Need to lose weight - help!!!!!

[Miffy]

Feeling really down on myself at the moment - weigh nearly 10 stone and am 5 foot 2".

 

My own fault comfort eating.

 

Problem is I now have a huge belly which looks awful - flabby - yuk.

 

I am not good at exercise, nor am I good at points/calorie counting/no carb diets.

 

I can't cook so all those diets which talk about cooking things I ain't ever heard of is not going to work.

 

What I need is a really simple, easy to follow plan which doesn't involve me joining a club and will result in me losing just over two stone to return to my gorgeous self

 

Any ideas anyone????? Anyone similar who has tried and triumphed?

[LucreziaBorgia]

So you want to lose weight, but you don't want to change what you eat or exercise?

 

Weight loss happens under one condition and one condition only: you burn more calories than you consume.

 

To do that with minimum effort, you will have to drop your portions down by at least a third to a half and at the very least have to add some sort of activity to your daily schedule, even if its only a brisk twenty minute walk to get your metabolism up. Drink lots of water every time before you eat, and add a multivitamin to your diet (I like to use One A Day WeightSmart). Be sure you are snacking lightly throughout the day on high fiber stuff - apples, raisins, nuts, etc. No huge meals. You want to try to cut calories, while tricking your body into thinking that it isn't starving. You also have to prevent feeling deprived.

 

Its tricky though - if you cut too many calories, your body will stress/panic and go into starvation/preservation mode and start storing extra fat around your middle and your metabolism will slow down. You can't fight that bit of biology. You may want to lose weight, but your biological prerogative is survival - which means your brain chemistry will try, at every turn to trump your efforts to lose that weight that the body thinks it needs for survival.

[Outcast]

You can fill up just as easily on a platefull of veggies as you can on a platefull of greasy fries and fried junk. Refuse to buy or eat fatty or high-calorie foods. Instead, only buy low-cal, low-fat stuff. It's not that hard and you don't have to count calories. A guy named Dr. Shapiro wrote some great books showing how to fill up on good foods and eat many less calories just by picking the right foods.

[New_Wife]

Talk to your Dr. I don't know how things work in the UK (I'm guessing from the "stone" designation), but here in the US, a lot of times insurance will help defray or cover the cost of some group weight loss programs. Also, a nutritionist can set you up with the best diet for you - based on your life and your goals.

 

Also, if you start slow with the excercise, you won't see any visible results right away, but you will immediately up your dopamine intake - which is a "happy" chemical that your body makes for you. That's why the really fit folks seem to enjoy working out so much - they're not JUST sick and twisted - there's really something to it.

[sophia34]

Miffy,

 

I know you said you're "no good at calorie counting," but at some level, losing weight is about the numbers. I've found that keeping a food and exercise journal is a great motivator, even when your initial intent isn't to change your habits at all. If you want to try it, buy a notebook and for a week, write down everything you eat, including serving size and approximate calorie count (read the packaging or visit a site like http://www.thecaloriecounter.com). Also, write down your physical activity, whether it's a walk to the store or a planned jog. Again, include the approximate calories burned (walking 1 mile=100 calories burned approximately).

 

If you don't want to count calories, just write down what you eat. It's not quite as effective, but it can still give you a good picture. At the least, a food journal also will tell you what foods you eat most often. Then, when you go to the store, find lower-calorie alternatives to those foods. Just make sure that when you get them home you still eat the same amount! Lower calorie doesn't mean that you should eat more of it.

 

Last year, I was where you are--20 pounds overweight and really not motivated to change. But I'd heard that journaling was a good approach.

 

Oh my. After a week, I was appalled. I WAS walking 20 to 30 minutes about 4 days a week (about 1.5 miles each day), which was good. But I was taking in 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day! No 20-minute walk is going to undo that. Seeing it on paper was enough of a wake-up call to get me going. It showed me exactly WHY I was overweight. Before that, I was like, "Why can't I lose weight? I'm not eating THAT much." Ha!

