Time for me to diet

[Robbo 27]

Worst time of year to think about dieting but went for a medical last week and I weighted about 30 pounds more than I thought I did.....so its time to take some action and improve my diet which has been a bit rubbish lately with me really enjoying cooked breakfasts when I am out and not as many veggies as I should have had. I am also a big fan of a handmade bakery, which is fairly local to me, very easy to call in for a coffee whilst out on a walk and pick up a fantastic loaf, then home to have with some good butter.



I am not a big drinker so there isnt much there to cut down on.

Good luck to all those who, like me, may be looking down at their bellies and thinking - you are on your way sunshine.

Edited by Robbo 27 on Monday 26th December 03:51

[CountZero23]

Carbs = sugar.

Bread, potatoes, pastries, rice and pasta are carbs.

Cut down on sugar intake and do a load more cycling (seem to remember you being a fan) and / or join a gym.

Best advice I can give is get into healthy habits, fads, diets and brief flirtations with daft regimes (insanity workout, HIT etc) never work for long. Needs to be sustainable.

Given you are single and living in France you have all the motivation you should need!

[rosbif77]

Seconds of Christmas pud should do the trick !!!!!

[gweaver]

CountZero23 said:

Carbs = sugar.

Bread, potatoes, pastries, rice and pasta are carbs.

Cut down on sugar intake and do a load more cycling (seem to remember you being a fan) and / or join a gym.

Best advice I can give is get into healthy habits, fads, diets and brief flirtations with daft regimes (insanity workout, HIT etc) never work for long. Needs to be sustainable.

Given you are single and living in France you have all the motivation you should need!

Good advice. Reduce carbohydrate intake, avoid sugars in particular. Read the ingredients on any processed foods and learn to identify the many sugary things that go by another name (most things ending in 'ose'). Fill yourself up with vegetables (not potato) and protein/fat so that you can reduce calorie intake without feeling hungry.
If that seems boring try some Asian cooking - many Indian, Thai & Malaysian dishes are both relatively healthy and very tasty.
Since you're in France, treat yourself with cheese (fat & protein) instead of sweet pastries (carbs). Fruits are good too. They do contain sugars, but they're digested slowly and on balance are good for you. Smoothies and juices are bad because the sugars aren't bound up in the flesh of the fruit and hit the bloodstream fast.

Keeping a record of calorie consumption is hard but probably worth doing for a few weeks mostly because you'll learn a lot.
If you do decide to try a "diet", I'd suggest the Jimmy Carr diet (no food after 6pm). Exercise helps your fitness and metabolism but burns a depressingly low amount of calories. Getting in shape is often ~80% diet and ~20% exercise. Try to exercise regularly, but keep it sustainable and enjoyable.

Also, aim to lose weight at 1 to 2 lbs / week - any more and your body may burn muscle rather than fat. It is possible to over do it - I massively reduced my carb intake a few years back and was shocked at how fast (too fast) the weight dropped off. I didn't have scales, but if you are serious about getting into shape they are an important bit of kit.

HTH..

[AndStilliRise]

You live in France. Buy a bike and start cycling. I rode from NW London to Paris with a few boys, loved it.

Let me know if you want to do something like that, I would be more than willing to join you. Nothing better than riding a bike, miles and miles and giving yourself a sense of freedom away from the world.

Hope this helps.

[AndStilliRise]

And yes I need to diet! The six pack is there somewhere, I know it!

[J4CKO]

I have lost over two stone since September, it isnt that hard.

Just be aware you need to be in it for the long haul, you dont need to starve but it needs to be a complete change of approach.

I am doing Christmas food and to be honest not all that bothered, prefer losing weight and being slimmer to stuffing my face.

[Robbo 27]

Thanks for your support and advice guys, appreciated.

Started a spreadsheet and I am going to monitor my weight loss, looking for a pound a day which is what I need to kickstart this diet.

Take on board all you have said with regards to carbs and sugars - a new mission for 2017.

Cheers all.

[J4CKO]

Robbo 27 said:

Thanks for your support and advice guys, appreciated.

Started a spreadsheet and I am going to monitor my weight loss, looking for a pound a day which is what I need to kickstart this diet.

Take on board all you have said with regards to carbs and sugars - a new mission for 2017.

Cheers all.

