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Lose Weight The Slow, Boring Way
urbazewski writes "As spring gets underway (in the northern hemisphere anyway) it's a good time to start undoing the effects of a winter's worth of websurfing and gameplaying on your physical condition. A meta-analysis of studies of currently popular low carbohydrate diets by doctors at Stanford and Yale reveals that they are really just low calorie diets in disguise: 'findings suggest that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period." John Walker's 'engineer's approach' to losing weight is built around this astonishing insight, as described in his online book/weight loss plan The Hacker's Diet. The spreadsheets are out of commission, but the basic insights are an excellent antidote to fad diets." Ramen, Ramen, Ramen is not on the approved list.
This is another American lie. The weight was not lost: the invaders were chased into the desert and utterly destroyed.
Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
why even bother posting this article... a case of coke and a pizza a day (average slashdot'ers diet) probably doesn't contribute to losing weight, and doesn't take a university study to figure out why!!
No pepsi?! *whimper* Pepsi ....or.... Non-round.
I'll let you folks know what I decide on.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The Hacker's diet totally works. I lost 35 lbs in 3 months by:
-eating less than 2000 calories each day
-exercising every day
I ate whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, as long as the daily total remained under 2000 calories. You do have to pay attention to serving sizes to get accurate calorie counts.
I did the 5BX (http://www.flwd.com/5bx/main/) every day, which takes 11 minutes a day to do. Its simple, good exercise that requires no equipment and can be done pretty much anywhere.
I was fat and not while I'm not thin, I'm at least less fat. I would recommend this approach to anyone wanting to loose weight.
I can speak from personal experience on this. I know people have heard this a million times, but I'm not convinced of these "cookie-cutter" diets due to the fact that everyone is different in so many different ways.
For example, how do you explain the fact that I can gain so much weight by not watching every last gram of carbohydrates I eat while a friend of mine can have his "nights of 10,000 calories" and not gain a single pound ever.
I think it all comes down to taking a step back, looking at your body, and picking what's right for you -- not some predetermined plan that you get off of a website.
I am over here... now I am back over here!
Cowboy Neal has been on the slim-slow diet for years!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Let's mark the occasion with some BBQ, and cookies with mountain dew and fries and chips to snack on! Then Unreal 2003 fest for 9 hours straight before shell scriptin the early morning away!
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
Hey you might think its boring but exercise makes you feel good. Last year when I was on a break from being a student (Work experience) I felt the best I've ever been. Try getting up for a run at six o'clock with a friend before you start the day. It will tire you out to start with but going into work at 8.30 with the energy levels of someone at mid-morning is unbeatable.
There is insufficient evidence to make recommendations for or against the use of low-carbohydrate diets, particularly among
participants older than age 50 years, for use longer than 90 days, or for diets of 20 g/d or less of carbohydrates. Among the published
studies, participant weight loss while using low-carbohydrate diets was principally associated with decreased caloric intake...
A more realistic and reasonable conclusion: Aggregating data from artfully-chosen original research and running it through a 'statistical' analysis provides insufficient basis to conclude anything about anything other than the bias of the 'researchers'.
This is the equivalent of a high school science fair project being treated as if it was actual research.
Seven 'researchers' "identify 2609 potentially relevant" articles (i.e., a MEDLINE search for "low-carbohydrate") and then reduce them to 107 articles by reading the abstracts, carefully avoiding anything that contradicts any currently-held beliefs... As I have mentioned here before, 'research' on nutrition resembles religion far more closely than it does science.
Publishing this article is the equivalent of publishing a google search, except that if it had been written by non-doctors, it would not have even been considered. If you doubt that, ask Dr. Richard Bernstein about his experience with JAMA.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
In Hacker's Diet, John talks a lot about an "eat watch" that tells you when it is time to eat, so that you can follow the watch instead of your natural cravings that were tuned over millions of years of evolution to store up as much fat as possible during times of abundance. In the book, he says this is not technically possible, but we can get close by constantly comparing our diet to daily weight fluctuations (actually a moving, weighted average to mitigate the effect of one-day anomilies).
Now that several years have gone by since he wrote this book, I wonder if the eat watch is still impossible. Glucose level monitoring is much less invasive than it used to be, and I believe that portable devices are sold so diabetics that will read glucose levels through the skin. With a little bit of modification to accomidate for past food intake and weight, this might be modifiable into John Walker's eat watch.
In case John Walker reads this thread, I want to thank you for Hacker's Diet. It motivated and guided me in losing 30 pounds over a one year period.
Here is my Idea for the Ultimate diet:
STOP EATING!
-
You'll lose weight and muscle is overated anyway.
The answer isn't bullshit diets. Its excercise. Everyone hates to do it, but its the only sure way. Humans would rather not do something than start doing something. Its our lazy nature.
Because sometimes a seriously dangerous disease is a benefit!
Ketosis can lead to coma and death if untreated.
Enjoy!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I actually followed The Hackers Diet about three years ago and lost 25 pounds over the course of 3 1/2 months.
I lost the will power to keep on the diet and have gained most of that weight back over the last two years, and am currently trying to work up the will power to start it up again. I'm 6 feet tall, so it would be nice to be back to a nice lean 170lbs again.
Why is this premiss so hard to understand? I truely believe some people have something wrong with their heads that blocks that out. Ask those same people what will happen if you sit around eating twinkies and drinking mountain dew all day while playing everquest nonstop and they will say "you will get fat" but you won't ever hear "you will get skinny" to the less calories + more exercize fact.
I read somewhere that a doctor wanted to test the 10,000 steps a day theory. Even as a very active doctor, who took the stairs, and parked his car far away from the building, he could hardly ever get to the magical 10,000 steps that everyone should take a day becuase it is set in our genetics by our ancestors who HAD to walk a lot. They didn't have the option of just sitting all day.
"findings suggest that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period." This is amazing! Who would of thought that if you eat less over long periods of time you lose weight? Well done. Reminds me of a "Family Guy" episode where the daughter asks, "I don't know why I can't lose weight" The dog responds, "heres a hint, put down the fork!"
If you actually read Atkin's books, he explicitly says weight loss comes down to cutting calories. The advantage of a low carbohydrate diet is that the calories you do take in make you feel more satisfied, as well as not driving up your insulin levels.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
As opposed to John Walker Lindh's 'terrorist approach' to losing weight that is built around hanging out in a flooded prison for a week with no food at all.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
Its that simple really...
Forget all the diets, just burn more then you eat.. you loose weight...
For the couch potatoes, EXERSISE how to use energy.. And dont eat a lot of garbage..
Just use some common sence. But then again, that wont sell books or diet foods will it...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
LMAO! Mod parent up!
So, eating carbs makes you more hungry, more often.
Cut the carbs, and you get hungry less often.
The Atkins people admit that you eat less calories. The diet works in HOW it gets you to eat less calories. If you don't feel hungry, and you eat less, that's great for dieters. It makes dieting easy. If it comes with some health benefits, too, even better.
Have you looked at the (admittedly pricier) baked ramen? Very low fat, and fairly (well, comparatively) lowcalorie too. Sure, it's harder to find, and not nearly as cheap, but it works for losing weight.
:(
I used it several years ago, and dropped almost 20 pounds. I managed to keep the weight off for almost 2 years, then my intake went up and my activity went down, causing the ever-popular battle of the bulge to begin anew
Lemon curry?
It's really simple, eat better, and work out, and you'll lose weight. Instead of the ladder he used, I used to bike 11 miles a day. Now I run about 35 miles a week. I lose weight slowly and steadily on this plan, about 3.5 lbs a month or so. Just fine for me. I've never been drastically overweight, though, I'm going from 6' 185 lbs to 6' whatever makes me look better. Right now, that seems to be 170, and I'm not pushing it.
My wife lost 60 pounds, and has been able to keep it off for about a year. She looks fantastistic! Her approach? Stop eating so much, stop eating crap, go to the gym and do exercise classes, and work out. Doesn't sound that glamorous. But it worked for her.
Now what she discovered from all that hard work is that she actually enjoyed it (which she had never realized before, since she had never tried it.
I confess, I didn't read the article, but if it is advocating good old fashioned "straightening up", then it sounds right. I shudder when I walk into the drug store (of all places) and see bottles of tablets that are supposed to help lose weight. I think of all the people that get sucked in by that - I've seen my wife doing fad diets and other quick schemes. The only thing that worked was to change her lifestyle.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
That's what I did. I lost 20 pounds, 1-2 pounds per week. I'm less lethargic now too. I didn't make any other major changes to my diet. Fats in and of themselves aren't too big a problem.
Note that those "fat-free" desserts have even more sugar than the regular stuff. You'll never lose weight that way. Y'might give your chance at developing diabetes an additional boost though.
...but my high-caffeine, low-sunlight diet has kept me at or below my ideal weight for over a decade.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
No wonder people can't control their blubber. The dumbfucks think Blubber Control is Rocket Science.
Screw that shit. Just KNOCK OFF WITH THE FOOD INTAKE.
Is it fascism yet?
This is my first real diet where I'm conciously cutting down on calories. I'm not starving myself but only because I constantly snack on fruits and veggies. I feel like I have to have something in my mouth every hour. Weird feeling but one can get used to it.
I'm not following any particular dieting fad. I just stopped eating all the junk foods that are served at your typical lunch place. No more burgers, pizzas, fries or doughnuts. I firmly believe that Russian females are so slender because they diddn't have junk food for so many years. Accordingly if I remove all junk food from my diet I should get slender too... Time will tell.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
All I did was eat bowl of Kellogg Special K in the morning for breakfast and a bowl for dinner. For lunch I eat a turkey sandwich and two fruits (mainly tangerines). I also exercise on a daily basis. I ride a bike for 20 minutes and lift weights for 30 minutes.
This really worked wonders for me and it could for you too! Yeah I know, it can be embarrassing to be lugging a pink Special K box around in the grocery stores but trust me it gets better after a few times. Hell, you might even pickup a chick at the grocery store. Also, the most important thing you have to do when trying to lose weight is put on some muscles. Putting on muscles will enable you to burn calories as you sleep at night. Do this for two weeks and I guarantee you that you'll lose at least 10 pounds.
For those interested in losing weight, I've found a mini-howto on the 'net that's worth looking at. It's more empirical than scientific, and has an enlightening personal story attached. It reinforces the less-calorie diet praised by the medical journal article. See this: The Fat Bloke's Guide to Becoming Less Fat
Just be sensible if you want to lose weight. A lot of health guides in my opionion are bad... 5+ servings of grain a day? pfft.
I lost 100 pounds over the past 8-9 months and it really wasn't hard. How? 30 minutes of weights daily to build up my heart rate and get the blood flowing. Then I would run 30 minutes. Initially it was walking of course. At 300 pounds my ankles couldn't support me running!
As for the diet I did go for lots of protein. But I didn't neglect other things like the importance of vegetables and fruits I had neglected over the past 10 years. I ate more of these in my 8 months than in the past 10 years. Iron, Zinc, Calcium too... I'd eat pure whole grain multigrain bread with all these crazy seeds and stuff in it. Yeah thats right. CARBS. So what. As long as you don't eat too much they aint a bad thing so screw what those diets of the week say. Just eat a balanced diet. I'd only eat 2-3 grain a day at most.
In order of most to least of the food groups:
1) Fruits and vegetables I cannot stress this enough... tons of goodness in them... VERY low calorie and easy to fill up...some of them taste quite good.
2) Poultry + pork. Chicken is very lean and low calorie. And really high in protein. Ham has more calorie but its a nice to alternate...couldn't eat chicken 24/7. Add something to them for taste.. don't eat them plain, they will taste like cardboard and you will drop your diet faster than a peter north's pants in front of a woman
3) Dairy. 3 fat glasses of milk daily. A fair bit of cheese too.
4) Grain. The lowest but still important to have some in your diet for obvious reasons of staying regular (if you eat too much fruit it does this 10 times more though!) and the added benefits that other groups don't necessarily have.
My immune system is a lot better. I've not got any colds during cold season, ive not even got the flu at all or been sick. Feels great. So much energy. Really if you weigh as much as I did or are at least overweight, lose it. Its so much easier to breath. I can take huge deep breaths now while sitting. Before I could only breath shallowly and it was scary.
Realize it takes time... I finally had to do that. I feel so great being thinner now. Still have to lose some weight but I'm no longer in a danger zone. I found the worst thing about being healthy was not my cravings and hunger. The major reason I ate junkfood was time. Its easier to microwave buttery popcorn than to chop up carrots. Secondly was stress. I'd eat after a long hard day at work. But now my stress-releaser is exercise...and boy it works great especially on kickbox night... exercise, if anything, not to lose weight, but to feel good and release more endorphins.
Get a copy of Pumping Iron and watch it every day. :)
I think you might even be able to get a shady DVD somewhere on the net. . .
I am over here... now I am back over here!
The low carb diet works, bodybuilders use it, I use it. But its supposed to be for bodybuilders, not just for general weight loss. The reason people go on low carb is so they can lose weight QUICKLY while keeping muscle, if you go on a starvation diet of one meal a day for a month you will lose weight, but half your weight will be in muscle and the other half in fat. Low carb allows you to lose 90 percent fat and maybe 10 percent muscle, these is extremely important to the athelete, the body builder etc who want to lose FAT, not lose weight.
