Losing Weight

[Ernil Menegil]

I have little knowledge of how often this sort of topic arises, or how well informed frequenters of the forum are on the subject, but I do feel like I am very much in need of some form of assistance.

I am male, in my mid twenties. I am obese, thirty five to fourty kilos overweight to be more exact (roughly 85 to 90 pounds, if the converter is right). I grew up a fairly athletic kid, right up until puberty hit and I lost any and all interest for sports. From then on I grew steadily in weight, without giving the matter much attention, as I had a fair few other issues to tend to; it had never been too serious in any case, just a few extra kilos in, nothing that I could not lose with some effort.

But then, college hit.

During my equivalent of middle and high school, I had consistent, weekly PH classes which kept me from derailing completely, as much as I hated the bloody thing. By my seventeen years of age, I had put almost the whole amount of the weight I reported earlier. But as I ditched those PH classes in favour of a much, much more sedentary lifestyle in college, I started putting on weight again, as can be expected. Ten kilos more, give or take. And I have not fluctuated at all from the 110 kilo bar for five years.

Until this year.

I am getting bigger again. While I recognize I have been rather sloppy with my diet of late, basically ordering quite a bit of pizza in, it's just not something I am used to taking note of, and I confess it's scaring me quite a bit. I've kept to a certain weight and even gotten comfortable with the fact that I am fat. My rich yet non-fast-food diet and my very sedentary lifestyle kept me heavy, true, but haven't given me any health problems of note, apart from what you would expect from someone who is far below shape. So when this bump in the scale of five kilos more was revealed during Christmas, it was a slap to the face. Even moreso when I have begun to notice my movements are more restricted than my usual, and those old social fears I used to feel a while ago, that fear of stepping out the room door because someone will judge, insult and demean the fuck out of me, have begun to crop back. Which, of course, only perpetuates my inertia.

I have tried losing weight before, trying to gain healthier habits and a taste for exercise, and while it had some remarkable success (I lost 8 kilos in one month, with nothing more than a stricter diet and nigh-daily exercise), it failed to ingrain any habits in me. Between the absolutely contradictory knowledge I get shot at by all manner of professionals and media, the absolute lack of any friends who might actually help me in a positive, encouraging fashion, my distaste for exercise and sports, the stress of classes and the lack of money to invest in personal trainers and a gym (which scare the hell out of me anyways, as most such places tend to do), I am in very much a pickle.

So I come to you, fellow Escapists, to ask you of good ways I can vanquish this particular demon in a sustainable way. Because no one else I've talked to seems to have a straight answer. And while it may seem I provide the answers already in this very post, the reason why I write all this in the first place is because I am scared. Scared of having this weight gain spiral out of control completely, of not managing to rein in my body's impulses, of having my self-esteem be ground to dust by the eyes of strangers every time I step out the building door or look at my mirror. I need help in getting out of this vicious cycle. Maybe you have the words of advice for it.

 

[lechat]

there is no magic bullet in weight management it is merely calories in versus calories out.
i can recommend a low carb diet for anyone who isn't overly physical but without a large amount of willpower it will be hard to maintain and could end up doing more harm than good.
best advice i give to any guy trying to lose weight with little motivation is to grab a set of dumbbells and focus only on increasing strength. if you do things right you should build enough muscle mass to passively burn fat for you and hopefully along the way you will gain the added motivation to from there

this thread here has some good advice
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/538.397895-Getting-into-exercise

 

[Ernil Menegil]

I am well aware magical bullets do not exist, lechat. It is sustainable methods of maintaining healthy weight loss that I seek, not magical bullets

Willpower really is the bigger issue, as getting those carbs is a big motivation to beat.

I'll review the thread and see what I glean, thank you!

 

[Frezzato]

I wish there was more news on this article. It's a good read, and in retrospect, it answers questions like mine about how we can gorge ourselves over a holiday and not gain weight:

What new information did your equation render?

