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Help me lose weight
- Thread starter Zander
- Start date
smootrk
First Post
A lesson in psychology as it pertains to weight loss.
If you relate the process of weight loss to negetive things, the whole endeavor will be harder to accomplish. (ie. Weight loss = loss of certain likable food, painful exercise, small portions etc).
You must endeavor to create rewards for every little positive stride you make. And the most productive rewards are those that also include a healthy lifestyle. If you lose a pound or two, reward yourself with a trip to the zoo, or a leisure bicycle ride (not painful), or even the purchase of an item that will contribute to a healthy lifestyle (like new hiking shoes, or a camelback (water backpack) that you will use on your next healthy excursion.
Do not... do not... punish yourself for backsliding (or otherwise equate a painful/stressful process). The posts that say do pushups/exercises everytime a certain thing happens are a recipe for failure. Training your mind to love and enjoy a healthier lifestyle is the only way to achieve lasting health.... The process may be a bit slower than a fast diet change or exercise binge but the results will last your lifetime.
If you relate the process of weight loss to negetive things, the whole endeavor will be harder to accomplish. (ie. Weight loss = loss of certain likable food, painful exercise, small portions etc).
You must endeavor to create rewards for every little positive stride you make. And the most productive rewards are those that also include a healthy lifestyle. If you lose a pound or two, reward yourself with a trip to the zoo, or a leisure bicycle ride (not painful), or even the purchase of an item that will contribute to a healthy lifestyle (like new hiking shoes, or a camelback (water backpack) that you will use on your next healthy excursion.
Do not... do not... punish yourself for backsliding (or otherwise equate a painful/stressful process). The posts that say do pushups/exercises everytime a certain thing happens are a recipe for failure. Training your mind to love and enjoy a healthier lifestyle is the only way to achieve lasting health.... The process may be a bit slower than a fast diet change or exercise binge but the results will last your lifetime.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Ampolitor said:
This whole idea of 'toxins' in the diet is generally a bunch of hooey you see in health food stores. Green Tea may taste yummy and have a decent amount of vitamins in it, but it's nothing special.
And that's completely false. Most diet sodas have 0 calories and at most 1 or 2% of your daily intake of sodium. Many diet sodas have no sodium at all. It's a myth that diet soda is bad for you when you're dieting.
Diet soda has literally no impact on your diet unless you're drinking liters of it per day over a prolonged period of time (in which case it might impact your kidneys in the long term due to the caramel color used in darker sodas. However you'd be 100 times worse off if it was regular soda you were drinking, or even tap water in many areas).
I personally lost 50lbs in under a year and have kept it off for around 7 years now. What you eat and how much you eat doesn't matter, just your caloric intake and how many calories you use per day in terms of activity. That's it. There's no magic about certain foods etc. Any diet can conceivably work, but some may be easier to handle, or keep you less hungry (Atkins type diets tends to make you full faster but can also raise cholesterol depending on what you're eating).
Caffeine is neither good nor bad. Caffeine by itself increases fatty acid metabolism, this isn't up for debate. Recently there are slight indications that in some people it may increase insulin resistance. However the jury is still out on this one, and it's a single study that in some ways contradicts several other previous studies that I've seen. That study also used pure caffeine and not caffeine in coffee or tea where it would be mixed with other compounds, may of which are healthy in and of themselves as well.
And for an anecdote: I'm on about 4-6 shots of espresso a day and it's not hurting me.
Water is pushed around a lot, but it won't do much besides maybe trick your body into thinking its not as hungry. There's also a lot of myths about how the average person doesn't get enough water, or people are chronically dehydrated, etc etc and that's all complete bunk. It can't hurt you in normal amounts, though every year a few people die of drinking too much water in a given period of time, but that's very VERY rare. If you're doing a lot of exercise however, it's good to replenish what you lose by perspiration.