I want to lose fat, I go low carb because I can continue to eat fat. You must eat fat if you want your body to remember how to burn it, your body burns what you eat, if you eat low fat and high carbs your body burns carbs, if you eat high fat low carb your body burns fat, and if you eat high protien and low everything, your body burns protien.
What you want to do is make the body adapt, so that you burn fat for fuel with more efficiency while on your low calorie diets, its more of a metabolism boosting diet, and its safer than the traditional starvation diet.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Yeah, I know that there are complications due to gender, body type, genetics, etc. but if you are so fat that an unbalanced, low-cal diet is good for you, then a little exercise can't hurt.
A lot of exercise may not hurt, either.
What's wrong with the "Stop eating everything you come across, move your butt around a bit more and go participate in a physically active sport" method? Excercising like mad isn't a good idea btw, muscle tissue weighs more then fat, so evetually you'll GAIN weight. You'll look all buff though and you can shatter wood with one hand...
Hate me!
Ketosis is only dangerous in people who lack adequate insulin, namely type 1 diabetics, and in some cases type 2 diabetics. Normal people are fully capable of using fat for energy in ketosis, it's only when insulin is absent that the condition turns dangerous, and the result is ketoacidosis. Do a Google search on the two terms for more information.
And, as a type 1 diabetic, I know what Ketoacidosis is and feels like from experience, and it's nothing like dietary ketosis (which I've used to keep nearly normal blood sugars).
Our bodies evolved to eat the proteins and fats of animals, vegitables that we scavenged, and occasional fruits. I say occasional because fruits are seasonal and all animals compete for them so they were rather hard to find.
Grain was never part of the fuel that our bodies were designed to run on. 10,000 years is hardly long enough for a selection event to occur, and so grains are quite artificial in the human diet.
Sugar, partially hydrogenated oils, and other refined foods that hit the market this century just add to the problems. They fluctuate your bodies glucose level widely and are stored as fat if not utilized.
While fad diets are going to fade in and out, pillars of evolutionary data point to what you should be eating- what your body was designed to eat.
Animals. Vegies. Occasionally some carbohydeates in the form of fruits.
Bring on the Bacon!
Just think about it, if you were homeless, you could panhandle for about an hour a week, and make enough money to never go hungry by eating Ramen!
Security is inversely proportional to the commitment of one desiring to circumvent it.
I want big balls too!
In another news on /. presenting "Penis enlargment for dummies" and "Howto get gold from Nigeria".
I don't think it's good to call it "The Hacker's Diet", just like it would be bad to call something "The Hacker's Dating Guide", "The Hacker's Guide to Socializing", "The Hacker's Tips on Clothing Selection"
I tried the "Hacker's Diet" mentioned above, which in a nutshell is really just "eat less". I lost roughly 60 pounds in 8 months. Awesome! But then I went to Germany for 3 months and gained it all back. Oops. Also, I didn't like feeling weak and tired. (Walker mentions that this is typical.) So now I'm just eating a little less and back on track with losing weight slowly.
I'd say the Hacker's Diet is worth a shot for those who really need it. Be honest, that's quite a few of us Slashdotters.
Heh...in all seriousness, DDR has slimed down many a geek...including me.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
Losing weight is as simple as expending more calories each day than you intake. If your whole day consists of hacking code and then playing some video games, you don't need that many calories.
What I used to do in school was work for however many hours/days on coding for my assignments. Once they were handed in, I'd hit the gym for a few hours and burn off some steam. Lifting weights is a great way to relieve the stress of incompetent teammates and pointless assignments. Before I graduated, I could bench over 200lbs. Of course doing cardio is important too.
It's not difficult to figure out how many calories you should be eating. It's only a matter of self control if you want to shed that extra flab.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
As someone who went from 180lbs to 140lbs in four months, let me tell you my secret:
Work at a bike shop.
First off, you will, regardless of how far you live from the shop, have to bike to work. If not, you will be ridiculed, tortured, and, finally, fired.
Second, in the workshop, you will spend 12 hours straight standing up. The only possible way a mere human can do this is by consuming upwards of three liters of caffeinated beverages over the course of a work day. By simply drinking diet cola, you've got a diet in itself.
Third, and most importantly, working on bikes garauntees you an eighth of an inch layer of grease on your hands, pants, and shirt--the smell of which will make you the benefactor of a very healthy distain for anything even mildly resembling food. Bo-yah, your calorie intake is restricted to a hurried breakfast before work!
I went on Atkins in January. Weighed myself a few times a week and plotted the progress. This is what has happened so far. I've been pretty pleased.
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
I've lost about 75 pounds in the last year. This guy and all the commenters are correct, you lose weight by eating less and exercising more.
However, this is a lot like saying you become rich by making more money than you spend. 100% accurate and 100% useless.
No one would get fat if the only issue were balancing food intake and energy expenditure. Obesity is dangerous, uncomfortable and one of the few remaining PC stigmas, i.e., it's still socially acceptable to ridicule and humiliate fat people, if in abstract only. No, people get fat because acheiving a balance with energy expenditure is only one minor issue involved in eating habits with people who struggle with this problem.
We live in an eating disordered society. US food producers produce an excess of some 1300 kcals/day/person more than the population needs to sustain health, much of that is available quickly and cheaply at fast food outlets. Indeed, I used to eat about 1800 kcals for breakfast at McDonald's on the way to work. (breakfast bagel, sauage biscuit, hash browns, OJ), now I don't eat 1800 kcals until I have finished breakfast, lunch and part of dinner.
What has changed is simple, but not easy. I'll put it in terms that Geeks will appreciate: I removed the device driver "eating" from my emotional management panel. It only took about $20,000 worth of psychotherapy to do it (it require a re-compile of my kernel to include upgraded emotional management code).
What I've learned from dealing with the weight loss since is real weight loss, i.e., loss that will stick, is SSSLLLLOOOOOWWWW. I can comfortably lose about 5 lbs a month at most.
Upon reflection, I realize that's about the rate I put it on. I think there is an important clue there. I think if you try to exceed this hard-coded weight change rate, the system seeks to correct it and you get the cravings, the buckling of "will power" and whatever. You just have to find your rate and go at that speed.
The best way to do is to be.
Through my diet of 15 glass bottle Jolt's a day and a constant influx of various vaporous substances.
Worked for me until I quit the vaporous substances, then I gained 80 pounds.
Later
Josh
Weight loss is not always HEALTHY.
The key is to be HEALTHY. Did I mention you have to be HEALTHY?
The USA's obsession with weight as a number is a tad disturbing. I run. A lot. I know people who would be considered obese by a BMI calculator, and a 'fat ass' by society. Yet they can run a 5K faster than most skinny people I know.
Sure, you can eat all you want and keep it under a caloric total for the day....but was it GOOD for you? Did you consider the cholesterol or sodium counts? Trans fats? Are you keeping on top of your vitamin intake? Are you exercising?
Before you cut carbs and count calories, sit down and write out a goal, and integrate EXERCISE into the solution. As little as 10 miles a week running + a DECENT diet will yield great results. Not only will you look better, you will also FEEL better.
It's a perception. Like I said, I know obese people who feel great because they run, and I also know miserable skinny people who do nothing to promote self-health.
Macs as a fetish property
I get a lot of funny looks about the no juice thing, but all the carbohydrates in a juice are sugar.
I am over here... now I am back over here!
I've been steadily losing weight eating 2 eggs/2 pieces of bacon/bread in the morning, lettuce and 3 chicken breasts for lunch, and a 2 pound porterhouse every night. It is definitely not a low cal diet.
This is very seriously true. I'm a clumsy ass, but a month of Beatmania (a DDR knockoff) took ten pounds off of me when I was on a diet, and I doubt it was water weight.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Fall in love. Worked for me.
Then get the boot. That worked too. Shit, I'm down 75 lbs!
The translation, for those of us who've finished our "Hooked On Phonics" (only spelling corrections, grammar be damned):
Poor linguistic abilities aside, this fucker's right. The way to lose weight is to eat right and exercise.
Your goal (for men) should be to drop your body fat percentage to well under 10% (under 15% for women).
I've found a mix of something like 60% carbs, 30% protein, and 10% fat to be a good distribution for my food. Don't put much faith in those numbers (I change it as needed to gain/lose weight). I typically consume anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 calories/day (even a fat bastard would have an amazingly hard time taking in 10kcal/day, trust me on that!)
Fuck being skinny. Pack on some serious muscle too.
My lifting consists of 1-2 hours typically (depending on how focused I am), and I have a 6 day split (2 days on, 1 day off, all 6 to cover my whole body). I aim for at least 30 minutes of cardio per day, sometimes I do more sometimes I do less...
Aim for 1.5-2g of protein per pound of lean bodyweight. I'm currently using Phosphagen XT, which seems pretty damned good. I'm not a huge fan of creatine, but this seems decent (Cell Tech isn't bad either).
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
if your diet requires willpower to stay on it, then it's not the right kind of diet for you.
check out this site - imho, Dr. Mercola has some of the best guidelines around. Definitely look into "metabolic typing".
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you want to read a REAL nerds book on nutrition, how about one that explains the molecular structure of different fats and explains everything in technical terms. I didn't know any biology before reading it and I was able to follow along. The book actually teaches you all about fats, carbs, free radicals, anti-oxidants, etc. If you're interested in bodybuilding, this one's a must for most of us.
I'm 6'2". In the last year, I've gone from little muscle at 155 lbs to 10% body fat at 180 lbs. Yeah, a year is a long time, but I've done it in a healthy way which is more permanent and life sustaining. :)
-Lucas
You can get the 1.3mb PDF (so you can read it on your own time, have your download manager wait instead of you) here
It all goes downhill from first post
I realize this is a touchy subject, but losing weight, even for geeks, is not that difficult if you take some time to study human physiology.
The fact is that most of the commonly held beliefs about losing weight are exactly wrong and only serve to lead one down the path of endless cycles of losing and then gaining back more. If you've ever tried a traditional diet, you know exactly what I am talking about.
I, myself, have struggled with it for many years. I took just about every approach imaginable (and a few I won't even mention here). Sure, some things had short-term benefits but ultimately they lead me right back where I was going.
So what really works?
First I'll tell you, and for many people you'll hate to hear it: eat right and exercise.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, here is the semi-techy explanation. Excuse my over-simplifications because I am looking to cover the subject lightly:
Consider your typical overweight person. He has a high percentage of body fat, and he knows it. How to get thin? Well you could start by reducing caloric input. Sounds reasonable, right? After all, the less you take in the less that becomes body fat.
True, but here is what really happens: When you reduce your caloric intake your body responds to this as if it were a crisis of famine. Blame evolution, but your body is going to think that food is scarce. If the amount of energy input is less than the output needed to live, the body must make up for the excess somehow. And it has two main choices: It can either munch on energy stored in our fat cells (which would be swell) or it can chew away at energy stored in our muscles.
In making this decision, the body considers this critical fact: Muscle mass requires energy to exist, whereas body fat requires very little. So, in a leap of perfectly sound logic, the body consumes the wrong kind of weight. And since muscle weighs a lot more per volume than body fat, the result is weight reduction. The diet seems to work!
It works for awhile, yes. But as you lose muscle mass your basil metabolic rate drops. This causes you to need less and less energy to exist. Do the math. Eventually you reach equilibrium with the input (your diet) and you hit the dreaded plateau we all know too well.
This is so disconcerting that people eventually give up. But here is the killer: Your body has been ravaged! You may have lost weight, but your percentage of body fat is probably worse than when you started. And now you are start eating the "old way" again and soon you are ballooning back up again. And, often, you get worse than when you started.
That's the cycle. And I'm sure a lot of you know it really well.
So how do you break that cycle?
The basic principle is simple: Do the opposite of what doesn't work. Duh.
To do this, you increase your muscle mass. When you do this, your BMR goes up and your body requires more and more energy. Efficient and effective cardio and strength training out requires a really good understanding of how they work to do them right. You can bang away all day long in a gym and not get much results if you don't know what you are doing. More on this in a bit.
Second you feed yourself carefully. I hesitate to use the word 'diet' here because this has nothing to do with starvation. In fact, you typically feed yourself a lot more than you use too. Most importantly, you eat six times a day. This feeding pattern prevents your body from going into "oh my god...we're going to starve" panic mode. You also hydrate a lot more than you are probably use too (10 glasses of water a day).
I'll simplify here for brevity, but the meals consist of a portion of protein and a portion of carbohydrate. A couple of them you add a portion of veggies. A "portion" is roughly the size and thickness of the palm of your hand for protein and your clenched fist for carbs. That simple hand rule is all you need. Note: there is no need to count calor
David Whatley
The best diet is to eat fake food.
The food that looks like food, feels in mouth like food, but is not digestible at ALL..
Do you know any?
