help!? no willpower to eat right or smaller amounts

At my wits end, heard it all before I'm sure, tried every diet/pill imaginable. I have no will power on my own to eat right....I quit smoking awhile back just by quitting cold turkey, told myself "I'm stronger than the cigarrete and refused to miss out on my Granddaughter growing up and didn't want to present a bad example to her, now I need to lose weight or suffer the same consequence with being overweight....so...I'm trying the same method at first to jump start this diet.....just stop eating....cold turkey. I have that willpower, just no willpower to eat right or smaller amounts. So the first 30 days will be a liquid and under 50 cal/day diet. I know....not good or healthy or....but my last resort without being locked up and force fed healthy. Will attempt a more reasonable diet after the 30 day jumpstart.

I'm male, 45, 300#

Looking for someone to correspond daily to report to on intake and current achievments, and lend a sympathetic ear in return.(Not looking for someone to copy what I'm doing)

If interested we can post on this thread or [in my journal or email each other - see my profile]. (Rich)

Preferrably someone in a simular predicament, kinda like hating to exercise  by yourself but with a penpal....maybe easier to "stick to it"

signed

close to giving up

Please don't do it this way. You may make yourself seriously ill. (What kind of example would that be to set for your granddaughter?). One of the differences between dieting and stopping smoking is that while you don't need to smoke to live, you really do need to eat--preferably healthily.

Please read this thread about metabolisms and appetites: i've realized that its not faster metabolisms: it's appetites

Good luck on your weight-loss journey. Feel free to PM me.

If you eat under 50 calories for 30 days and then revert back to eating, you'll most definitely gain weight and become disheartened.  Not only that, but the weight you gain back will be fat.  By eating so little, you are damaging your metabolism and getting rid of muscle.  Is that really what you want to do?

If you begin your "lifestyle change" by doing something you know is unhealthy, how are you going to ever be healthy?

If you want to see your grandaughter grow up please consume more than 50 calories a day.  A human can survive for only about a month without nutrition ( and 50 calories is almost nothing). 

I understand your frustration and have also told myself I should just quit eating and go "cold turkey" and go on a liquid diet. 

Fortunately I gave calorie counting one more try and LUCKILY found this website which is helping me succeed after year after year of failures. 

Please study these posts to learn how it can be done.  especially read the carlorie-count.com diet post. 

appreciate the concern, and I kinda expected the response, but still going to try for awhile, then will gradually add healthy calories. Just don't have any willpower  to start right, always try with good intentions but fall off quickly. Might sound weak minded, but I'm not denying that at this stage.

7/24 water,coffee black, tea black

7/25 water, coffee black, tea black, broth 20cal.

rufus_k quote; "If you want to see your grandaughter grow up please consume more than 50 calories a day."

Don't worry, don't intend to fall down and not get up, I'm sure I'll see warning signs before that happens.

Thanks

still looking for pen pal

Hey, there! 

Well, I see you're set and determined to fast to try to lose weight, but like the others, I'm concerned the boredom and rumble in your stomach will most likely take over and food will sound good again.

I'm hoping you'll look into eating foods low in carbohydrate and low on the glycemic index, and combine that with a daily diet of exercise, drinking water, and taking a multivitamin. Right now with the fasting, you're losing precious vitmains from your system that you need to stay healthy and they need to be restored. 

No, its not easy to lose weight and it takes work, time, and determination. If you can make it 2 days fasting thus far, you have the drive and determination to start fresh with adding foods that work for you to burn fat and energy...and play with your adorable granddaughter.

quote;you have the drive and determination

nope, once I start to eat, all that determination turns into jello.......and cookies, cakes, and...............................:(

Yes, you'll start to see weight lose but you'll become too fatigue to work out. You'll run yourself into "'empty" - no energy to do anything and EVENTUALLY...you'll start eating. That's the only guarantee you'll have doing this and god forbid...a health complication emerges because of this self-start diet quest.

A better idea...just my idea here, is to figure out why you're so negative about the whole approach to losing weight. Obviously, you've said your doing this for your granddaughter...a very valid reason...extremely unselfish and a loving reason but seriously, do it for YOU. Love yourself enough to do this for you...for your body and preserve the one life you have so you can be that great inspiration for your granddaughter and spend many happy years with her.

Think about it.

Maybe you should consider seeing a weight-loss specialist, dietician, or a nutritionist.  Perhaps if they provide you with a strict diet plan, you can stick to that and that only, and slowly begin to make your own adjustments.

The human body is fairly well equipped to handle starvation. If it wasn't, our ancestors would have all died thousands of years ago when famine was a common occurrence and we wouldn't be here.

What happens when you fast is that the body saves every single calorie that *is* coming in, as fat.

And it burns muscle and organs for energy. Muscle first, as lean muscle is the most "expensive" (takes the most calories to keep up).

"Willpower" has nothing to do with eating. It's like holding your breath.

You will not lose any appreciable fat (you will lose water and muscle and damage your organs). Once you start to eat *anything*, even a few hundred calories, your body will start to pack on fat in the assumption that another famine is coming.

What you are doing is that absolute worst possible thing in terms of long term weight loss.

Ask any scientist who studies how the body works.

So, since you want to be around to be a good example for your granddaughter, *is this the example you want to set*??? When she becomes a pre-teen and starts obsessing about her weight, do you want her to follow your example and starve, get an eating disorder, etc??

