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Ive decided to start losing weight


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19 minutes ago, manuelz said:

Allright, installed the fatsecret app (thanks for the tipp @Achim63) - already 1200 calories in, and its just past lunch.. :D guess my dinner is gonna be small :P

The app tells me to go for 2300 calories - should I follow that or just try to go for it for 1-2 weeks aiming for 1500 ?

Remember, every magazine/internet source/tv 'expert' is terrified of being held legally accountable if some 12yr old girl dies from anorexia because of some advice they've heard and taken to the extreme. That's why recommended cals a day is always exaggerated to be on the safe side.

its a bit like, you know when you step into an elevator and it says 'maximum load 1000kg' or something similar? That does not mean if 1001kg of people get on the elevator is going to plunge to a fiery death. In reality it's probably been tested to 2000kg but they're staying safe.

The body is a highly adaptable and resistant beast. 1500 cals a day is FINE for a man. If you're very muscular, it might cause some muscle loss over a long period. But for for anyone else, no problem.

Random anecdote: I once spent an entire week eating one KFC every day. I had one big KFC each day as my sole meal. 'Mighty feast for one,' it's called. It's a big 1410 calorie meal. Had it at around 2pm each day and it would fill me up the whole day.

 But at the end of the week I had lost 1.8kg ?

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So we're talking weight loss - I've got to add to this one ;)

Tried many diets over the years but it always meant avoiding / cutting out / exercising etc. just couldn't keep up - always wanted something I couldn't have!

Watched a Horizon programme in 2012 where a Professor Mike Mosely was talking about calorie restriction - this was before the 5-2 stuff came along - and how it (at least on rats in a lab!) was good for health, and aided weight loss among other things - a biggie was living longer??  The main thing I took from watching was the 'ADF' or Alternate Day Fasting which many in the US were trialing.  This was something which really appealed to me as I didn't have to give anything up, just only eat every other day! 

I started in August of 2012 and within 10 months I had lost a quarter of my starting weight - four and a half stone! - and felt great.  I kept it up as the loss was slowing down and found that I levelled out between eleven and a half and twelve stones (75kg) and it meant I could still eat what I wanted but only every other day.  Difficult if away on business or on holidays etc, but in general that's what I've kept doing.  Simply changed nothing about what I eat whatsoever, just only every other day.

Now in my fourth year and still keeping a steady level.  Had all my numbers done, blood pressure / cholesterol / glucose etc. a few times and they've all been perfect every time.  My BMI (I know this isn't the best measure by far!) is down in the '22's which is a far cry from my starting figure of 30.2!

More and more information is starting to come out about the whole calorie restriction thing and - apart from the supermarkets losing out - it's always a good thing.  The 'ADF' didn't require me to subscribe to anything, or join a group, or spend any additional money on any special ingredients, or buy any books - there was absolutely no down side to it, apart from having to buy smaller clothes, oh, and wrap up a bit warmer in the cold weather as I'd lost my 'natural insulation layer' but I have been a whole lot happier in the summer when I was previously always too hot but now actually love the sunshine :D.  I'm sure I've read that it decreases certain cancer risks and heat related problems (likely to the lower weight but who really knows?) as well as alzheimers.  Makes you more alert (body in 'hunter / gather' mode and all that?  And much more, most of which is far to technical and clever for me to understand!

The upsides are that I have saved 50% on my food bill (just work that one out alone!!! easily covers the cost of my EUC), I look fabulous (according to my girlfriend at least?) and all my health measurements are more than just 'in the green'.  The best thing, as has been previously mentioned - more importantly a lifestyle change than just a temporary diet - is that it's easy (at least for me?) to continue into the forseable future :P did I say how easy it was - only eat every other day?

I know we're all different, and this wouldn't be for everyone, but I thought I'd share my experience (at least over the last three and a half years) of managing my weight very easily and without cost.

Sorry for the long post, and if I've upset anybody in the diet industry for giving away a secret they just don't want you to know.

Cheers, Richard.