As for low-carbohydrate diets being the wonder cure for everything -- couple of things that should at least provoke curiosity. One is the idea that prolonged ketosis is good for you. I'm not saying that it's for sure prolonged, as some studies report that the ketosis is transient, but if it's not, how will long-term utilization of the lipid metabolism pathways as the primary source of glucose for the brain and body affect people? No one knows. Furthermore, the observed tendency is for people on the Atkins Diet to eat lots of calories -- more than normal, regardless of what Atkins may have written, and the weight loss is not always as advertised. Metabolism is a somewhat black box to us, especially in terms of individual variances -- some people may have bad reactions to this sort of diet, reflecting differences in biochemistry between people. No, I don't mean fundamental differences, but rather differences in enzyme function and or production that can change how things get metabolized.
Ultimately, as many others have written, the key to weight loss is increasing energy expenditure and decreasing energy intake. Examples include:
Cancer -- rapidly dividing cancer cells use up lots of energy, and cytokines designed to fight the tumor also induce anorexia. Thus, more energy used, less food eaten --> weight loss.
Cystic Fibrosis -- increased energy expenditure secondary to ongoing sinopulmonary infection, decreased intake due to malabsorption caused by pancreatic insufficiency --> weight loss.
"Hacker Diet" -- exercise (increased EE), less than 2000 kcals per day (decreased energy intake).
For a group largely made of computer oriented folk, this simple input output relationship seems unusually difficult. Bottom line -- if you don't utilize the energy you consume as food, your body stores it as fat, and you gain weight. This is NOT rocket science. Low-carb, low-fat, low-whatever -- diets can have too much or too little of things, but no one has ever convincingly yet found the magic mix that lets everyone loose weight.
Just my thoughts,
Kargis Strong, MD
Pediatrician
... omg, i've stooped so low as to post a comment with THAT subject line.. Oh well.
The advantage of a low carbohydrate diet is that the calories you do take in make you feel more satisfied, as well as not driving up your insulin levels.
This is so important. Read Dr. Mercola's pages on Insulin. Eating a diet based around carbohydrates is a lot like filling your car with gasoline, and neglecting the rest of the regular maintenance - no oil changes, no tranny service, no brake pad replacements, never replacing the windshield wipers, headlights, air filters or tires, etc.. Your car will run, well for a while, and it'll keep chugging along for even longer still - but eventually, the damn thing just doesn't work. Nutrition/food is the same way - carbohydrates provide energy to run the body, but are seriously lacking in the "routine care" maintenance nutrients present in veggies and animal products.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Of course they are low calorie diets, the formula is simple:
calories in > calories used = weight gain
calories in calories used = weight loss
You cannot lose weight if you eat more calories than you burn. Although determining what your maintenance level calories is not an exact science.
It's ridiculous to group all low carbohidrate diets in the same group, for example there is:
1. CKD: cyclical ketogenic diet. To make it short, you eat carbs only on weekends, then return to high fat, medium protein low carb during the week (hence cyclical).
2. TKD: you eat your carbs before working out, and generally stay in a low carbohidrate diet.
3. Any variation that lowers the amount of carbs that a 'normal' diet willl have.
If you really want to learn about it "the book" to read is the one written by Lyle McDonald, it's a bit dense in details but very good:
http://www.theketogenicdiet.com/
It's obviously not the best diet for everyone, but for a large group of people (including myself) it has proven to be a great diet for losing fat while still maintaining muscle (and still being able to move some weight at the gym). I have averaged up to 2 pounds of fat a week with very slight increase in muscle mass. I use calipers to measure bodyfat and track progress.
The problem I have though is stopping eating, when I'm hungry, or at least think I'm hungry I eat/drink. I'm starting to work on grabbing a water bottle instead of a coke now though and other such changes.
This is the KEY to losing weight, and no one I find focuses on this enough. If trying to lose weight, and you get hungry outside your meal allotment, then do not eat, drink (and NOT pop).. Get a tal glass of ice water, or a tall class of OJ or other citrus. The water has no calories, and the citrus much less than anything you would eat for a snack. Plus you will find the coolness perky and actually wake you up, unlike fatty snacks like chips that slow you down.
You will find that a nice cold glass of water/juice more than cures your hunger for the few hours until your next meal. Not only does this help keep your caloie count down, it hydrates your body, which any doctor will tell you is good for you anyways. I find that this tip, the tip of drinking, not snacking, is one that is not metionened nearly enough in popular weight loss literature.
I lost 40 lbs just by going from one pack a day to two! Try it, it works!
This sig washed every five years whether it needs it or not!
"The most effective diet in the world is the only-eat-foods-you-don't-like diet."
All these fad diets, when they are successful at all, are only successful because they make people eat less. If the only thing you're allowed to eat is spinach, well, it probably won't take very long before your caloric intake has dropped significantly. Humans are wired to like a diversity of foods, but we're also very bad at counting calories (because over evolutionary timescales, more calories was always better).
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I go outside. Seriously.
Just play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). I got hooked, and am a maniac/DDR addict. I had a teacher at school even notice a weight loss, and I was skinny to begin with (125 lbs., 5' 6"). My purpose isn't even to lose weight, if anything I want to gain weight because I'm a total lightweight as it is. But I have a lot of fun playing DDR with friends and showing off in front of crowds and such, although it hits the wallet pretty hard. Also, you _don't_ have to be a good dancer to play well. I absolutely suck on a dance floor, but I shine when it comes to the DDR pad. I've noticed that people that are actually really good dancers tend to suck at DDR even, and that those that are bad dancers are fairly good at DDR.
What you reap is what you sow
1. Realize that the world has been lying to you. McDonalds, BurgerKing, and all respectable fast food joints have been getting fat by making you fat. Candy bar companies, soda pops all exist not to "quench that thirst" or "feed that hunger" but to destroy you. No one is meant to be fat. NO ONE no one is big-boned, no one is "natually" fat. I have been 250+ since I was 15, and hit my heaviest at 285. I am now down to 240, and still losing following this concept.
:) You like Pizza and COke? Just make sure it's within your Caloric intake. Hell I'm vegetarian (a bit harder) but think of all you meat eaters! Lots of meats to choose from with little calories!
2. Slow and steady wins the race. I have lost 45 pounds in the past 6 months, not the fastest out there, but at 1 or 2 pounds a week my body is GRADUALLY changing, which means it's VERY fogiving when I blow my diet once every couple of weeks. Like a rubber band my weight snaps right back into losing weight. It's the law of averages, if you eat 2000 calories a day for 3 weeks, then all of a sudden eat 4000 in a day, then the next day go back to 2000, your body expects and DEMANDS that 2000. It won't store the exceess because you're not starving yoursef.
3. Find your DMR (Daily Burn Rate). Because I sit all day, my caloric DMR is about 2000. Therefore I eat 1850. if you burn 2000, and only feed yourself 1850, where does the other 150 come from? YOUR FAT. It's a beutiful simple concept.
4. Eat the right foods. I can have 1/2 bowl of pasta or 5 bowls of chili (insert "fart joke here"). It's all in the calories. Lots of calories in rice and pasta, very little in beans. I eat a lot of fruit now, lots of salad piled with veggies and low-fat dressing. Oh and another choice is 2 tblspoons of regular salad dressing or 5 bowls of salad piled high with lowfat dressing, your pick.
5. DON'T RELY ON ANYTHING. Don't do exercises. I don't do exercises because I know I can't keep them up. Too many stories of "oh I lost 50lbs once, but now it's all back" what did they do differently? Stopped anything they were doing which shocked their body.
6. PROFIT!......a wonderful program I use for my palm pilot called e-diet has an entire database of foods (yes pizza and coke are in there) and you can modify it with your foods and calories. It helps me maintain my daily calories while also telling me what specific exercise and for how long to burn off calories when I go over (stuff like laundry, cleaning, coding). You plug in your height, weight, activity level, and how much you want to lose in how long and it shows you the path you need to take. Losing weight really is just plain mathematics, which should motivate at least SOME of you geek's out there.
Good Luck and drop me a line if you have any questions.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering (bread and butter is 200 calories a slice!)
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Losing weight is a pretty simple thing and virtually every diet out there is the same. All diets try to limit calories whether they are low-fat diets or low-carb diets (like the popular Atkin's diet). Fewer calories is the key, and avoiding sodas, alchohol, high sugar foods, are an easy way to get rid of extra calories.
The thing to remember about low-calorie diets though si they stop working. At some point your body gets used to fewer calories; your body requires fewer calories. So you'll need to reduce your calories even more to lose more weight. (ie. your body requires 2000 calories a day. You go on a 1600 calorie/day diet. At somepoint your body will only require 1600 calories/day. At that point a 1600 calorie diet will not help you lose weight).
If you really want to lose weight, you'll also exercise. Exercise burns calories. You have to have a 3500 calorie deficit to lose one pound. If you exercise regularly and watch what you eat, this becomes rather easy. So take extra walks, walk that flight of stairs, restart your exercise regiment--it really makes a difference.
Obesity is a serious health problem around the world. By getting in shape, you are helping diminish the risk of many terrible illness (heart disease, diabetes, cancer).
Physicians who specialize in Bariatrics would be able to give you even more detail, and any physician can prescribe medications to curb your appetites. Good luck to everyone who wants to lose weight. You can do it.
Here is my Idea for the Ultimate diet: STOP EATING!
If I simply try to eat less, I feel so goddam hungry. It is a very unpleasent feeling to feel hungry all the time. I think I would almost rather have my foot in a vice than feel that extreme hunger feeling. It is as if there is a little accountant in my stomach that knows if I get below a quota, and he/she sounds the alarm past a certain point. It seems to keep track of lack of eating back to several days past.
It is a basal repetillian emotion to avoid feeling hunger. The problems of being overweight don't compare to the horrible empty stomach feeling. I would rather die at 65 on a full stumach than at 80 feeling hungry. Got that!?
Any civalized diet is going to have to curb the feeling of hunger
Table-ized A.I.
Bacon is easier to burn and digests slowly
Ha ha, reminds me of the Jim Fixx (or whatever the runner's name was) diet .. lots of excercise, low calories, and have eggs and bacon for breakfast every morning. Brag about it to the press.
Then die of a heart attack while jogging.
I think this guy was a member of MENSA too...
Or like my grandfather once told me: "In Auschwitz, nobody was fat except the gards."
Non-Linux Penguins ?
If you eat rice and gain weight, your caloric intake is to high, reduce the quantity of rice. Bottom line is that if your caloric intake is less then is expended you will loose weight, regardless of what you eat. This is true even if my entire diet is made up of eating cane sugar out of a bag with a spoon.
I take no responsibility for any health problems you may develop as a result of reading this post.
buy it, borrow... just read it. It picks up where low carb dietbooks and plans fail. A doable plan for major weightloss and weight management for life.
Around new year, I decided I'd got heavier than I'd like. I'm reasonably fit, and a good weight for my height and build, but as a result of an injury I hadn't been doing nearly as much of my physical hobbies as usual, and I'd put on around a stone. So, I decided to try a genuine, honest-to-goodness diet + exercise regime to lose that weight.
For three months, I kept a spreadsheet of everything I ate or drank, with calorie counts, amounts of protein, carbs, fats and fibre, etc. I also kept a record of how much significant exercise I was doing, and my weight, daily.
Curious facts I discovered while researching/doing it...
So there you go. My top tips for healthy eating with almost no change to your lifestyle:
I lost the stone I wanted to comfortably in three months, and now feel much fitter as I get back into training. And I'm the laziest guy in the world, so if I can do it, anyone can.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
A meta-analysis of studies of currently popular low carbohydrate diets by doctors at Stanford and Yale reveals that they are really just low calorie diets in disguise
The Atkisons low-carb diet claims that eating less carbs makes you feel *less* hungry because fat and protein take longer to digest than carbs. If you feel less hungry, then you generally eat less food. Thus, it does not matter if it is a "disguise" or not. Not feeling hungry is a holy grail of dieting. If they acheive that to some degree, then they should get some kudos.
Whether it is true it not though is hard to say. Measuring hunger level is a tough metric. I think that point has been missed in this study. Colorie count is only part of the puzzle. Squelching the hunger feeling is just as important.
Further, different things might work for different people. I doubt there is a one-size-fits-all diet every body is different. I tried jogging every day for about a month, and only lost about 5 lbs, yet another person lost around 20 doing that.
Table-ized A.I.
...is my successful weight loss program.
I wasn't going to post but it seems worthwhile having read a few other postings.
I'm about 6'4" and I decided to start losing weight when I hit 240, which is firmly in the "obese" category. I'm still in the middle of the diet right now having lost 30, and while I don't know precisely where I'm going to stop, my still-overly-ample gut says "not yet". (But not as ample as it used to be...)
I chose the Atkins diet because A: It made some degree of sense and B: I knew I did not have the willpower to engage in any diet based on staying hungry all the time, which for instance the Hackers diet does. This is especially true because I couldn't fully control the contents of my residence, since my wife lives here too and she's one of those people who can eat whatever she wants, as much as she wants, and not gain significant weight, whether or not she's exercising. (She does a lot of physical stuff at her job now but this was true when she was a college student, too.) This means I could not just throw all X out so that I couldn't possibly eat it, because she happens to like X (starchy products in the case of the low-carb Atkins diet).
