Posts by techdog

Original Post by zooplah:

I'd say that 30 minutes a day starting out is a bit too much.  You should start out 5 and then increment by 5 once a week or so.  You need to keep working at it and prevent your body from getting bored.

I have to disagree.  The original poster doesn't sound like she is having trouble doing 30 minutes a day, so I don't see that there is a need to do less.  At least, I don't equate her saying she is "feeling it" with excessive pain.  I took that to mean that her muscles are letting her know that they are being used.  Sort of how I "feel it" after doing 30 minutes of stationary bike and 1 hour of elliptical at the gym.

As for starting out at 5 minutes, I don't know about her, but I think that wouldn't do me any good at all, since it normally takes me at least that long to get my heart rate up.  And at least for me, a 5 minute walk wouldn't even get me to my mailbox and back.  Even at my heaviest, when walking was often painful, I could do 30 minutes.  The thing that really improved over time was the distance I could cover in 30 minutes.  When I started out, my walking speed was pretty slow (3 mph or so).  Now my normal walking pace is over 4.5 mph and if I'm in a hurry, I can walk at 5.5 - 6 mph.  Naturally, it doesn't hurt to have long legs (I'm 6'5").  :)

To the original poster, I would repeat the suggestion to make sure you have a good pair of shoes for walking and if doing 30 minutes a day at your current pace IS causing you undue pain, then instead of walking less, just slow down a bit until you get used to it, then gradually pick up the pace.

Besides, 30 minutes of walking is a good amount of time to unwind from a hectic day (I like to walk in the evenings).

I don't want to rain on your parade, and if this works for you, then I'm glad, but any claim to have found "the secret" to weight loss automatically triggers my BS alarm.  Every study I have ever read of people who successfully lose weight and keep it off has come to the same conclusions:

1.  There is no "one size, fits all" method of weight loss.  Every person react differently to weight loss regimens and while some might react favorably to high carb, low fat diets, others would react favorably to low carb, high protein diets.  People aren't machines.  We each have unique body chemistries and reactions to different foods, so there are very few rules that can be applied to everyone.

2.  The most successful dieters are those who customize their weight loss regimens based on experimentation and figuring out what works best for the individual.  These people tailor their diets based on how their bodies work and are successful at maintaining their weight loss because they know how to tweak their eating to achieve their weight management goals.

Good luck in reaching your goals and I hope that you can maintain your enthusiasm, because I believe that having a positive attitude is one of the most important factors to successful weight management.

Cheers.

I would believe it is possible for the following reason.

A person who is carrying a lot of excess weight is stressing their spine, and compacting the discs between the vertabrae.  If each of these discs were to lose some of their thickness, you could conceivably lose a little height.  I don't imagine that it would be very much, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

I believe this way because of a discussion I had recently with my doctor, who suggested that one of the possible reasons for my lower back pain was due to deterioration of the discs in my spine, caused by the added stress of carrying extra weight.

Glad to be of help.  The basic rule is that protein and carbs (except for alcohol) provide 4 calories per gram, fat provides 9 calories per gram and alcohol is 7 calories per gram, so if you want to see how much they are rounding, then use these numbers (assuming that the label tells you how many grams of each of these) to calculate a more accurate calorie count.  Or if you are lazy, just add 5 to every calorie listing on labels.  This will give you a slight overestimate, but not by a whole lot.

Original Post by tomatotomata:

Plus, they want you to exercise an hour a day. Who can do that?

I don't consider myself as having completed a workout if it isn't at least an hour long.  My regular cardio routine is about 1 hr 45 minutes (30 minutes on the stationary bike, followed by 1 hour elliptical + 5 minute cooldown, and a 4.5 mph walk for 1 mile, which takes me about 13.5 minutes).  And on non-cardio days, between resistance training and "light" cardio (walking at about 4 mph for 30 minutes) I easily spend an hour.  I just don't see the point of what some people I see at the gym call cardio (15 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill).  But I spent 9 years in the Army, where an hour was usually the minimum amount of time spent doing physical training, so my views on fitness are skewed by that experience.

I appreciate the wish of good luck.  I'm sure I'll need it.  And like you, I didn't start counting calories here, but started with my own plan that I developed with the input of my doctor.  And I still don't use the tools here, because I find them to be poorly designed and much harder than just keeping a pen and paper tally of my consumption, but then, I'm old fashioned that way.  I mainly come here to continue learning as much as I can about weight loss and nutrition.