 

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How do you go a whole day without eating though ?

I find if I skip breakfast (I get up at 5am), I can normally last until about lunch time, but am by that point hungry enough to eat anything insight ! Which is then counter productive as I generally do.....

Do you just drink water/liquid on the days off ?

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11 hours ago, manuelz said:

I'm in! Just don't know how yet ... taking the 5 points into consideration - my problem is not snacking, but eating lots when I eat - I usually only eat twice a day - at lunch and dinner. I can't eat breakfast - makes me feel bad. Maybe just a question of habit?

I have to weight myself but I think I'm 96 kg, 183cm

Lets do this

Manny

Eat slower! Smaller mouthfuls each time! Food takes time to be processed by the brain!

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Ok, i will tell you all more about the Naturally Slim program. Its a series of 10 videos made available over 10 weeks. When i took the program it cost about $450 or so. I actually was given it for free but even if i had to pay it would have been the best spent money in my entire life. The program is not a diet, its a lifestyle change, this is why the effect is more permanent. They teach you the right eating habits characteristic of the peopke they call "true thins". These people are among us and dont even know they are true thins but they possess the good habits naturally and we have lost them over time for various reasons. With this program you can eat almost amything you want and they are not limiting the portion DIrEcTly. Portions will get smaller as a result of the techniques. There is no calorie counting - this is the easiest program in the world!

anyway, below are the main principles, but keep in mind this is a 10 hr program and its impossible to cover everything in one post. Besides knowing what to do is only 10% of success, the remaining 90% is the motovation to continue and also being guided by them regularly over a period of time. This is why just reading the below will not make you thin - if you can afford it - buy the program, you will not regret it - you will save a 100 fold in medical bills. If someone has a question about the below i will be happy to clarify

1. It doesnt matter whAt you eat. Its when and how you do it is what makes you fat. Its the bad eating habits. This is why diets dont work - you can lose weight temporarily on a diet and unless you adopt the right eating habits, the weight will come back. The only permanent weight loss is thru changing the bad habits

2. Eat slowly. Chew the food. Feel the taste with all your taste buds. Allow enough time for the signal that you are full to reach and register in the brain. Eat for at least 25 min . You eat for 10 min then you make a 5 minute break and then eat for another 10 minutes. If you eat faster you will overeat

3. Get natural orage juice with no sugar added and mix with water 1 to 7 ( 1 part of juice, 7 parts of water) we will call it H2Orange. Drink at least 7- 8 glasses of it throughout the day. Alternatively can drink water, but )2Orange will work better. One of the reasons is we often feel hungry because we are just thirsty. Eliminate the thirst to differentiate it from hunger. A glass or two of water prior to a meal can also fill you up and you will eat less. Drnking h2 orange will reduce hunger, allowing some sugar in your body so you will be ok between meals. Dont substitute orage with other fruit  it has to be orange

4 eat only when you are hungry and stop when comfortable. Only eat at level 3 hunger. This is too much to explain in a post but lets just say that level 2 hunger is when you start thinking about having a meal. Level 3 comes about 1 to 1.5 hrs later. So you eat not when you first start thinking about the food but a little later. Dont wait till level 4 ( when you have to eat no matter what) cant eat at level 4

5. eat one food at a time. Say you have 3 things on your plate - chicken, potatoes, salad. Ad enough of chicke, then, say, potatoes, stop with potatoes when youve had enough of the taste you wanted, then salad. Do not go back to the previous food once you started with next. There is a reasonfor this but too much to describe here

6 eat what you want the most FiRst. Then the next thing you want the most. In the previous example, if you want potatoes out of the 3 things the most - start with that, then your next favorite. Etc. this is important. If you do the opposite and start with what you want the least, you will always eat what you wanted the most at the end and overeat. But if you start with what you want first, by the time you get to what you want least, you will feel you are full and stop eating - this works, its huge

7. Protein shpuld be part of every meal. Our bodies cannot produce it. Also it helps balance the negative effect of sugar

