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I need to lose some weight however i live with my wife and 5 year old who will not be dieting.
Work, home and hobbies keep me busy so I will struggle to prepare 2 meals each day and don't want to put that pressure on my wife, therefore the meals need to be simple to prep.
I don't mind if it's aggressive as the sooner I shift this ring of horrific fat around my gut, the happier I will be.
Eat the same food you were eating before, but in much smaller portions.
My advice: do not diet.
Sign up to https://myfitnesspal.com (free) and start monitoring your Calories In vs Calories Out.
Set a weight loss goal and it will tell you what calorie deficit you need to hit it.
Increase your Calories Out with some exercise, decrease your calories in with moderation.
My advice: do not diet.
decrease your calories in with moderation
I think that's called dieting.
healthy diet with fewer calories. Not a "Diet"
Eat less, move more is the only answer and it needs to be a permanent lifestyle change. Aggressive very low calorie diets do not work longterm
I have been doing "meal prep" this past month, and have lost 4 kilos.
Basically I make 12 meals on a Sunday afternoon (Usually 2 recipes divided into 6 portions each) this week it is bolognese with brocoli and sweet potato, and red thai curry with quinoa. That way I know I have a non junk food meal ready to put in the microwave whenever my meal time is.
I also track the recopies and meals on myfitnesspal.
I don't follow any particular diet plan, other than making sure there is plenty of veg and protein in each meal. I guess it would be close to low GI or paleo, but that is just because most of my meals are bulked out with "colourful" vegetables, so not much room left for simple carbs.
Microwave meals & only eat one. Worked for me, dropped 22lb since may with no other lifestyle changes.
Used to cook healthy, but ate far too much of it!
Irish Dave's diet is good and effective, Mike. The way I try to follow it is:
During the week, cut out ALL of; dairy (milk, butter, cheese), fruit, white carbs (potatoes), cereal (bread, pasta, rice) sugar, soft drinks.
At the weekend, (in my case, Friday night to Sunday dinner) have what you want.
Admittedly it's a pain trying to find something for breakfast and lunch that is simple to prepare, and if you don't like drinking plain water during the day. Stock up on supermarket chicken pakora, onion bhajis, pepperami, scotch eggs etc. and make your own baked beans once a week and have them for breakfast.
Instead of spuds and pasta with evening meals, just have more vegetables.
You don't need to starve yourself as you're cutting out the foods which create an insulin spike so it tends to suppress the appetite. And because you can have whatever your taste buds tell you at the weekend you're not going short of anything. And if you're doing any hard exercise during the week (over an hour in the gym or a night ride) you can fuel up on some simple carbs beforehand.
The theory is that it works on your insulin, which determines how your body lays down and uses fat. All calories are not equal! And before anybody says it, yes, you will consume fewer calories with this way of eating, because you won't get cravings for sweet and fatty foods.
I think Molgrips is also an advocate, although I realise that's not much of a recommendation :o)
My experience is. Cut out the cakes, biscuits and chocolate. If you eat a lot, they pack more punch than your daily meals. Then just be sensible with your meals. No ginormous portions. Natural wholemeal foods. Lean meats. Find some low calorie snacks if you're a serial snacker like I am.
It's a funny thing. Losing weight can sometimes feel like an impossible task. But once you get the balance right, I've personally found it drops off quite easily.
I'm no cook either. Frozen fish from Aldi is done in 4 minutes in the microwave. I recommend the smoked haddock. Whip it up with some microwave rice and jobs a good'n.
Stop eating whatever your 5 year old leaves on his plate.
It's a vicious circle.
It starts with a single fish finger or a chicken nugget.
"Go on son,..... Finish your dinner....Loook , it's delicious,..... Daddy really likes it (gulp) .....yum, yum.......See?"
Before you know it, you have three kids and you're eating one full dinner and three partial dinners every night and you can't tie your shoelaces without holding your breath.
Microwave meals
Processed meals, not healthy long term Shirley?
GrahamS and TJ(!!!!) +1
Whenever I've been trying to cut weight for racing I just track calories and serve smaller portions of the same stuff.
Tracking calories is a bit of an eye opener. Makes you realise what you are eating - pretty sure this is why people who cut out foods like gluten lose weight. You have to put more effort into finding food so you become very conscious of what you eat.