That the conventional wisdom of 3,500 calories less is what it takes to lose a pound of weight is wrong. The body changes as you lose. Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one.

Also, there's a time constant that's an important factor in weight loss. That's because if you reduce your caloric intake, after a while, your body reaches equilibrium. It actually takes about three years for a dieter to reach their new "steady state." Our model predicts that if you eat 100 calories fewer a day, in three years you will, on average, lose 10 pounds ? if you don?t cheat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/science/a-mathematical-challenge-to-obesity.html?_r=0

 

[Ernil Menegil]

I wish there was more news on this article. It's a good read, and in retrospect, it answers questions like mine about how we can gorge ourselves over a holiday and not gain weight:

What new information did your equation render?

That the conventional wisdom of 3,500 calories less is what it takes to lose a pound of weight is wrong. The body changes as you lose. Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one.

Also, there's a time constant that's an important factor in weight loss. That's because if you reduce your caloric intake, after a while, your body reaches equilibrium. It actually takes about three years for a dieter to reach their new "steady state." Our model predicts that if you eat 100 calories fewer a day, in three years you will, on average, lose 10 pounds ? if you don?t cheat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/science/a-mathematical-challenge-to-obesity.html?_r=0

Yet, considering the amount of variables involved in each individual, isn't such a model, well, impossible to calculate with "hundreds of equations"? Would it rather be billions of equations?

I can definitely understand that less calories and more exercise, with proper adjustments to the body's comfort levels with exercise and the proper intake of food, will lead to weight loss and a healthy, balanced weight, but what this model proposes just seems so ... standardized. Oversimplified. Wouldn't you say it's an issue that is a lot more complex than a mathematician could hope to predict, as we're not dealing solely with number-crunching?

 

[BrassButtons]

Willpower really is the bigger issue, as getting those carbs is a big motivation to beat.

You need to remove the need for willpower as much as possible. Figure out where your willpower fails the most often, and then try to eliminate those scenarios. For instance, if you often eat pizza as a result of wanting a quick meal instead of needing to make something healthy you can try making healthy meals ahead of time and freezing them, so that it's easy to get healthy food (note that if you make the food in bulk you can also save yourself quite a bit of money. Check out this bulk breakfast burrito recipe [http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/02/20/bulk-breakfast-burritos-convenient-cheap-healthy-and-easier-than-you-think/] for an idea of what I'm talking about. You can also freeze things like shells stuffed with spinnach and cheese, casseroles, stuffed bell peppers, etc.

If you don't like exercise then you may want to try an exercise program that is designed to be as quick and painless as possible. The ladder method [http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/exercise.html] is meant to take no more than fifteen minutes a day (there's no setup involved and you shouldn't need to shower afterward) regardless of how far you progress, and it's meant to gently push your limits so that you're not completely sore and hating it afterward. And the stepped approach lets you get a nice sense of progress that can help motivate you. Oh, and there's zero equipment involved, meaning you can't use excuses like "the weights are under a pile of junk" or "I'd have to drive all the way to the gym".

Something else to try is having a visual reminder of your progress. Have a calender that you mark every day that you exercise or go without eating junk food. When you see a streak of either of those building up it may give you added incentive to resist temptations.

You also might want to think about why you're doing this, and then put a reminder of that somewhere you'll see it. If your weight bothers you then maybe take a picture of yourself and put it on the fridge or the cabinet, so that any time you go to get food you'll be reminded of why you want to avoid bad foods. Or if you prefer a positive approach, use a picture from when you were skinnier to remind yourself of what you're aiming for.

Finally, keep in mind that it takes something like six weeks for new habits to form. So make it a goal to exercise every day for six weeks--this gives you a nice, concrete goal. And it's an easy one as well. The exercises don't have to be good at this point, just so long as you're doing something. If six weeks seems daunting then just focus on doing one week at first--you can do just seven days, right? Of course you can!