Or do you want to learn to discipline yourself to eat healthy and exercise so you can help her?

Ok, I'm starting to get convinced here, can't find a decent nutritionalist who even admits they know what they are talking about. Whats the minimum cal intake? I do mean Minimum!!!!!

Due to current weight, have trouble doing exercise of any kind. Sounds lazy but true, back pain, knees blah,blah blah,...etc.

Oh, and about liking myself....can you break all the mirrors in the world?!

Need a weight loss buddy also needing to lose a good 100+lbs.

Thanks

Rich

i am in similar boat looking for a weightloss partner
i am 44 265 male and haappily married, both my wife and i are trying to do well.
I be your buddy

have you used the tools on cc to get a starting point?

If you plug in your data (age, height, weight) into your account on this site it will give you some numbers for calories. Give us your height and we can tell you how many your body uses just existing (since we have your other #s).

Walking is really good exercise for those of us who are way overweight. It doesn't have to be far or fast, you just need to move each day, try to do as much as you can without hurting, and a little more each day.

One of the best things I did *before* I started cutting down on food was just to start *paying close attention* to everything I ate for a while. A lot of times stuff just wasn't as good as I remembered/expected it to be. Say, for a week just eat what you normally do, but pay really close attention to every mouthful.

Then begin stopping when you feel *satisfied* (not full). Remember, you can eat again if you want. I actually liked the feeling of not feeling overstuffed and sluggish once I learned.

Eat *often* so you don't get really hungry (like every 2 or 3 hours).

The first 2 things I did before I really started trying to lose weight was cut out fast food (I was eating it every day, I started keeping good deli meats in the house for fast sandwiches) and cut out soft drinks completely (I could easily drink a 2 liter of non-diet Pepsi in a day).

Doing those 2 things taught me I *could* make changes and they weren't as hard as I thought. You've already quit smoking. Food should taste better...enjoy what you eat!

Get the crap foods out of the house. Seriously. I've thrown away stuff like gooey cake (sob) because I knew I'd eat them (friends brought them over and left them).

I saw on another thread you said you were 6'? So, 45 year old 6' male who weighs 300 pounds.

Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) - the number of calories that your body needs just to exist, breathe, pump blood, maintain your organs is...get this...2287 calories per day.

To *maintain your current weight* with little or no exercise you'd need 2744 calories.

If you just eat your BMR calories that's a 457 calorie difference per day.

If you walk for 15 minutes or a half hour, that's an even bigger deficite.

Remember, if you go too low you're shooting yourself in the foot.

The main reason people gain weight back after they diet is that for some reason we've all been convinced that dieting means starvation.

It's safe to  fast for 24 hours according to Dr. Oz. (pg 80),but it's more to clean out your colon than to lose weight.  The lowest calories I would consume as a male is 1500.  For your height and weight though, 2000 seems like a good sustainable number.  Remember it's not how little you can eat in a few months, but how little you can eat for years.  Anything under 1500, and you will go into starvation mode.  That's when your brain senses that you aren't eating enough calories and signals your body to store fat.  It's a natural protective mechanism. (pg 30-31) Dr Oz's book.  The only way to lose weight permanently is to eat often in the form of small healthy meals and snacks. 

I totally love the book "You on a Diet".  I really understand how my body works, and how the food choices I make affect it. It also has a menu guide.

While I'm not the person to emulate for weight loss, one method I tried when I was 180 pounds, and it DID work for getting me out of obese range back into "slightly overweight" (which is much better, health-wise, even if it's not ideal), was to pile on plain vegetables. If we were having pizza, I'd have a large salad with nonfat or low-fat dressing and no cheese or bacon first. Then I'd be partly full already and could usually only eat one piece of pizza instead of my usual four. Works with just about any meal - eat a large helping of low-calorie vegetables first. It guarantees your 3 servings of vegetables per day, and makes it harder to overeat with the more calorie-dense foods. And if you have some protein with every meal, you stay full longer, especially if the meal is low in fat. It can be any kind of protein; soy, lean meats, egg whites, certain kinds of other beans/legumes that are high in protein, etc.

I did the 50 calorie a day diet for awhile, much later. I lost 50 pounds. I also got a severe heart arrhythmia and my heart hasn't completely recovered even 2 1/2 years later; at only 27 I had osteopenia (my mother has stronger bones than me and she has multiple risk factors for osteopenia and osteoporosis); and my digestive system, while functional, is permanently damaged. Not worth it! And it's taken over two years later to halt and reverse the resultant weight gain and get back to a thin-but-still-healthy weight.

Don't see how you got heart arrhythmia from any kind of dieting unless you had a pre-existing condition, I just did some extensive searching and the only connection I could find is if you were using some dietic drugs as well.

Anyhow an update, at a 1000cal a day intake and feeling better about the whole thing, starting to drop a pound every 2 days, at this level will increase exercise eventually and cal consumption as I determine my own bodies metabolism. Found some great people to work with here "weight buddy" and have learned alot since joining. Will continue update as time goes. Thanks all for your input!!

Rich

Rich - For men, most experts agree that the bare minimum calorie intake should be 1500 cals a day. Im glad youll be slowly increasing your calories, I think you had some of us worried.

Welcome to CC!

Don't she how she got it? Remember what was said about muscle loss?

Your heart is a muscle, and it doesn't like being used for fuel.

Google "electrolyte imbalance" and "anorexia."