Weight Loss Info and Tips (i lost 120lbs this way and thought i'd share the info)
When I started trying to lose weight the main things I initially did were to stop drinking soda pop, I cut out fast food, and that’s it. The weight loss was slow, very slow, but it was happening. So I got more and more dedicated and this is what seems to have worked and is still working for me. From what I have learned from reading, the internet, and magazine articles, is that when you start a diet you should begin a low-carb diet for at least the first 2 weeks as this is believed to “trick” your body into burning fat instead of carbs. When you burn calories, either naturally, which is mainly what I did, or by exercising, the body first burns the carbs that are stored in your muscles and it then burns the fat stored throughout the rest of your body. So if you don’t have those extra carbs in your body it will start burning it will start burning fat cells right away. After about 2 weeks you can slowly start to introduce carbs back into your daily meals.
Calories are separated into 3 categories with alcohol being a 4th but not a big one if you don’t drink often. The 3 categories excluding alcohol that make up calories are fat, protein, and carbs. From what I’ve come to understand is that daily you should try and keep your carbs around 45 to 55 percent, 25 to 35 percent fat, and 15 to 25 percent protein. This would be considered a balanced diet. I use the website www.caloriecount.about.com to help with and keep track of everything I eat throughout the day. After you input everything you ate or are going to eat there is an analysis button you click on and it creates a pie chart, which shows you your percentages for everything you’ve consumed. The website is not a must but it is extremely helpful and definitely recommended.
The first step in any “diet” is cutting out the junk food. I call it a “diet” because if you really change everything you consume it’s not really a diet but more of a life style change. When I first started I simply stopped drinking soda, which is crazy because that’s ALL I used to drink. I now drink water, a lot of it, teas like diet Snapple and diet Lipton, crystal light is really yummy and low on calories, and I like coffee so I use the fake creamer and Splenda. I stopped eating fast food and cut way back on Chinese food. Now I usually wait until I’ve reached a weight lose goal, say 15 lbs, then I’ll allow myself to indulge in Chinese food or whatever it is you like that’s not good for you. This way you can still enjoy the bad stuff but not all the time, and it makes you want to be that much better until you can eat it. Sometimes I won’t even want it when I get to the goal I’ve created because if I’m doing good I don’t want to hinder my progress. Below are some alternatives and tips that may be helpful.
Pasta: If you are going to eat pasta of any kind make it wheat pasta. Wheat pasta takes longer to break down in your system so it makes your metabolism work harder and burns more calories. Plus, it’s just more nutritious for you in every aspect. Regular pasta breaks down fast and goes straight to your blood stream and fills you up with carbs immediately. Avoid ramen noodles. I know they are crazy cheap and easy to make but they are not wheat and are loaded with sodium, roughly 1500 mg of sodium per pack. You want to try and aim for 2000 mg of sodium so 1500 is a lot. The extra sodium in your body dehydrates it, which slows down calorie burning and retains water weight.
Sodium: If you know you’ve had more than 2000 mg of sodium or are eating a meal high in sodium (1000 mg or so) drink plenty of water. The extra H2O keeps you hydrated and is said to flush out some of the extra sodium. Whenever I go to subway, I eat there a lot and I love it, I always get a big cup of water and make sure and drink as much of it as possible because a 6-inch sub has at least 1000 mg of sodium. Sodium wasn’t a big deal for me at first and I had no problem losing weight without watching it. But, it became more of an issue and when I started watching it more closely and choosing certain things over others, because of the lower sodium, the weight loss seamed to move along at a faster rate. Healthy Choice frozen meals are awesome for this reason. They all are low in sodium and I think they taste great.
Fruit: For the first two weeks of the low-carb meal plan do not eat fruit. It’s good for your body but is mostly carbs from sugar. Good carbs because they are natural compared to processed carbs like cookies, snacks, etc., but carbs nonetheless. After the two weeks though introduce fruit back into your meals and/or snacks as they are healthy for your body. Apples, oranges, grapes, and berries are all delicious and nutritious snacks. If you are going to eat fruit or other things rich in carbs try and balance them out by snacking on low or no carb foods such as almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds/kernels, meat, or other foods low in carbs.
Veggies: Same thing goes for veggies as did for fruit. Cut out the high carbs veggies, which are most of them except for lettuce. After the two week low carb period introduce them back in. Steamed veggies are great with a bit of butter and salt.
Bread: Always eat wheat, same concept as pasta. For sandwiches I use Pepperidge Farms 7-grain wheat bread, which only has 9 carbs per slice and 60 calories per slice. For snacks or sometimes breakfast I’ll toast with butter either Monk’s Cinnamon Raisin Bread or Pepperidge Farms Breakfast Bread. The butter evens out the carbs and protein in the bread and balances out nicely.
Water: Drink a lot. 8 to 16 cups of water a day. Things like coffee or milk (I drink soymilk but drink what you like) or tea all hydrate your body as well. Soda is what’s not good at all for you because it dehydrates you and is shown in studies to restrict weight loss and increase obesity by something like 30%. Even diet soda so stick to water. Buy crystal light if you get bored with water, or I drink diet Lipton tea and diet Snapple. Anything’s better than soda because of the syrup they use to make it. All in all, stay hydrated.