Lastly, don't blow your mistakes out of proportion. Slipping up one day out of the week and skipping your exercise or eating a pizza won't undo the rest of the work you've done unless you let it. If you give into temptation then acknowledge it, try to see if there's any way you can avoid it in the future, and then just move on.

 

[sanquin]

This is how I'm personally doing it:

Ever since a few years back I'm no longer able to just eat whatever I want and not gain weight. So I just simply started to reign in my intake. I don't snack as much as I used to any more, and if I do I try to stay with healthier things. Fruit I like instead of chocolate and such things. On top of that I usually skip breakfast. Not that I force myself to skip it though. For some reason I've just never been a breakfast girl. In the afternoon I also eat as little as possible. Just enough to keep my hunger sated. Maybe one sandwich or something. And only during dinner do I really eat a lot. However I almost always cook my dinner myself. And with that, I often use rice or noodles, and only a little of those. I put plenty of plain chicken fillet in my meals (nothing added) and instead of more rice/noodles, put in more vegetables. The sauces I use as well. I try to pick ones with less calories in them, and instead of putting in the entire bag as recommended, I put in half a bag. (or whatever other container it may be in.)

And...that's it. I hardly exercise. Only twice a week do I go to a petting zoo and kitchen garden where I do volunteer work. That's the only real exercise I get. Really, it's not that hard to keep up in my opinion. And if you can't...well, I'm sorry to say that you just need to man up and stop letting yourself waste away. No willpower is not something others can help you with. Not in the long run at least. Only you can help yourself in this matter.

 

[lechat]

You also might want to think about why you're doing this, and then put a reminder of that somewhere you'll see it. If your weight bothers you then maybe take a picture of yourself and put it on the fridge or the cabinet, so that any time you go to get food you'll be reminded of why you want to avoid bad foods. Or if you prefer a positive approach, use a picture from when you were skinnier to remind yourself of what you're aiming for.

always better to focus on the positive especially since the OP seems ashamed or disappointed in his current shape. put a picture up of brad pitt or arnie and be reminded that that is what you are aiming for. if you put a picture of how you currently look you are more likely to think it is hopeless or you have already failed

Lastly, don't blow your mistakes out of proportion. Slipping up one day out of the week and skipping your exercise or eating a pizza won't undo the rest of the work you've done unless you let it. If you give into temptation then acknowledge it, try to see if there's any way you can avoid it in the future, and then just move on.

a very good point. while you should not let it be a constant excuse, any time you slip up is just an opportunity to focus harder the next day


i also recommend a body fat percentage scale http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/digital-scale-bmi-body-fat-percentage-readings/
measure your body fat only once a week and try at take a reading at the same time and after eatting the same ammount to not skew the results

 

[Ernil Menegil]

Thanks, everyone! These are great tips, and I will definitely put them to good use. If you have any more, by all means, keep posting them!, I'd love to hear of cases similar to mine, and I'm hoping the advice here can help people in similar situations.

 

[Rastien]

I would highly advise looking into a high protien low carb diet, i lost 4 stone so far and i'm still gradually loosing weight although i slacked on my diet i'm going back at it now.

I did fuck all excersize at the start of this diet, only recently since my car died have i been walking to work everyday which is helping alot.

But seriously just google high protien low carb diet it works but can be tricky to do if your not living alone good luck dude any questions drop me an email

 

[lechat]

I would highly advise looking into a high protien low carb diet, i lost 4 stone so far and i'm still gradually loosing weight although i slacked on my diet i'm going back at it now.

I did fuck all excersize at the start of this diet, only recently since my car died have i been walking to work everyday which is helping alot.

