best way to shift a pound??

[susie]

hi all,

 

what do you all think the best way is to shift a few pounds?

 

i have thought about doing more in the gym or may be just eating less.i want to shift a pound or so before september is it possible to do this do you think?

 

any input welcome.

 

susie.

[Papillon]

I used to weigh ~115 Kg's (more than 330lbs), I now weigh 85Kg, thats more than 60pounds I lost in three months. It transformed my life, and here's how I did it.

 

First, arm yourself with some knowledge: A grown man burns around 2200 calories by sitting on his butt the whole day, a woman around 1800. By reducing your calorie intake below that level, you will lose weight even if you don't excercise.

 

Secondly - get a good low-cal diet in place. I budgeted on 1000 calories per day, and coupled with excercise the pounds were guaranteed to fall off me like crazy. THE CALORIE BUDGET IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE WHOLE THING! Sticking to the calorie budget will guarantee your weight loss, even if you're lazy and skip on the excercise - additional excercise only makes it happen faster.

 

Make a list of foods and their calorific values per servings size or weight. This is your recipe book, and your bible. I had made an excel spreadsheet with all the foods, then on a different sheet I would simply paste the food item I selected, and the calory count is automatically calculated at the bottom. An important part of it is to get a breakdown of the calorific value in proteins, carbs and fats for each food item. You want to get the fat percentage of each food item down to the minimum - complex carbs is what you're after. For example, if you eat something that has 100 cals, but the calories are 50% from fat, its not worthwhile, as opposed to something else that is 200 cals but only 5% of it is fat.

 

Unfortunately I don't have the list anymore, but you can find that kind of info anywhere on the net, just google for it.

 

Of your carbohydrates, try to get them complex. In other words, starchy foods such as potatoes are excellent. (Complex carbs like starch eventually get broken down into simple carbs that can be metabolised like fructose and glucose, but to break them down takes energy. The harder you have to make your body work metabolically, the better. On the other hand, a teaspoon of sugar only has 5 calories, and no fat. So put the damn sugar in your coffee, it's not going to hurt. Sure, it's not a complex carb but it's very little nutrition.

 

Now do something. Take a deap breath, and exhale.

 

Voila! You've just lost weight. You took in oxygen (02) , and exhaled carbon dioxide (C02). You lost a nett Carbon atom for every O2 molecule you inhaled and metabolised.

 

So we want to speed up this process, and the best way is to excercise, obviously. You must excercise daily. What I did was to go cycling, for two hours, minimum each evening. You could do something else, like aerobics, and so on. The important part is that you do it for at least two hours, every day. Keeping your heartrate at at least 75% of it's maximum for at least 2 hours gives you a fantastic training effect, and apart from losing weight, you'll get fit, too. Really, aerobically fit. That kind of fitness you can feel in your chest and lungs.

 

 

And thats it. I kept this up, faithfully, for three months, and a new me was the result. It helps to look upon food with suspicion, especially if you don't know what the calorie count is.

[susie]

hi papillon,

your post is amazing! thank you.

 

i think i could restrict cals easily,i am certainly going to give it a go.

 

thanks,

susie.

[Papillon]

Just remember to excercise. You MUST excercise everyday, even if it's only taking a brisk walk. If you don't, your metabolism is going to crank down a level. Our bodies just love to be surrounded in soft velvety layers of warm lard, and your body will try and protect it's layer of fat. You just have to take charge and force it to snack on your thighs.

 

If you're feeling hungry, well that's a feeling that you have to learn to love, because when you're feeling peckish, that's your body saying "Hey, Susie, you selfish woman! My blood sugar is low! Feed me a Big Mac!"

 

That's when you say, "Screw you, you soon-to-be-deliciously-sexy body, you can go snack on your thighs and butt!". And then you go excercise just to drive home the point. Soon your body learns to stop complaining, and to realise that a big glas of water tastes just as good as that supersized fries.