8. No snacking. People who snack say between lunch and dinner get  hungry at the same time and eat as much at dinner at those who don't. A meal should last you good 7 hours or so. You should get enough food to be comfortable for a while after a meal

9. You need to rewire your brain and figure out your own cycle when you get real hunger . Its ok if you find you need to eat less times a day. 2 times or even 1 is fine contrary to a popular belief...this one is important but hard to describe in a short post  this one is hardest to explain how to do

10. Put down the fork between the bites - will help you eat slower. Use smaller plates for food. Divide food into parts. Say cut sandwich into 4 parts

9 . Smell the food before putting it in your mouth

10 the only thing you cant eat is obvious sugar - sodas, cakes, cookies, etc. wine is a double whammy - alchohol is a sugar and they add sugar to it, so no wine. Also no milk ( in tea or coffee is ok but not milk with cereal) beer is ok but make it part of your meal.

 

The above is just a summary - its impossible to tell the program in one post,

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17 hours ago, Oily said:

How do you go a whole day without eating though ?

I find if I skip breakfast (I get up at 5am), I can normally last until about lunch time, but am by that point hungry enough to eat anything insight ! Which is then counter productive as I generally do.....

Do you just drink water/liquid on the days off ?

I know, sounds crazy right - weird tho, again as has already been said, we don't need to eat three square meals a day, we're just brainwashed into it from young and just blindly follow it.  Just keep an eye on the TV later in the afternoon / early evening to see the amount of food being thrown at us - even worse with snacks tempted mid-evening.  Why do we suddenly feel hungry just because we've been reminded of what may be in the cupboard?

Just liquids one day, normal eating the next.  Never more than a day away from your next meal ;) and it tastes so much better if you've waited a bit longer for it!

You don't need a massive amount of liquid either - just enough to keep the 'output' clear, any more and it's just going to pass straight through and you'll spend all day near a 'recepticle'.

I know people who just can't get it in their heads - which is where most diets success / failure start even before you change anything physical - and the will-power lets them down.  All I'll add is that if you've got the weight to loose, it'll fall off and you'll get some good feedback to continue.  By the time you've levelled out you'll be used to it and it won't even feel strange.  If you're not all that heavy to start with then the progress will be slow and the temptation will be to give up before your body really gets to the other benefits associated.

I started with an initial goal of just a stone, but having passed that in under a month (along with proving everybody wrong telling me it would never work!) I never really looked back.  Once I'd got down to the sensible weight (and size of waist etc.) the hardest bit would be to stay there.  Fortunately I'm still hovering around this, still reaping the other health benefits and not reducing myself to a skeleton in the process.  Hard to believe but that 2,500 daily calorie recommendation might just not be what we've all been led to believe?  I've certainly not been consuming 5,000 over two days for the last four years!

There's no lack of energy in my experience - that's another thing just in your head, I've seen studies on people getting a 'sugar boost' while exercising against somebody without and it just doesn't stack up.  It really is just re-training your brain and start questioning just what these 'experts' have been telling us all this time.

A lot of @Cloud's points above are spot on too - taste everything, don't rush - concentrate on what you're doing, don't just eat while watching TV or driving etc. as your brain won't have processed the fact and you'll be hungry again soon after.  Drinking before eating is good too as it fills the space a bit before the food gets there and helps the transit also.  And snacking - just what's that all about anyway?  When did we ever have the 'need' to have a snack before somebody had a brainwave and thought about a scheme to make money of selling stuff we don't actually need ;)

When you eat is spot on too - only the other night there was a TV prog about two groups who continued to eat the exact same stuff, but one moved breakfast to later in the day and brought dinner early - only about an hour each in this case - but this meant that the body had more chance to process all the food and not get overwhelmed deciding to store it instead.  I know we didn't live long as cavemen but we have evolved from creatures who ate ONLY when they were hungry and then rested until they needed to eat again (hunter/gatherer?).