Look to see what you are snacking on is the only other easy win. I tend to eat through boredom more than hunger. So, I used to go make nice coffee, loose leaf tea etc. if I felt peckish. That and I found low calorie snacks - normally veg (and some fruit). carrot sticks, radishes, sugar snap peas etc.
Eat less, move more is the only answer and it needs to be a permanent lifestyle change. Aggressive very low calorie diets do not work longterm
This.
IME preparation is the key, absolutely, and it's really not hard, do it while you make dinner, or when you nomally watch shite on telly, or when you bugger about on faceboak.
We know what we're eating for dinner all week, I batch bake oat and fruit muffins 3 times a week, so that we have breakfast sorted, wife makes us 2 days big healthy lunch salads at a time, and my daughter eats everything we eat too.
I work with folks who are too busy to prep food, but in the next breath will tell me how they binge watched 3 series of some US series pish at the weekend. Hmmmm.... 🙂
healthy diet with fewer calories. Not a “Diet”
From Wikipdedia
Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated and supervised fashion to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases, such as diabetes.
If you're deliberately selecting or restricting what you eat in order to control body weight, you are dieting.
Also, I don't eat take away food, except the odd fish n chips.
hols2, technically you are correct, however, that's not the general perception of a 'diet' IMO. When I think of a 'diet' I think of people doing something different for a period of time, that will ultimately stop, ie going on holiday, or to get into a wedding dress etc.
Which is bloody pointless.
My gf has lost 3 stone in 12 weeks & is maintaining by eating healthily. She did this with a broken arm.
The following advice has worked for her
1 - portion control. Weigh your food before cooking & eating. That way you wont eat too much.
2 - Cut out sugar, drink diet coke etc, no squash, no fruit juice, no fruit, no cake, no biscuits.
3 - Realise food is fuel.
4 - Find 30 minutes a day to do HIIT
5 - Prepare - make sure you shop wisely & have a meal plan prepared.
Her diet is roughly as follows, every 3rd day is a carb day, so on this day she'll have a smoothie for breakfast (oats, peanut butter, banana, almond milk & protein powder) then a lunch meal with rice/sweet potato, & an evening meal with rice or sweet potato.
On non carb days as a guide she'll eat for breakfast - diet greek yoghurt, dark chocolate drops, with flaked & chopped almonds. Lunch either leftovers with green veg something like chicken sausages & mashed brocolli. Dinner - steak, greek veg & halloumi.
Snacks = popcorn (carb days only), dark chocolate (min 70%), pork scratchings, nuts
The rule of thumb is non carb meals contain a portion of protein, portion of veg & a portion of fat. The carb day replaces fat with clean carbs, ie no processed pasta etc.
I generally eat the same as her adding carbs to my meals. The food is tasty & fresh.
The diet will mean nothing tho if you don't find time to do the HIIT. It is a bit Joe Wicks, but it works.
The most important thing of all tho - is you must be ready to make the change in your head. A friend of hers decided to try it, went about it completely half assed & didn't even manage a weekend.
MFP and an activity monitor to have a better idea of what you are expending. Once you know what you are consuming and using you will be better placed to know where you are. So time to get the scales out and sort out portion control.
2 – Cut out sugar, drink diet coke etc, no squash, no fruit juice, no fruit, no cake, no biscuits.
I'd disagree, a lifestyle change needs to be something that is sustainable.
I’d disagree, a lifestyle change needs to be something that is sustainable.
Why isn't that sustainable?
Eat a healthy diet, nothing faddy just lots of fruit and veg, cut down on processed stuff, cut down on takeaways, all the non-rocket science stuff you know already and...
Don't eat breakfast, it's an easy way to lose calories out of your diet, plus running on lower blood sugar, like you have first thing in the morning, promotes the burning of fat for fuel.
And its completely sustainable. Takes a few days to get used to it, but after that it's just the norm.
Why isn’t that sustainable?
No fruit, or cake, ever?... Go for it.
Is there any point in getting bogged down in the semantics of exactly what constitutes a 'diet'. I think it's clear that what the above posters are getting at is that some diet plans advocate cutting down on particular foods or food groups, whereas perhaps a better approach is to focus on eating less of a balanced diet.
I'd echo the sentiments of many of the above posters that one of the best things you can do is monitor your calorie intake / expenditure, and MyFitnessPal does this very effectively (although take calorie expenditure with a pinch of salt, especially if not using a heart rate monitor / power meter to calculate this).