The reason I posted is that I decided, both out of laziness (I freely admit) and out of scientific curiousity, not to change my exercise habits. Right now I walk maybe a mile a day in discontinuous chunks between classes and walking to work. I was curious if I could still lose weight just by changing my diet. Part of this curiousity stems from the Atkins discussion of how it works, which if true would imply that exercise would not need to change (though to be clear and fair, Atkins does recommend more exercise; this is my experimentation, not Atkin's).
So far, as I said, I've lost 30 pounds.
One person does not a study make, but when you're working with yourself, it's all you've got; you can't do a controlled study.
One thing I did not really experience that Atkins said I should was an increase in energy after the third or fourth day on his diet. Possible explanations include not exercising, or something internally wrong with me that also requires me to take abnormally large doses of iron just to function normally; it may be physically impossible for me to have a "normal" energy level. (Still working on it.)
Right now I'm dropping diet soda back out of the mix to see if that's contributing to my energy problem, as against Atkin's advice I had been drinking Nutrasweet-based beverages anyhow. Results after two days are still inconclusive, but hopeful. (Nutrasweet has been reported to slow the metabolism in some cases, both slowing weight loss and causing energy problems.)
The point? "Just eat less and exercise more, dufus!" didn't help me much. To others in my position, I recommend reading up on the available alternatives, and trying as much as is possible with a sample size of one to experiment to see how you lose wieght. For me, there was a chicken and egg problem: 240-lb me didn't really want to exercise. 210-lb me has been much more open to the idea. 190-lb me will probably enjoy it. But if I had to start with a program of heavy exercise, I probably wouldn't have started at all, which is the worst possible outcome.
I needed something a little formal, but flexible. (Technically, I'm no longer "doing Atkins" but doing an Atkins-inspired diet, as once I got the gist of the diet the strict regimentation didn't appeal to me; it does not seem fundamental to the system and makes me suspect Dr. Atkins lays it out as he does to serve the Average Reader who expects complete regimentation out of a diet book. Less carb counting and a more free-form approach is working for me where a regimented diet would have made me quit in disgust, YMMV.) Maybe you just need to drop the cola out of your life and replace it with water or other calorie-free choices. Maybe you just need to exercise and your diet will fix itself. Maybe you need something extremely strict. The most important thing i
I've been on Atkins for over a month now. I'm never going back to eating sugars and starchy foods. Understand how sugars and starches cause your insulin to surge, and you'll understand why you may have the shakes if you don't get a meal on time.
After putting up with those shakes that caused me to overindulge my whole life, I tried Atkins. After about a week of no processed carbs, I felt a noticeable difference. The shakes were gone for good, and the pounds have been coming off easily. I've never been one to stick to a diet, but this one is easy. You don't feel like you're starving yourself, and that's one of the diet's main benefits.
Not being a slave to my hopoglycemic shakes and brain fogs is the number one benefit, though. I never realized how often that brain fog had me under its grip until about a week after starting Atkins. Since then, I've felt remarkably clear-headed. I know others on low-carb diets who report the same thing.
Don't knock low carb diets until you understand why they work.
Personally, I think that the low-fat mentality generated by the medical community in the 70's, 80's, and 90's was the biggest failing of Science in the 20th century.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Start smoking.
I know a lot about the subject of losing weight. I've read books and Ive done my research, so listen up.
If you're only concern is to lose weight (fat as well as muscle tissue), then going on a low-carb diet is the way to go. No candy, no soda, no pasta.
If you want to tone up and as a result, lose body fat, then you have no other choice than to eat right, with lots of protein, coupled with weight traning. You don't need to be like Arnold. Light weights can go a long way. The point is resistance. It's the only way your muscles will react. In case you didnt know: the more muscle you have, the more fat you will burn, because the more engery your body will need to give to your muscles.
If you opt for the first choice, be sure to stay away from carbs for the rest of your life, because as soon as you start to eat pasta and drink soda on the regular, you will be right back where you started.
Eitherway, I would recommend to EVERYONE to get at least 20 minutes of exercise a day. If it's walking around your block a few times, going for a bike ride, it doesn't matter.
For those of you who have tried and been unsuccessful on this or any other plan -- the key is to take it one step at a time.
The biggest problem I hear about (and see in any office) is that people have two modes of operation: 'regular' and 'diet,' so -- at best -- they diet and work out until they get what they want and then stop, and then this repeats indefinitely.
If you have trouble keeping up the willpower to follow one of the regimens linked to in these comments, don't do at all once. The BEST ADVICE YOU CAN TAKE AS A NERD:
Give up soda. No real soda, no diet soda. The worst thing in the world to put into your body is sugar, and that's all you're getting with soda. Replace it with water. If you drink a lot of coffee, a) cut the sugar down to the minimum you need for the coffee, and b) drink even more water. Soda does nothing but dehydrate you and fill your body with shit. At @200 calories a pop for non-diet, you can easily shave 400-800 calories off of your daily diet. That's about how many calories you burn when you run a few miles -- down the crapper in the couple of minutes it takes you to drink a coke.
The key is to make these habits routine, so you don't have to think 'oh, I'm on a diet this week.' Even the best 'whiz' diet will not help you if you do not adapt a healthy living style. Don't aim for going to the gym twice a week. Aim for doing something EVERY DAY (even if it's the 11-minute 5BX Plan) -- and then augment that daily routine with a few _serious_ work outs.
Being in shape half the time and spending the other half trying to get back in shape doesn't help your health very much. Change your lifestyle and then you can 'cheat' without it being even being cheating, because you do the right thing 95% of the time.
"The greatest predictors of weight loss appear to be caloric intake and diet duration," she said. "The findings suggest that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period."
Duh. What they don't seem to realize, though, is that once you cut out the sugars/carbs, your insulin levels stop surging. Once you do that, most people experience a sharp decrease in hunger.
That sharp decrease in hunger makes it easier to stay on a low-carb diet, eating fewer calories, for a long time period.
I continue to detect an almost religious-style resistance to low-carb diets amongst medical researches. The appetite decrease is a commonly-experienced phenomenon, both from my personal experience knowing a half a dozen people on low-carb diets, and from Dr. Atkins' experience after treating thousands of patients with his program. I'm not sure why it's so obviously ignored.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Problem is, Special K tastes like cardboard.
Diet food sucks, doesn't it. After one stint of trying it I had an urge to rob the corner donut store, leaving the money but taking all the donuts. Dieting brings out the reptile in me.
Rice cakes == postal
Table-ized A.I.
Here's a protein diet which I recommended to two friends and worked for them:
(1) don't eat processed foods
(2) make sure everything you eat has lots of proteins
Aside from that, eat as much as you want. From what I understand this is somewhat similar to the atkins diet.
Rule (1) eliminates most artificial hydrogenated fats that love to cling to your body.
Rule (2) ensures that your protein needs are met so you are less likely to crave junk food.
You want to eat fries? go ahead, but you will have to eat a steak along with that. You want to eat a cheese burger? no problem. Get real cheese (not processed sh*t) and real meat and have a go.
Sugar is not bad. People are designed to eat sugars (specifically fructose). Proccessed sugar - you're right, bad (in large quantities). Complex carbs are NOT bad. They are good because the are easier for the human body to digest than meats. (Meats are protein strands - one strand is a very complex mass of amino acids). Complex carbs provide a good source of energy. They are only bad when consumed in large quantities (americans eat far too many carbs). Meats --- lean meats can provide a great source of long-term energy. It digests slowly, and therefore can last you a while. However, fat is far worse than anything. Avoid fats, they have no nutritional value. Therfore, you should not eat loads of bacon everyday. Eggs, the whites are good for you, the yolks are full of calories and fats. Again, avoid fats. Now, if you happen to loose weight while scarfing down eggs and bacon, it is more than likely that your body can't absorb most of what is being digested and is therefore being passed through. That is a waste of food, and prooves dangerous as it restricts important vitamins and minerals. I will stress that you eat fruits and vegitables. They have important nutrients. They are lower in calories than many other foods. The fructose found in fruits is actually good for the body. Don't beleive me? Fine, but don't come crying to me when you have a heart attack and die. And remember, being low in weight does not make you healthy. Nutrients are important, as is such invisible things as clogged arteries. So excersize, and eat a balanced diet. Such is the key to health.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
I try to follow thePaleo Diet. The premise is that humans have not changed much genetically from our pre-agrarian ancestors. Diets constisting of grain, refined sugars, dariy products, and salty foods were not evolutionary pressures until recent history.
I have been on the Paleo Diet for 5 months now, and I am very happy with it. It took about a week for my digestive tract to get used to more fiber in my diet, but other than that I have had a very positive expirence. Being an athlete, it has definitely helped my recovery time, and I have been much less injury prone this winter
For the most part I eat only fruits, vegetables, and meat. Some would see this as restrictive, but I find it quite liberating. So much of the American diet is centered around bread, rice, and potatoes we for get the bounty of other foods out there.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
Step right up the guillotine, shave away those ugly pounds.
Lose weight: burn more than what you eat. Gain weight: burn less than what you eat. Stay the same: burn exactly what you eat.
A couple quick tips for people who don't want to try very hard and don't mine losing the weight slowly:
STAY BUSY. Always have something todo, no this doesn't mean sitting in front of the computer all day.That isn't something todo, go running, play a sport, work on your car or even just hang out at a friends house...it will keep you away from the fridge when you're bored.
DRINK LESS SODA, or none at all. Not even diet soda, see the next section for my shpeil on corn syrup. I just stopped buying the stuff, all I drink is water now, and occasionally, fruit juice. REAL fruit juice, not hawiian punch.
AVOID High Fructose Corn Syrup. It turns into fat faster than almost anything else, processed sugars in general do this. The thing about processed sugars is that you're going to find them in almost any sweetened processed food. The deal is that corn syrup is much much cheaper than regular sugar, but also much worse for you. Which do YOU think is more important to food producers?
Anyway, thats about it. I mean, if you really want to look good and be healthy, not just thin, go exersize.
AND GUYS: Don't use "She care more about my mind" as an excuse to not work out. The truth is, she DOES care more about your mind, but you probably won't get a chance to talk to her if you don't look good first.
There's no medicine in the parent post's argument. This is my problem with these things. I'm willing to concede that low-carb works, although I'm not sure it's actually as healthy as a diet lower in fats (and meat products especially) would be.
:) However, a can of Coca-Cola and a couple slices of whole wheat bread are not created equal. 'Carbs' aren't the problem. Fat, sugar, everything over-processed and too much of it besides... those are the problems.
But this stuff about 'you must eat fat for your body to burn fat'? Um... yeah. Oookay. The human body *does* need a certain amount of fat in the diet to operate; you can't cut it out entirely. But in no way is it necessary to burn fat.
The equation is simple. Burn more calories than you ingest.
And it's not really all that hard to eat low-cal and still get your fill. I don't think I've ever gone away from a vegetarian restaurant hungry, and yet I *always* eat healthy. Vegetables, whole grains, 'good' fats.
You don't have to starve to eat the way that's good for your body. You also don't have to throw away everything that science *and* nature says in regards to what human beings should eat. Look at our closest relatives, and it's generally a diet high in plants with occasional meat thrown in. Novelly enough, eating this way in the modern world also usually goes well.
But one of the aspects of the low-carb diet is very sensible, and that's cutting down on sugar. My own personal demon.
I play DDR Max 7th mix in the arcade near me. Alot of people crowd around, stare and poke fun. But you know what? Who gives a damn? I'm having more fun playing the arcade game than they are having making fun on me...and it's keeping me physically fit. I never exercised regulary before, but now I have a fun excuse to. Besides, I offer some of the people who make fun of me a free game. Those who take me up on the offer, I usually see playing next time I'm there. ;-)
2. Eat smaller portions; stop eating as soon as (or before) you feel full. This is especially important if you eat out; lots of restaurants give you unnecessarily big portions. Eat a Whopper Jr. instead of a full-size Whopper; throw out half your french fries. Pay attention to portion sizes on food packages. Remember, feeling a little bit hungry is not a bad thing.
3. Cut down or eliminate deep-fried stuff. It's loaded with fat. Eat grilled chicken instead of fried; have broiled fish instead of fish-and-chips. Substitute flank steak for hamburger. Have an occasional vegetarian/vegan meal. While I have no intention of going 100% vegan, there are plenty of meatless meals that I've found I like.
4. Avoid between-meal snacks. The calories can really add up. It's OK to have a treat now and then; just don't overdo it. Choose low-calorie snacks, and eat fresh fruit instead of candy.
I once weighed 245 lbs/111 kilos. Then, I made those four changes to my eating habits. For a month, I avoided stepping onto the scale, and when I finally did so, I found that I had lost a little weight. After six months, I was down to 210 lb/95 kg, and after a year, I leveled off at 170 lb/77 kg.
As for keeping the weight off, get some exercise. After my weight leveled off, I dragged my old mountain bike out of storage and started riding for the first time in eight years. I then switched to a recumbent for more comfort and speed (Mine is the 2001 model). I've taken many long rides on it; my personal distance record so far for a one-day ride is 150 miles/241 km.
This winter, the weather discouraged me from riding much, so I went back into diet mode when I noticed that I had gained a little. Now I'm down to 165 lb/75 kg...