What really winds me up with the diet industry as a whole is the amount of money it all generates - all these people paying into schemes, attending meetings, cutting this, cutting that, buying supplements because they're not allowed to eat normally to get what the body needs etc..  OK, so there are a lot of overweight people in the world and it makes perfect business sense to exploit them for an easy profit, but are they really getting it - clearly not as they keep coming back for more, joining the next 'big thing'.  It's the education which needs to change and unfortunately the food industry as a whole is far too powerful and rich to let us make decisions for ourselves!  Going off on a tangent now so I'm going to stop and go grab a glass of water :)

Happy slimming - and getting more out of those LiPo's :D bring on the range!

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Very good points from @DangerousDick above. Be concious of what you are eating - mindless eating in front of the tv is no good. They are trying to sell you lots of food you dont need and oversized portions, sugar consumption in the US has grown tremendously in the last few decades - this is a major cause of obesety. I believe at the turn of the 20th century it was 15 lbs/ year per person and now its close to 225lbs/ year per person. Sedetary life style doesnt help either. Super oversized portions at restaurants. Plate size has grown over the last decades, portions have grown with it.

not sure how to eat every other day as to me this is not a normal eating cycle ( different people have their own natural cycle, but to me it should be tied to the 1 day cycle, not two days) , you will lose weight of course but not sure that maintaining this pattern forever is the right thing to do but @DangerousDick is definitely right about our bodies not necessarily needing 3 meals a day. 

I restarted the program 4 days ago - the scaled already show a progress of about 4 lbs lost. The first week you lose the most though.  Too early to test the riding range increase but i am already excited :) . No need to starve, or count calories, or refuse myself the foods that i like.

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On 1/19/2016 at 10:55 AM, Paddylaz said:

I actually thought about writing a post about this a while ago but figured it might seem a little vain and......'precious' to be talking about on a nearly all-male forum.

At my heaviest last year, I was 92kg. If you take into account I have little muscle and I'm only 5ft 10, that's quite overweight. I went on a very aggressive diet (1500 calories a day) and got down to 74kg. My snoring stopped, I looked great etc etc.

By the time my wheel came near the end of last year I had gone back up to 77.7kg.

I immediately (not for the wheel/range) got back on my diet and am now a trim 71kg. I'm CERTAIN the range on my Lhotz has improved quite a bit. It's not a placebo, but of course perhaps some of that improvement might just be that I've 'broken in' the battery and it's performing better than when I took it out of the box.

 

ANYWAY....I'm not a doctor or nutritionist so I'm not trying to speak from authority here. But my advice for losing weigh based on my amateur experience is the following:

1)You can talk ALL DAY about 'when' to eat, what to eat, which meals to skip etc. It doesn't matter. In the end it comes down to one thing and one thing only. CALORIES IN v CALORIES OUT. Unless you are an alien if the cals in are less than cals burnt, you'll be losing weight. That's why working out your BMR is important, as your BMR is the minimum amount of cals your body still burns each day even on a day when you do zero exercise/movement.

2)There is no such thing as 'starvation mode.' This is internet baloney. Well, it exists technically, but NOWHERE NEAR the level it's talked about in terms of its effects. People say, if you're a man, 'don't go below 1500 calories p.d. as you'll enter starvation mode and gain weight instead.' Absolute crap. There might be small changes in rate at first but you'll be losing weight and losing fast. And fat, not muscle. There is no bigger source of pseudo-scientific crap on the internet than stuff related to diet.

3)Exercise is overrated. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say but it's true. Exercise is great if you want to speed up the weight loss, and maintain great health and muscle development. But the bottom line is, it takes a HELL of a lot of exercise to burn off say, a plate of chips/fries. Restraint is so much more important. Running 5-miles might make you feel great but you're only burning approx 600 cals. If you have 1.5 chocolate bars afterwards as a treat then you might as well have not gone on the run.

4)You don't have to cut out alcohol but be warned if you're eating food whilst there is booze in your system, your body will not burn off the food anywhere near as efficiently as it priorities the conversion of Alcohol to Acetate. So if you can't give up the booze, avoid drinking whilst eating. (Or better still go full detox). I used to have 2-3 beers in the evening approx. 4 hours after my last meal as a treat.