You have to be rigorous with it though, including all the little things like cooking oil, butter on your toast, etc., and weighing the food that you prepare. It's a bit of a pain at first, but soon becomes easy as most of the things you will want to enter will pop up in your recent foods. You'll soon learn how much you can eat and stay within your calorie intake goals, and more importantly you'll learn what foods you can eat and that will leave you satisfied while meeting your goals and what foods will leave you hungry and craving bad food. You end up with a diet that works for you and your lifestyle rather than trying to adapt to a diet plan than just may not be suited for you.
Without fail, whenever I've monitored my food/exercise in this way consistently over a significant period of time I have lost weight. As soon as I stop, I stay consistent for a while but then the inevitable slip in diet and weight gain starts.
I used to weigh nearly 25 stone, I now weigh just over 13. I did get down to under 12, but then I stopped monitoring and combined with low-level illness (endless colds) leading to poor eating because I was feeling sorry for myself, and lack of exercise, my weight crept back up to 15 over the course of a year! As soon as I started monitoring my calories again the weight started coming off again.
It works both ways. As well as knowing when you shouldn't be eating any more, it allows you to know when you have enough calorie deficit in the bank to treat yourself a little.
Counting calories doesn't mean that you shouldn't think about the types of food that you are eating though. It's possible to lose weight on a very unhealthy diet (and I have done so in the past). You'll feel better if you eat healthier foods. That's just common sense though - keep processed foods to a minimum, lots of fruit and veg, healthy fats are good, avoid saturated fats, etc. Experiment with your meals, trying to use healthy ingredients and you'll soon find a meal plan that you enjoy, is healthy, and helps you lose weight.
Well done qtip btw, that's a phenomenal weight loss mate!.
+1 to MFP. Very interesting to see what has the calories and what keeps your macronutrients right
What works for me to lose weight (same things don't work for everyone) is:
1) Skip breakfast (intermittent fasting innit)
2) during the week (where I have more control) eat high protein low carb for lunch. Generally raw veg, cottage cheese, tinned fish, yogurt. A few nuts and dried berries
3) normal evening meal don't go mad with portions, especially carbs.
4) allow myself a relatively healthy evening snack depending how much exercise i have done eg. Yogurt, a peanut butter and jam sandwich etc.
5) don't try to over control what I eat at weekends due to inconvenience, just try not to eat loads, and keep in control of the booze.
Another thing to consider is sleep, I pretty much always get 8 hours, and firmly believe that a good nights sleep results in a clear head and more energy, so I'm more likely to make better choices, exercise more and generally feel better.
Alcohol messes up my sleep, so I've pretty much canned that, been threatening to do it for years really, and that certainly helps with weight loss!!! 🙂
Cheers nobeerinthefridge. It wasn't all in one go, and there have been a few slip-ups along the way, but each time I've caught it before I reached the previous proportions of lardiness and gone on to lose the weight again plus a bit more.
Another tip is to weigh yourself often. At the moment I weigh myself every day. It has taught me that there will be periods when I stay the same weight, or gain weight, even when sticking to my calorie goals. However, as long as I stick to my goals the trend is always downwards, so I don't get disheartened by this. It's easy when weighing yourself infrequently to see a massive drop in weight that may just be a fluctuation - you then think you can treat yourself and quickly undo the work that you've done.
I'd ignore anyone who's been lifelong "in shape" and not been a fatty themselves, there is a large psychological element IMO to losing weight when you're obese. Likewise it is totally different to someone who's already fit & doing a large volume of exercise dropping a few pounds to get down to "racing weight"
I had a lot of success with the iDiet (if you google search there's loads of threads on here). That is not the only method you, you have to find what works for you. Yes ultimately to want to transition to a healthy, sustainable lifestyle but IMO before that you need to do something that involves a bit more sacrifice as otherwise you will spend years getting to the maintenance point rather than 6 months or a year. (IMO)
The eat-less-do-more diet tends to work, but they all require commitment.
Another tip is to weigh yourself often.
It's funny the PT who was advising my gf wouldn't let her weigh or measure herself for 8 weeks. I think this was so that she could see a massive improvement towards her goal.
No fruit, or cake, ever?… Go for it.
Not ever - but due to my gf's healthy eating I now hardly ever eat cake & she only eats it on very rare occasions. To be honest I would miss alcohol more. We both feel way more energised now too.
The amount of crap you can consume as a human is truly frightening.
She did this with a broken arm.
Seems a bit drastic, but ok I'll get the sledgehammer.
