How To Lose Weight

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reohn2
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by reohn2 »

Mark1978 wrote:
Thomas125 wrote:Snacking is the biggest issue for me.

Definitely something I need to work on.


If I'm in sitting on my own with nothing to do then I'll tend to reach for sweets or crisps!


Simple answer to that,find something to do :wink:
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Paulatic
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by Paulatic »

My simple solution is never buy them.
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661-Pete
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by 661-Pete »

I think compulsive snacking (my problem too!) can be overcome - but it needs a good deal of determination. We keep a big punnet of cherry tomatoes in the fridge, when I feel the 'urge' I go and grab a handful of those instead. Also plenty of fruit. I've not taken to munching sticks of celery or raw carrots yet, but that may come. Yes, I know even these things will pile on the calories if you consume enough of them, but it's better than crisps, chocolate, biscuits...

Anyway, for me things are looking up (i.e. down :) ).
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Thomas125
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by Thomas125 »

Not having them in the house with kids isn't an option sadly. Ive taken to leaving my wallet at home when Im working which helps a bit. :mrgreen:

Got to find some lower calorie healthy snacks to substitute.
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RogerThat
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by RogerThat »

I tried the 5+2 fast diet last year and lost 15lbs in 7 weeks. My solution to snacking was simple, but deadly!!

Boiled baby carrots, by the pot full.

100gr of tasty boiled carrots = 22 calories, so I could eat over half a pound a day (as snacks, on top of my 600 calories allowance) and still only 50 cals. I never felt hungry not once throughout the diet.

The trick with diets is to be able to differentiate between 'hunger pangs' which are mostly psychological, and actually feeling the physical want of food. There were days of course I felt like packing it in, but like they say in the manual: no pain no gain :)
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by Vorpal »

Thomas125 wrote:Not having them in the house with kids isn't an option sadly. Ive taken to leaving my wallet at home when Im working which helps a bit. :mrgreen:

Got to find some lower calorie healthy snacks to substitute.

Having unhealthy snacks in the house with kids just teaches them bad habits, too. Feed them apples and carrots as snacks, and when you must snack, eat the same yourself.

And don't finish the kids' portions, either. :wink:
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RogerThat
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by RogerThat »

Boredom is also a real issue when dieting, at least for me anyway as I would snack in the evenings while watching TV. No more! I've now found a host of things to keep me busy in the evenings, which keeps me away from the fridge which is now full of horribly healthy (and low calorie) food :)

Have kept the weight off, and according to my doctor probably staved off diabetes for good, which was a major problem in my family causing untold grief and damage.
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Paulatic
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Re: How To Lose Weight

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Thomas125 wrote:Not having them in the house with kids isn't an option sadly. Ive taken to leaving my wallet at home when Im working which helps a bit. :mrgreen:

Got to find some lower calorie healthy snacks to substitute.


Sorry Thomas, I just don't buy that at all. We brought up two boys. We never had crisps or sweets in the house and chocolate occasionally as treats. They were taken to a McDonalds only once, whilst on a trip to Legoland, in Denmark. Fizzy, sugar laden, drinks were never in the house apart from Xmas and birthdays as treats.

I don't think they say they had a deprived childhood. They were loved but we as parents were in charge of giving them a healthy start to life. They can eat what they like now, in their thirties, as they are adults it's up to them.
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RogerThat
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by RogerThat »

Totally concur with the above, if you educate your children to eat properly and not snack on rubbish it's a lesson that they will have their whole life through. Poor diet and no exercise is killing Britain, with obesity levels nearing 40% and probably 50% by the end of the decade. It's time to get tough on junk food!!
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661-Pete
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Re: How To Lose Weight

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Well, I've been daily monitoring weight for about two months, and this is the result:
weight log to 18-03-15.jpg

(with trend line computed by the spreadsheet).