But seriously just google high protien low carb diet it works but can be tricky to do if your not living alone good luck dude any questions drop me an email

i done a 3 month zero carb diet...... and fuck i really need to get around to collating the data on the results one day
but i can at least give a summary on the results.

for starters DONT do a zero carb diet like i did. apart from the fact it is brutally hard to stick to it there is a massive loss in readily accessible energy that makes long term intense exercise so difficult that you basically wont bother and if you work a physical job like i did you are likely to get your ass fired for slacking off or have a tree fall on your head from lack of concentration (that may not happen to anyone other than me)
my limited tests also showed that a low carb diet is more effective than a zero carb diet for some strange reason. not many studies on the effects of a zero carb diet and muscle gain which i why i done it in the first place

DO get rid of all carbs in your house if possible. make sure you have a ready supply of easy snacks like sausages, bacon and steak to munch on if you get hungry. if you choose to go low carb then grab some celery and lettuce as well

DO not slip up. eating an ass load of fatty bacon can actually help you lose weight despite what logic may tell you but if you combine it with a single cupcake you might as well just inject the fat straight into your heart and ass

forget everything you know about how much a high fat diet will mess your shit up. i done medical tests at the beginning and end of the 3 months and while my bad cholesterol was slightly high (it was higher to start with) after informing the doctors i had spent 3 months eating bacon and sausages they could not believe how low it was and said my good cholesterol was through the roof.
apart from the fact i ended the test with a heart rate so low my cardiologist told me i should be training Kenyans to run marathons there were no long term health problems
more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-carbohydrate_diet

DO take a decent multivitimin. you have fuck all chance of getting the vitamins you need on a low carb diet


tl;dr
zero carb diet
again i really need to get the results of my trial into a readable form but i can summarize with this statement:
although a zero carb diet seemed to result in a greater loss in body fat than what should be expected from a diet which was on average higher than my regular diet in calories my decreased energy resulted in a lack of exercise which i otherwise would have achieved with the same level of motivation on a low calorie diet and resulted in less muscle gain (near zero i think) than i would have liked.
the results of the weight loss (about 15 kg) was less than what i would have expected from a balanced diet and the weight gain after resuming a regular diet was rapid and extreme (regained all the weight and more in 2 months)
the diet seems most suited to those with a sedentary lifestyle with low motivation for exercise however i am skeptical that anyone with that level of motivation would be able to strictly follow the diet.

i will not say a low carb diet doesn't work but it's important you stick with it and i would advise instead a relatively low carb, with lower calories high in protein diet combined with weight training to build muscle for long term weight management.

if you have any questions on zero or low carb diets or would like to know more details of my results let me know

 

[Rastien]

I would highly advise looking into a high protien low carb diet, i lost 4 stone so far and i'm still gradually loosing weight although i slacked on my diet i'm going back at it now.

I did fuck all excersize at the start of this diet, only recently since my car died have i been walking to work everyday which is helping alot.

But seriously just google high protien low carb diet it works but can be tricky to do if your not living alone good luck dude any questions drop me an email

i done a 3 month zero carb diet...... and fuck i really need to get around to collating the data on the results one day
but i can at least give a summary on the results.

for starters DONT do a zero carb diet like i did. apart from the fact it is brutally hard to stick to it there is a massive loss in readily accessible energy that makes long term intense exercise so difficult that you basically wont bother and if you work a physical job like i did you are likely to get your ass fired for slacking off or have a tree fall on your head from lack of concentration (that may not happen to anyone other than me)
my limited tests also showed that a low carb diet is more effective than a zero carb diet for some strange reason. not many studies on the effects of a zero carb diet and muscle gain which i why i done it in the first place

DO get rid of all carbs in your house if possible. make sure you have a ready supply of easy snacks like sausages, bacon and steak to munch on if you get hungry. if you choose to go low carb then grab some celery and lettuce as well

DO not slip up. eating an ass load of fatty bacon can actually help you lose weight despite what logic may tell you but if you combine it with a single cupcake you might as well just inject the fat straight into your heart and ass

forget everything you know about how much a high fat diet will mess your shit up. i done medical tests at the beginning and end of the 3 months and while my bad cholesterol was slightly high (it was higher to start with) after informing the doctors i had spent 3 months eating bacon and sausages they could not believe how low it was and said my good cholesterol was through the roof.
apart from the fact i ended the test with a heart rate so low my cardiologist told me i should be training Kenyans to run marathons there were no long term health problems
more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-carbohydrate_diet