As for which reference number to base your meal plans on, I started out using my BMR (not using Harris-Benedict, but a different formula), not for my current weight, but for my target weight.  I reasoned that I want my body to work as efficiently as it can at that level of calories and that if I could find the balance of foods to satisfy my hunger at that level now, then maintenance would be a breeze because I would already have become used to eating the appropriate amount of calories for the weight I want to maintain.  I'm not 100% certain that this is a valid line of reasoning, but I think that it can't be too far from true since several of the formulas for calculating BMR that are statistically more accurate than Harris-Benedict make adjustments for the difference between your current weight and your target weight, like the weight adjusted Harris-Benedict formula.  Anyhow, following my plan, under my doctor's supervision, allowed me to lose the first 100 pounds of my overall goal and is helping me to get ever closer to my final destination.

Cheers everyone. :)

Well, the first thing that should make you suspect about the ad is that it says you can target belly fat specifically, when it has been proven time and time again that targeted weight loss doesn't work.

As for the ad, if you follow it, you will find that they are trying to sell you two things.  The first is the acai berry supplement and the second is a cleanse product.  While as others have stated, acai berry is good for you, the supplement is questionable at best and downright bogus at worst.  Their claims to have been featured on Fox news and Rachel Ray, etc. are also bogus, because the Rachel Ray segment they reference was about acai berry juice, not their supplement and it wasn't featured on Fox News Network, but a local Fox affiliate in some city and again, this feature on Fox news was not about their supplement, but the benefits of acai berry juice.  The cleanse product part is even worse, since the whole idea of cleansing is based on junk science.  Multiple studies have proven that the claim that your colon needs to be periodically cleansed to remove toxins is not only bogus, but is damaging to the good bacteria that live in your colon and that are essential to good health.  While the cleanse product they are pushing isn't as bad as the Master Cleanse, it still is based on a faulty premise and as such, I would recommend staying far away from it.

As for how much money they have made, I'm sure it is tons, since when you order either of the products, you are automatically enrolled in their refill program, so you end up paying >$50 per month for both products.

I can't stand fruit in cottage cheese.  Just thinking of it makes me want to hurl.  One of the ways I do enjoy it (besides straight out of the container) is on a simple salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber.  If you like celery, you could also put the cottage cheese in the blender, with a little fat free ranch dressing and use it as a dip (fat free cottage cheese isn't as good for this as the 1%).  I have also blended cottage cheese with plain non-fat yogurt and cayenne pepper and used it as a vegetable dip as well.

Original Post by crazyperson01:

techdog I AGREE WITH YOU mostly. now drop it.

Wow.  Now that is extremely rude.

I wasn't talking to you exclusively, I was expressing my opinion.  If you don't like what I have to say, then don't read my comments in this PUBLIC forum.

I honestly don't think I sounded defensive at all and as I said, I do agree that people do let stress and grief become excuses for not eating healthy.  I just don't think that allowing ourselves to make excuses accomplishes anything.  And I agree that "needing to eat" to overcome stress and "thinking they need to eat" to overcome stress are different, but you didn't say "thinking" in your original response, so my response was to what you said, not what you meant.

Read what I said again and you will see that I see your point, I just don't agree with it.  Yes, people do eat to deal with stress and grief, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do.  And unless someone recognizes that it isn't the right thing to do and changes, then they are unlikely to succeed at losing weight.

That is the primary disagreement between our positions.  I think that it is essential that people do say, "It's my fault that I didn't make healthier eating choices."  You can't change your behavior unless you realize that your behavior is self destructive.  If you don't accept responsibility for your actions, then it isn't your fault when you fail.  I'm not saying that we should say, "It's my fault and I'm such a loser that I can't do anything about it."  We should say, "It's my fault, but I am stronger than that and I know that with a little more effort, I can overcome this," or "Wow, I really haven't been eating properly while grieving, but I need to deal with the grief and not let it sidetrack me any longer.  I'm stronger than that and I'm sure that the person I am grieving would not want me to hurt my health any more."  It isn't about blame or fault, it's about recognizing the reasons we are not eating healthy.  It is healthy to grieve, but eating to fill the void left by the death of a loved one isn't healthy, it's avoidance.  That doesn't mean that I'm going to criticize someone for letting their emotions get the better of them.  But if someone I cared about was letting their grief ruin their health, I would try to encourage them to find a better way to deal with their grief than eating.

As for making the comments to someone or about someone who hasn't asked for my advice or opinion, I agree that it is extremely rude and I don't do that.  But if asked, I'm not going to be less than honest or be an enabler for someone looking for excuses.

Again, I'm not saying to the OP that they are looking for excuses, I'm just trying to contribute food for thought (which is great for your diet, since it has no calories) that you can take or leave as you see fit.

To kthompson92 and alineamorim:  I wish you both success and if what I have said encourages you, then I am glad.  Bringing a new life into the world is a wondrous thing.