I will struggle to prepare 2 meals each day and don’t want to put that pressure on my wife, therefore the meals need to be simple to prep.
Use your freezer.
It's almost as easy to make food for 6 as it is for 1. Next time you make, say, a spag bol, make half a dozen portions then eat one, stick one in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. Do that for a week and you've got zero-prep dinners for the rest of the month.
If you can't find half an hour a day to make food then either you're lying to yourself to make excuses, or you need to take a serious look at your life / time management.
It’s funny the PT who was advising my gf wouldn’t let her weigh or measure herself for 8 weeks. I think this was so that she could see a massive improvement towards her goal.
I'm in the weigh yourself often camp myself. Otherwise it's out of sight, out of mind, and it's easy to stray... The weighing is a daily reminder of what you're trying to do and gives you motivation.
It can sometimes be demoralising, when the gains don't come quick, or you find you've actually put on 4lbs in a couple of days.... But if you do it a lot it becomes routine, and you learn how to interpret that data. Your weight can easily fluctuate a few lbs from one day to the next, so it's a good idea to weigh yourself at the same time each day, and if you want a really accurate number, record every single day and take an average for the week.
It’s almost as easy to make food for 6 as it is for 1. Next time you make, say, a spag bol, make half a dozen portions then eat one, stick one in the fridge
Tried that. Didnt work. Mmm that was tasty, might just have a little bit more ..
Work, home and hobbies keep me busy so I will struggle to prepare 2 meals each day and don’t want to put that pressure on my wife, therefore the meals need to be simple to prep.
If you're cash rich/time poor, you could try one of those meal ingredient delivery service thingies. There was a good thread them a while ago. Just ignore all of Drac's posts.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/hello-fresh-and-other-food-delivery-companies/
... is the only answer
Other only answers are available. I am not an Instagram influencer.
The opposite of this:
My gf has lost 3 stone in 12 weeks & is maintaining by eating healthily. She did this with a broken arm.
Is your fridge door hard to open?
I'm just holding out for a magic pill (ffs scientists hurry up), one that doesn't cause you to crap yourself unexpectedly.
I really struggle with portion control (I'll just end up snacking later) and general boredom snacking between meals (mostly on weekends). Add the fact I don't really like the taste of most healthy stuff and just convince myself life's too short to eat like a rabbit. Then I see myself in the mirror and start reading threads like this hoping someone's found an amazing way to lose weight without any of the common drawback - unfortunately I always end up disappointed...
It’s almost as easy to make food for 6 as it is for 1. Next time you make, say, a spag bol, make half a dozen portions then eat one, stick one in the fridge and the rest in the freezer. Do that for a week and you’ve got zero-prep dinners for the rest of the month.
Unless there are five of you in the house , in which case you'd have to make 30 portions of each meal in one go and then store it all. It doesn't really scale up very well unless you have multiple massive freezers.
My gf has lost 3 stone in 12 weeks & is maintaining by eating healthily. She did this with a broken arm.
Restricted to cakes that can be lifted with one hand.
If you can’t find half an hour a day to make food then either you’re lying to yourself to make excuses, or you need to take a serious look at your life / time management.
This.
There are lots of ready prepared stuff that you can buy to help out, ready cooked brown rice is cheap as **** and very good, I actually prefer it to my usual basmati, Aldi also do really good frozen superfood mixes, a few different flavours, I just mix it through some salad, tuna, maybe some feta, makes a great lunch.
Eat less move more.
I've started commuting as much as possible (which generally works out about 3x a week if I want to get some sociable rides in too). 50miles a day and the weight soon starts to shift!
Couple that with just moderating my carb's intake, so with last nights roast dinner I had masses of chicken and veg, but only 4 small-ish roast potatoes.
Breakfast I don't count, as most days I'm cycling so almost immediately burn off any carbs and the other days it's usually just a couple of slices of toast or small bowl of porridge (50g of oats).
Lunch I'm lazy so often get a value microwave meal from sainsburys, they're typically only 400 calories and feel a bit more substantial than a sandwich (which often has more calories!).
Snacking I proportion to the cycling, so if I've ridden in then I don't feel guilty eating a whole packet of hob-nobs because I won't do that every day and if I spend all day craving biscuits I'll end up miserable and probably binge on something else. In reality I end up doing that once a week (and it's still a calorie deficit) so that's 2x days with a massive deficit.