Things I Do/Things I Eat: I eat a lot. Not at one time but spread out. This is my daily nutrition summed up. Breakfast @ 6:30am, snack @ 8:30am, snack @ 10:30am, snack @ 11:30am, lunch @ 12:30pm, snack @ 3:00pm, supper @ 6:00pm. Sometimes I cut one of my snacks before lunch out and eat it after lunch instead but still, I’m snacking a lot. I love food and I love to snack so I just snack on healthy stuff instead of junk. If your not a food freak like me it should be even easier to lose the weight but make sure you try and not go more than 4 hours without eating something because your body shuts down and starts to store fat, instead of burning it. By eating healthy and snacking in between meals as to not go 4 plus hours without food, your metabolism stays burning strong. This technique reminds me of a fire. You have to keep the fire burning. As you continue to put wood on the fire burns stronger, but if you put too much on (eating too much in one sitting) it smothers the fire and takes longer for the flames to build back up. That’s why I spread everything out; it keeps my metabolism burning all day. When snacking I separate things into serving sizes and keep them in zip-lock bags. I’ll separate a serving of Sunchips, almonds, or whatever healthy snack your going to eat and take that with me instead of the whole bag or can. This way I don’t mowchow and eat more than I should have. Some other healthy snacks are wheat crackers, breakfast bars, any type of nuts, bananas, berries, apples, oranges, celery, carrots, light yogurt or non-fat yogurt. These are just some of the healthy snacks I can think that I eat. Discover what you enjoy and figure out healthy portion sizes.
Bottom Line: If you want to lose weight, you most likely will. If you dedicate yourself to eating healthy and plan ahead all it takes is time. If you make excuses about why you ate things you shouldn’t have, or why you drank things you shouldn’t have, or why you didn’t plan ahead by bringing and/or preparing snacks/meals for the day, you will never really achieve your goals. Do not eat if you know you are going to sleep soon, at least 3 hours before bed, and do not weigh yourself all the time, maybe twice a week at the most. The human body fluctuates. Weighing yourself too much just frustrates you if you don’t get the number you wanted, and if you weigh in low, it may prompt you to eat something you otherwise wouldn’t have because you think you can afford it. Any questions email me at the email on my www.caloriecount.about.com page. username is bleeb129. I hope this is useful in helping you achieve weight lose and overall living a nutritiously healthy lifestyle.
Reason: 7/16/08: Released as a stickied post
jennc2, i don't see where i say that it is fine to eat pasta and bread for the first two weeks of the low to no carb diet. i just didn't specify as i did with the fruit and veggies because i figured that most people would know that bread and pasta are rich in carbohydrates and know to stay away from them. i specified about carbs in the fruit and veggie section because i wanted to let the unaware know about the carbs in fruits and veggies as they might not have known. i will include this line in the pasta and bread description to avoid further confusion.
madetoshine, it is not too late to start the 2-week low carb initially diet, but if you are already doing good with your weight lose you shouldn't have to worry about it. when i started losing i was just cutting back, i used the 2-week low carb method to push my weight lose full force. good luck with everything and any Q's fell free to reply back or check out my profile as my email for nutritional Q's is on there.
hey megclifton, srry about replying to everybody all at once, i've been real busy lately. anyways, i started cutting back beginning of september 2007 when i got on the scale at the gym where my buddy works and it said 336. i was 356 in high school, lost a little, went down to 226, then back up to 336. so i cut back little by little and when it wasn't coming off fast enough in late october i cut back junk food even more, stuff like instant mashed potatoes, frozen single serve pizzas, etc. i got a good job working 8 to 4 end of november and started using this calorie count website mid january. my weight as of 1/17/2008 was 277, today i'm 221.8, just weighed myself today. so, since the end of august 2007 i've lost 115 lbs or so and it's been about 10 or 11 months. i would like to lose another 41 lbs and get down to 180 but since i really don't exercise it will be slow, but i enjoy the food i eat and it's all healthy so it'll come off eventually. any Q's of just wanna chat my email is on my profile.
Thanks for the information and discussion, and congratulations!. I have been following a similar regime, and started with the 'South Beach' plan back in January 2008. The change is more of a lifestyle change vs. diet as I eat well, and healthy; much better than before. I have dropped from ~ 265 to 215 in the past 6-7 months. My loss rate is tapering off, however in part because I have started a more rigorous exercise program, and am definitely building muscle. My initial goal was 200lbs by mid-Dec, which my Dr. said was reasonable. According to my logs and prediction tools on this site, I will achieve this in Oct. I make daily use of this web site and have recommended it to many others.
Keep up the good work!!
Regards, Mike
Diet soda has chemicles that are bad for your body and still make you crave sweeteners. Stevia is a natural sweetner that you could use to sweeten carbonated lime water if you want carbonation. Otherwise, adding a little fruit juice to water is also pretty good. I like cherry juice myself.
Helpful tips. I will keep them in my mind, on my journey. Thanks
Wow! That's awesome- that's a great weight loss!! I just joined this site yesterday and have already found it helpful ~ I think mostly because of the camaraderie I've found with others. I used to go to Weight Watchers meetings and found that helpful - but with my work schedule it got to be too difficult. This accomplishes the same thing (talking about stuff) - only it's better because I can get on here whenever I have time.
Anyway, Congratulations and thanks for sharing your weight loss tips! You're an inspiration!
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