I can't agree that nothing goes better with grilled cheese than tomato soup, because grilled cheese is such a generic name.  For example, when I was growing up, grilled cheese was made with white bread and American cheese.  But now one of my favorite grilled cheese is made with sourdough and swiss, which is excellent with French Onion soup, or Rye bread with meunster cheese, which I prefer when I am eating vegetable soup, or Pumpernickel and mozzerella, which I prefer with Zoupa Tuscana (an Italian potato soup with sausage and kale).  I'm not saying that grilled cheese isn't good with tomato soup, just that for that particular soup, I prefer honey wheat with pepper jack cheese.

Original Post by tealpenguin326:

Has anyone ever said this to you? Or, "If you were really serious about your diet, you would lose weight."

So you starve yourself and lose the weight. Then you try to eat normally. Not gobs of cake, but perhaps a cup of pasta for dinner, or an extra snack here or there. The weight comes flooding back, and you cry and feel terrible about yourself for having regained the weight. Then, that jerk who told you you would lose weight if you only tried acts as though they are "so disappointed in you".

Don't take this as a personal attack.  I'm not talking to any one person with this response, but here are my (I'm sure to be unpopular with some) thoughts.

A large number of overweight people are indeed that way because they eat too much and don't exercise enough.  I used to be one of them.  So while for some, there are medical reasons why they are overweight, these people are the exception rather than the rule.  And it was indeed the case for me that once I really tried to lose weight, I did.

The statement you made about starving yourself to lose weight then trying to go back to "eating normally", I think is a sign of the wrong thinking that many people trying to lose weight engage in.  I think that you realize that "going on a diet", then "going off a diet" when you reach your goal doesn't work.  A person who wants to lose weight, in my opinion, should think about their eating habits and try to come up with ways to regulate their eating so that they:

1.  Get proper nutrition (a good balance of vitamins and minerals from the foods they eat and a proper balance between fat, protein, and carbs).

2.  Allow for foods that appeal to them by planning your meals.  Just because you are cutting back on calories doesn't mean that you are starving yourself.  If you choose the right foods, you can be satiated but not bloated and not have a diet filled with junk calories.  Think about foods that have bulk without a lot of calories (cucumbers are a very good example).

In addition, adding any type of exercise to your lifestyle will help.  It has been said often here that simple things like taking stairs instead of an elevator, parking farther away from a building, or taking a walk in the evening or morning can be very beneficial to your diet.  I even read a study that indicated that fidgeting can help you burn extra calories (like I'm doing right now by bouncing my knee while sitting at my computer).

Basically what I am saying is that people need to change their eating habits to lose weight.  Make eating healthy equal "eating normally".  The wrong thinking I was talking about was that you are supposed to eat one way when you are trying to lose weight and then you can go back to your old way of eating once you reach your goal.  The more correct way of thinking, again, in my opinion, is that you adjust your eating habits as described above so that you get quality food in reasonable quantities and when you reach your goal, you can increase your portions a bit to maintain, while still eating the same healthy foods.

It is my personal opinion that unless you have a medical condition that is interfering with your weight loss, that the steps to a successful weight loss and healthy plan are as follows:

1.  Take a close look at your eating habits to identify the changes you need to make to have a healthy diet.  This includes things like reducing or eliminating saturated fats from your diet, reducing the number of empty calories you consume, fighting the urge to eat for reasons other than hunger (boredom, stress, etc), and once you decide on the changes that you should make, make them.  You don't have to do this all at once, but can do it incrementally.

2.  Take responsibility for your own behaviour.  Unless someone is holding you down and force feeding you, then you have control over what you put into your body.  You have to make the decision to eat right and blaming stress created by bad relationships, lack of support from friends and family, or any other reason isn't going to help you to be strong and do what you know is right for you.

3.  Educate yourself on weight loss, nutrition, and exercise.  Many of the most successful people when it comes to weight loss are those who make up their own weight loss regimens.  You know best what you like to eat and what activities you can work into your life on a permanent basis, so if you educate yourself and use what you learn to create your own diet and exercise plans, then your chances for success go up.  And a willingness to experiment with new ideas based on what you read or hear from others who are losing weight is a good thing.  When something works, you can incorporate it into your plan and when it doesn't work, you can reject it.

4.  Once you find what works for you, talk it over with your doctor or a nutritionist to see what they think of your plan and whether or not they see any issues that you might not have considered.  Never be afraid to question their responses either, because no one knows everything and just because "common wisdom" says that something is right doesn't make it right.  Common wisdom once held that the earth was flat and that the universe revolved around the earth.

5.  Once you have a workable plan, stick with it.  This is the "eat healthy for the rest of your life" part and is the part that many people don't get.  You don't lose weight and keep it off by "going on a diet" and then when your goal is reached, "going off your diet".  You lose weight by consciously choosing to eat healthy, which implies sensible portions, and being active to the degree you are comfortable with, which should not be totally sedentary.

