Let's be honest: A large percentage of us (myself included) could stand to lose a few pounds, about 1/3 of Americans are considered obese and another 1/3 are considered overweight but not obese. Now is probably the best time to do it, before Thursday night football's inevitable wings and beer, the tailgating, the chili, more beer. This isn't meant to be adverstisement for any diet books or apps or whatever, but if anyone has had some success in losing a bit of bulk and have any suggestions on how to get rid of the old spare tire please share them here. I'm about 10-15lbs over the healthy weight for my height. Not a terrible amount but I don't want it to get any worse. For now the only things I'm really doing is cutting out junk food and snacks and I have an app that counts the calories (and other nutritional information) of the food that you take in and the calories you burn in the activities you do (i.e. exercising, just walking around, taking the stairs instead of elevator at work, etc.). Trying to stay in the black. Also exercising more but mostly it's just walking, taking the stairs at work, etc. I have an office desk job so my exercising during the day is pretty limited. I've never really done any kind of specific diet or even paid much attention to my weight, let alone set a target that I'm aiming to obtain. If anyone has any advice (other than "put down the fork") for me or others in the same boat please post it here.
I can use some of the tips here as well. 275 LBS and 5'11'' I didn't try any major diet before. Age is 34 I am fond of meat and beer. I can cut on anything else. PLEASE HELP!!!
well first I recommend not calling eating/drinking a bunch of high-fat, high cholesterol, high sodium and high carb beverages inevitable. that's the wrong attitude
Rule #1, DO NOT Eat food that have Carbs before bed. Do not eat foods like bread, crackers, pretzels, etc before you sleep. Eat meat before you sleep, it digests ALOT quicker and doesnt turn into fat like Carbs do Rule #2 Cut out the soda, beer, everything. This is the hard part imo. I went a year basically just drinking water, recenty though I have been drinking diet soda because its 0 calories. Its definately unhealthy but it will help you get through the day if you dont want water. Rule #3, Take out 1 food or snack from your diet that you eat everyday, like if you eat a hotdog everyday, replace it with something like grilled chicken. Just take a snack out of your diet you eat everday. I was never "fat" though, I bodybuild and just had to lower my bodyfat percentage so I used these 3 rules. And exercise to, I have a passion to workout so its easy for me. Im not gunna lie its not easy to get to the gym because I remember a few years back it was hard to get to the gym twice a week.
The first thing to remember is that you're dealing with life habits that were years in the making, so they're going to take some time to undo. Those 10-15 lbs. didn't show up in a week or a month, so don't expect any fix to get rid of it in a week or a month. Because even if you lose the 10-15 lbs. quickly, without addressing the little life habits that introduced those pounds in the first place, they'll show up again. Taking the stairs at work is a good example. Ditching the "unplanned" snacks/meals is also helpful... the calorie counter helps. Overall, it's a pretty simple equation: If calories out are greater than calories in, you'll lose weight. Eat healthy foods to control calories in. Exercise to boost calories out. Weight training/adding muscle will increase your basal metabolism. High-intensity interval training will burn a lot of calories for a longer period than regular cardio (and it only takes 20 minutes). Eating the right foods also controls calories out, counter-intuitively. A calorie is not just a calorie. Mess with your blood sugar the wrong way, and your body will be predisposed to store incoming carbs as fat. In 2004, I was 28 and feeling pretty heavy... 5'11" and 204 lbs. Way out of shape. Smoker. Etc. I didn't do anything super-drastic. I just decided I didn't want to be a fat slob... so I quit smoking. Stopped eating at McDonald's. I started running or biking in the evenings. I parked on the far side of the parking lot at school and the office. Took the stairs instead of the elevator. The excess weight disappeared over the course of six months... right back to my high school weight of 170. I still drank beer. I still ate steak. I still ate cookies. I just didn't do that stuff all the time anymore.
All very good tips. I'm definitely guilty of the first two and to a lesser degree the third rule. I don't eat carbs before bed consistently but I'll have the odd PB&J or cookies and milk at like 9pm, so I'm going to quit that outright. My dad lost like 10lbs by cutting out the late night tea and cookies and just smaller dinner portions. For the second one I do drink water almost exclusively during the day, I'll have to odd juice more for vitamins than anything else. The only time I drink soda is when it's mixed with alcohol and beer is going to be hard to give up entirely. I don't want to give the impression that I'm an alcoholic but I'd say I have at least a few alcoholic drinks per week (say, four). Is wine okay? I'm sure it's better not to drink it but compared to the other options? I think my lunch habits need the most work for the third rule. I'll usually have at least one of a pudding (snack pack) and/or peperette. I do eat a good amount of fruit, but I think I'm going to replace stuff like that with something healthier. I have a friend at work who eats quinoa (similar to couscous, I think) like every day for lunch. She says it's a good lunch food, low in calories high in protein and fibre. Might try that out as well. Anyone had good (or bad) luck with certain foods? Certain exercises?