After an early upwards surge, there does appear to be a general downward trend, about 4 Kg over 2 months, which is probably about the rate of weight loss I feel comfortable with. This is done without any specific diet. That is to say, no specific changes in main meals, simply cutting down a lot of the snacking. We have reduced a few portion sizes, particularly of starchy accompaniments like potatoes and rice - including brown rice (which is ironic, seeing as, amongst starchy foods, brown rice is one of the 'healthiest'...). I find that, if brown rice is carefully cooked, it takes up a lot of water, increasing its tendency to 'fill you up' without piling on the calories. So you can reduce the amount.

The graph shows, as one can see, a lot of random noise: illustrating that a once-a-week weigh-in is quite likely to give a misleading impression - you don't know whether the weigh-in occurs on an up or a down spike. Curiously, there seems to be a minor increase on the day after a significant amount of cycling. For instance, I cycled on Monday and Tuesday this week, and both Tuesday and today showed an increase. I don't think this was down to eating any more after the rides, and I don't think I have the physique to build up much muscle (although I do know, that muscle is more dense than body fat, so weighs more. Could fat have by some metabolic process turned into muscle?).

So where will I end up? I'd still like to get to the mid-80s in Kg, but I guess I shall probably reach a plateau before then. I don't want to embark on a formal diet, calorie-counting and all that - mainly because it would have to be for life...
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Mark1978
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by Mark1978 »

I read somewhere that fatigued muscles tend to retain water - perhaps accounts for the weight increase?
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661-Pete
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by 661-Pete »

Mark1978 wrote:I read somewhere that fatigued muscles tend to retain water - perhaps accounts for the weight increase?

That sounds plausible. Thanks for the info!
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Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments...
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by al_yrpal »

Well done Pete, approx 1lb a week which is what all the gurus recommend. Cutting down the carbs certainly worked for me too.
I have been off strict calorie counting after 11 months for about 4 months now after losing 48lbs. During the 11 months I 'retrained' to a new pattern of eating and exercising, and I am still eating similarly now but with a few treats and meals out/takeaways thrown in. There has been a small weight gain which I expected but by and large my weight is still stable without any further calorie counting. My conclusion - calorie counting with a food and exercise diary to lose weight works, and having lost excess weight you dont have to maintain it for life but just adopt the new eating and exercise pattern that calorie counting taught you. From the newspapers recently the governments diet guru Dr Jebb has been recommending the same thing and warning that its been observed that fad diets dont change your eating and exercise habits and ultimately fail to control weight in the long term.

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beardy
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by beardy »

661-Pete wrote:
Mark1978 wrote:I read somewhere that fatigued muscles tend to retain water - perhaps accounts for the weight increase?

That sounds plausible. Thanks for the info!


I have the opposite effect which I put down to dehydration.

I did a nice ride on Sunday, 80 miles with lots of climbing and my weight came down by two kilogrammes when I weighed myself the next morning. That was the combined fluctuation of 1 Kg which I seem to lose over night, every night, and another kilogramme which was related to the ride.

Two days later my weight was back to as before. :x
RogerThat
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Re: How To Lose Weight

Post by RogerThat »

I used to race a lot in my twenties, I never had a problem maintaining my weight no matter how much our how badly I ate! Since then I probably put on about 10kg. I've lost nearly 8kg of that in the past 2 months using a modified version of the 5-2 diet. I've found its not really my eating habits that had to change, but my metabolic rate. I was quite an active, but slow cyclist in the past few years (I definitely got lazy), now I'm quite active and fast :) High intensity training is something I find easy to do and now that I only have 2kg to go to reach the weight I was in my twenties I no longer diet, yet continue to lose weight.

I can only put the loss down to metabolism change, as I eat roughly the same variety and quantity of food I did before.

Certainly I feel like I've git lots more energy and my sleep pattern is significantly better than 8kg ago. I've had my friend do exactly the same diet /training regime and he has lost only slightly less weight (7.2kg) in the same amount of time. I think one pound a week for a sedentary, non athletic person is about right on the 5-2 diet, but for an active person 2lbs a week seemed very achievable for me and has had no negative side effects that I can discern.
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