Lose weight, Get Healthy....The same old New Years Resolution
I plan to actually do it this time! This past year has prepared me to keep my New Years resolution of improving my health and losing weight. I've done a little studying. I've recently read that a research done last year, in which half the participants were on a reduced carbohydrate diet and half were on low fat, showed that reduced carb is healthier than low fat. By reduced, the participants ate 30% or less of their calories from carbs. I tried the Atkins diet and was miserable, but I was doing induction-no carbs. I can handle reducing my carbs down to 30% easily enough. The low carb participants lost more weight than the low fat ones, and had fewer markers for heart disease. I get really bad cravings for sweets, so I will try the low carb on for two days and off one trick I read about.
As for the exercise...well...I've been incorporating exercise into my schedule. I was enjoying a little walking/jogging at the track for a few weeks until my knees started hurting. We are going hiking Monday. Variety is the spice of life, and when it comes to exercise, I need variety to stick with it. I am obese and very out of shape. I also live below the poverty level and can't afford gym membership or equipment. Does anybody have any ideas?
I plan to buy a weighted hula hoop soon. Has anybody used one before? I think it would be a fun way to exercise my abs.
I've also signed up at weightlossbuddy.com. I recommend this site for anybody who wants to lose weight. It offers a little of everything.
I wrote a hub last week about my weight loss/health journey. I updated it today and will do so regularly. If you want to lose weight and get healthy, join me.I'm no doctor but I would just stick to a comfortable pace for walking if you get knee problems with more accelerated exercises like jogging. I for one won't jog or run but I love to walk.
If you are low on money, see if your local library has any exercise DVDs to lend out.
YouTube also has exercise videos that people put up. You can enlarge your screen and exercise along with them.What has worked for me is to Skip Lunch or Breakfast for life. It is much easier to do than dieting. If you get hungry just eat an apple or one piece of fruit. You will get hungry but after a while you get used to it. Studies have shown that the Western Diet is based on foods that have been enriched with fat and calories. So even when people eat a normal 3 meals a day, they are consuming an extra meal because the food is so rich. Skipping one meal a day means that you can eat and enjoy the two remaining meals. Worth a try. It is not a diet - your have to keep it up for the rest of your life.
I prefer to take the opposite approach and eat many small meals throughout day, I find this keeps me full of energy and prevents me from ever getting hungry. I can't imagine going without breakfast, I wouldn't have enough energy to make it through the day. It seems like if someone was to skip a meal they would want to skip dinner since the bodies metabolism is at its lowest point in the evening.
Dinner is the social meal shared with family/friends. Skipping lunch works for me ( I exercise instead). Snacking is my main problem. No pain; no gain. If you are NOT hungry you don't have a calorie deficit and you won't lose weight. Most people who diet put it all back on when they stop. It has to be a permanent lifestyle change. Each to their own! Just do what works for you. Just sharing my suggestion for intermittent fasting that has worked for me. Cheers.
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, skipping meals gives me headaches and the shakes. I was told by my doctor that I was borderline hypoglycemic and to eat several small meals to keep my metabolism up. My problem is lack of exercise, more than anything. I do choose the wrong foods though. I eat way too many starches way too late at night.
Janderson, I agree that you get used to it. You end up not missing the breakfast.
That may work for some people while others would experience a tragic blood sugar crash and have worse health issues.
There are two key points to weight loss, or at least this is what I learned after losing 50 lbs in the last couple of years.
1) You must burn off more calories than you take in. Track this, because most people have no sense of portion size or genuine caloric load.
2) You must find what works and is healthy for your body. Any diet methods that make you more uncomfortable are not right for you.
The thing that did it for me was walking. I created a regular "loop" and started walking it daily. Once I got comfortable walking it, I walked it faster. I also set a cut-off time for eating in the evening. The early walking got my eating urges to shift to the day (for energy needs) and away from night (boredom snacking).