Once again, I am not directing this response at any one person, so if anyone takes this as a personal attack, then be aware that my intention is simply to discuss my personal opinion.  But basically, I personally believe the following to be true:

For many people who are overweight, it is your own fault and if you really tried you could lose the weight.

I would, however, not be intentionally rude to someone by commenting on their weight or on how they choose to manage it.  If, and only if asked, would I discuss my opinions on weight loss and why I hold those opinions.  (And I consider the original post as "asking"  for opinions.)

I wish everyone here success in reaching their goals.

If it makes anyone feel better, feel free to flame away.  I have a thick skin.

Original Post by chrissy1988:

techdog...i would still venture to say NEVER eat below your bmr...the basal metabolic rate only includes the energy required for our body to perform its very basic functions to survive and that's if we were bed ridden and didn't move a muscle.

You are making the same mistake that most other people who say you have to eat your BMR make.  For people who are significantly overweight, food eaten is not the only source of calories that they can draw upon.  If you have excess fat stores, some of the calories required for our bodies to function can come from those fat stores in our body.  So it is possible to do resistance exercise to increase or maintain lean body mass, eat below your BMR, not exceed a daily deficit of 1000, and lose weight without screwing up your metabolism.

And you totally ignored the fact that for people who aren't average (very tall, very short, very overweight, etc) and caucasian, that the BMR calculations can be grossly wrong.  When I started losing weight, I was over 370 pounds.  I am also 6'5" tall and the BMR calculation for someone of that size using the Harris-Benedict formula is grossly skewed (it overestimates required calories by 20% or more).

So I stand by my claim that saying NEVER eating below your BMR is a myth, because of these facts:

1.  For people with excess fat, fat stores can make up the difference between the amount calories consumed and those required to allow the body to function.  If this wasn't the case, then why would the body store fat in the first place.  Fat is stored energy to be used by the body when insufficient calories are consumed to make the body function.

2.  BMR, as calculated by all of the formulas, is based on norms and most of the studies have been performed on caucasian people, so if you aren't caucasian, and fall outside of the norm, then the accuracy of the number goes down significantly.

And as I stated in my first response, I am not saying that the recommendation to eat your BMR is a bad one, in fact, I think that in most cases, it is a very safe one.  And the closer you get to a healthy weight, the more important it becomes.  But saying that you should NEVER eat below your BMR is still NOT true for everyone all of the time.  It depends on a lot of factors and IS NOT a hard and fast rule. 

And you will also note that I didn't recommend a specific calories level to consume or deficit to create, because although I have done a lot of personal research on losing weight safely, I am not a trained dietician or nutritionist and I don't believe that I should do so.  I am merely pointing out that there is no dieting commandment "Thou shalt not eat below your BMR."  Weight loss isn't that cut and dried.  If it were as simple as just following some dieting 10 commandments, then everyone could do it.  But because there are so many factors to take into account, what works for most may not work for all.

Original Post by valtorpublic:

I would argue that it's the balanced diet that made you lose the 100 pounds.  Also, exercise makes you more sensitive to insulin, so there is less in circulation to stimulate the adipose tissue.  And in order to eat a balanced diet, you had to indirectly reduce the percentage of carbs you were consuming.

You will find on this site, that most people trying to eat the same crap but just less of it quickly reach a plateau.  You have to eat a more balanced diet to really lose the weight long term, hence less carbs than the 50% or 60% most were consuming.

Patrick

Diet alone wasn't what enabled me to lose the weight, it was the combination of diet and exercise that was key.  And it seems to me that your comment about insulin would mean that exercise is important to correcting the metabolic imbalance, while the original text you quoted seemed to argue that exercise had no effect.  Sounds suspect to me.  As for the final statement you made about reducing carbs to below 50 or 60 percent of their diet, doesn't hold true for a lot of people who effectively lose weight.

The original text you quoted seemed to me to state that the theory explained all of the seemingly conflicting data on weight loss that is out there, but I don't believe that weight loss can be reduced to any one set of rules and that it isn't an exact science.  Each individual case has so many variables affecting weight loss and gain, that the only reasonable approach is to tailor any weight loss plan to the individual.  That is why the diet I follow was created for me by me and incorporates ideas from a myriad of sources and is based largely on experimentation that I have done on myself, keeping what works and throwing out what doesn't.

Original Post by cowch:

Your doctor's scale is examined by the Department of Weights and Measures to ensure accuracy, so I would use the scale that gives a reading closest to the one at the doctor.

In what country are you talking about?  My doctor's scale is subject to the same inaccuracies as anyone elses and isn't examined by any Department of Weights and Measures.  And the checking I did seemed to indicate that in most cases, the scales in doctor's offices are only checked at the request of the doctor (I read this at multiple websites for county and state Departments of Weights and Measures).