I also bought a load of whey, creatine, BCAA & psyllium which I make up with about 200ml milk and 300ml water/ice. That's my second breakfast when I get to work on a cycling day.
Processed meals, not healthy long term Shirley?
Substitute the word "processed" for "cooked".
There's probably more than an average amount of salt and fat in them, but then if you counted everything that I put into a spagbol or chilli at home there's probably a comparable amount, especially when we're talking a 400cal ready meal portion Vs 2x to 3x that if I'm dishing it out myself.
Not everything that comes from the supermarket is bad, and not everything I cook at home is good (I make wicked tempura chilli'd pork balls, they probably have enough calories to power the NASA space program and are very moreish!).
I really struggle with portion control (I’ll just end up snacking later) and general boredom snacking between meals (mostly on weekends). Add the fact I don’t really like the taste of most healthy stuff and just convince myself life’s too short to eat like a rabbit.
Every time I have lost weight none of my food looked like salad all the time, still did it with bread, eggs, sausages, bacon, pasta, rice and all that. Just a bit less, as for snacking it's easy to fix by not buying the crap, a bag of apples by my desk was a great substitute for when you feel hungry.
I found a load of decent recipies with all the nutritional info in the feed zone table book, was a good read and some inspiration for good health eating.
If you can’t find half an hour a day to make food then either you’re lying to yourself to make excuses, or you need to take a serious look at your life / time management.
Half an hour? Every day?
I can't even get five minutes uninterrupted to go for a shite in peace.
IME best solution (and helpful with cutting food prep)
5:2 diet
+
MyFitnessPal diary so you dont go overboard on the other 5 days.
Just grab a soup and oatcake on the 2 fast days. Apple for breakfast.
Additionally, if you want to help things along in the gut fat dept start with a few sit-ups a day. Add 2 or 3 extra each day.
I don’t mind if it’s aggressive
You really do mind. I think there was a report at the beginning of this year where they checked people who had been on extreme diets a year later and most had rebounded to heavier than before. The theory seems to be that the extreme diet lowers the basic burn rate of your body and then it stays lower for a long time after you go back to eating normally so you put on more weight than before. As others have said, the trick seems to be to change your standard behaviour to eat a little less normally rather than 'dieting' and going back to what you did before
Every time I have lost weight none of my food looked like salad all the time, still did it with bread, eggs, sausages, bacon, pasta, rice and all that. Just a bit less, as for snacking it’s easy to fix by not buying the crap, a bag of apples by my desk was a great substitute for when you feel hungry.
The other option is start every meal with half a plate of salad. By the time you've put some leaves, chopped a whole tomato and a bit of cucumber onto your plate it doesn't leave much space for the spag bol or whatever. Instant 50% reduction in calories (salad has none worth counting) but you still have a visibly full plate of food for your brain to see (and it's got more colours to it), and it takes longer to eat so your gut has time to process the fact that it's getting full which makes you less likely to want pudding.
Does anyone else find that after eating (especially a healthy meal) I don't feel full until an hour or 2 later. So when I don't get the carb/sugar endorphins release from a meal, I still feel hungry for that period until I realise that actually I am full. It is just that my brain is triggered by a carb response rather than by my stomach actually feeling full..
Does anyone else find that after eating (especially a healthy meal) I don’t feel full until an hour or 2 later. So when I don’t get the carb/sugar endorphins release from a meal, I still feel hungry for that period until I realise that actually I am full. It is just that my brain is triggered by a carb response rather than by my stomach actually feeling full..
Yes, there's loads of ways your digestive system sends reward signals to the brain saying it's full. From your tastebuds sensing carbs (you can get a measurable increase in performance just swilling some sugary water round in your mouth and spitting it out!), Your stomach can sense when it's stretched, your gut senses when there's food/nutrients.
So the bulkier and slower digesting the food, the longer it will convince the gut that it's full for.
I found this really difficult in the mornings, I used to be one of those people that would eat 4 (or more) weetabix, a massive bowl of porridge or cornflakes right to the rim of the bowl. Then I went through a few weeks of eating a 'portion' of porridge which is apparently 30-50g of oats (2 tablespoons) with milk! Once into the habit of going to work 'not full' I found I actually craved snacks less. Being 'full' is a fairly fleeting feeling, even after a big christmas dinner you're not 'full' anymore a couple of hours later even though your gut has enough nutrients for the rest of the week probably!