I'm going to make resolutions I can actually keep this year:
1) Stop eating lightbulbs
2) Don't buy any jet planes
3) Do some first-hand research on naps and chocolate
Just teasing - but if it's any consolation, I have trouble doing the diet & exercise mantra every year, too!It is worthwhile emphasising that exercising to lose weight is a good tactic, but eating fewer calories at the same time, is essential, and is much more efficient for losing weight (do both!). Exercising to lose weight without calorie reduction is a very hard road to follow. The following stats show the walking hour equivalents for various foods. Cutting down on one meal a day (700 calories) is equivalent to about 2 hours of walking.
Walking, normal pace, burns about 324 Cals per hour => about 16% of daily calorie intake of 2000 calories per day.
Walking equivalents of various foods (standard serving)
Ham & pineapple pizza => 560 Cals 1.8 hours of walking
Beef & capsicum kebabs => 225 Cals 0.7 hours of walking
Fish in foil parcels => 193 Cals 0.6 hours of walking
Spaghetti bolognese => 684 Cals 2.2 hours of walking
Seafood paella => 578 Cals 1.8 hours of walking
Bacon Double Cheeseburger => 650 Cals 2 hours of walking
Double Whopper w/Cheese Sandwich => 1010 Cals 3.2 hours of walking
Subway Tuna (6") => 419 Cals 1.3 hours of walkingLosing weight is about eating a healthy diet and not starving yourself, it is about exercising to burn calories and the fat and it is about not losing interest. It is easy to lose interest when the weight loss hits a plateau.
Cooking for yourself is one of the best things you can do. And always read ingredients, staying away from processed foods with all of those chemicals and stay away from high fructose corn syrup.
Low carbs doesn't mean no carbs and of course there are good and bad carbs. Stay away from all white refined carbs. And when losing weight, it is probably best to limit all types of pasta and white potatoes.
As for exercise, tai chi can be very good to get your body moving and feeling better. You can get tai chi DVDs and learn it at home.
Eating healthy should be a lifelong way of life, not a diet that you start and stop. Make every bite count in nutritional value, no empty calories.
Some supplements can help like probiotics. If your digestive system is not working well, supplements like probiotics and digestive enzymes can help. And if your digestive system is not working well, you wont get the proper amount of nutrients and can have a much harder time losing weight.
If you're interested, I wrote a Hub about losing weight that mentions various ways to eat healthy while losing weight, it might give you some ideas.
<link snipped>I'm hoping to get out and walk tomorrow. I'll go to the track down the road, since there aren't a lot of sidewalks around here. I'm trying to prepare for boredom beforehand, so I can nip it in the bud. We planned to check out a hiking trail tomorrow, but it's been raining all day and will probably be too wet. I worked out on this exercise thing my mother gave me today. It was raining and the satellite was out, so it got pretty boring pretty quickly. Hopefully, I'll be able to walk tomorrow. When I used it last week, my calves were stiff and sore for days. I was grateful I did it though. They say habits take 30 days to develop and 30 days to break.
Cooking at home is important, I know. I rarely eat out. I'm trying to get more fruits and veggies in my diet. I know I need to stay away from processed foods, especially meat. For some reason though, I get turned off by meat attached to bone or fat or anything that proves it was once alive.
I decided to try carb cycling. I started today, and did fairly well. Most of my carbs came from a cup up navy beans I had leftover. Other than that, 6 carbs in the ham and 4 in the cheese in my omelet this morning and a teaspoon of sugar on my grapefruit. "Eating healthy" will alwys be a struggle for me because I like my sweets and starches, but I can adjust my carb cycling cycle to help me keep the weight off when I lose it.
This applies to me as I have put on heaps sitting down and typing most of the day. I just ordered some natural products to help me as they prevent absorption of fats and sugars so i hope they will help. Its summer here and the temps are well up but even with that its impossible to lose the weight without some kind of help. Guess its about diet as well as other things as I do plenty of exercise when I can.