 

Then I decided I would disperse my calories throughout the day within an 1,800-calorie budget, still listing everything in my journal. I started eating big salads with low-calorie dressings and finding lower-calorie alternatives to food I loved (like ice cream or scrambled eggs). I also doubled my calorie burn, to a 3-mile, 45-minute walk. Watching how the numbers worked in the journal was great--I got very competitive about it, and started to enjoy the control the journal gave me. Once I hit a plateau and the scale stopped moving downward, I added 2-3 days of weight training each week and dropped my daily intake to 1,500 calories, which kept me moving down.

 

I've now lost 20 pounds and am maintaining. I continue to use my food journal, although I'm much less rigorous about it (after a while, you know how many calories are in what, and you just start to add stuff up in your head). I also factor in splurges a few times a month.

 

At some point, though, you do need to make the decision to make changes. You can't lose weight if you're not willing to look at how much you're eating and what you can reasonably take in and still lose weight. As so many on the forum say, it's "calories in versus calories out." There's no other way to lose weight except to honor that fact.

[Miffy]

Thank you all, I reread my original post - typed at speed - and it made me sound like a right lazy cow!

 

Forgot about the US stone/pound thing - I think there's 13 pounds in a stone so I weigh around 124 pounds right now. While that is not fat or obsese under doctors rules, it feels weighty on my body and is too fat for the clothes I have in my wardrobe.

 

I will exercise, it's just that I am not good at it so I need easy things to do - anyone know how much half an hour of light jogging or swimming burns off?

 

I get confused at the supermarket - is it calories or fat content - whats a good fat content and whats a bad/what about carbs - do they matter or not?

 

Don't really like salad but would force myself with a dressing - again I couldn't figure out what a good option was. I do like tuna so maybe I could eat tuna salad. Are yoghurts good or bad - I got told low fat ones were bad because packed with other bad stuff - not sure?

 

I do eat rubbish and that's why I have put on the weight, I need to have some good alternatives to crisps and chocolate etc. but without depriving myself/going on a starvation diet.

 

My skin has always been good but is not so at the moment, my hair looks permanently lank and in need of a wash even though I wash it every day. I sound like a scrubber don't I - ha ha - not so and maybe a bit harsh on myself but trying to illustrate a picture of health. Maybe I am lacking vitamins - but which ones to take - would a multi vitamin as mentioned above be enough?

 

Can anyone give me ideas for easy low fat things they eat?

 

Has anyone ever lost a flab belly from sit ups alone - would that work?

[shesays]

Where to begin?

 

First, a stone is 14 pounds, not 13, so you weigh around 140 pounds, which is a little bit overweight, and in your case is probably quite a bit overweight, since you get so little physical activity. From the sounds of your exercise routine, or lack thereof, you probably have very little muscle, meaning the weight you are carrying is fat, which probably explains why you are unhappy with the flab on your stomach.

 

With a combination of healthier eating and strength-building exercises, you could lose fat and gain muscle, which would make your body trimmer (muscle is more dense than fat) which might make you happier with your tummy. You cannot lose a flabby belly from situps alone. The flab on your belly sits outside of your abdominal muscles, so toning those muscles will still leave the fat where it is. If you lose some fat, then doing situps will tone the now-more-visible muscles and make your tummy firmer.

 

Your questions about carbs vs. fat and calories is a good one. People have different goals for changing the way they eat. Eating a diet lower in saturated fat and total fat is a good way to reduce your risk of heart disease and other problems. Eating a diet with fewer processed sugars can lower your risk of adult diabetes. But replacing fat calories with carb calories won't make you lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories to lose weight, whether they are fat, carb, or protein calories. The low carb diet that has been popular the past few years works only because people have a hard time eating gobs of calories made only of fat and protein, so they end up eating fewer calories.

 

For good fat content, you should be eating less than 60 grams of fat per day, and less than 20 grams of saturated fat per day. Also you should try to eat at least 25 grams of fiber per day. The foods you buy in stores come labelled with this information, produce nutritional info can be found on the internet.