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
It's a good theory, but I think there's empirical evidence problems. I live in a Chinatown, and nobody is fat - yet peoples (including me) are eating rice or noodles with almost every meal. Walk over to a KFC, and people are all fat and gross.
Hawai'i ("two scoops rice, one scoop Mac salad") has the healthiest population of any US state, Texas has the least. I have to believe Texans have a diet *much* closer to the Atkins diet than Hawai'i.
So while I know people who've lost weight by cutting down on carbohydrates, I think there's more complex issues at work, other than "eating much carbs makes you fat."
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
First off, the basis of energy consumption in your body called the Krebbs cycle. The input is sugar (glucose, to be specific) and oxygen. The output is water, carbon dioxide, and energy stored in the bonds of a ATP (adenosine triphosphate). This chemical reaction is fixed. While the body can operate in an anaerobic process, this occurs when vigerously exercising. Even then, the input is still glucose.
Any sugar or starch you consume is converted to glucose. Sucrose is two glucose molcules stuck together. Fructose is a sugar with 1 carbon missing. Starch is a chain of sugars. All of these are converted into glucose.
So, what happens when not enough sugar is around? The body draws on the reserves of fat and protein. Glucose is able to come out of fat pretty easily. For protein, the body does some complex conversion which use the protein to create glucose to stuff into the Krebbs cycle. The downside is some unpleasant byproducts need to be dealt with by the liver.
So why does the body burn fat and protein? Because, when you burn protein, you reduce muscle mass, and hence your caloritic requirements. Kind of like a layoff.
Ok, so after all that: Glucose (sugar) is the only thing the body "burns". It all comes down to how much you take in. It is simply accounting. If you eat more than you need, you gain weight. If you eat less, your body starts cutting back on muscle and uses up fat. Carbs have 5 cal/gram, while fat has 9cal/gram (I don't remember protein).
So you can think all you want about high GI and low GI and fat and so on. You still get X cals from Y grams of carbs, and X cals from 5/9Y grams of fat. End of story.
I think that the real reason that these diets are effective is because they are less "boring" than high carb diets and also self-limiting. If you can only eat the patty and not the bun, how many burgers are you going to stuff in your face?
Of course, my belief is that people really evolved eating mainly vegetables and only occasionally fruit, meat, and grains. Do I eat that way? Hell no! But I do try to eat vegetables whenever I can.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
The low carb thing seems to make sense anthropologically. Most nomadic peoples were from warm weather climates, where body fat isn't really needed except for times of low availability. Nomads (hunter gatherers) ate mostly meat and gathered veggies, verses cultivated grains (carbs.) I don't know if this sort of view has been debunked. I'd like to find out. I'm also really curious about the FDA stickers. Are the caloric values they post gained from straight burning tests (put something in a calorimeter, burn it, see how much energy it gives off..), or is there more to it? I can believe that the n - calories I get from eating a slice of high fiber wheat bread is equal to the n - calories I get from eating x cookies.
if you want to be lean, you actually have to weigh MORE,
since lean strong muscles weigh more than fat, but they
look more toned.
therefore, using weight to guage fitness is totally bogus.
a lean person will look 'skinnier' but weigh MORE.
the other thing that makes people fat is 'Low Fat' food.
if all you eat is low-fat stuff, your body never gets the
nutrition it needs, and hence you have to eat more of
the stuff to make up your body's requirements. the best
thing to do if you want to lose weight is to eat more
of the 'Regular Fat' foods, and then your body won't
need so much of the stuff to feel 'full'.
best regards,
john
-3:00 - Wake.
0:00 - Throw bag of mixed veggies in nuke, 7 minutes.
+0:20 - Turn on George Foreman grill.
+1:00 - Get in shower.
+10:00 - Exit Shower.
+11:00 - Throw 2 breasts of chicken on grill.
+12:00 - Brush teeth.
+14:00 - Remove bag of veggies, slit bottom, let drain.
+15:00 - Cut bag, dump veggies in bowl.
+16:00 - Remove chicken from grill, cut into desired size bites. Dump into bowl.
+17:00 - Toss around concoction a bit.
+17:30 - Insert into fridge.
Food for the day, super-lazy hacker style. Anytime I want to eat, I open the fridge, take a few bites, head back into the cave to code more. No massive cleanup. No colossal production. No putting off food until hunger pangs become unignorable and I wind up eating something just as quick but horrible for me (read; Doritoes). And only 6.5 minutes spent, total.
When the bowl becomes empty, repeat. Spice up as you see fit. Salsa is great. Boil-in-bag brown rice thrown in is pretty good too.
My
Limekiller
It works great, especially for engineers/programmers!
The hacker's diet is very simple: you can eat whatever you want, just make sure you eat less calories than what your body needs. You can feed on hamburgers if you want as long as you eat less. You can worry about exercising or eating healthy stuff later, this will come automatically once you've lost some weight.
4 years ago I was at 215 lbs (for 5'10), loathed any form of physical activity, and was not very happy about this situation. After skimming through the hacker's diet I decided to lower my daily food intake to around 1000-1200 cal (the average intake for a man is between 2000-2500 cal)
This wasn't very pleasant at first but it worked and 12 months later I was down to 155 lbs (60 pounds less), without any exercise at all. To keep the same weight I started eating a bit more and I immediately felt like running everywhere instead of walking! So I bought a bike to get some low impact exercise and a year afterwards I found myself cycling 20 miles every day to work (not in the snow though)
Today, 4 years after I started this very simple diet, I'm still at 155 lbs, very active and generally much happier. Also I'm not closely counting calories anymore as my body automatically knows how much food is enough.
The most difficult part I found when starting the diet was evaluating calories in food. You can find calories on most food labels (usually in cal/100g of product) but it took me a while to learn what type of food would bring me the best quantity/energy ratio. I found some great low cal food are veggies (I am lucky to love beans and 1kg of beans is about 200cal - you can stuff yourself on this without any problem), chicken, fish...
All this food happens to be very healthy too, so as you see there is no need to worry about knowing what's healthy and what's not because if you want to eat a lot (as in volume) without taking in too many calories, it will have to be healthy food anyway.
Read the Hacker's Diet for more info, it is definitely worth it!!
BTW the first time I heard about the Hacker's diet was on Slashdot, 4 years ago.
blop.
Of course, I've watched my girlfriend lose 1/3rd of her mass by strictly adhering to the Atkins diet. I'd be losing right along with her if I weren't supplementing the food she prepares with the addition of the aforementioned beans, tortillas, etc. I don't need to lose weight, and now she doesn't feel that she needs to lose any more either.
Low-carb diets change your metabolism. That's how they work, and that's why they are successful.
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herion burns fat. Food will also become much less important that feeding your addication. I call it the New Supermodel Diet (the old one was binging and purgin)
Webster says: "to make or become better, improve"
Maybe he could have lost a few more calories if he got up once in a while to read a thesaurus.
I was reading one of his critics who said , and i paraquote 'Atkins's low carb diet is actually a low calorie diet, but because there are no carbohydrates to trigger the hunger, you dont notice"
SO le me get this straight, 20 fucking years of struggling with weight loss, on high carb, lofat, low carb diets, and they say that his is wrong because, it dosent do anything special, yOU JUST DONT NOTICE THE FUCKING LOW CALORIES?!?!!??
CARBOHYDRATES TRIGGER HUNGER!! NOONE EVER FUCKING TOLD ME THAT!!
SOrry bout the yelling, by my fucking god.
I started with atkins, and goddamn, if i dont feel hungy. Ive lost 15 pounds in the past month, and thats with 0 exercise. IM going to star tthat this week i hope. Just spend a week, reading the ingredients on EVERYTHING you eat, and see how much fucking sugar you get in your diet. EVERY processed food has it.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
This is just more of the same old Fat People listening to Fat People. Low calorie diets do not work; this has been known since the beginning of the whole concept of dieting. Heresy you say? Look: no generally accepted study has ever found ANY diet to work without compulsion. NO KNOWN DIET WORKS for general populace.
What we have here, as usual, is an anecdotal story of one's mans (apparent) success at losing weight. The bookstore is littered with this sort of thing.
As it stands today, if you are fat and want to not be fat, the only scientifically proven method is a fat prison. A place where you are literally locked up and unable to eat.
Thus I say to you, eat what you will and be happy. Diets are often times worse than the effects of the fat.
I lost a bit of weight last year while being unemployed. I just drank strong coffee when I woke up which turn out to be laxative like. And just drank coffee most of the day. I was never really hungry but had dinner (so basically one meal a day plus the milk and sweetnlow in my coffee)I guess the caffeine speeds up your metabolism too.
Sadly the diet quit working when my body decided it knew how to counteract the laxative effects of the coffee.
However I did loose about 10 lbs a few weeks ago by doing 50 computer installs in 2 days plus cramming Penguin mints in my mouth all day for the caffeine. I guess if you can keep that jittery caffeine feeling all day you can loose weight.
Nuff Said
It's aboslutely appalling that the above post was modded up as informative. From the first sentence to the last, it's filled with half-true statements, and reeks of absurd pseudo-science.
First off: "The body is not designed to burn sugar."
Ugh. Go to the bookstore. Pick up an introductory biology textbook (biochemistry would work too). Find out that, in fact, the preferred source of energy for living organisms is sugar. Can the human body process other compounds for energy? Yes, but you'll find that none of these processes are as efficient as the catalysis of sugar for energy production, and that nearly all are overlooked in favor of glycolysis when glucose is present.
Next: Bacon is easier to burn and digests slowly
First, you have to define "digest," and you have to define "burn." If, by digest, you mean that a chunk of bacon is absorbed by the intestines less rapidly than a chunk of rice, you may or may not be correct. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that the body will absorb these things, and will somehow break these foods down into molecular units it can use. Fat, protein and sugar can all be converted to glucose through molecular pathways of varying efficiency -- this is what is traditionally meant by the "burning" of food.
Now, is bacon really easier to "burn" than rice? No. That's the opposite of the truth, actually. Bacon is muscle, which means that it is mostly protein and fat. And protein digestion is the metabolic pathway of last resort in humans. Thus, the body will (in an average person), digest the fat in the bacon first (and don't forget that, pound for pound, fat contains 9 times the caloric content of sugar!), store whatever it doesn't use as fat, use some of the protein for non-metabolic needs, and, most likely, squirt the rest of the protein out through the kidneys (via the liver). This is why people on extremely-high protein diets tend to have problems with kidney and liver function later in life.
Moving on: "Rice has no fat, so your hormones may get out of balance."
Bzzzt. Wrong again. Let's take another look at that biology 101 textbook: hormones are, by and large, cholesterol derivatives. Testosterone? Cholesterol. Estrogen? Ditto. In fact, you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find an important human hormone that wasn't derived from cholesterol, metabolically. And guess what? Plants have cholesterol too. More than enough for hormone synthesis needs, actually. This fact has been well-known by dieticians and doctors for decades.
So what about this gem: "Rice...is a complex carb, your body is not designed to handle it, so it takes a longer time to burn"
Nope. Compared to the protein or fat in bacon, rice is trivial for the body to "burn". It might take a smidge longer to digest, depending on how it's cooked, but we're not talking nutritionally-important differences here (your body will digest it one way or another). And the suggestion that the human body "is not designed to handle" complex carbohydrates? Utter nonsense. Go spit in a glass. See that? You're looking at a highly efficient mixure of enzymes, designed by evolution specifically for the digestion of complex carbohydrates. Pick up that biology book again...look up "alpha amylase," and you'll see what I mean.
So once we clear away the pseudo-science, what are we left with? Well, we know that protein is burned more slowly than fat, which is burned more slowly than sugars. And carbohydrates are sugars. So there is a bit of truth to your conclusion: when we eat high-protein diets, the body will find other mechanisms to meet it's sugar needs. It will do everything it can to create glucose without digesting protein. Of course, in the real world, no one eats pure protein (and for good reason -- see above), and protein has the nasty habit of coming in animal form, which means that lots of fat comes with it. It doesn't take much fat
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
A Meta-Study is the most inbred and brain-damaged excuse for science I've seen in a long, long time.
OK, my own interest in low-carb diets is very personal and direct: I've lost more than 70 lbs on one. Not exactly a scientific reason to believe weight loss through the restriction of carbohydrates works, but a compelling one all the same.
So! From my perspective, a more usefull study would be clinical, and ask the following: Is my experience typical? Will I keep this weight off? What percentage of people following carb-restricted diets loose weight and keep it off?
Because low-calorie or not, everyone, and I mean everyone, I know who follows the Atkins diet looses weight (so long as they don't cheat... and resisting temptation is usually pretty easy.)
I'd like some clinical studies to back up this informal observation with hard statistics. Then we can break out the lood samples to figure out the biochemistry.
Dredging throug unrelated past studies to re-interpret the data in a light friendly to "common knowlege" doesn't seem much like science to me. Especially since I'm down four pant sizes. I will admit that I'm eating less... but it's not a conscious change. Unlike regular calorie restricted diets, my body doesn't rebel, and I'm able to stick with the diet... I'm eating less because my body is telling me to eat less. Again, this is an informal observation, but a scientific study to determine if this is indeed what's happening, and how it happens, would be more useful than the Stanford "meta-study."