I'm surprised nobody has said this, lift. Lifting is extremely important, otherwise you could just get into yo-yo dieting. Even if it's once a week, do a full body lifting session. Why? When you're done dieting and return to your normal eating habits, there's the possibility of putting the weight back on, unless you plan on keeping these new eating habits. Building lean muscle mass will prevent that because it will raises your metabolism and burns 50 calories per pound of muscle mass. It will tighten up your body, making it look leaner, and preventing any sagging skin that may come with weight loss. Their have been some published reports that lifting is better than aerobic exercise in terms of weight loss.
Don't give up on milk, just have it with say two meals a day. Eat in smaller portions, about every 3 hours have some sort of snack, and cut out big meals. Research has shown that only eating a little bit every three meals improves your metabolism. Don't completely stop eating anything, that's a diet prone to fail, just have a little bit of it when a craving hits.
When you walk 3-4 miles try to jog a little bit. Jog a few blocks, then keep walking. You don't even need to get sweaty or anything, just raise your heartrate.
Don't just weigh yourself, especially if you start lifting. Get a body fat analyzer, and concentrate on body fat percentage. Doing karate even could cause muscle gain. Rate how well you're doing by a decrease in body fat percentage, not the scale, they can be misleading.
Finally, keep with it. Rain or snow, you just have to keep on doing it. Set goals for yourself, or do stuff with other people to keep you going. It's hard to not go to the gym or the park or whereever when someone else is waiting on you to pick them up. When I was in high school I started working out (met a really cool girl), lost 100 lbs in a year, and for about a three year period hit the gym at least 330 days out of the year. Being in shape and healthy is the best feeling thing in the world. I hit a goal of a four mile run in under thirty minutes in the park yesterday and the feeling of acheivement was awesome. I feel sorry for the guy who doesn't want to lose weight because it's not "him". He seems to be in denial, and doesn't realize just how great it feels to be in shape and active. The best of luck to you.
Don't give up on milk, just have it with say two meals a day. Eat in smaller portions, about every 3 hours have some sort of snack, and cut out big meals. Research has shown that only eating a little bit every three meals improves your metabolism. Don't completely stop eating anything, that's a diet prone to fail, just have a little bit of it when a craving hits.
When you walk 3-4 miles try to jog a little bit. Jog a few blocks, then keep walking. You don't even need to get sweaty or anything, just raise your heartrate.
Don't just weigh yourself, especially if you start lifting. Get a body fat analyzer, and concentrate on body fat percentage. Doing karate even could cause muscle gain. Rate how well you're doing by a decrease in body fat percentage, not the scale, they can be misleading.
Finally, keep with it. Rain or snow, you just have to keep on doing it. Set goals for yourself, or do stuff with other people to keep you going. It's hard to not go to the gym or the park or whereever when someone else is waiting on you to pick them up. When I was in high school I started working out (met a really cool girl), lost 100 lbs in a year, and for about a three year period hit the gym at least 330 days out of the year. Being in shape and healthy is the best feeling thing in the world. I hit a goal of a four mile run in under thirty minutes in the park yesterday and the feeling of acheivement was awesome. I feel sorry for the guy who doesn't want to lose weight because it's not "him". He seems to be in denial, and doesn't realize just how great it feels to be in shape and active. The best of luck to you.
Zander said:
I researched this at the beginning of the year. The most logical approach I found has been talked about here, some, but entails a lifestyle change and losing no more than 3-4 lbs per month (about a pound a week). This prevents your body from going into 'fast' mode where you retain your fat stores, and the food/activity change is gradual enough that you don't even really notice it.
I have a whole program I constructed from various health sources. My goals may be different from yours, but the long and short of it was:
1 - Figure out your ideal body weight (YOURS, not a generic person of your height)
2 - Figure out your metabolism (again, your particular rate of burning calories - taking any planned regular physical activity into account.)
Once you know these two, and given the amount of energy needed to burn a pound of fat, you can then:
3 - Build a weekly 'menu' that includes enough calories per day to maintain your current weight minus 1 pound and ensure that it's balanced between Protein, Fat, and Carbs (there's a formula out there)
4 - Include an 'activity' plan to keep your metabolism at the rate you need it to be to sustain weight loss.
5 - Stick to it.