DO take a decent multivitimin. you have fuck all chance of getting the vitamins you need on a low carb diet


tl;dr
zero carb diet
again i really need to get the results of my trial into a readable form but i can summarize with this statement:
although a zero carb diet seemed to result in a greater loss in body fat than what should be expected from a diet which was on average higher than my regular diet in calories my decreased energy resulted in a lack of exercise which i otherwise would have achieved with the same level of motivation on a low calorie diet and resulted in less muscle gain (near zero i think) than i would have liked.
the results of the weight loss (about 15 kg) was less than what i would have expected from a balanced diet and the weight gain after resuming a regular diet was rapid and extreme (regained all the weight and more in 2 months)
the diet seems most suited to those with a sedentary lifestyle with low motivation for exercise however i am skeptical that anyone with that level of motivation would be able to strictly follow the diet.

i will not say a low carb diet doesn't work but it's important you stick with it and i would advise instead a relatively low carb, with lower calories high in protein diet combined with weight training to build muscle for long term weight management.

if you have any questions on zero or low carb diets or would like to know more details of my results let me know

What this dude has said zero carbs is bad. i would aim to eat around 25g a day maybe 50g but that's pushing it look into a few guides and articles and find a plan that is right for you.

Also it sounds like it's stupid and won't work in places e.g. fatty bacon? nom nom eat away cheese? holy shit yes. but proper cheese! read the back, on this diet fat in food isn't your enemy it's carbs.

 

[lechat]

yup the number i actually came up with was 20-30 grams of carbs to fairly comfortable have enough energy to burn away the fat without getting excessively worn out or having to take a break every 5 minuets during heavy exercise.

you raise a good point about the labels on food. on a zero carb diet cheese was out of the question, you can prolly get a really low carb (maybe zero?) cheese but my local supermarkets all had carb levels of about 5% and made the stuff off limits to me. i also couldn't find a reliable source on the carb level of eggs (possible 1 gram of carbs per) so i excluded that also.

the second you start reading labels on a low carb diet you can expect the light to blink right out of your eyes. what makes the diet so hard is basically everything has carbs (literally everything except meat) and you can expect all the cool stuff like chips, sugary soda and anything cereal based (bread, pasta, cereal) to have carbs in levels that will allow you only a mouse sized serving each day

decent food chart with carb levels
http://whatscookingamerica.net/NutritionalChart.htm

 

[Rastien]

yup the number i actually came up with was 20-30 grams of carbs to fairly comfortable have enough energy to burn away the fat without getting excessively worn out or having to take a break every 5 minuets during heavy exercise.

you raise a good point about the labels on food. on a zero carb diet cheese was out of the question, you can prolly get a really low carb (maybe zero?) cheese but my local supermarkets all had carb levels of about 5% and made the stuff off limits to me. i also couldn't find a reliable source on the carb level of eggs (possible 1 gram of carbs per) so i excluded that also.

the second you start reading labels on a low carb diet you can expect the light to blink right out of your eyes. what makes the diet so hard is basically everything has carbs (literally everything except meat) and you can expect all the cool stuff like chips, sugary soda and anything cereal based (bread, pasta, cereal) to have carbs in levels that will allow you only a mouse sized serving each day

decent food chart with carb levels
http://whatscookingamerica.net/NutritionalChart.htm

The real ball breaker for me was fruit the stuff is prized as being godly in most diets but due to the high content of natural sugars if you're going for low carbs it's no dice unfortuntley

 

[dmase]

if you have any questions on zero or low carb diets or would like to know more details of my results let me know