So not only is my breakfast now about 1/3 the size it was, I don't need a muffin and latte from the coffee shop mid morning! Still have a cafetiere and a biscuit though, I'm not a heathen!
*sigh*
Anyway, just to let you know, most squash including the standard Robinson's stuff has next to no sugar in it. It's sweetened with artificial sweeteners. So if you are including diet soft drinks, you can include squash.
*sigh*
Are you full? 🙂
Check this guy out, talks loads of sense :
I do get a bit fed up with the simplistic advice to 'move more, eat less' or Calories in calories out. There are a lot of other things at play in the body when it comes to eating and diet.
1. Two vital hormones play a big part in how much we eat is Grehlin and leptin. Grehlin is an appetite-increasing hormone. It essentially makes you hungry. ghrelin reduces fat utilization and is a vital component of the food reward cascade controlled by the brain’s pleasure-reward system. People with more fat tend to produce more Grehlin . Leptin is an appetite suppressant hormone. It notifies the brain that you have eaten enough and energy levels are sufficient. The effect of these hormones on hunger and satiety don't seem to be measured in many of these studies
2. The problem with calorie restriction is your body is clever at reducing it's basal metabolic rate meaning your metabolism slows down. By doing this the levels of grehlin increase if you're consistently under-eating. Also if you eat highly processed, calorie dense typically high sugar foods then this feedback system telling the brain you are full doesn't work as well. This is why the type of calorie is very important. It's easy to consume 1000's of calories of high glycemic carbohydrates but very hard to do this for fat and protein. Try eating 5000 - calories of fat. It's very very hard because of grehlin and leptin hormones
3. Insulin is the other very important hormone. It is the fat storage hormone. When there is lots of insulin in the body we store fat. At the same time this blocks fat utilisation. What people fail to recognise is most of these 'diets: intermittent fasting, idave, 4 hour body, atkins. They are target the insulin response to food not reduced calories. The lower amount of insulin in the body the more chance you have of burning fat. High insulin tells out body to store energy. Low insulin signals our body to use stored energy food
4. Calories are a unit of heat measurement in a controlled environment. The amount of energy require to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. The body isn't a closed system. As I saw somewhere recently ' The calorie discussion is a physics definition rather than a biological one
So with this knowledge it seems very simple to me. Target eating via the insulin lowering model. Lowering insulin, we tell our bodies that there is no food coming in. Therefore, the body switches from burning the calories from food, to burning the calories from our body fat. Our body wants to burn 2000 calories, but it just gets them from body fat instead of food. Instead of restricting energy (calories), our body is switching fuel sources, from food to stored food (body fat). But this can only happen if we correct the underlying hormonal problem of excessive insulin.
The calories In Calories out model has shown to be a failure: https://idmprogram.com/evidence-caloric-restriction/
https://www.dietdoctor.com/obesity-solving-two-compartment-problem
Understanding Obestiy
Classic! 🙂
Write a list, including amounts, of all the snacks you eat per day.
Limit yourself to no more than half of it per day.
If you feel your current fitness can take it, try to do 30-60mins per day of intensive exercise.
Indeed ..Brilliant 🙂
I’m having a great deal of success with low carb high fat at the moment. Over 4 and half months I’ve dropped 15.5kg and that includes a good few “cheat weekends” where I’ve gone away for the weekend and had booze and loads of carbs.
I’d tried counting calories before, but failed to lose weight over the longer term, even when I was supposed to be in a defecit. It had worked initially but failed after 6 weeks or so.
i think you’ve got to find what works for you.
I’m having a great deal of success with low carb high fat at the moment. Over 4 and half months I’ve dropped 15.5kg
Amazing.. Good work.This is targetting the insulin response to food. I did the same about 4 years ago following idave's diet to get to a good racing weight. i dropped from 76 to 67 in 4 months. I previously tried lower calories and moving more - loads of running, cycling gym but it never made me lost fat/weight. I was very dubious about the high fat claims but once trying it and doing more reading about it is now makes complete sense once you understand the underlying scientific model
about 7 -8 months ago i gave up sugar and fruit for 3 months.. i actually got a bit of a 6 pack for the first time in my life. I've since tried to do it again but find it almost impossible to give it up again. sugar is so addictive
https://realmealrevolution.com/banting-diet-facts/
https://realmealrevolution.com/10-commandments-beginner-banting/
I’m with IHN (I skip breakfast 4-5 days a week) and trickydisco (I heard a really interesting radio programme called ‘not all calories are equal’, or something like that about 6 years ago). The premise that your body is a closed physical system is simply debunked by if you under eat you will cease to exist which plainly can’t happen (bones, tissue, etc, has a weight and won’t change that much if you under eat by 500 cals a day for the system/equation to be right you must lose weight (if you undereat...).