5) Weigh yourself weekly not daily. Your weight makes loads of daily fluctuations due to hydration/glycogen levels/digesting food. 

I can agree with 1)-3).

What I don't understand is how point 1) and point 4) don't contradict each other. "Burning off food efficiently" is not what the body does, unless you mean by efficiently to burn as little as necessary and store the rest. Alcohol is BTW a very efficient energy carrier, close to fat and better than sugar: 4 kcal/g for protein and carbohydrate, 7 kcal/g for alcohol, and 9 kcal/g for fat. A good explanation for why the beer belly is called beer belly.

I didn't respect point 5) and it worked just fine for me, going from BMI 26.5 to 20.5 in 10 months. I actually liked to have quick feed back on the scale while I can confirm that the fluctuations are large, up to 2kg. There were weeks, in particular while traveling, where I gained weight (and didn't weigh myself during that time) and there were strains of up to 20 days where I didn't loose anything.

The diet was simple: eat less, a little over 1/2, and put aside what appears to be pure fat on the plate (I don't like pure fat anyway). I rarely eat breakfast and didn't change this habit. I have seen research suggesting that reducing the time between first and last food intake in the day is effective to reduce weight. That is, starting late or stopping early might help.  

What I changed was using tricks to eat less:

  - drinking more, especially before eating (or even instead)

  - taking 1/2 portions at a time and rather several portions during one meal (difficult when eating out), 1/2 cake, 1/2...

  - enjoying the food, eating slower than I am used to

  - don't finish the plate by default

  - avoid food I don't enjoy (no low-fat food for me, no way), unless real hungry

  - waiting to eat until hunger kicks in, try to stop when it's gone (not easy that one)

  - don't beat myself up when eating only for appetite or craving once in a while

It takes a little time to get used to eat less, but it becomes natural after a while.

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Hey guys - surprisingly enough for me - I'm still on it :)

I follow the alternate day method - but until now, I didn't eat nothing, but only a little each other day (an apple for lunch, an egg for dinner)

Weight is going down fast  (as is usual, pretty much just water) and its motivating.

I am a big eater so I was concerned that I wouldnt function without food, or that I would go nuts. Turns out its not such a big deal. I found it easier than eating something special. I found that the fact that nothing is forbidden, and that I can eat whatever I want (even on no eating days, just not a lot (max 600 Kalories)) my rebel brain doesn't complain much. The days I'm allowed to eat I started to cook myself, trying to go on the healthier side. While I do eat a good portion when I eat, I make sure I dont overeat by trying to eat slowly and to enjoy what I'm eating.

So.. its going great, lets see what the future brings.

4 days - 3kg down (fluctuations included :P but I take it all)

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1 hour ago, manuelz said:

Hey guys - surprisingly enough for me - I'm still on it :)

I follow the alternate day method - but until now, I didn't eat nothing, but only a little each other day (an apple for lunch, an egg for dinner)

Weight is going down fast  (as is usual, pretty much just water) and its motivating.

I am a big eater so I was concerned that I wouldnt function without food, or that I would go nuts. Turns out its not such a big deal. I found it easier than eating something special. I found that the fact that nothing is forbidden, and that I can eat whatever I want (even on no eating days, just not a lot (max 600 Kalories)) my rebel brain doesn't complain much. The days I'm allowed to eat I started to cook myself, trying to go on the healthier side. While I do eat a good portion when I eat, I make sure I dont overeat by trying to eat slowly and to enjoy what I'm eating.

So.. its going great, lets see what the future brings.

4 days - 3kg down (fluctuations included :P but I take it all)

I am glad you are losing, if it works for you, contnue with it,

i have re-started the Naturally slim program and i have lost 6- 7 lbs now. In my program i can also eat whatever i want but i dont have to starve every other day and the way i eat is a healthy way that can continue forever. 