SoupIsGood Food
Adobe is one of the most consistently irritating companies on Earth with which to do business. I'd like to give you a nice button for downloading your own copy of Acrobat Reader, but they won't let me use the image without "registering" and "licensing" it, which I'm certainly not going to do in order to promote their product and its file format.
Damn straight! Hey Adobe! This guy made $50,000,000 and at one point had the 5th largest software company...he knows what he's taking about, listen to him!
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
Let's cut the bullshit ok? We know about this calorie thing and we know it's correct. We all know it, we all shut up and believe it. We don't want any stupid posts parent up +5 for THE SAME OLD S.
The key is combination and overall view on the subject.
a) calories
b) exercise
c) more muscle (body building, yeah, why not you retards?)
d) belief.
e) motivation
I'm fat myself. I know better. And if you try to throw your bs on me "then why you're fat?" I'll have the guts to say: I lack e).
Low-carb diets change your metabolism. That's how they work, and that's why they are successful.
Yeah, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the person making a drastic change to their eating habits, like cutting out entire categories of food from their diet.
The first year or two of that I was gaining 10 pounds a year, and over the years I've kept the average down to 5, but gaining 5 pounds a year for 20 years is still really NOT a good thing.... I don't think the caffeine's directly related except as an indicator of other things going on, and I was a tea-drinker before I got into coffee.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
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Saves the environment, saves money, saves YOU!
Bicycle commuting is probably easier for techies than anyone else -- looser dress codes, no briefcases, and eccentricities tolerated, if not expected.
Live to ride, ride to live!
Easier to digest = bad, because if it digests quickly, it gets stored as fat before you can burn it.
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I don't buy this complex carb theory. It's not how complex the carb is, it's how quickly it is absorbed, and how good for you the food is. Maltodextrin is a complex carb, but is absorbed the most quickly of any carbohydrate.
Check out the Glycemic Index (GI). If you eat mainly low GI foods, you will generally be less hungry, and your body will have more time to deal with the carbs without turning them into fat.
Eating some fruit every day is great. However if you eat a lot of fruit every day, then it's probably bad for you (e.g. a dozen tangerines).
However, fat is far worse than anything. Avoid fats, they have no nutritional value. Therfore, you should not eat loads of bacon everyday. Eggs, the whites are good for you, the yolks are full of calories and fats. Again, avoid fats.
Nope. Fats are essential for life. A whole egg per day is GOOD for you. (Some early research said otherwise, however it turned out they were using dried eggs, fresh eggs turn out to be ok, and contain vitamins). However you should definitely minimise saturated and hydrogenated fats. Unsaturated should be eaten in moderation, and monounsaturated- eat lots of that.
Meats --- lean meats can provide a great source of long-term energy.
Yeah lean meat is good; fish (particularly oily fish) is as good or better.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"And people who are Chinese dont usually get fat for genetic reasons.
Now, look at a Sumo, they eat mostly rice but they are fat.
Rice is bad for most people, especially people who have slow metabolisms, if you have a fast one and you eat rice you'll burn it off, but we arent talking about skinny chinese kids eating rice, we are talking about fat american kids.
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Rice has more Glucose in it that takes longer to burn that a fatty steak.
And my point isnt about low cal vs high cal, you have to go low cal to lose weight, I'm saying you wont lose weight on a low calorie diet if you eat too much sugar.
Sugar keeps you from burning any fat, so if you eat low cal high sugar, you burn sugar before you burn the fat, thus you can eat low cal and still not lose any weight.
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(ask ANY doctor or dietist about the following to be sure I don't make a mistake)
Ok, this is BS. You all say part correct, you all fight your solution is better. You fucking retards, a combination of all these correct things you said is the solution. But some things are not said yet.
1) Carbohydrates and Proteins role
2) Exercise
3) Muscle volume and height and skeleton weight
4) Calories
5) Motivation
Discussion:
1) CH and Proteins are the two main categories food may be categorized.
In CH are bread, rise, *fruits*, pasta etc. On Proteins is meat. cheese, milk, *vegetables* etc.
CH give fast energy when Proteins give "clever" energy more used afterwards. You normally start the day with CH and end it with Proteins.
MIXING THESE TWO PRODUCE EASY FAT. Should be separated between lunches.
Some said CH should NOT be eaten at all because they make you hungry.
THIS IS AN ERROR.
Without CH you become BORED, WEAK, not able to keep motivated or exercise AT ALL.
ok, on with the rest.
2) Not much about it. Aerobics or even walk help for 3) and 4) (and 5))
3) More muscle = more calories burnt, more height = more calories burnt, more skeleton = less calories burnt WHEN compared to some RETARDED guides they don't take into account that some people have NO muscle but heavy skeletons.
A dietist at a gym may help you count how much muscle you have or even tell you how much your skeleton weights. They use special machinery for this.
On with the rest.
4) Calories. Ah, the truth about calories. Ok, the more you get the more you become fat right? WRONG. This misconception must come to an end.
Just because they want to sell and sell and sell calorie guides doesn't mean you have to believe or the rave about calories.
True, low calories IN COMBINATION with a body that burns more helps lose weight BUT, read 1) again and come again.
And not only 1), there are so many other food combinations that help people lose easier the weight, all this rave "ONLY WITH CALORIES YOU'LL BE SAVED MY CHILD" has make MORE fat people, MORE rich people selling those stupid calorie guides, calorie weighters and so on and so forth.
5) Ah, motivation, the one I lack and I'm still fat. The stupid last ingredient it's not mentioned here at all but is the one most of us LACK and LACK more and more and MORE and MORE we find excuses about "stupid diets" and "stupid people" and "stupid granmas that fed us with s" and rest bs.
Motivation my friends, do you you have the guts not to eat those stupid fat snacks?
Do you have the GUTS to say NO to your friends about McDonalds?
Do you have the guts to STAND UP to girls (or boys, girls) and friends and say YES, I'M ON A DIET AND YOU'RE GONNA SHUT UP ABOUT IT BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO?
Do you have the motivation to keep up with it?
If you'll have all thi,s you'll succeed, young jedi.
One good book I recommend for losing weight is The Metabolic Typing Diet by Dr. Walcott. The premise of the book is that people have unique metabolic types that makes dieting more than a matter of simply eating a certain way. There are 3 general kinds of types, the Protein type, the Mixed type, and the Carbohydrate type. Foods can have either a helpful or harmful effect depending on your metabolic type.
7 67 905644/qid=1050208863/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-374813 8-0573618?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Last year around this time in April, I was weighing 192 lbs at 5'8". I was the fattest I have ever been. My clothes which I normally buy a bit larger than usual were starting to feel tight. So I decided I better do something before I reach 200 lbs. I started to do something that everyone should do. EXERCISE! I went to the gym and did 45 minutes on the treadmill. Some days I would do ellipiticals (which are better since they are easier on your joints and give you a good cardiovasuclar workout as well) and I would also do light weight lifting (as a nerd I had below average strength).
I also decided to change my diet as well. I really didn't eat a lot of food, but I did eat candy and some junk food. So I decided to drink more water (I already was in the habit of drinking only water; no juice because juice is too sugary since there is no fibre to slow down the carbo absorption) eat raw vegetables like spinach, broccoli, kale, and other greens. I also ate chicken, and turkey. I made sure I ate three times a day, and if I was hungry, I would eat something with protein or fat, like nuts.
After 8 months I lost 50 lbs and have been the slimmest I've been in my life.
The key is EXERCISE. At least 1 hour day should be ideal, but at least 30 minutes a day for at least 4 days a week.
A good diet is good but it's hard to find what works. Generally, don't eat processed foods, eat fruits, vegetables, and animals. Don't be afraid to eat natural fat. Do be afraid of vegetable fat. Eat organic butter (www.kerrysgold.com).
A good diet would make you feel better, and help you look and function your best.
Here is the amazon link to the book. I have recently started to follow the recommendations of the this book, and I have found that I have been eating close to what this book recommends. I have found that foods that I thought were problematic were actually helpful for me, and I have proven it to myself.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
The reason you were "so close to that number it wasy scary" is because its science and not just a guess!!!! In one lb of fat there are 3500 calories. Pure science. Go back to happily losing weight now =)
Okaaay... when was the last time you saw a fat Asian?
Now go down South and find some good ole boys who eat plenty of red meat, pork rinds, fried chicken...
I was reading The Hacker's Diet after following the link... and about 10 pages in, I realized I was finishing off a box of cereal... I say chalk the weight up to not being conscious. lol..
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
The biggest problem with the Atkins diet is that he actually sells it as a fad diet. He devotes pages saying how you can eat as much fat as you want then slips in a line or two about keeping it below 1800 calories. Fat is very high in calories. If you lay off the carbs and keep the calories under control the weight stays off and you don't have to eat a pound of butter a day. I lost 36 pounds in less than a month and I've kept it off for six months. Most people simply go back to eating normally and complain they can't eat fries and pasta and stay thin. There's no miracle diet. Keep it below 1500 to 1800 calories, depends on whether you are a man or woman and get moderate exercise. Check out "Fit For Life". Excellent program but a bit hard to stay on if you have a busy life style. Probably the best most balanced program I ever found.
Ugh. Go to the bookstore. Pick up an introductory biology textbook (biochemistry would work too). Find out that, in fact, the preferred source of energy for living organisms is sugar. Can the human body process other compounds for energy? Yes, but you'll find that none of these processes are as efficient as the catalysis of sugar for energy production, and that nearly all are overlooked in favor of glycolysis when glucose is present.
Your body is designed to burn food, not sugar. Food is turned into Glucose, but you arent designed to drink dextrose(sugar). Your body doesnt know what to do with it, so 100 percent of it gets stored as fat unless you are running a marathon and drinking it (gatorade).
First, you have to define "digest," and you have to define "burn." If, by digest, you mean that a chunk of bacon is absorbed by the intestines less rapidly than a chunk of rice, you may or may not be correct. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that the body will absorb these things, and will somehow break these foods down into molecular units it can use. Fat, protein and sugar can all be converted to glucose through molecular pathways of varying efficiency -- this is what is traditionally meant by the "burning" of food.
No ones arguing that all food is converted to glucose, its the speed that matters. Down 500 grams of glucose and have it absorb into your system within seconds, what is the chance that your body will burn 100 percent of it? Oh thats right 0. You will not burn it all and the majority of it will go to fat.
Wait you mean to tell me this is healthy? Its bad for the liver, and it makes you fat, it overwelms your body with sugar, creating an insulin spike, do you know what that is? Its when your body raises its insulin level to attempt to pump the sugar into your muscles (or to fat). Insulin spikes are bad.
Nope. Compared to the protein or fat in bacon, rice is trivial for the body to "burn". It might take a smidge longer to digest, depending on how it's cooked, but we're not talking nutritionally-important differences here (your body will digest it one way or another). And the suggestion that the human body "is not designed to handle" complex carbohydrates? Utter nonsense. Go spit in a glass. See that? You're looking at a highly efficient mixure of enzymes, designed by evolution specifically for the digestion of complex carbohydrates. Pick up that biology book again...look up "alpha amylase," and you'll see what I mean.
Rice takes forever to burn and digests instantly, its a fucking complex carbohydrate, marathon runners use rice and noodles, starches are high GI and take forever to burn, its equal to drinking a really high quality form of glucose which wont burn off with excercise, good if you want to run a marathon, REALLY BAD IF YOU WANT TO BURN FAT!
In short: yes, it's good to avoid simple sugars in your diet. Not because they "make" you fat, but because they tend to send your blood sugar levels on wild fluctuations, and that can lead to digestive and dietary problems like diabetes, binge-eating, etc. Complex carbs take longer to digest than simple sugars, and thus provide a more stable and longer-term rise in blood sugar levels. But to say that you should eat "4-5 pieces of fried chicken" with a tablespoon of rice? That's a misinterpretation of the facts.
No, Avoid complex carbs as well, they take longer to digest but they take forever to burn, you want your glucose levels to be moderate to low, you want to avoid frutose, you want your insulin to stay low so you consume glucose with fat and protien, but really starches have no purpose in the human body, we arent designed for it and thats why it spikes our insulin and then gets stored as bodyfat.
tell me why you want a high quality fuel when you are trying to use your excess fuel (fat)? It doesnt make sense. If you were trying to use your extra fuel in a car you dont put your highest quality fuel into
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1 gram of protein does not have the same caloric content as 1 gram of carbohydrate.
1 gram carbohydrate = 4.3 kcal
1 gram fat = 9.5 kcal
1 gram protein = 5.7 kcal
But you were right on the other part. It does take more energy to digest the protein, as it needs to be converted by the liver into a usable sugar.
SF
And when have you seen a fat eskimo? they are asian too and they dont eat any rice, they eat mostly meat. What about the native americans? They ate mostly meat, what about in south africa where all they had was meat? Do you see any fat africans?
You see fat Americans, Americans are the only ones eating sugar all the time, the asians eat rice, but they have been doing it for thousands of years and their genes have adapted, you try eating rice for a while and see what happens.
