESTYLE CHANGE!

South Beach is actualy an adjusted carb diet that's only initialy low carb (First 2 weeks) if done correctly. After that, you work the better carbs back into your diet slowly so you find out which carbs work well in your diet. And it is ultimately more of a lifestyle change if done right (Which is what I tried to do earlier). When I say I fell off of it when I lost my job, I started regularly snacking on candy again and other bad things again as comfort food, wasn't walking as much (I walked 30 min plus a day to, from, and durring work), and was unable to afford to keep eating mostly leaner meats and better carbs all the time.

I liked the South Beach because I wasn't counting anything. Durring the first 2 weeks (where I lost 25 pounds), I actualy increased my calorie intake a bit. I just ate better things like nuts and chease instead of candy, and would order the salads at McDonnalds instead of chicken nuggets and fries. Eventualy, to fill my sweet tooth, I found some sugar free candy that I used as the occasional desert (Russel Stover makes some great stuff). I droped to diet soda (which I still drink almost exclusively).

As the diet went on, I found I needed to snack less. (There are 2 built in snacks in the diet) and my food intake slowly went down as I simply started to need to eat less food to be satisfied. When I worked carbs back in, my diet became quite broad, but still avoiding regularly consuming the uglier fast food items on a regular basis. I was a huge pizza fan and found I could still have it on occasion without screwing up my diet (usually cheese or spinach pizza, depending on if it was thin crust or stuffed, avoiding pan or deep dish for the more bready crusts). Several people at work started the diet after me, and I was their hero for all the weight I lost. So loosing that support group (And having my GF out of town for 2 weeks when it happened) didn't help either.

My big problem is eating at work. I need to figure out things to either bring to work (I'm never good at that) or order from the few places open over night (There are some good salads and healthier alternitives out there, just need to look). Stock up on penuts instead of chips or candy (Not the best, but better than the alternitives). The biggest help was I had protine shakes I'd drink on the way to work instead of a breakfast, but those are expensive.

Thanks for the responses so far. I appreciate the support

 

[Nifft]

The way I understand the low-carb thing is that, given a traditional 1st world diet, your body has such a surplus of carbs that it no longer needs to digest fat to get energy. Your body stops producing the lipid-digesting enzymes it would need to convert fat into blood sugar (ATP etc.)

So, your body starts using hunger as its blood-sugar monitoring system. Whenever your blood sugar goes too low, you get the urge to snack.

This is inefficient -- it takes a little while for freshly eaten food to turn into blood sugar, and there's a good chance you will over-snack beyond what your body originally was "asking" for -- and any excess gets turned into fat you will never digest.

Atkins, and other low-carb diets, make you ravenously hungry for 2-3 days (up to a week I think) because your body stubbornly clings to the "hunger" method for blood-sugar regulation before giving up and making lipolyzing enzymes. Once lipolysis (digestion of fat) starts, your body has a ready supply on hand -- your own big fat butt! -- and it digs in with gusto. Hunger goes way down, because there's a steady supply of blood-sugar coming in, and you are better able to eat what you actually need.

There are probably lots of other ways to thin down, but if your body is no longer even looking at fat as a source of energy, low-carb can help jump-start that process. Doctors have urine tests that can tell you if you are producing lipid-digestion enzymes.

I'm sure it's possible to lose weight while staying hungry, but IMHO being hungry sucks, and I would not be a happy camper if I had to feel hungry all the time.

-- N

 

[Bront]

That's the point of the first 2 weeks of the South Beach diet, is to clean out and reset your system to work naturaly by processing your internal fat for energy.

It's also why you have 2 planned snacks, so you don't stay hungry all day, because hunger is the diet killer (Sounds like a Mentat saying)

 

[Videssian]

Lots of good information has been posted above. You also might want to try the CRON approach (Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition).. lots of good info out there, but the key is why not gain some additional young years and avoid disease and all the rest of it along with your weight loss? It's more hassle, does take more care.. but might also be worth said hassle.

I plan on starting that myself a week from now, ease into it, all that.. I may even do a blog like some others I read (such as http://www.mprize.org/blogs/ and http://www.crdiary.blogspot.com/ )

(also see http://www.calorierestriction.org/ )

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I'm currently on the Coffee, Crackers and single meal diet: Two cups of coffee for breakfast, two servings of crackers for lunch, and a lean cuisine and/or salad as dinner.