I know diet is important. I recently read about a study done on participants who were put on either low fat or low carb diets and an exercise routine. The low carbers lost more weight and had better heart health markers than the low-fatters. I LOVE my carbs, so I'm trying carb cycling so I can have my carb days too. Do you know anything about carb-cycling?
You are approaching it from the wrong angle. Temporary diets very seldom work.
Far better is to change your lifestyle, permanently. Increased exercise, forever. A healthy, basically unchanging diet, forever. Dieting, for the purpose of losing weight, only results in a long term weight yo-yo, forever going up and down, and that is not conducive to long term health.On my regular eating patterns, I eat WAY too many carbs, so developing an eating plan that encourages me to find alternatives to carbs can only benefit me. After I reach my goal, if I gain a few pounds, I can go back to carb-cycling. I never said the diet was temporary. I can't just change my sweet tooth. Therefore, I need to control and limit it. And, I don't mean just sweets. I love my milk, cereal, and potatoes. I'm teaching myself to limit these and appreciate them when I CAN eat them. You may not agree, but I see nothing wrong with that. Low fat did not work for me, because I still ate too many carbs.
As we age, the same old regime cannot work.
Yes a new way of living with lifetime healthy eating habits has to take hold, but it's so difficult to permanently change our lifestyles.
Maybe hypnosis is the answer....
That is very correct, temporary diets do not work and losing weight fast is not healthy either. As you eat healthier diets, your taste buds will actually change. As you eat less sugar, less fat and less salty processed foods, your body will actually want more vegetables and less sugar, fat and salt. But it takes time.
I remember when I first tried being a vegan, after about 6 months, I had a pizza, and I could not believe how salty and fatty it tasted, I only had one bite of it. As for eating too much, some of the chemicals in today's foods can actually disrupt the hormones and signals in our body that communicate to the brain when we are full and when we are hungry. There are excitotoxins that do this, for example any of the chemicals that fall under the category of MSG. And MSG can be labeled many different ways on food containers.
Limit fructose as well, eliminate sugar and anything that has high fructose corn syrup and limit fruits. You can never go wrong eating too many vegetables. Some of the diets you can eat for a lifetime include the Mediterranean diet, vegan, macrobiotics or just eat whole foods by eliminating all processed and fast foods.Thanks for the advice.
Carb cycling is not temporary for me, though. I will just be less restrictive when I reach my goal weight, or go back on it if I gain more than five pounds. Also, I have no choice but to lose weight quickly. I was diagnosed with blockages by a cardiologist but ran out of money before I could get any more information. He ordered a bunch of tests I can't afford and I have no insurance. Losing half a pound a week may not relieve my heart of it's burden before I die from it. The research I have done showed my high carb diet may be the cause of my over 300 cholesterol levels. I don't eat a lot of fat. I also don't eat fruit and only drink soda once a week, at most. I enjoy my milk too much, although I drink skim. I eat too much cereal, not always whole grain, but usually. Same with bread. Learning to reduce my carbs is a full-time goal, not a short term diet plan.
I don't know what carb cycling is really, but I think in your situation, you need to not look for complicated ways to lose weight at this time. if possible, eliminate milk and the cereal completely and eat oatmeal instead. Read the ingredients in everything you eat and make sure there are no trans fat in your diet and greatly reduce saturated fat. That stuff can hide in all kinds of foods, especially processed foods, so you have to read the ingredients.
You should eliminate eggs from your diet and make sure the meat you eat is as lean as possible or exchange meat for fish like salmon because omega 3 fatty acids can reduce cholesterol levels. I know salmon is expensive, but the canned salmon if from fresh not farmed salmon is very good and sardines are as well.
As for carbs, you should not be eating any white or processed carbs at all, only whole wheat when you eat grains. No white potatoes or white rice either.