I did the idave diet about 6 years ago and lost over three stone, however i found it unsustainable and in the intervening time I put it all back on (and more) culminating in around April being the heaviest I’ve ever been. Concentrating on a new job meant I was working long hours and eating a lot (and I mean a lot) of shitty food. I’ve currently turned this around by cutting back my hours (the one year settling in period expired in May, it was never going to be sustainable) and (mainly) skipping breakfast... lunch is usually a pack of Nairn oatcakes and some cheese, a tub of hummus with carrot/pepper crudités or (if I go all out) tuna and chick pea salad. I usually have a bag of mixed nuts (or even peanuts) in the drawer and if I’m still/get hungry a small handful or two usually tides me over.
evening meals are more problematic. But by eating stuff that isn’t going to kick in with an insulin spike is the aim.
im not calorie counting, but I have sworn off ice cream (a MAJOR downfall) and chocolate/sweets/etc and I’ve lost knocking on 12 kg since my ‘peak’ 3-4 months ago.
i have increased my activity levels (just back from cycling across the highlands and back for instance) for which the weather has definitely helped.
IME, the long and short of it is, mental attitude is crucial (my state of mental mind didn’t help, although ironically, I kind of had an ‘existential crisis’ a month ago which I utilised to lose 4kg inc being ‘dry’ more because alcohol wasn’t a good idea), the eat less should really be eat properly (again, not ALL calories are equal, and, importantly don’t overeat) and, yes, increased activity definitely helps. I actually find exercise a bit of an appetite suppressant so it’s a bit of a virtuous cycle...
The idave diet tells me I can wobble as long as I don’t let it become a habit (although he recommended a day of eating whatever shit you liked iirc). I also think that the ‘fasting’ element helps you recalibrate what hunger actually is...
everybody is different though...
+1 for the 5/2 diet for me, other than when I was a runner it's the only way I've managed to loose weight - my wife is a bloody good cook and a feeder so I have to remind her what days I'm not eating much otherwise she gets upset.
The stress hormone (cortisol) also has a direct affect on weight gain and loss. So if you are unhappy and/or angry with your life, overworked or have serious worries. Then you will almost inevitably gain weight far easier (not just because you comfort eat).
@MSP: do you have sources for that? I’m not doubting it has an effect, it’s just that I’ve found (personally) that ‘extreme’ stress has the opposite effect... but at a lower level I’m with you all the way.
Agree metalheart, properly stressed my appetite is one of the first things to go.....
It's not about short term high stress levels, but the long term stress that modern life can bring. Stress is meant to be a short term safety mechanism, it pumps adrenalin, insulin and sugar into your bloodstream to prepare for "fight or flight" it is cortisol that controls that. When we have a low level long term increase in that action it messes with a lot of our biological systems.
I think I heard it discussed on a podcast, so with my listening habits it was probably either freakonomics, the infinite monkey cage or joe rogan.
I also heard another podcast with a researcher into gene expression, that was quite interesting, he was saying that they are getting fairly good at predicting what dietery changes are optimal for a person by looking at their gene sequences, although not quite good enough to really release to the general public. What was quite clear was that there is no one size fits all nutrition plan. Some might do well with high protein and fats, while others will respond better to having higher carb levels. At the moment all we can do to find out what works for us as an individual is trial and error.
And that probably works for stress as well, while maybe the majority reaction to stress would be to put on weight, others might respond differently due to their genetics.
Ah, okay, that kinda makes sense.
thanks for responding.
Join your local boxing club.
Don't eat rubbish.
That's it.
Im not sure that anybody is actually interested but this link summarises what I talking about up there:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-reasons-why-a-calorie-is-not-a-calorie#section7
For me, the biggest takeaway is this from the summary: “in many cases, simple changes in food selection can lead lead to the same or better results than restricting your calorie intake”
im finding this is the case for me...
Following on from this, is there an app that will combine the exercise from garmin/Strava with my food intake from samsung health/myfitness?
Just discovered that I wasn't looking hard enough at the my fitness pal app.
I have now linked Garmin Connect, Strava and Google Fit to it.