 

Exercise is very very important, not just for weight loss. Even people who are at their ideal weight should exercise everyday. The human body wasn't designed for sitting on our butts all day. So yes, exercise! how many calories you burn depends on how hard you are working and how much you weigh (it's harder for a 200 pound person to walk a mile than for you to, so they burn more calories). But as a rough rule, for someone who weighs 140, 1 mile burns about 70 calories, whether you walk them or jog them. The only reason jogging is better is because you fit more miles into an hour if you're jogging than if you're walking. But light jogging really doesn't burn very many more calories than fast walking, and it's much harder on your joints. Swimming is very difficult to judge calories burned, because the vast majority of people even when they're trying their hardest, aren't swimming very fast at all. But it will burn some calories, it's just hard to know how many.

 

If you're not interested in improving your nutrition and just want to lose weight, then all you need to do is limit your calories to between 1300 and 1500 a day and exercise an hour a day.

 

The foods you asked about are hard to answer, if the tuna salad you eat has mayonaisse, it's very bad. Salad dressings are almost universally bad for you. Yogurts (except health food type unsweetened ones) have as much sugar as soda. The reason you see people who are on diets eating yogurt is that they eat JUST a yogurt for lunch or something. But there are low-cal versions of tuna salad, low-cal salad dressings, you just have to find them.

 

The easiest and best low-fat, low cal foods are produce! Just don't cook them in oil.

 

Examples: 3 cups of steamed chopped broccoli (which is all that I can eat in a sitting) is 90 calories.

1 cup of chopped fresh strawberries (don't add sugar and don't get things with syrups) is 50 calories.

 

Now think about the fact that one of those tiny bags (just 1 oz!) of crisps has 140 calories. So you could eat 4 cups of fresh healthy food for those 150 calories, or you could eat that tiny amount of crisps and not even feel full.

 

A multivitamin is great and would probably be enough, you might need a calcium supplement as well, you could ask your doctor or a nutritionist.

 

To sum up: I recommend eating 1500 calories a day and walking 5 miles a day. You say you don't want to count calories, but it is very very difficult to lose weight without keeping track of what and how much you're eating, i.e. counting calories.

 

But be careful of thinking you're "done" once you've lost the weight, you will just gain it all back if you "go off" your diet. Instead change your eating and exercise habits permanently!

 

I would also like to tell you to stop focusing on your weight and instead focus on your health. Eat healthy foods because they are ideal fuel for your body, and abusing your body with unhealthy foods will seriously affect your health eventually. Your mind and soul can't exist if your body isn't functioning, so take good care of it! Tune up your body with exercise and good food, it will help your odds at living a long healthy life.

[sophia34]

In my experience, I ignore everything on the nutrition labels except the calorie count and the nutrition (amount of vitamins, minerals, etc.). High saturated fat is also bad, but if the fat is the "good" kind (monounsaturated), the food is actually good for you, although the calories may be high.

 

I eat bread, pasta, dessert, etc. I just plan for it. If I plan to eat a piece of cake for dessert after dinner, I make sure that I've eated that much less during the day.

 

Low-calorie options:

 

-Use an egg substitute instead of eggs. (70 calories per egg, but only 30 calories per 1/4 cup substitute. And it tastes the same in my opinion)

 

-Eat a low-fat ice cream instead of full fat (I know I said I don't pay attention to fat grams, but the calorie count is what's important. 150 to 210 calories for the full fat, 90 to 110 for the low fat)

 

-Choose your cereal wisely. Some cereals, especially granola, has as much as 270 calories per serving. Choose a good whole grain cereal that has less than 150 calories per serving.

 

-Drink skim milk instead of whole milk (80 calories vs. 120 per cup)

 

-Choose a red wine vinaigrette dressing instead of ranch or other high-calorie dressing (30-60 calories versus 200 calories per 2 tablespoons)

 

-Eat fruit and low-calorie Cool Whip whipped topping for dessert (150 calories) versus cake, pies, or other options (500 calories or more)

 

-If you eat fast food, get your sandwiches without the mayonaisse and cheese. You can cut 200 calories off a burger with that simple choice.

 

-If you order pizza, ask them to make it with "extra sauce, light cheese." Just a sprinkle of cheese gets you the taste, without the glopping calories. You can save more than 100 calories per slice by cutting back on cheese. You can save another 50 to 100 by choosing ham or canadian bacon over pepperoni and sausage.

