Diet weight loss

[Slasher]

Hi Guys/Gals

for all of you that are trying to lose some weight I tried my own diet of *pilchard sandwiches (2 a day lightly spread with butter - margarine) and cornflakes (1 bowel a day) and lost 1 stone over 3 weeks. Of course you can have a pig out 1 day a week: kebab, pizza if you feel the need to or as a treat for being good for the other 6 days

I was 10 stone before I had a stroke and within 1 year after was weighing in at almost 16 stones! I must admit I feel better for it. Ideally I would like to get down to 12 stones. One can but only try

* Of course you may prefer Tuna, but please, no mayo as it is full of calories.

Based on Daily Intake of 2000 for guys, slightly less for gals. This diet is around 600 a day.

Naturally you can scoff the odd bag of crisps, but don't overdo it! Of course don't forget to eat some fruit or vegetables.

Have you found a special diet that works for you?

[Stee]

If we are talking calorie counting, 600 calories a day (starving yourself) increases the chance that your body goes into panic and starts storing food (as fat) rather than losing weight. You may find once you come off that diet that you start putting weight on as you metabolism slows (to counter the fact that you are not giving your body enough energy). It's a good "crash diet" I suppose for quickly losing weight but you will have a hard time keeping that weight off.

The recommended minimum calorie intake for a male I believe is 1200, for precisely this purpose, unless you are morbidly obese (16 stone isn't morbidly obese unless you are some kind of midget). If you are keen to lose the weight you are probably better keeping at or above that threshold and complimenting your diet with an exercise regime. Also, not to sound like your Dad or anything, but if you have had a stroke and / or a medical condition etc, just for your own wellbeing I'd seek advice from a doctor if you are keen to get rid of the weight. Drastic changes to your weight through crash dieting can put a strain on your heart.

Good luck with the weight loss though and all the best in the future! Last time I weighed myself I was around the 15/16 stone mark and I used to be 12. I've been on some crazy diets (student inflicted not weight loss) and lost and gained weight so it's not an exact science.

[Anian]

Also cornflakes is far from ideal food, most of those brands put a lot of sugar in it (even the not "sweet" ones) and you get less filled up than the calories you get.

[Stupot]

We should form a fat-club.
I've been fluctuating between 14 and 16 for the past 7 or 8 years.  I'm at the top end of that at the moment, mostly in the gut and moobs,  but my diet is no worse than the next guy's.  The culprit is an embarrassing lack of exercise.  I can't even take my own advice, so I don't expect anyone else to, but if I were in a position to give advice, I'd be saying don't cut food out drastically. Only 600 calories is not just good for you. Just cut down on the naughty things, and jog more.

[Ghost]

There's a saying- if you want to put on weight, try a diet.

I'm sceptical about diets. Apparently every one, no matter how drastically different from the others, has at least noticeable effect on some people, so to me this translates into: "You just got to find a diet that works for you." And if everything can be a diet there are none at all.
And hell, people have different ways of processing their food. Fast metabolism, chemical reactions that cause you to burn fat when combining foods... seriously, to me a diet is just the same as a horoscope, you *can* make it stick but I just don't believe in them.

A relative had good success with eating mostly meat and reducing sugar. A friend lost a couple of pounds by eating only pineapples. If cornflakes and sandwiches work for you, that's as good as anything; stick with it.

Exercise, as generic as is sounds, makes a lot more sense o me- you do something that required energy and that energy comes from your body reserves. I always feel better after a day of walking.

[Anian]

Pineapples, really? I almost always burn my tounge with the acid from it (it kind dulls yet stings a few days after)...weird.
For me it's usually tomato juice, I basically drink it and just lose any craving I have, only down side being that it usually contains a lot of salt in it. Grapefruit is great for that as well, I eat it and just can't think of another taste in my mouth till I was it out.

[Ghost]

Pineapples, really?

Yup. The reasoning was that the acids are good for burning the fat away, and they have a rather large amount of water and natual (fruit) sugar, which gives you "good" energy. As I said, these things always make some sort of sense and will (without fail) work- for some people.

[Khris]

I read (on cracked, I think) that people's weight / shape is pretty much genetically determined. (We all know that one guy who eats loads of junk food but doesn't get fat.)
That's not to say that you can't change it, even drastically, but the thing that actually matters is keeping the new weight, not the process of loosing some (or for some people, gaining some).

The essence of that is basically: once you found a diet that works, be ready to follow it for the rest of your life. It's just like with bodybuilding or a tan; if you don't keep working on it, you're bound to go back to your floppy, pale old self.

That's why all those "eat only X" diets are bound to fail from the start. What you need to do is to permanently change your a) calorie intake b) calorie use.

This also means that every single "loose x kilos in y days" diet is utter bullshit, but you probably already knew that. Keeping the weight is key.

I myself greatly decreased my smoking and promptly gained a few pounds, but I'm still well within normal range, so *knock on wood*

[WHAM]

I know quite a few people with weigh problems, hell, I'm one of 'em. The most common issue I've seen is people expecting a diet of any kind to work in a month or two and then have the effects last. Most of them just bounce back a few months later.