What a good piece of tech, cheers.
Astroturf can also help a calorie deficit.
It can also help with a forum membership surfeit. (-:
Some interesting research back in May around High GI foods and Metabolic damage and how the role of 2 important hormones in the guy interact with insulin resistance, adipose tissue subclinical inflammation, hepatic fat accumulation, and postprandial vascular responses.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043276018300468
In summary, high-GI carbohydrates differ from low-GI carbohydrates, specifically by releasing GIP. There is ample evidence for metabolically unfavorable effects of GIP regarding insulin sensitivity, fatty liver disease, subclinical inflammation, and promotion of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (Figure 4). The hormonal responses of the intestine to a sugar with low GI, which induces little release of GIP but greater amounts of GLP-1, result in metabolic improvements in healthy individuals and in people with impaired glucose metabolism or overt type 2 diabetes, providing strong evidence that GIP plays a central role in mediating the deleterious effects of high-GI foods, while reducing the release of GIP may explain much of the health benefits of low GI foods.
Essentially i't saying there is a hormone located in the intestine that induces insulin secretion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_inhibitory_polypeptide
I know the core of this thread is a month old, but I fancy chipping in.
A few things I've learned in the last couple of years.
Ignore people who give you useful advice like "move more, eat less dummy" being over-weight isn't stupidity, you don't need to be Brian Cox to work out that if you consume 3000 calories a day in food and 'burn' 2000 you'll get fatter. It's a psychological problem that those types of people don't have. You might as well tell an Alcoholic "stop drinking dummy"
MFA is pretty good, if you can stick to it, but as above, real weight problems are psychological, frankly it stopped working for me as soon as a started adding calories back after riding - oh I burnt 1300 cals today, lets have a pie, I swear I'd let that ride compensate for snacks all week.
Tragically perhaps I go to Slimming World, since my boss left I think I'm now officially the only Man there. The 'plan' is made to seem complex, but it's simple really, you eat low density foods, there's a complex points system that allows for a few things, usually condiments for me. You go once a week, you step on the scale, and then there's a meeting you don't have to stay for, I really should - it's like AA, "Hi, I'm P-Jay and I'm a fatty" but I don't, I'm in a room with 40 others who seem to have all the time in the world to chat. I'm told I should accept it's an hour long and enjoy the rest, but I can't. It just takes too long.
It's not a fast fix, people do lose 3-4 lbs a week or more, but generally it's the 2lbs mark.You chip away at it.
Sadly like being an Alcoholic, I don't think you're ever cured. When depression and Anxiety were kicking my arse last year I stopped going for about a year, I put back on about half what I lost in the 6 months previous, which was a shame.
There's a system in place, once you reach your goal (it's usually about BMI normal but you set it yourself) you can keep going, as often as you like, for free - people tend to drop in once a month, occasionally if the weight creeps on at least it's not a surprise to them.
As above, the meetings are tragic, when I do stay I have to fight the urge to say "DUST!" every 5 mins. But it works.
I think I'm getting on quite well with the myfitnesspal thingy. It's linked to my Garmin and it's really got me thinking about the snacks I ingest.
So far I'm down from 78k to 77.1k if my crap scales are to be believed. Only another 4k's to go.
The challenge will be keeping up the food diary when I get down to something near my desired weight obviously.
I’ve lost 3 stone since Xmas through intermittent fasting and riding my local red trail.
Havin a ride before I eat seems to kill fat quicker.
I’ve lost 3 1/2 stone since last year.
It’s important to recognise what works for one doesn’t work for all.
What I did was to take up running. I only need 30 minutes to get a run in and run 5 days a week.
Exercise alone doesn’t shift weight but it provides a focus for me to eat well and as I shed weight the speed went up .
I’m out and about for work a lot and rarely at home so prepared meals do t really work for me.
Instead I use my fitness pal to monitor what I eat and it’s a really useful tool as I have a measure of exactly what calories I’m consuming whether I’m out in a restaurant, picking up a sandwich or early g at home.
It also gives you a macro showing carb/protein/fat and I quickly realised I was too dependent on carbs and not consuming enough proteins.
I’m never going to be able to follow a rigid diet and I can still allow myself a beer or a cake so my fitness pal works for me.
It is also connected to my Strava so I can trade extra run distance for calories.
I weigh myself a coupe of times a week. That way you get to notice normal weight fluctuations but quickly see if there isn’t an upward trend and can act on it quickly.