You cant actually lose a pound a day, the conceived wisdom is a pound of fat takes 3500 calories to be gained or lost, not probbyt hat accurate but not a bad guideline, so you need to have a deficit of that much to lose it, pretty simple in that you need to eat less than you use in terms of calories so your body uses the stored energy in your body fat.

It is possible to fluctuate by a pound a day, and in the early stages of a diet you may see a lot of weight go quickly but it will only be partially be fat loss, you lose fluids and if you starve yourself, you will not be replenishing the glycogen stores in your Liver and Muscles, i.e. the quick release energy you have to fuel movement.

Work out your Basal metabolic rate, this is the baseline number of calories needed to sustain life,

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bmr_calculator.htm

If you didnt do anything and just lay in bed, you would still need a number of calories to run bodily functions, digestion, breathing, brain activity etc, then you can work out your TDEE which is total daily energy expenditure, basically your BMR plus any activity, most adult males need between 2000 and 3000 calories, so based on that, there is no way you can lose a pound of actual fat a day, as you cant generate that big of a deficit, even if you ate nothing, and starvation doesnt work as you cant function when starving.

So, with that worked out, you can gauge how much you can eat daily, eat a bit less than that each day and weight loss occurs, 1 to 2 pounds a week is sustainable and not that difficult, any more and you end up losing muscle mass as well as your body digests lean tissue to fuel itself as well as flab.


If you have significant weight to lose, it is a long haul, there is no quick fix, has to be a way of life, you can still have treats but not every day, I pigged myself yesterday but am now awake feeling dreadful, I actually prefer being leaner and a bit hungry, feel disgusting after eating loads of crap yesterday, dont need it, didnt even enjoy it that much, today will be a lot less calorific.



Cutting sugar and refined carbs out helps, changing how you view food, I think I cant eat a meal without bread, rice, pasta etc but my lunches are now salad and meat, with a bit of dressing, and its fine, being hungry is ok, we arent going to starve any time soon, go to bed hungry and I find I wake up not hungry and can last until lunchtime, I exercise during that time (cycling) and that seems to really help weight loss.

Weight yourself but dont get cocky when it comes off and dont get despondent when it doesnt, you will fluctuate based on glycogen stored, fat loss, water retained (salty foods) and how much waste is in your system, one day the scales may drop by two pounds, then the next day you are back to where you were but the trend over time, will, if you are truly in deficit be down, nobody can cheat the system, it is physics.

Its a very fine line between gain, maintaining and loss, little tweaks make a difference, I walk the dog in the evening, according to my activity tracker it uses 150 calories for that 30 to 40 min walk, not much, but over a year that is 51,000 calories, if that 3500 per pound is anywhere near accurate than that would equate to a stone or therabouts over a year, it feels like it takes ages but for most folk, the weight creeps on over time, a few grammes every week but it adds up, like the dog walk adds up to a stone over a year, and bag of crisps over what you use every day adds up to a stone gained over a year. If you think its taken years to add the weight, it is going to take a while to come off, but if you are committed it can be a lot, lot quicker than it took to go on, aim for a 500 calorie deficit and it will come off 5 or more times quicker.

I started at nearly 18 stone in September, I am 15 and a half now, another one and a half to two stone to go, might have gone up a bit over the last few days being Christmas but I know how to get it back off, I actually am not that keen on eating loads now, prefer being restrictive and seeing and feeling the changes, wearing 36 inch pants rather than 38s that were getting too tight.

I used to ty to sort it quickly, it was doomed to failure, just eating less rubbish and being really hungry but it really doesnt work, I had to change what I ate and my realtionship with food, part of it is an age and maturity thing, when younger I always wanted instant results but experience in all areas of life makes you realise you need a game plan and time to achieve anything worth having, instant gratification is what puts the weight on but it doesnt work for removing it.

[Robbo 27]

Exceptional and detailed response J4cko, thank you for taking the time time.

I can see I have a lot to learn in terms of losing weight, I boxed as a semi pro in my early 20s and then my diet was all about protein, last few years it has been all about kicking back and eating for pleasure, basically eating what I wanted and whether I was hungry or not.

Thank you again for your advice.

My target weight is similar to yours but I want to see 30 pounds go within a couple of months - if I can.

[Hoofy]

I find cutting out food seems to take you through to February before you're back at it. I prefer to cut down and from the results I see on MyFitnessPal, most people seem to get the best results when they reduce their intake but not completely avoid the fun stuff.

