Help me lose weight

[DaveMage]

Here's what has worked for me:

1) Eliminate desserts/sweets and eliminate fast food (McDonalds, etc.).
2) Do not eat anything after dinner
3) Eat smaller meals (reduced portions)
4) For snacks, stick to healthy foods, such as raw baby carrots or fresh fruit

You can also work on increasing your body's metabolism (and thus increase your body's efficiency with burning calories) by eating small healthy snacks throughout the day.

Using the above I lost 40 pounds over 4 months. I also switched to skim milk and my breakfast consists of a bowl of Special K each morning. Otherwise I eat what I want (albeit in small portions).

Good luck!

 

[Darmanicus]

My father tried this rather specialised diet based around vegetable soup and LOTS of it. He lost just shy of 2 stone in roughly as many weeks and then switched to the weight watchers 'points' diet which has sustained him since.

Personally I think exercise is the key, especially if you are at a comfortable weight. Do 1-2 hours/day and you could virtually eat what you liked.

 

[WayneLigon]

A friend of mine who was quite hefty, much more so than I, dropped 115 pounds over two years. I'm trying to follow his example, but the lifestyle change for me is the hardest part. Here's what he did.

Lifestyle change is the most important part. Only a little snacking; preferably none. More veggies and fruits, as little red meat as possible, as little fried food as possible. And more exercise.

Exercise is the most important part; two hours of strenuous exercise a week probably is not nearly enough though the walking will help add on to the benefit the martial arts class gives you. I'm not sure what your martial arts class is like, though. if it's like a school another friend of mine goes to where the instructor is likely to say 'OK, before class, what say we jog a mile or two?', it might be OK.

My friend does walking when the weather is nice and treadmills when it's not. Every single day. He started slow, 15 minutes or so at first, but he was going from virtually no movement into an exercise program; you have to start slow. More than 2 years later, he's up to 2 hours or more of quick walking.

 

[Trance Fiend]

I try to drink about 9 glasses of water a day, I eat 6 times a day (smaller portions mind you).
Every meal includes a portion of Protein(chicken, turkey, tuna) and a portion of Carbs(the healthy kind...like whole wheat, brown rice, veggies). When ever I get the urge to snack(which is pretty often) I chew on beef jerky and dehydrated fruit. I also lift weights about 4 times a week, and every other day do cardio for about 30 mins.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Water and Milk, drink lots of it.

Allow me to join the pile on against milk.

We've been conditioned by a very successful dairy industry to believe that drinking milk is good for you. Worse actually: we've been conditioned to believe that drinking milk is essential.

It's simply not natural for an adult of any species to drink milk, let alone milk from another animal, let alone milk from another animal that is pumped full of hormones.

But really, common sense should tell you that adult humans can't possibly need to drink cow's milk.

Most adults, in fact, are lactose intolerant.

If you also suffer from allergies, you would be surprised what just cutting milk out of your diet can do for you.

You can get all the calcium your body needs from other sources-- dark green leafy vegetables especially.

 

[Henry]

Uh, milk is extremely fattening. You'd be surprised what moving from whole milk to 1% milk will do for someone. Skim is best, of course, but I still haven't brought myself to drink skim. Looks too much like water to me. We drink 1%.

You know, I've heard this repeatedly from many people, but I always am surprised to hear it. For me, skim, .5%, 1%, 2.5% and whole milk taste and look the exact same to me - my family is on skim, and cook with skim, because my wife nor I have ever noticed a consistency or taste difference. I guess I'm lucky, because it never bothered me.

 

[der_kluge]

You know, I've heard this repeatedly from many people, but I always am surprised to hear it. For me, skim, .5%, 1%, 2.5% and whole milk taste and look the exact same to me - my family is on skim, and cook with skim, because my wife nor I have ever noticed a consistency or taste difference. I guess I'm lucky, because it never bothered me.

I suspect it's largely psychological. My Mom fooled us by pouring 2% into a Vitamin D container and then after doing that for several weeks, pointed out that we'd been drinking 2% (gasp!) for a couple of weeks, and hadn't noticed it in the least.

She also did a similar thing with our aquarium. No, she didn't make us drink the aquarium, but she threatened to remove it. "No! We like the fish!" She removed it anyway, and two weeks went by and she pointed out that there was no more aquarium. It's amazing how oblivious we were in our own home.

 

[WayneLigon]

You know, I've heard this repeatedly from many people, but I always am surprised to hear it. For me, skim, .5%, 1%, 2.5% and whole milk taste and look the exact same to me - my family is on skim, and cook with skim, because my wife nor I have ever noticed a consistency or taste difference. I guess I'm lucky, because it never bothered me.

I cannot tell a difference between whole and 2%. I can tell a slight difference between 1% and 2%. Skim milk is the very secretion of the Devil, though; I can tell if it's been used in baking, with food, etc; yuck.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I cannot tell a difference between whole and 2%. I can tell a slight difference between 1% and 2%. Skim milk is the very secretion of the Devil, though; I can tell if it's been used in baking, with food, etc; yuck.

Skim milk is foul.

The only think more disgusting is powdered milk. When I was a kid (one of seven, so we could go through a gallon of milk on one Saturday morning) my mom would cut corners by buying powdered milk.

There was nothing you could do to salvage the taste of powdered milk-- or to salvage the taste of your Lucky Charms once befouled with that watery sh*t.

These days my milk drinking is pretty much confined to the one remaining essential use of milk in my diet: washing down pancakes. And 1% will do for that.

 

[Allanon]

Another handy tip is to just do 10 pushups and 10 situps whenever you see a post by Crothian. If that doesn't get you in shape nothing will

But seriously, good luck, I have tried the same and only reached half of my goal (6kg instead of 12kg).