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I really don't understand, other than egocentricity, why scientists won't admit that low-carb diets work fine. They insist on hanging on to the "calorie" which has absolutey no biological basis for measureing the energy in a food.
The conspiracy theorist in me likes to think it's because if the world knew precisely how bad these artificial and engineered foods are for you, they'd drop them right away, and the food industry would see it's profits shrink overnight.
What about those with cronic thiness? What about us people who try to eat to gain weight but cant. I remain below the recommended weight for my height. I would like to be fatter! Where is the help for the those who want to GAIN weight!
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Blah... the best way: it's called exercise and carbohydrate cycling. For those of you who do no gym stuff, you have to replace it with cardio to help jumpstart your metabolism (morning runs are always preferable).
Then, you trick your body by eating a steady stream of charbs (whatever your fat face desires) for 7 days, then drastically lower it for 4-5, your body responds by burning fat and doesn't go into starvation mode because it thinks the food will still be comming -- obviously you have to fine tune this to your person.
Fat loss (key word: fat, not weight) is only truly achieved by tricking your body through diet. Weight loss is achieved when you do cardio that not only burns your caloric surplus of food, and some fat stores, but also very valuble muscle (important if you're a bodybuilder, or care about that sort've thing).
Low calorie diets are great if you're not disciplined enough to do it the better way. Frequent medium/small meals are superior. I stick to 6 a day with healthy fats (tuna, oily fish, avacado, peanut butter), and complex carbs(brown rice, oatmeal, potato's) and lots of protein. Increase fiber, water intake, sodium, ginseng, chromium and vitamin supplements to help regulate and clean blood, and most importantly, keep your metabolism elevated (napping, not frequent eating, tough digesting foods all lower this). Cardio helps, but is not necessary if you go to the gym at least 4 times a week. Your body will use the fat to recooperate.
it doesn't mean they are genetically thin.
Genetics is the stupidest excuse ever. People 40 years ago were NEVER THIS FUCKING FAT. Kids in school were NEVER THIS FUCKING FAT 40 years ago.
DNA DID NOT CHANGE OVERNIGHT AS YOU SUGGEST. The -only- DNA explanation is if the same obese person was a parent of every baby born in America 40 years ago, and passed the 'fat' genes on... OBVIOUSLY THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN.
The fact that Chinese people are expected to be (and probably are) hard-working, lean people is WHY they are so. It's part of what being chinese is.
To be a huge waterballoon in America is normal by now because that is American culture. It feels okay in a way that no Chinese person would feel okay for themselves to get that big.
Plus, chinese families have big kids, too. Which shows it is the American diet that made them so, not genes. And the other fat kids are non-chinese but also on America's 'eat shit' plan.
THE ONLY WAY TO PUT ON FAT is to eat more calories than you burn. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.
I'm sure every person who NEVER EXERCISED IN THEIR LIFE because they are afraid to BREAK A SWEAT wants to blame genetics.
But the people who HAVE EXERCISED and are not afraid to BREAK A SWEAT during their life are fitter now and know it's for the CHOICES they made. FITNESS IS A CHOICE. I don't care if you think your body TYPE can't ever be a MARATHON RUNNER.
The people with body types which you DO think can become professional runners ARE NOT GOING TO BE PROFESSIONAL RUNNERS. FITNESS IS NOT ABOUT DOING A MARATHON. IT'S ABOUT BEING ACTIVE and in shape as defined by European, not american, standards.
-MOST PEOPLE WILL NEVER GET TO THE EXTREME STAGE OF FITNESS WHERE THEY ARE THE TOP %.0001 IN A SPORT and can't compete with the TOP %.000001 because of their body type limitations. IT JUST NOT GONNA HAPPEN FOR YOU OR FOR ALMOST ANYBODY to get to that stage. Your BODY TYPE is NO type there is no LABEL for a body. WE ARE ALL BUILT THE SAME, AND BREAKING A SWEAT --OFTEN-- will make you lose weight.
TO LOSE WEIGHT, you will need to work hard. But at any points you want to PAUSE, you can WORK LESS HARDER just to MAINTAIN your new weight. MAINTAINING a new weight is easier than LOSING THE WEIGHT to get there as long as maintainance running or exercise is done regularly.
SO don't think you will have to work hard for the rest of your life, just hard to get the pounds off and then you can just run a couple of times a week.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Here's my previous post which was a reply to someone else.
As a fat person as you label yourself, YOU DON'T KNOW better about fitness than the other guy, or even anybody else.
People were never this fat yadayda read my previous post please. I hope it motivates you (if) you choose the path of fitness. (You don't have to it's everybody's personal choice.)
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Sumo
I read some comments that said that FAT is essential, and I, as a doctor, can affirm: It's not.
While I must agree that when a virus destroys your FAT it's a really bad thing, if you do things the careful and proper way, FAT can be safely replaced by NTFS or even EXT3.
Some people recommend replacing FAT for FAT32. The problem with this is that FAT32 supports bigger volumes. But when you're on a diet, you want a smaller volume, not a bigger one, right ? So forget about FAT32.
Don't be so damned lazy. Need to pick up something at the store 4 blocks away? Walk, don't drive. Bored on a saturday afternoon? Go outside, don't troll slashdot. Live a 10 minute drive away from where you work? Make it a 30 minute bike ride. If you don't do everything in the easiest way possible, then you don't have to watch what you eat, or go out of your way to exercise.
So, still going for the "Lowe Fatt" thing? Not very successful, huh?
Yeah, right.
What the fuck is dance dance revolution?
I have read that if you drink water ICE COLD(as cold as you can stand it preferably) that your body has to burn up calories to warm up the water.
So in effect now only is water not fattening it helps you lose weight, albeit I bet the real effect isn't that many calories in the grand scheme.
moo.
Too lazy to log in.
I'm 5'6" and a little overwight. I don't look chubby, but under my shirt I had a little bit more flab than I wanted, and my legs were flabby and I thought my face was getting kind of roundish. I've never dieted before, and I'm a Mtn Dew junkie. A friend of mine had told me of his (positive) experience with Atkins, so I bought the book, and started reading and researching.
Don't start Atkins, or diss it, unless you've read the book and know what it's really about. If you don't want to fund Atkins' empire, borrow it from someone.
Here's the deal as I see it:
I quit Mountain Dew, and in fact all caffeine and pop. I now drink water, unsweetened tea, or the occasional (1 or two a week) diet Dr Pepper or Diet Vanilla Coke. I don't like the taste of Equal/Nutrasweet/Aspartame. I believe drinking a lot of fluids (water) helps the Atkins diet.
I have done close to the induction-level of carbs (20g per day) or thereabouts for about two months. I have lost about 20 pounds so far. Interestingly, most of the weight was lost in the first three weeks. Since then my weight has dropped slowly, but I'm definitiely getting slimmer. All my close are much looser. My flabby belly is the most obvious change.
I eat as much as I want, of low-carb and generally high-protein foods. I have no empirical calorie counts. Perhaps I'm eating less than before, but I'm eating full meals and am not hungry. Certainly the sugar calories from the Mtn Dew are gone.
I don't get that sleepy sluggish brain-fuzz feeling after lunch like I used to. Especially after fast-food Italian (Fazoli's fettucini) or a Chipotle burrito. I get a burrito bowl now, no rice or beans, but all the sour cream, cheese, guacamole, lettuce, etc.
I feel good. I sleep better. I've started working out because I feel like I have more energy. Note that carefully -- I started working out _because_ the diet was working and making me _feel_ better, not vice versa. I'm not a big exercise freak. I swim for an hour, twice a week. Or I use the climbing wall for half the time. No jogging, pumping iron, bowflex or other sweaty monotonous drudgery. I walk more in the evenings after work.
Ketosis is not Ketoacidosis. Look it up. Lo-carb diets are not for everyone -- no diet it. You should get a checkup before starting ANY diet, and Atkins is no exception. You may have medical conditions that might be provoked by Ketosis. Then again, the same could be said about low-calorie high-carb diets.
Don't believe the FUD. Do the research yourself. Many people I know have been very successful and happy with Atkins. Many others are willing to distain and discredit it without trying to understand it. Atkins postulates a massive nutrtional-health conspiracy. I don;t know that I concur, but certainly my experiences have contradicted much 'conventional' wisdom about dieting and health.
I need people to test my real server connect to it at: http://metaplasm.org:8080/ramgen/broadcast/video/l ive.rm
Thanks.
If you need to recover your shape because summer is approaching... come to the southern hemisphere!
We're getting into winter right now!
This one requires that you have a suitable partner. It's worked for me. Basically:
1) Have sex daily, lasting at least 30minutes. At least 1 hour is best.
2) Add partners as needed (you get bored, or they can't keep up.)
3) Watch the pounds slowly melt away, and you'll be so happy you won't mind doing any extras like changing your diet or adding exercise. Hence, your fitness accelerates.
Caveat: Much easier to do for women than for men.
In one of his best rants ever, he talked about the state of the average (American) tourist in Las Vegas. They are all fat, and his simple answer was: STOP EATING!
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
...the main factor everyone needs is proper motivation. Once that is achieved the rest is just simple implementation and common sense.
My motivation was a really hot girl I started being "friends" with, but I wanted more so I lost all the weight.. never got the girl.. shucks
anyhow, I just ate healty and very sparingly. You will be hit with the hunger for only a couple weeks. The hunger subsides as your body begins breaking down and burning the fat covering your body.
A typical day of excercise and eating would be.
8inch roast turkey sandwich on white, lettuce tomatoe, peppers, and vinegar.
following with running about 2 miles three times a week.
the pounds literally melted off. I went from a size 46 waist to a 38. I ended up losing 85 pounds in 8 months. I've kept the weight off for 2 years now. It really is a lifestyle change. I still eat healthy, watch my weight like a hawk, and exercise regularly. Although, I've noticed that it takes far less effort to maintain my weight now. It seem my metabolism has really picked up.
I ran a 7 mile back-country trail yesterday. The attention I get from girls now is seriously warping my mind. My energy level has tripled. And, I feel comfortable all the time. There's no worse feeling than the uncomfortable feeling of being FAT.
3500 calories are one pound of fat. That's the most important thing to know whether you want to gain or lose weight.
If you want to lose weight evaluate your diet 2 week days and one weekend day. Eliminate up to 500 calories a day and add exercise that burns an additional 500 calories a day. It is unhealthy to lose or gain more then 2 pounds a week.
I've tried many diets throughout my life. To date the only diet that helped me lose weight is the eat less and go hungry diet. Obesity IMO is generally a mental problem. I used to believe that I had bad genetics, and that I just couldn't lose weight. Now that I've changed so drastically I have more of an understanding.
I was up to ~330 lbs. and I came to realize that I was going to die if I continued (only 20 at the time). Now I'm 22 and I weigh between 260 and 265. I lost the weight slowly by going hungry. I tend to only eat one big meal at dinner and have a light meal for lunch. It helps to tell myself over and over again when I'm hungry, "Eating more will only bring me closer to death. My body has enough food already." I drink water or Metamucil when I do get hungry, and usually that helps stop the cravings. Remember that if you're hungry you're making progress. :)
The simple steps to losing weight... works for anyone if you're willing to stick with it. Of course read Hacker's Diet first.
Find out how much you need to eat to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week. To do this go to Healthy Body Calculator and use their calculator. It is very accurate.
Get an account at NutraWatch for tracking your daily meals. Tracking your meals will become second nature and will take up about 10 seconds of your time per meal.
Exercise is optional but I would recommend trying it. I am only at rung 8 but already I feel like I am more in shape than I was before.
Track your daily weight using the spreadsheet. The trend feature is cool and keeps you sane. :)
Rinse, repeat, enjoy losing weight!
If you eat less than your body burns per day, you will lose weight. It is common sense. There is no magic to it and it will work for anyone unless you have some sort of disease or something.
Buddha
1. Forget about calories. If you follow the rest of this, the calories will take care of themselves.
2. Do not eat sugar, bread, rice, pasta, or potatoes. At all. Period. Think of them as poison. Seriously.
3. Fat is good. Eat all the fat you want. Fat makes you feel full. When you feel full you don't eat as much. Sugars and carbohydrates, as soon as your body finishes processing them, will make you hungry. So eat all the fat you want, as long as no sugar or carbohydrates go along for the ride.
4. Get some exersize. Do something. Anything. Walk around the block. Do some jumping jacks. Take a flight of stairs. Stretch. Do ANYTHING, even if it's only for thirty seconds. The benefit from even thirty seconds far exceeds the benefit of doing nothing at all. If it's momentarily slightly difficult to speak you've done yourself a lot of good.
5. There is no rule five.
That's it. Hungry? Eat some cheese. Or a slice of ham wrapped in cheese, like a sandwich without the bread. Still hungry? Have another. Still hungry? You could have another, but wait a couple of minutes first and you won't want it because you'll feel full.
Omelettes? Nearly perfect. Cook them in all the butter you want. Real butter. Fat is good. Anything that says "fat-free" is your enemy. It's calories without the benefit of filling you up. So whatever number of calories it has are calories that you wouldn't have eaten, because you'll still have to eat some fat to fill you up.