They do say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day so I just had two M&S jaffa cakes.

J4CKO said:

I am 15 and a half now

Wow. I always thought you were in your 40s.

Edited by Hoofy on Monday 26th December 09:43

[J4CKO]

Hoofy said:

I find cutting out food seems to take you through to February before you're back at it. I prefer to cut down and from the results I see on MyFitnessPal, most people seem to get the best results when they reduce their intake but not completely avoid the fun stuff.

They do say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day so I just had two M&S jaffa cakes.

J4CKO said:

I am 15 and a half now

Wow. I always thought you were in your 40s.

Edited by Hoofy on Monday 26th December 09:43

Mentally, yes, apparently.

[karona]

Robbo 27 said:

Worst time of year to think about dieting but went for a medical last week and I weighted about 30 pounds more than I thought I did.....so its time to take some action and improve my diet which has been a bit rubbish lately with me really enjoying cooked breakfasts when I am out and not as many veggies as I should have had. I am also a big fan of a handmade bakery, which is fairly local to me, very easy to call in for a coffee whilst out on a walk and pick up a fantastic loaf, then home to have with some good butter.



I am not a big drinker so there isnt much there to cut down on.

Good luck to all those who, like me, may be looking down at their bellies and thinking - you are on your way sunshine.

I'm not actually on any diet, but used to weigh 118 Kg, I'm down to 95 Kg just by leaving bread, pasta and potatoes off my plate. I've never been near a gym, and my only exercise is walking a couple of large dogs. I still have a wine or two, with a whisky chaser, most evenings, and it's amazing how creative you can get with cauliflower

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb

[atom111]

Last week of 2015 I was too heavy and my weight has over the years yo-yo'd, I like eating and as said here anything that cuts out, is a fad, dropping meals you enjoy isn't the long game to sustained weight loss, or at least it never worked for me.

The key is balance and it is only calories in and out, too much in and not enough out = bigger , more out than in = smaller You have to prepare for some tough weeks where the scale doesn't move and just push on and keep going! Weight loss is not linear.

I've focused on two things an exercise minutes target per week and monitor calories in and out to get the balance, this is the first year I've not yo-yo'd as I met the exercise target every week without fail, I have averaged over 600mins per week through a mix of walking, jogging, gym cardio, trail running well jogging and mountain biking and have kept a reasonable control of calories bar December, overall I am just a couple KG off my ultimate target, but comfortably within my main target.

In this time I gave still had foods I've enjoyed and subscribed to Healthy Food mag to get low cal balanced food idea to keep it changing, adding in variety is key.

It is hard and is a long game, this is my third effort at a consistent formula and for me it third time lucky and I enjoy it too, will be more of the same in 2017.

Good luck it's not an easy journey but it's a rewarding one.

[Vocal Minority]

OP - we are having a friendly competition for the first 3 months of the year if you look at the Phat fighters thread - everyone donates an amount to the winners charity of choice....

[347Andy]

Is there any harm in cutting out carbs completely and if you do have to have some what are the "best" things to eat ?

[Robbo 27]

Vocal Minority said:

OP - we are having a friendly competition for the first 3 months of the year if you look at the Phat fighters thread - everyone donates an amount to the winners charity of choice....

Thank you, I will take a look, lost 6.7 pounds so far.

Big reduction on carbs and no cheese. Trying not eating after 6pm and definitely no carbs after that time.

[AndStilliRise]

Day 4. Going ok. I have tried to reduce my calorie intake and biscuit rush. Coming off sugar and already can feel the benefit. Not sleepy anymore in the afternoon!

One day at a time, need to reduce the junk a little more i think. Hopefully by next week i should be in a better position.

[MrBaker]

I went to a nutritionist for a one off meal plan (cost me (£40)

I have stuck to it religiously and dropped from 14st 7lb to 12st 10lb in 10 weeks

Never eaten so much and felt so good, its all about what you are eating - I got my results with very little exercise.

PM me if you want the nutritionists details

[Hoofy]

MrBaker said:

I went to a nutritionist for a one off meal plan (cost me (£40)

I have stuck to it religiously and dropped from 14st 7lb to 12st 10lb in 10 weeks

Never eaten so much and felt so good, its all about what you are eating - I got my results with very little exercise.

PM me if you want the nutritionists details

Nice going.