The reason we decide we need to kill all the carbs!!! Is because carbs end up producing more net energy then proteins, only barely though. There are thousands of proteins, fatty acids, and other chemicals being produced in the body that are made via break down of food into monomers and fitted back together and become useful. While proteins can support a lot of that functionality, enough to keep you alive, it's not a direct method or a good one for the body. Proteins generally produce less energy which is why on the atckins diet your allowed to do the only meat thing because you can eat more(so your not hungry) but you get less energy out then if you where eating fat. I base this off of atwater factors but of course it's more complicated then just calorimetry and metabolism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atwater_system

OP: I wouldn't take carbs out of your diet ever but reduce them definitely, fat should definitely be reduced to zero or as close to it as possible and drink only water from this day forward. If you drink 3 12 oz mt dews your already at 510 calories in liquid alone. Imagine if you replaced that with water, your not losing that full sensation after a meal and yeah it will be hard the first couple weeks but once your off it water will be hard to switch back from.

Doesn't your college have a gym? If so you need to man up and go for it, the gym may limit you in some ways but it opens up how you can tackle your weight problem. Recently I've been attempting to keep my motivation for exercising by doing straights sets without stopping, which I think would be good for you. Not only does it keep your heart rate up for an extended time it also hits your muscles hard and takes much less time to do. Basically you don't want to have a break in between your sets unless you absolutely need to.

One cardio routine I like because it's short and sweet and helps with the lower body are m100's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkD9LwDBWW0

Of course you have to commit to more than 6 minutes of work a day, 30 is what I would say is a minimum with only one day off a week. If you want some advice on routines send me a message. Though I wanna be clear I've never had trouble losing weight and most of what my experience is with gaining muscle.

Now another thing that has come to my attention is that working out even 1 hour a day every day still doesn't help as much as you'd think. Recent studies have shown that everybody needs to move around at least 10 minutes every hour, it could be walking or even just standing. It's a little thing but it makes sense, so next time your reading a book or on your laptop do it standing up for at least 10 minutes for every hour. Just to be clear this isn't about burning calories it's about increasing your muscle absorption of circulating blood glucose so that your fat will release more later on when it needs it.

 

[lechat]

if you have any questions on zero or low carb diets or would like to know more details of my results let me know

The reason we decide we need to kill all the carbs!!! Is because carbs end up producing more net energy then proteins, only barely though. There are thousands of proteins, fatty acids, and other chemicals being produced in the body that are made via break down of food into monomers and fitted back together and become useful. While proteins can support a lot of that functionality, enough to keep you alive, it's not a direct method or a good one for the body. Proteins generally produce less energy which is why on the atckins diet your allowed to do the only meat thing because you can eat more(so your not hungry) but you get less energy out then if you where eating fat. I base this off of atwater factors but of course it's more complicated then just calorimetry and metabolism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atwater_system

my trial was done to test 2 theories
1. you can't lose weight and gain muscle (fairly common body builder saying)
2. you lose weight during a low carb diet because you end up taking in less calories (often without realizing)
in order to test those 2 theories i made sure to take in more calories than i usually do while keeping cardio and strength training as close to the same as possible

end result was more weight loss than i should have had with the same amount of exercise (about 20-30% again i need to collate the data) and quite possibly zero muscle gain or at least far less than what should be expected

theory obviously is processes such as ketosis from a high protein diet just plain take more energy to burn the same amount of calories i also noted a higher body temperature so it could be as simple as a higher basal metabolic rate passively burning energy. either way i'm just one man and my tests are far from clinical but low carb diets have been proven to work time and again

 

[TheCaptain]

I'm quite comfortable with the old weight watchers system. I do it online, without the meetings and whatnot. You got an easy-to-use point system to keep track of what you can and can not eat, which is exactly something I needed; it forces me to think aboput what I eat and plan ahead a bit. And you're still flexible enough to have a couple of beers on the weekend or eat out once in a while without blowing the whole thing.

Downside, if you don't also exercise a bit on the side it's very slow, but that's ok for me - I got time. Also, if you want to use the online program, they want regular money, of course.