Be careful when you get off your program - since you are not developing a good eating habit ( im talking about starving every other day) , once you are off, these bad habits will try to get the weight back. You literally will have to continue with your reginen forever to keep the weight off. But of course it will be easier for you to change the habit once you are thinner - everyone needs a jumpstart and motivation. It sounds like you are actually adopting some good behaviors by eating slowly and enjoying food on this alternative days. Good luck to you and wish good luck to me too - i have 30-35 more lbs to lose

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Yup, I'm the fat guy on the unicycle right now. :)
I really put my winter fur on this year and I'm about the same weight.
104 kg (or 230 lbs to you and me).

Last time I quite eating after 5pm every day, I got down to 190 lbs in about 6 months. Of course it took a week for my appetite to adjust at first.

At 86 kg I had so much extra energy I didn't know what to do, I just felt like running everywhere!

I keep two sets of clothes.

I'm looking forward to more riding to help get back into my regular size again, but I know too well that exercise is useless without a proper diet.

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13 minutes ago, davek said:

Yup, I'm the fat guy on the unicycle right now. :)
I really put my winter fur on this year and I'm about the same weight.
104 kg (or 230 lbs to you and me).

Last time I quite eating after 5pm every day, I got down to 190 lbs in about 6 months. Of course it took a week for my appetite to adjust at first.

At 86 kg I had so much extra energy I didn't know what to do, I just felt like running everywhere!

I keep two sets of clothes.

I'm looking forward to more riding to help get back into my regular size again, but I know too well that exercise is useless without a proper diet.

I have like 4 different sets of clothes because when i used to be 240lbs my waist was 44 inches and i wore extra large. When i lost 45 lbs my pant size went down to 32-34' and i went down to large so i hve all the sizes in between. The trick is to actually throw away your bigger clothes once you lose and it doesnt fit you any more.

with my program, i can eat late if thats what my body needs, so i dont need a lot of will power to continue. It would be cool if you started losing right now as we are the same weight and we could compare results as we go...

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You can lose weight quick if you get on the scales without pants and slippers :) also, of course you know that your morning weight can be 3 -4 lbs less than evening. 

I guess to be perfectly fair, below is my today's evening weight ( with socks on:) . We are 1.3 lbs apart. And if you were wearing anything else, we might be exactly the same weight. Let the race begin and the biggest loser win!

image.jpeg

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11 hours ago, Cloud said:

You can lose weight quick if you get on the scales without pants and slippers :)

We're just glad you didn't tip your camera any lower then... ;)

 

But seriously, great job guys for starting this.  It's not easy!  Woot Woot!

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I learned to love to cook, that helps such a great deal, since you are in charge what goes into the pan and it always tastes exactly like you like it.
Second what I learned, the same amount of stuff labeled as "diet" or light" is actually worse than "less" of the normal thing.

I guess the biggest challenge is actually the change of habits to the better.

 

Regarding ADF. In German language we use the same Diet labeled as "FDH" (Friss die hälfte) which translates roughly as "munch half of it" :D:D

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55 minutes ago, SuperSport said:

We're just glad you didn't tip your camera any lower then... ;)

 

But seriously, great job guys for starting this.  It's not easy!  Woot Woot!

Lol,  yep, i wouldnt do that, the top view may not be the most favorable for me! I am only prepared to compete in the weight loss category so far!

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Ive lost 2 more lbs and crossed the 100kg line. ( 99.5kg or 219.6lbs). Total loss - around 8 lbs

 

the forum doesnt allow me to post pics, says i only have 0.07mb left. It counts the pics i posted days ago towards the 3m limit. Does anyone know why? Thanks

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9 minutes ago, Cloud said:

Ive lost 2 more lbs and crossed the 100kg line. ( 99.5kg or 219.6lbs). Total loss - around 8 lbs

 

the forum doesnt allow me to post pics, says i only have 0.07mb left. It counts the pics i posted days ago towards the 3m limit. Does anyone know why? Thanks

Goto http://tinypic.com/ and upload your pic there. Then copy and paste the image link.

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