Losing weight like you need to is not easy, and it cannot really happen fast.A vegan diet would help you lose weight quicker. One book you might ask your library to get for you is The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss and also books by Dr. Dean Ornish are very good for eating healthy and reducing heart disease.
I am no expert on health insurance, but can't you get onto Medicaid so you can continue with the doctor and get cholesterol lowering medication.Until last month, the only child living with me was my 22 year old autistic son. Because he is over 18, Georgia would not give me Medicaid. My sixteen year old daughter just moved in and medicaid is pending. I don't know if I, personally, will qualify, because my husband works. But we are living below the poverty level so there's hope.
Carb cycling is alternating low-carb days with high carb days. It's supposed to reduce calories over all. High carb days are supposed to boost the metabolism and burn fat on low carb days. I got the method I'm using from Chris Powell from Extreme Weight Loss (the T.V. show). I DO try to stick with whole grains. I buy the expensive whole grain bread for a dollar at the Dollar Tree on certain days and it's still really fresh. I prefer whole grain cereals and save sweetened cereals for sugar cravings and snack attacks.
I don't eat seafood, unless it's tuna from a can. I don't know why, but it leaves a nasty aftertaste to me. I am repulsed by meat that is attached to bone or fat or has grizzle or anything that reminds me that it was once alive. I eat a lot of ground beef, preferably lean and boneless, skinless chicken breast, as well as processed meats. I found a place to get some good, lean, black forest ham lunch meat at a reasonable price, which is good, because I am not much of a ham eater. I also enjoy making lean cuts of roasted pork loin.
There also aren't many vegetables I like. My favorite is starchy corn. I'll eat others though, good healthy vegetables, beans greens, asparagus, broccoli, and stir fry veggies.
Carb cycling is not complicated. It's best to stick with lean meats and vegetables on low carb days and add a few fruits and whole grains on high carb days. Unfortunately, a for a pound of fresh lean meat, I can buy three packages of cheap hot dogs! And, please don't mention food stamps! I DO get those. Unfortunately, $355 a month doesn't feed four people very well.
The economy is killing us, but it won't last forever. I need to follow a diet plan that finances will allow. Maybe this year, bugs won't eat are garden.
Thanks for your input. Even if it seems like I feel you didn't offer any helpful advice, I know that you were really right on the mark.
I have done so many diets over the years that I have lost count! The plan that I stick to is to walk 40 minutes a day briskly and to keep a diary of what I eat. When you first start to keep the diary your be amazed at what rubbish you are putting into your mouth, I was! For example when we make a coffee we add sugar or I do anyway and two sugars every time soon adds up. That was the first thing to go! Secondly was the amount of bread, bread is so fattening, in with the crackers out with the bread! It's worked for me. That said if I didn't walk I think I would seriously be in trouble with my weight.
I am losing 2 kg (4 lb) a week on this life-time change:
Breakfast => Bowl of rolled oats with dried (or fresh) fruits and nuts, cup of milk, heated for 2 minutes in the microwave so its warm to eat
Lunch => NONE except for 1 piece of fruit, if hungry + 1 multivitamin tablet
Dinner => Grilled or stir-fried beef, chicken or fish (mostly), with a variety of stir fried, boiled or steamed vegetables including mushrooms - no rice, potatoes or other carbs
Exercise => I walk 2-3 times a day (average about 90 minutes, 15,000 steps) with longest walk in the middle of the day - this offsets the hunger pangs
Snacks => none, though I drink a lot of water
This works for me, though will not suit everyone.It sounds like your calorie intake is far below what it should be even for a modest weight loss. Four pounds per week is double what is recommended by anyone not interested in selling you a diet plan - you might want to reconsider and accept that a healthy plan will take longer.
Quick weight loss can be common at the very start of a diet and then it slows way down. Don't let any type of plateau make you give up. It is common to not lose any weight at times. And eating less than 1200 calories per day is unhealthy for women and 1800 calories per day for men. Otherwise your body starts storing fat thinking it is famine time.
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