 

-If you bake, substitute applesauce for half the butter in cookies and cakes. Keeps the recipes moist, cuts way back on calories

 

-Go for the "two-thirds" rule. At any dinner, party, or other eating event. Make sure that two-thirds of what you eat is made up of fruit and veggies, and only one-third is made up of meat or high-calorie foods. That way, you get to taste everything, but you are mainly eating nutritious, low-cal foods.

 

-Don't drink your calories. Drink water, milk, and ice tea. No calories there. Avoid sodas (even diet, no

nutrition), juices, and other high-calorie drinks.

 

-Smoothies are great snacks. Make a smoothie with 1/4 cup skim milk, 1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt, half a banana, and the frozen fruit of your choice (strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mango, peaches, etc.)

 

-Make "super salads." Many people don't like salads because they think they're boring. I start with a layer of spinach and lettuce, and then pile on peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, shrimp or salmon, hard boiled egg, grapes, raisins, apples, red beans, chickpeas--anything I've got! I end up with a huge tasty salad that usually comes in under 250 calories! It's delicious, and I'm stuffed afterward.

 

-Create your own lower-calorie yogurt easily. Buy nonfat plain yogurt and whole fruit jams/preserves without added sugar. Take a 1/2 cup of the yogurt, and mix it with a tablespoon of the jam and maybe a sprinkle of sliced almonds. It's sweet, it's good, and it doesn't have all the calories and sugar of the premixed supermarket stuff.

 

-Stir fry your vegetables. Peppers, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, portobellos, etc., make a great stir fry. Saute some scallions, garlic, and ginger in some olive oil, and then put the vegetables in. Choose your favorite sauce (like teriyaki or sesame ginger) and serve over white or brown rice. (both are about 200 calories a cup)

 

-Use portobellos as a meat substitute. Grilled portobello mushroom caps are DELICIOUS and are only about 60 calories each, 100 when you brush them with olive oil for grilling.

 

-If you don't like it, DON'T EAT IT. I come from a family that ate whatever was in front of them. They could be saying, "This isn't very good," but they'd still eat every last bite. If they order something in a restaurant they don't like, they'll still finish it off. That's just silly. If you don't like it, stop eating it. It's not worth the calories to eat something that doesn't taste good. (one caveat: Do eat your vegetables! You can make those taste great with the proper spice and low-cal dressings)

 

Those are just a few ideas. Everything you eat is negotiable! You don't have to give stuff up--you just have to make adjustments to what you eat to make it better for you. I still order pizza, go to McDonalds, eat dessert, etc. AND I keep my calories in check (1,500 and under on most days) and exercise. The two things can co-exist. You just have to think it through.

[Outcast]

One little teaspoon of butter, oil, or margarine contains 45 calories. Fat piles on the calories very fast so watching fat = watching calories. People think sugar is evil, but it has 1/3 the calories of fat.

[ReluctantRomeo]

Originally posted by Outcast

One little teaspoon of butter, oil, or margarine contains 45 calories. Fat piles on the calories very fast so watching fat = watching calories. People think sugar is evil, but it has 1/3 the calories of fat.

 

Right on avoiding fat. Wrong and bizarre on sugar. Sucrose has almost the same calories as fat and since different people metabolise them differently, some people may even get fatter from sugar than from fat.

 

Otherwise, previous posters have given some pretty good advice. Here's my take:

 

- Walk an hour every day.

- Get a book on either the South Beach diet or the GI diet - both give you good advice based on sound nutritional principles, but you don't have to count calories or anything.

 

Finally, something which hasn't been said. This is the key principle of weight loss. If you can accept it, you will almost certainly lose weight and keep it off. If you can't accept it, you will almost certainly fail. Ready? Here goes:

 

Weight loss is a slow process. Instant loss is illusory - these 8 week "get fit for the summer" programmes are of very little value. Instead of setting quick targets, you should change your lifestyle and expect your weight to slowly adjust to this over a period of 1-2 years. If this seems frustrating, remember that 2 pounds a month translates to 24 pounds in a year.

