Posts by michaelinitaly

Thanks Melkor,

I made a omelet yesterday and started to reach for some cheese to add and pulled back my hand in horror.lol. I have been loosing weight for about a year and recently moved up to a maintenance diet. I am 6'1 and 53 years old. I forgot to mention that besides the treadmill, I also lift. I have been trying to up my protein and increase my weights. I'm getting stronger and better definition and see the fat slowly peeling away from my upper body and legs but nothing from the waist area. I have been changing my workout as well as the food I eat. Ran a 10 k just to try to shock my body, drank more water, drank less water. I seem to loose weight at the begining of the week and it comes back towards the end of the week and I am less discipline on the weekends and by the time  Monday comes around, I am back to the same place as the last Monday. I do not eat a ton over the weekend, I do my treking on Sunday burning 1600 to 1800 cal so I will eat a nice pasta lunch (300 gr pasta and some meat) and just that extra puts me back to the same weight as I was the last week. I am hoping I am switching fat for muscle, but other things are changing just not the belly. My ab workout is just the 8 min abs workout, so I thought I could do them daily. I have a very slow matablism so  that helps me to keep a little more regular in that area. Thanks for you help, as always you have good advice.

I have a girl and boy in pre school the girl is 4.5 and the boy is 2.5. They are both very affectionate with each other and their friends. I live in Italy so it is normal to hug but It think they are more affectionate than most. They kiss and hug each other all the time and most people think it is cute when they hug other kids, so maybe it is a local thing. I used to encourage them to kiss and hug my friends and relatives hello and good bye, but I have stopped doing that and I think it is better to let them decide which adults they wish to show affection. Good luck...

Thanks all, I was just wondering because I ran a 10 k last Saturday, and burned about 750 calories. I really worked hard, my shirt was soaked and really expected to burn more calories.

The next morning, I went on my weekly mountain trek, did not really break a sweat and I burned 800 calories just on the way to the top and 700 coming down. We trekked about 14 k in about 2.5 hours. I did the 10 k in 53 min. Not a great time, but my first race. I realize that the time of the race was shorter, but when you calculate the calories burned per hour they are about the same, except that I had to work allot harder to do the race.

lol.. devlish maybe that is why I missed a few.. guess I can't count. The only complaint I had about the test is that for most of the choices the choice on the right was the larger portion. On a couple that I missed they switched them around. I thought I was picking the smaller amount.

Thank you all. My reason for writing this post was not to have everyone tell me that I have done great, my reason was to thank you because together we have done great.

There is no way my life would have changed for the better without this forum. The sad thing about changing the way I live and eat is the very thing, that being the people here and the website itself, have slowly become less important to me.

I have kind of gotten the weight of the food down in my head. I know the calories of most of the food I consume, I have been using the site now to track my weight and reading post now and then. I have been able to continue to loose weight and gain muscle without having to put in every food I eat because of what I have learned here. 

So since I come here less, I miss the insight of allot of the people. At one point I was truly addicted to the site, coming every few hours like a person dying of thirst looking for any bit fresh water in the way of any ideas to make me better. I wondered if I would ever be able to eat without being crazy with guilt.

Through all the post and all the info, I am happy that I can now come here with desire to learn and share and not out of some need to find the one morsel of info that was going to make me feel good about myself.

When I learned that starving myself was not going to make me feel good about myself but in fact, eating well and enjoying life was really the answer, well it all seems so simple, I wonder why we can't all see that without the journey?

I was doing 5 or 6 cans of diet coke a day because it had little or no calories. I don't really like drinking water. The vending machine was out of coke for about a week and i was too lazy to go to the store and I began to realize that I felt allot better in general. When they loaded up the machine again, I started again and noticed that every afternoon I had indigestion and general discomfort in my stomach. Now every morning I make one of the huge coffee mugs of tea and drink that, it keeps me content until lunch. I have started drinking sparkling water with lunch and then juice and water with protein powder in the mid afternoon ( I work out at lunch time.) I have not really had a craving at all for coke and maybe I will have one now and then, but I really feel better at the end of the day for not drinking it.

HI just after I saw you video, I updated my iphone. One of my subscriptions is to the best of youtube videos and this came across. it is really great, a little long, but worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao

Thanks Melkor,

I normally reset the hm at the top, so the decent is the actual figure. I just assumed that covering the same distance, pushing as hard as possible would burn more calories. I normally have to change my shirt at the top and then again at the bottom before getting into the car, the other day I hardly broke a sweat, it just does make sense to me. I just noticed you broke down the calories per hour, I guess that does make sense. Thanks

My biggest problem is my butt hurts all the time! I have had padding there for so long that now I have to have a extra cushion in the car and at the dinning room table. Small price to pay. and I hate that I have to buy new clothes, all new clothes. I just bought 2 new suits 8 months ago, cannot even have them altered, the back pockets would almost be touching-

Not sure about not refigerating it, yesteday I left it out for the day by accident and I ate it anyway, was sick last night and had to take mallox .

still here and maintaining, just trying to loose the last few kg of fat by working out. Have pretty much stopped writng everything down as I have really gotten into the habit of eating well. I still count every thing, just feel comfortable with no longer writing it down. The only down side to that is not being around so much and reading and contributing via this forum.