I built a menu and a variety of regular exercise that rolls over every month to ensure I don't get bored. Since the first of the year, I'm meeting all of my goals.
What's interesting is that when I built my plan above, I found that I wasn't eating enough food on a regular basis throughout the day to prevent being ravenous at dinner. I was skipping breakfast, eating a light lunch, a bad snack then gorging for dinner. Contrary to what many have said here, what I found in research and over the last three months for myself was that if I eat about six small meals per day, then I'm almost never hungry. And water. Lots of water. Flushes out the system, keeps your metabolism going, and if you're increasing your physical activity, lack of water can actually harm your body more than not exercising at all.
Edit: Oh! And on what Bryan said -- Figure out your fat to muscle ratio in step one above. And continue to track it every month or so. Once you get that ratio to where you want it, you don't care about losing weight any more. Then you have to decide if you want to continue to accumulate muscle mass or hold steady. The beauty of the system above is that you know how your body is working and you can mold it to your goals by adjusting food/activity levels. Anyway...good point Bryan...
Good luck!
Last edited:
Just to be different:
I drink a lot of milk, always skim, often chocolate skim milk. I find it works much better as an appetite suppresant than just water. And having drunk skim milk for the past several years, I find that I don't like whole milk - the extra fat is very noticeable and not particularly appetizing (to me). Plus recent research has shown that drinking milk regularly helps some people lose weight - probably because they then eat less, but I don't know the details.
Drinking fluids is important, but keep in mind that you can get your 8 8-oz glasses of water from a variety of sources. Fresh fruit, for instance. Milk. Kool-aid (sugar free). Or just plain water. The important thing is to remain properly hydrated - not too much, not too little. BTW - "yuk" note for the day: if your urine is a deep yellow, you probably aren't drinking enough fluids. And no, alcohol doesn't count!
Also, one reason most folks don't eat enough fruits and vegetables - on a per calorie basis, those two items tend to be very expensive compared to junk food. That's unfortunate, but keep it in mind when shopping - it's probably worth the few extra bucks to get the good stuff, even if it doesn't seem like a bargain.
Most important, we can already see in this thread that what works for one person fails for another. I dropped some weight a couple years ago and I've kept it off primarily by not eating out very often and working out every day, even if it's just half an hour on the stationary bike or 15 minutes with free weights. For me, getting exercise is the most important element, and I try to work out for an hour a day - but any amount of exercise makes a difference. For others, it will be dropping certain food groups, or portion control, or drinking milk, or not drinking milk, or...you get the idea.
Just find out what works for you, what you can stick with long-term, and enjoy the change.
I drink a lot of milk, always skim, often chocolate skim milk. I find it works much better as an appetite suppresant than just water. And having drunk skim milk for the past several years, I find that I don't like whole milk - the extra fat is very noticeable and not particularly appetizing (to me). Plus recent research has shown that drinking milk regularly helps some people lose weight - probably because they then eat less, but I don't know the details.
Drinking fluids is important, but keep in mind that you can get your 8 8-oz glasses of water from a variety of sources. Fresh fruit, for instance. Milk. Kool-aid (sugar free). Or just plain water. The important thing is to remain properly hydrated - not too much, not too little. BTW - "yuk" note for the day: if your urine is a deep yellow, you probably aren't drinking enough fluids. And no, alcohol doesn't count!
Also, one reason most folks don't eat enough fruits and vegetables - on a per calorie basis, those two items tend to be very expensive compared to junk food. That's unfortunate, but keep it in mind when shopping - it's probably worth the few extra bucks to get the good stuff, even if it doesn't seem like a bargain.
Most important, we can already see in this thread that what works for one person fails for another. I dropped some weight a couple years ago and I've kept it off primarily by not eating out very often and working out every day, even if it's just half an hour on the stationary bike or 15 minutes with free weights. For me, getting exercise is the most important element, and I try to work out for an hour a day - but any amount of exercise makes a difference. For others, it will be dropping certain food groups, or portion control, or drinking milk, or not drinking milk, or...you get the idea.
Just find out what works for you, what you can stick with long-term, and enjoy the change.