I myself weighed almost 130kg about a year ago, and have worked almost non-stop since then to control my weight, and am currently at about 112kg, slowly going down. That's about 18 kilos in 12 months, a seemingly slow pace to some, but maintainable.

I have not (yet) added any exercize to my daily life, and the only changes I've made were dietary. The diet I tried, and have been on since february 2012, is a variation of the Atkins diet, ie. a low carb diet. Little to no bread, grain, pasta, rice etc, instead those have been replaced with meat, fish, salad, vegetables and, most importantly, eggs. For me the diet has been easy to follow, as it involves no keeping track of your calorie intake and no weighing every piece of food before eating, and allows many foods I enjoy with practically no limitation other than the ones I set myself. There are some downsides, primarily the fact that at the start, as your body stops getting the carbs it's used to, you get headaches for a week or two, as well as some slight dizzyness, though these ailments stopped for me completely over the first month. Then come the muscle cramps, which I suffer from roughly once every month or two, though this latter issue can be avoided almost completely by taking in some extra magnesium.

Whelp, that's it for my input, hopefully I'll be down at 100kg or lower by next christmas.

-WHAM

[selmiak]

with no bread, do you mean no bread at all, or no white bread, no toast and rather wholemeal bread? Somehow I always imagined wholemeal to be healthy and thus fitting. Not that I know a lot about it...

[MurrayL]

We all know that one guy who eats loads of junk food but doesn't get fat.

*waves* hullo!

6ft and ~55kg - anyone got any weight gain diets?

[bicilotti]

I read (on cracked, I think) that people's weight / shape is pretty much genetically determined.

I am a bit skeptic about this (I would have guessed that some people over/under-report their daily caloric intake/exercise).

Care to link that article?

[Andail]

*waves* hullo!

6ft and ~55kg - anyone got any weight gain diets?

+1.
I'm virtually the same, 5'11 at 60kg (roughly 135 pounds). I go to the gym regularly and lift heavy weights, and I eat all the time. I use gainers occasionally, and also take vitamin supplements, but I don't gain a pound. I'm in pretty good shape, but waaay too lean.

[Khris]

Here's one:
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/fat-officially-incurable-according-to-science/

Not sure if that's the one I read, but the gist is the same.

[zabnat]

I'm also on a low carb diet, but I'm also counting calories so that I'll eat the right amount. I keep calories about 500-1000 kcal under what I burn. My carbs are around 60 grams per day and I try to get around 150 grams of protein and the rest of the daily energy intake comes from fat. This has been working nicely for me. In a year I've lost 22 kilos (115 kg -> 93 kg, I'm 189 cm) and I seem to have gained some muscle too. I haven't noticed any major downsides of low carb diet. No hunger and no problems with energy levels during training.

[Darth Mandarb]

Andail and MurrayL - I was exactly the same for so long.  When I graduated highschool I was 6'3" (1.91m) and was 145lbs (~66kg).  I ate ANYthing I wanted and just wouldn't gain any weight.  It wasn't until my late 20s that my metabolism caught up to me!

Now I maintain about 220lbs (~99kg) now (which I find to be a healthy weight for me at 6'4" now).

I agree with what Ghost said in that, "diets are individual to the person on them".  You have to find what works for you.  For me it's just a matter of portioning what I eat.  I pretty much eat whatever I feel like, I just don't over eat.  I never eat to the point that I feel full (this is the hardest part to adapt to).  I eat enough food to know that, 10 minutes after I stop eating, I won't be hungry anymore.  Granted I rarely eat fast food and my intake of fried food is limited to one "cheat" day per week but still... I never really feel I'm not eating the things I want to eat.

[WHAM]

with no bread, do you mean no bread at all, or no white bread, no toast and rather wholemeal bread? Somehow I always imagined wholemeal to be healthy and thus fitting. Not that I know a lot about it...

Avoid all bread, generally, though I do permit one small piece of rye bread or some other "dark bread" once or twice a week. I also use dark rice roughly once every couple of weeks, though only in very small amounts.

[Khris]

The idea that whole grains are much more healthy than white bread is not completely wrong, but unless you're eating like 80% bread, it doesn't matter at all.

The "whole grain" movement was a 70ies craze invented by pretty esoteric people, this was never something established by science. It's a stubborn myth though.
The same people also thought that you should eat everything raw, and that doing so will prevent all illnesses.

If you're not convinced: the French and Italians basically don't know dark bread. They live just as long and healthy as other people though.

[Bernie]

I used to have about 20kg / 44lbs too much, but a mixture of a healthy diet and regular excercise has kept me around my ideal weight for 8 years now. As far as I understand it, the advantage to add excercise into the mix is basically that more muscles consume more calories/energy, even if you just sit around. Thatt's also why bodybuilders have to eat so unbelievably much to keep their mass.

My main diet change was less calories in the evenings. Along with regular excercise, my weight steadily decreased to 72 kg / 159 lbs.

As for excercise - do it regularly until it becomes a part of your life. It's rough in the beginning, but it'll pay off.

Good luck, everybody~

[Nikolas]

The thing with excersize is that you actually need to keep it up for the rest of your life pretty much: If I lose weight going to the gym daily, then stopping would get me back to being fat! No?