A bit overweight

[Tcr4x4]

Ive lost over a stone in around 3 weeks. I'd just tipped 13 stone, and as Im only 5'7, was condsidered overweight by quite a bit.

I simply stopped eating chocolate, stopped drinking beer, coke, fizzy drinks and started eating more balanced healthy meals. I also cut out as much sugar as I could and cut right down on milk.
I started cycling about a week into it, so thats obviously helped too.

Im now 11 stone 10lbs, and hoping to get down to about 11st 5 at least.

I still have the odd takeaway and a glass of beer every now and then, but the key is moderation. Also as people have said, take the time to note down what you eat, so you can actually see it. Its far to easy to snack throughout the day with out reaslising just how much you are eating.
List every single thing you eat and drink, honestly and then change whatever needs changing.

 

[GmanUK65]

I am doing most of the things you are doing. A week ago I was 14 stone 9 pounds, I replaced chips in my meals with salad, cut out most of my sugar by using sugar alternatives such as Canderel in my coffee. In one week I have lost 4 pounds. My target is to get down to 12 stone. I'm sure cycling has helped too.

 

[ianrauk]

Ive lost over a stone in around 3 weeks. I'd just tipped 13 stone, and as Im only 5'7, was condsidered overweight by quite a bit.

I simply stopped eating chocolate, stopped drinking beer, coke, fizzy drinks and started eating more balanced healthy meals. I also cut out as much sugar as I could and cut right down on milk.
I started cycling about a week into it, so thats obviously helped too.

Im now 11 stone 10lbs, and hoping to get down to about 11st 5 at least.

I still have the odd takeaway and a glass of beer every now and then, but the key is moderation. Also as people have said, take the time to note down what you eat, so you can actually see it. Its far to easy to snack throughout the day with out reaslising just how much you are eating.
List every single thing you eat and drink, honestly and then change whatever needs changing.

That's great going. Well done. A new life beckons.

 

[bozmandb9]

Sorry but some of the posts above contain completely erroneous information. In particular:

"It's really quite simple; calories in vs calories out is key to weight loss.

So eat less and move more!"

This is just wrong. If you eat crap, even with a calorie deficit, you'll still acquire fat, especially if you're stressed, but at the same time your metabolism will slow, and you'll lose muscle mass, and possibly leach calcium from your bones, and exhibit other symptoms of malnutrition. The only way to lose weight, is to eat properly, give your body the nourishment it needs, and stop causing it to store fat. It stores fat for two reasons, one because you starve it, putting it into fat storage mode, as a survial instinct, and secondly, to store toxins from the crap you eat.

Also this is wrong:

"cut your intake of sat fats"

Sat fats are not necessarily bad for you. I can't quote the research, but I can point you towards the book which does. Sat fats don't cause weight gain, or heart disease.

Weight gain is caused by an excess of refined sugar and carbohydrates. There is plenty of evidence if you want it, but common sense will also confirm this if you think about it.

50 years ago there was no obesity epidemic, and people ate massively more saturated fats, and much less refined carbohydrates, and a fraction of the sugar now consumed. The food industry blamed fat when the obesity epidemic began, because it was convenient. It enabled them to create a new market to get us to buy even more packaged and processed food 'low fat and diet versions' which are entirely counter productive. Ever seen anybody lose weight eating that crap?

Counting calories doesn't work.

Calories deficit doesn't work and is dangerous for your physiological and mental health.

Short term diets don't work.

Long term diet change, eating a balanced natural diet, and taking plenty of exercise does work, and worked for thousands of years before we invented all the processed junk and complex 'solutions' above.

And before anybody says 'It's not that simple because we all live sedentary lives nowadays', well sorry but it is, and weight gain/ loss is at least 90% down to what you ingest, and 10% down to what you do. The facts speak for themselves, we ingest 20 x more sugar than we used to, and masses more refined carbs, and we have an obesity epidemic, at the same time we eat less animal fat than ever before, so you do the math!

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

 

[Sittingduck]

What a load of old cobblers^^

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

What a load of old cobblers^^

The 6stone I lost through some basic calorie counting and calorie deficit must have been a dream I guess.

Oh no... It actually happened

 

[Ghost Donkey]

Superb

What a load of old cobblers^^

What a load of old cobblers^^



Bozmadb9 has hit a few good points and I'll throw my support behind this post with one caveat and then clear off from this thread as an argument on the points raised here will run and run forever. My caveat is that I wouldn't say counting calories doesn't work. Calories in/out has been around a good while and has stuck because it works as a good guideline and gets results. It isn't necessary to loose weight or the easiest way to loose weight depending on your eating habits. Four stone lost and kept off and not a single calorie counted in my case. It isn't the exact science people can think it is as your body does not treat all calories the same. Definitely more than one way to skin a cat. There are books, scientific journals, blogs, web articles and all sorts of writings covering this. I won't begin to pretend to understand it fully enough to argue it and don't wish to have an argument, just sympathise with where Bozmadb9 is coming from. The men who made us thin (two episodes broadcast so far, available on iPlayer) covers a lot of this in a basic outline but has no where near the detail to be a good reference to win an argument.

Lots of good reading to be had on the fat and cholesterol out there. So so many books. Dr Malcolm Kendrick's The Great Cholesterol Con is a good one to start with. Read the stuff which says fat will kill you, the stuff which says carbs will kill you and the stuff that says animal protein will kill you for a good information balance. Alternatively you could not bother and get a life then you won't be a boring f*ck*r like me .

Cheerio

 

[bozmandb9]

What a load of old cobblers^^

Intelligent comment clearly well researched!

 

[Sittingduck]

To say that keeping track of calorie intake and deficit does not work is untrue. Maybe it didn't work for you but it certainly works for many people.

 

[bozmandb9]

To say that keeping track of calorie intake and deficit does not work is untrue. Maybe it didn't work for you but it certainly works for many people.

It's not a bad thing to keep track of exactly what you're eating, but in general, trying to lose weight by creating a calorie deficit is a bad idea. If it's worked for you, it's more likely due to just being conscious of what you eat, and eating more healthily.

I'm afraid it's just fact, that the body acts very intelligently, and when you create a calorie deficit, it slows your metabolism.

To be clear, I'm not saying you can't lose weight by creating a calorie deficit, I'm just saying you can't lose weight healthily, by doing so. By giving your body less nutrition than it needs, you simply make it perform under par, it would be lovely it the body would just keep working at exactly the same rate, and use stored fat to make up the deficit, but it does not. Furthermore, if you don't eat enough you can create deficiencies in certain nutrients, which can have serious health effects.

As I said, to lose weight healthily, for the long term, you just need to eat a healthy balanced diet, along with plenty of exercise. The only problem is most people have no idea what a healthy balanced diet is. But it's easy, if you just focus on foods which have been available for at least a few hundred years.

Edited to add: it really isn't about the quantity, it's about quality. That's my big gripe about the whole calorie deficit theory, that it ignores quality of calories. Get the majority from refined carbohydrates, and it will be massively unhealthy, and that's what so many people do!

 

[Mickthemove]

Funnily enough, I have not been specifically counting calories as such, but tried to eat much less fat etc, I have lost two and a bit stone in twelve weeks from 18st 13.
In the last two weeks, I have decided to cut out refined sugar from my diet , I used to have roughly 20 decent sized teaspoons of the stuff every day! ( kilo a week) lol
Now I have no doubt in the long term this will deffo have a very good effect, in the meantime my metabolism has virtually gone! No matter what roughage I throw in, nearly nothing happens, ummm
It's not affecting my cycling though as my mileage is improving and hills are getting a bit easier (80 miles) on sat morning