[Outcast]

Wrong and bizarre on sugar. Sucrose has almost the same calories as fat

 

Well then you check Harvard and other sources for information on calories. You will find exactly the same information that I found. I'm not exactly sure where you got your information but I assure you I checked and double-checked mine and sugar is 4 cals/gram where fat is 9 cals/gram.

[ReluctantRomeo]

Originally posted by Outcast

Well then you check Harvard and other sources for information on calories. You will find exactly the same information that I found. I'm not exactly sure where you got your information but I assure you I checked and double-checked mine and sugar is 4 cals/gram where fat is 9 cals/gram.

 

Blame it on multitasking I was typing this while talking to a colleague....

 

Somewhere buried in my incoherence is the valid point that sugar is still pretty bad for you. For some people, the sugar spike is more of a danger for weight gain than fats would be.

[Miffy]

Wow thank you so much to everyone, that is really useful and has really motivated me to begin, especially since I now weigh more pounds than I thought - ha ha!!!!!!!!

[Outcast]

For some people, the sugar spike is more of a danger for weight gain than fats would be.

 

For diabetics, yes. Perhaps you've been brainwashed by the Atkins BS but in general, fats are much worse for you overall (with the exception of olive oil and a few others) than sugar. Neither should be had in excess but fats will kill you more ways and faster.

[Zephyr45]

I would watch my sugar and my fats, but if I was already eating "good" sugars and "good" fats and I had to cut out one over the other, it would probably be sugar. High glycemic carbs can be replaced with low glycemic carbs and still provide sufficient fuel/nutrients to your body. Fat is important, provided you keep it in moderation and eat healty fats high in omega 3's/6's/9's instead of trans-fat or anything "hydrogenated." Fats high in the omega's above actually promote fat loss by using it as fuel.

 

eg, based on all the studies and reasearch I am aware of, you would likely be better off eating:

 

Fish - 50g protein, 15g fat

Salad - 40g carbs, 7g fat (olive oil, or non fat w/ added flax oil)

Broccoli - 20g carbs

-------------------------

Total: 638 calories (roughly 40% calories from carbs, 30% from fat, 30% from protein.)

 

 

than:

 

Lean turkey - 50g protien, 2g fat

Salad - 40g carbs, 0g fat (non fat dressing)

Broccoli - 20g carbs

Potato - 45g carbs

-------------------------

Total: 638 calories (roughly 65% calories from carbs, 2% from fat, 30% from protein.)

 

 

You'd probably feel better all around and lose more weight and/or lose it quicker on something like the top meal than the bottom, especially combined with exercise. Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist or anything so take this with a grain of salt, or sugar, if you want.

[MWC_LifeBeginsAt40]

Originally posted by sophia34

In my experience, I ignore everything on the nutrition labels except the calorie count and the nutrition (amount of vitamins, minerals, etc.). High saturated fat is also bad, but if the fat is the "good" kind (monounsaturated), the food is actually good for you, although the calories may be high.

 

Avoid anything that has hydrogenated vegetable oil and buy the ones with no Transfats.

 

-Make "super salads." Many people don't like salads because they think they're boring. I start with a layer of spinach and lettuce, and then pile on peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, shrimp or salmon, hard boiled egg, grapes, raisins, apples, red beans, chickpeas--anything I've got! I end up with a huge tasty salad that usually comes in under 250 calories! It's delicious, and I'm stuffed afterward.

 

I love supersalads!!!

 

-Use portobellos as a meat substitute. Grilled portobello mushroom caps are DELICIOUS and are only about 60 calories each, 100 when you brush them with olive oil for grilling.

Wow I even tried this a couple weeks ago...sprinkled some garlic on it and put on the BBQ yummmmy!

 

 

I like to use the 1/3 fat rule. Take the fat grams multiplied by 9 to obtain the amount of calories from fat. If this is less than 1/3 of the total fat, then I eat it guilt free.

 

Also, exercise is different from "exercising". Take stairs instead of elevators, cut the grass for your SO or whoever normally does it, park a couple of blocks from where you need to get to and walk the rest of the way or get off the bus a few stops before your normal one.

 

Don't avoid snacking when you are hungry. Have several small snacks throughout the day and then eat smaller meals instead of getting really hungry and pigging out at mealtime.