I have that problem also, I started wearing sweat pants to sleep and sticking a pillow between my knees....

Original Post by jenny8484:

Original Post by michaelinitaly:

I can tell you from personal experience that starvation mode does exist and it can mess you up. If you are eating 900 cal a day, guess what, your body is consuming more. If you stop eating, your body eats your body and there is not allot of vitamins in eating muscles and cell walls. I messed up my eyes big time and had to go under doctor care. I also was not hungry and thought all the people were just blowing smoke. I had the hardest time eating 1400 or 1600 and thought I would explode with all that food. Then I got into starvation mode and I could not lose an ounce no matter how low I went in calories.  It the end, after two doctors told me I was killing myself, I found a web book that made allot of sense. Now I eat 5 times a day and I am always hungry, but have energy and in the last month I lost 5% of my body weight without losing any weight. I am trying to maintain at my current weight and just shift the weight from fat to muscle. It seems to be working. The trick is to eat every three hours, it is like keeping a blast furnace going around the clock. Each meal you eat a protein and a carb. As soon as I started, I began losing weight again and when I reached my goal, I kept it up and cut back on the cardio and now I am working on muscle mass. I really hope you up your calories, because if you don't, you will be going to the doctors soon.

Thank you,

 Michael- I too screwed up my metabolism from restriction.... can you please tell me a sample day of your diet if you don't mind? Like what foods you will eat, and when? I'd like to start reversing this. Thanks!

Hi jenny,

I found that the important meal is breakfast, I eat about 500 cal if possible. fiber 1 40 gr. 2% milk 200 gr. apple med. whole wheat bread and either egg whites or protein powder on the cereal and a spoon of flax seed.

3 hours later, yogurt, banana or apple and egg white of a hard boiled egg

lunch 250 gr of lettuce. (I work in a salad factory) tomatoes, tuna in brine 56gr carrots or peas or chicken 100 gr or vegetable soup with some protein added. ( I make a huge pot enough for 4 meals of 400 gr. then add protein each meal)

3 hours later, fruit, boiled egg white or protein powder in juice or ham sandwich

dinner 100 to 200 gr fish, chicken or meat, peas or carrots or other veg, slice of 5 wheat bread, salad with olive oil and tomatoes

a couple hours later apple or melon

it sounds like allot, but after you start, you will be amazed that you are hungry and ready for food after 3 hours. When you don't eat, you start to think that your body is starting to eat the muscle you worked so hard to build and it makes you hungry. It is a pain to pack all this food, but if you do it in the morning, then it is easy to just grab the food as you go. I boil 6 or 8 eggs at a time. I have protein powder at work, it is important to eat protein and carb every time. Real food is the best, but if you cant, then a protein powder shake will do. Same thing with fruit, better to eat it than blend it, it makes your body work harder breaking it down.

the reason for every three hours is that protein only last that long in your system, so you keep feeding it protein and it will keep breaking it down. Don't forget the good fat, your body needs it to covert food to energy.

I would like to see my kids grow up. I am 53 years old and have a boy 2 and a girl 4. I was getting tired just carrying them in my arms. I started thinking that I will be in my 70's when they are in their 20's If I want to be around to see them graduate from high school or college, I better get fit and stay fit. I have not gone on a diet, I have really changed the way I will live forever.

I posted a few posts a couple months ago. I was so far into starvation mode, I had to go to the doctor and I may have messed up my eyes for life.  Take a look at my profile and look down and you can find my old posts. I got some good help here. I know how you feel, now that I am trying to maintain, I still have a hard time dealing with the increased weight, but it comes and goes and I have been keeping around the same weight for about a month now. I did find out at one point, that if I ate more, I lost more. I found a good ebook and followed the advice and now I eat 5 times a day, every time protein and carbs. and I lost weight doing it. I am lifting allot more weight now and increasing my muscle mass, and slowly loosing fat while gaining muscle. I did not loose as much as you, only about 60 pounds but I did it in a few months, way too fast, not smart, not healthy and very bad for my body. It will be very hard to move up to the numbers that people are suggesting, it will take time, but you will have alot more energy. I have found if I consume allot at breakfast, it helps me have much more energy all day and I can eat more also. I consume at least 600 for breakfast, lots of protein, egg whites, fried, poached or in a shake, I make egg sandwiches to take to work ( seven grain bread, tomatoes and lettuce) and have a yogurt to wash it down for my morning snack. I eat every 3 hours and I loose weight doing it. If you are not eating, that does not mean your body is not eating, it eats your muscle, and there is no vitamins in muscle, so you loose all the muscle you are working so hard to gain and you deplete your body of vitamins, that is why you feel tired even though you are working out. I was seeing floating black spots and flashing lights because my body was eating the inside of my eyes.. yuck...