There's no magic bullet that works for everyone. Most important is that you find something you like. Maybe it's playing basketball in a league. Maybe it's playing golf. Or lifting weights. Maybe you prefer to mix it up. Whatever... just find what works for you. I like running far more than biking, but will still bike on occasion. And I enjoy lifting weights, playing golf, and the occasional tennis match. That works for me. My wife prefers swimming and yoga. That works for her. Same goes for eating. Don't force yourself to eat bluefish and beet salad because they're healthy if you absolutely hate those foods. That's a recipe for disaster. Find healthy foods/recipes that you like, and you'll be less likely to give up. Look up Michi's Ladder. Eat more from the top tiers than the bottom, and you'll be fine. In fact, you probably don't even need to look up the ladder... I'm sure most of it will seem like common sense. e.g. eat lots of fruits and vegetables and lean meat, go easy on the processed foods and sugary stuff.
You need to be in a caloric defecit to lose weight. Use a calorie calculator to find out how much you should be intaking everyday. http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm Doing 20 minutes of cardio a day will go a long way to. You dont need to overkill it either, like I remember when I wanted to lose like 15 lbs, so I did 2 hours of cardio a day, it was complete overkill but it worked. Just do 20, and in 2-3 months you can easily lose the 15.
Okay, thanks Cappy. Some good advice in both your posts here. Looking up that Michi's ladder and looked at tier 1 and was like "okay, I can do this" and then saw tier 5 and was like "aww man, that sounds good" haha So still got some work to do, habits to break but I think I can do it. There are a lot of healthy foods that I do enjoy, so I think I have a leg up on some people who just hate anything healthy. The important thing is just going to be avoiding (or at least minimizing) how much stuff off the last tier I eat.
Definitely minimize the last tier. Don't try to avoid it completely; you'll drive yourself crazy. Just give yourself a time to eat off of that tier and don't go nuts. For example, I have pizza on Fridays. Fuck yeah, I love pizza. But I keep it to Fridays, and I don't eat six slices when I do have it. Had some buffalo wings and a burger on Saturday, too. But Sunday through Thursday, I eat pretty damn healthy. It's not the weekend pizza that kills you. It's the 1-2 cookies or 5-10 potato chips or 2-3 sodas you take in EVERY DAY that does the damage.
Live by Matthew McConaughey's rule of life, "sweat everyday." Seems to work just fine for him! Also... I think that it's far easier to set an exercise goal and then lose weight by default than it is to just "lose weight." Pick a race in September and train for it. Or an obstacle course challenge... something with a specific day that you HAVE to be ready for. If you work until then to be ready, you will have worked long enough to make it a habit.
That's a good tip as well. I was actually hoping to run in a 5k zombie apocalypse obstacle course in my hometown this September but I found out I'm going to be out of town on the date of the race itself. I was only really interested in it because of the fun of it being an obstacle course and zombie themed, so unless there is something else similar to that in my area I don't think I would be motivated to do it.
This. Losing weight is simple math. Other good calorie counting websites are myfitnesspal.com and fitday.com. I use myfitnesspal to log everything I eat while I'm cutting. Wonderful resource.
As I mentioned above, though, the math isn't quite THAT simple. Yes, you need a net caloric deficit. More calories used than taken in. That part is simple. But in terms of accounting for how the number and type of calories you take in affect the calories burned... that's a little trickier to figure out.
Nothing wrong with meat, beer you definitely gotta go in moderation though. I eat an obscene amount of meat, and it works well. Stuff like ground Bison (its like beef, except leaner + healthier) you can buy in most supermarkets (at least on long island). I eat burgers almost everyday, just throw it on a whole grain roll and cut out the high calorie cheese. Fried chicken one of my favorite foods, but instead of frying it and having a bajillion calories. Egg wash > whole grain bread crumbs > sit in fridge 30 minutes > on the bbq. Taste fucking AMAZING (smokey grilly flavor on fried chicken wow) and is way way way lower in calories/bad shit. Home made sweet potato fries, another uber healthy delicious snack. Peanut butter, nuts (pistachios are actually one of the lowest cal nuts) all easy easy ways to include good healthy calories. Hell eggs are TREMENDOUS to lose weight. I eat 4-6 dozen a week every week. All the shit about "eggs raise your cholesterol wah wah wah" are old wives tales. Just like the stupid nonsense people believe that if you "eat simple carbs before you go to bed they turn to fat" If you eat simple carbs first thing in the morning or last thing at night theres no god damn difference. Losing weight doesnt have to suck, you just need to get creative and find delicious shit thats healthy. Reason most people fail at losing weight is cuz they go out and eat like Kashi and fucking oak bark all kinds of shit that taste like asshole. Go get a hunk of delicious meat and make fresh sweet potatos, youll be amazed.
And http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny_grok/phoenix_theory comes to mind as a great article to get the spark burning a little
It's simple, really. If you want to lose weight, aim for NO MORE than 1 pound per week. Consume 500 less calories than you burn per day, and make sure you get at least 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight. If you want to promote fat loss (and have a whole host of other health benefits), I'd recommend taking multivitamins (Orange Triad combines a multivitamins, glucosamine for joint pain, and an immune formula), lecithin, OxyElitePro, and Fish Oil. Somewhere in a thread I posted in, I mentioned why I take all of these and what they do. If you search long enough, you'll probably find it. Also, I would recommend doing 16/8 intermittent fasting. It promotes fat loss, and is a great way to curb your appetite. For info on it, I'd recommend looking up "LeanGains".