When at the store, look at the carbohydrates on an item. If there are more than a handful, put it back. However, subtract fiber and sugar-alcohols. They don't make you hungry, so they're ok.
Yes, of course you can eat a low-fat diet and lose weight, but it's really really hard, because you'll never feel satisfied. And if you're weak you'll eventually give in and eat poorly. And you will, because if had that much dicipline you wouldn't be in the shape you're in.
Follow the steps above and it's a heck of a lot easier, because you will feel satisfied.
Your old pal Pete changed his life when he figured out the right way to eat. You can too.
To get in shape, I bought myself a road bicycle and commuted to work 15 miles each way, every day. My morning ride served as my training ride, when I would ride as hard as I could, and my evening ride was optional. I either took the Metro home, or I would ride relatively easy.
After a few months of this, I was in awesome shape. I could eat anything, and eat as much as I wanted to (or drink as much as I wanted
Riding at an average of 22mph on a bicycle for 15 every morning doesn't sound that great, but it's pretty fun, and you get used to it. On days when I wanted to challenge myself, I would run those 15 miles to work. I still can't belive it.
So what happened since then? Winter happened
Witold
www.witold.org
witold.org
...and thus you burn more calories. Naturally. It's not the exercise that burns them (though it does burn a little), it's the increase in your muscle mass due to the exercise.
Muscles are metabolically active, and produce heat by burning calories every day, whether you use them or not. But if you don't use them, you gradually lose muscle mass, and your metabolism goes down.
To take your 2000 calories burned naturally per day... what if I told you by doing 30min weight training sessions, 3 times per week, you could increase that over 2200? Maybe over 2300? You'd double your weight loss at no expense to you, get stronger, and feel a lot better to boot.
Plus, exercise will make you live longer.
So writing off exercise completely is not a great idea. Just don't overdo it.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
My point was simply to rebut your argument that rice will make you fat because of those bogus notions that sugars can't be digested.
And you proved it: we *all* come from societies that have been eating grains for thousands of years. Europeans have been eating wheat, Asians rice. *Both* are pure starch, and starch = sugar.
The only things that matter are calories in must be balanced against calories out. Anything else is trying to avoid thermodynamics and is, quite frankly, a lie.
Here's how:
1) Lose *good* job due to screwed up US Economy.
2) Pick up *mediocre* job at Home Depot
3) Work in parking lot @ HD
4) Wake up at 5:00AM, to be at work by 6AM.
5) Suck down one glass of juice, and a bagel.
6) Get to work... park in the ass end of the lot, walk 1/2 mile thru lot, thru store to time clock. Punch in. Put on back belt and apron.
7) Walk 1/4 mile thru store to Front End.
8) Load every half-wit's vehicle with whatever crap they think they need... Usually 20 sacks of 80# concrete... or giant pieces of drywall...
9) Run from one end of the lot to the other collecting carts and junk... Bring them back into the store... Total mileage per day: 15+ miles
10) Forget breaks... just keep drinking water from a 32oz jug you keep hidden outside...
11) Eat something for lunch - hot dog, sandwich.. whatever...
12) Repeat this parking lot insanity for 8-10 hours... 6 days a week...
13) Go home, take a shower... pass out from exhaustion... Dinner? ha!
14) Repeat... After 30 days, you need new pants... new shoes... and you laugh at the BoFlex commercials... that guy ain't got shit...
Now if HD would only market this method, their stock would come out of the toilet, but that's a different post...
Jolt x2 (or Coke Classic mixed with shots of SkyRocket from XTZ.com)
Pizza... none of that wimpy shit either... we're talkin' 1" thick deep dish buttercrust with extra cheese from Lou Malnati's in Chicago...
Coffee
King size candy bars... doesn't matter which... so long as ya like it...
Popcorn - preferably drenched in carmel and chocolate...
Ice cream... Moose Tracks anyone?
Beer... Keep a 1/4 bbl around and cool it with a couple of Peltiers that you yanked off those low-speed CPU's during the last corporate upgrade...
Weed... It's a bronchial dialator (more oxygen to the brain = better programming) as opposed to that tobacco junk that constricts the passageways...
oh yeah, some vitamins so you can feel good about what you eat...
Considering there are other effective alternatives, I feel the choice to eat only animals and animal products is a very cruel one. While a vegetarian diet would cause the least suffering, doubling or tripling the number of individuals you personally are pulling through the slaughterhouse is pretty heartless considering the only motivation for doing so is to drop a few pounds.
2 rules I use to retain my non fat-bastardness:-
...if you can.
... :/
- put body to use
- feed body good stuff
Don't starve yourself, eat quality.
Sure dieting works but hyped for money; getting down the gym really makes the difference
If only sitting in front of this bloody computer gave me the physical kicks that gym does. I feel pasty.
For example - if you eat nothing but oily fish you'll lose weight. I bet you can't put on weight NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU EAT. So, for gods sake why not eat the stuff - take advantage!
Eat quiche and be Merry!
A blog I run for the wealth
Hmm, seems like someone either confused "informative" with "funny"... It it true that a lean, muscular person weighs a little bit more than a lean, weak person - but he will still weigh far less than a fat person. And fat is not nutritious. Low-fat food is just as nutitrious as high-fat food, but more healthy because it contains less fat. You eat the same amount of it because your body needs a certain volume to feel full, not because you have to reach a certain fat-content before you can stop eating. If you are too fat you do yourself a real favor by losing weight. Don't look for stupid excuses to stay fat, and don't blame it on the food. Instead eat healthy food, eat at regular times and eat regular portions, don't snack, and move. So here's what to do (and you don't even have to buy an expensive book for these tips!): - buy a bike. Use it for every 10km (that's 6 miles or so) trip you have to make. If necessary, make up imaginary goals for your trips. - Never buy snacks. If they are not in the house no amount of temptation will set you to snacking. Instead buy fruit (preferably fresh, but have some canned fruit ready for emergencies). If the need to snack becomes unbearable, start on the fruit. - When snacking, eat one thing, then wait ten minutes. Ten minutes is the time before the body realizes it has received some food and shuts up about wanting more. You can do ten minutes right? - When buying food, buy stuff that is at least somewhat healthy (no pizza or hamburgers). There is no particular need to minimize fat intake, just eat what you like, but do so at regular times and with moderation (decide what you are going to eat beforehand and do so). - Use some common sense. Disclaimer: it works for me. I'm 32 years old, 1.90m tall and weigh 78kg, and have been like that for pretty much the last 8 years.
This is funny. I work out three times a week and eat nonstop in an effort to gain weight. While I continue to up my strength (impressively so), I steem to peak around 155-160lbs. I'm 6'3. If I stop, I immediately start losing weight.. I was 130lbs for the longest time.
:).
*shrug* As long as there's no famines in the future I guess I'm OK then
Thermodynamics is your friend; eat less calories than you burn and I guarantee! (tm) you'll lose weight over the long run, water retention not included.
..don't panic
Jim Fixx had a genetic proclivity to heart problems. Several of his relatives died very young.
Jogging added about 10-15 years to his life. He also wrote one of the best books about running (for fun and competition) ever written.
But there's a lot of fat-assed idiots out there who can't resist giggling at a potential "Ironic" tag on Fark.com whenever a health nut dies, regardless of what the real facts are.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It's only the last 200 years that the human animal has been able to guarantee 3 square meals per day. It's only the last 50 years that the human animal hasn't had to perform significant physical effort on a day to day basis.
There's a hundred thousand years of evolution where your ancestors bodies have coped admirably with low food and no food conditions. Simply changing from a must eat every day to an eat when hungry mentality i've gone from 112kg (245lbs) to 90kg (196lbs) in around 6 months.
Another 10kg (22lbs) to lose, no bother at all.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
If you are eating too much sugar, you are not on a low calorie diet anymore.
Duh.
OK, good points, but just a caveat, "strong muscle weigh more than fat" makes no sense. 1 lb. of muscle weighs the same as one 1lb of fat. Are you talking about weight per volume? a fit person WILL weigh more for several reasons: fat (per volume) weighs less than muscle AND they will have more muscle, and aerboic execise increases blood volume and therefore water weight. no excuses people, get off your seat and run a little every day.
Pretty much every single Eskimo I have ever seen has been chubby, especially the older ones.
You == Dumbass
about how to become lean and fit:
Transform your physique.
It's a lot to read but it works this way!
There might be many things a lot of people don't know yet.
Transforming your body isn't easy at all at the beginning but success will make it a pleasure at the end. And you will ENJOY all types of sports after some time. Even your initial goal of looking good and being healthy will be less important than the fun of exercising (cardio or strength, doesn't matter which kind) later when you become really trained.
I'm doing running, cycling, swimming, resistance training, aerobics and soccer, each one to three times a week (altogether 12-20 hours a week). Over some years I decreased my body fat from ~30% (when I was 15) to currently 11% while also increasing muscle mass. It took some time and a lot of patience, but it was worth the effort. Now it's just fun.
Something to add: I prefer bio-electric impedance measuring of the body fat over calipers. It's more precise.
--- censored
I'm impressed by the level of sensible advice. Eat less, excersise more. You could easily gain weight eating nothing but fruit, or meat, or bread if you ate enough. Similarly you could lose weight eating nothing but donuts. I've heard it helps to eat when you feel hungry and stop eating a little before you feel full. Just paying attention to your actual hunger levels and what you eat helps break the cycle of using food unconsciously as a kind of drug.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Okay, I've read everyone's suggestions of "what worked for them" including all the unhealthy advice that they prostitute as gospel. Following a lot of it will screw up your body real good and possibly cause permanent health problems or death. (No, I'm not exaggerating, did you read some of the stuff in this thread?)
.22 oz per pound of total body weight, e.g. 3-4.5 litres of water per day. After the first few days you'll stop going to the washroom a lot. If you feel "thirsty" that means you're already too late and your body is very dehydrated
There's lots of myths that should be debunked, and I'm not going to be yet another gospel prostitute and debunk them all myself here for you, but I do have a few suggestions that I hope you might research and take to heart:
- Drink lots of water; Minimum 1.5 litres/day, suggested
- For each caffeinated beverage consumed, drink one extra glass of water; Excessive caffeine per day may include "fun-like symptoms" but keep it real, folks.
- When people say they "want to lose weight" they really mean they "want to lose fat." Muscle weighs more than fat, so the scale lies -- throw it out, it won't measure your progress. Keeping tabs on the scale will only mess with your head. Take photos at the start and at the beginning of each month of your progress. That and your pant sizes, ability to bound up stairs and the mirror will show your progress.
- Increasing muscle will help you burn fat; You become a more efficient fat burning machine. This means weight lifting, either free weights or machines. Do three days of weight lifting, interspersed with three days of cardio, and take one day off.
- Do your cardio first thing in the morning before your first meal; This will maximize your fat burn. Do your weight lifting one hour after your first meal; You can drink a black coffee 20 minutes before your weight lifting to help maximize your workout potential.
- Eat six times per day. Or, more precisely, eat every 2-3 hours. You need to be aiming to keep your insulin levels constant. When you go longer than 2-3 hours per meal your insulin level dips then spikes when you eat. Spiking insulin levels tell the body to grab the incoming food and store it as fat.
- Each meal you eat should be a balance of carbohydrates, protein and fat. There should be more protein than carbohydrates in your meal, but don't cut out the carbohydrates completely like in some wacko diets, that may cause permanent health complications.
- Spend no more than 1 hour in the gym. Really. Don't keep going on the cardio, all the glycogen in your body has been used up. Get off the treadmill and go home.
- 20 minutes of cardio interval training (on treadmill, bike, etc.) first thing in the morning is three times more effective than an hour of mindless cardio later during the day.
- 6 out of the 7 days eat responsibly. No junk food. Nada. On the 7th day, eat what you want. Anything. Pig out. But make sure you eat properly on the 6 other days. The pig out day will tell your body that it isn't "starving" and not to hold onto fat.
Oh, there's lots more I could tell you. But let me not be yet another voice pissing into the wind. Everyone claims to be right. Instead I'd like you to take the same amount of energy you'd invest in the minutae of detail of research into a new motherboard or technology and focus that into unbiased health research.
Here's a few shortcut hints:
- Go into GNC (General Nutrition Center) and ask if they have a copy of the videotape "Body of Work" from EAS. Buy it. Watch it. Watch it again, especially whenever you need inspiration. (You want me to give you a URL, don't you. www.bodyofwork.com)
- Go into GNC or Chapters or Amazon.com and buy "Body for Life" by Bill Phillips. Read. Debunk a lot of myths.
- Don't skip either of the first two steps. Watch the video FIRST, then read the "Body for Life" book. Not another fad diet. Not a one shot craze. A
You call that the ultimate diet?
You'll die before you even lost half your weight.
Proper starvation is an art.
You're right about muscle weight, but wrong about low fat foods. Fat doesn't fill you up; that's why people can eat far too much chocolate and other unhealthy foods without feeling full.
A decent low-fat food shouldn't have any less impact on satiating your hunger than a Lard-O-Burger.
The best way to lose weight is to eat less fat and calories, and exercise more. This will boost your metabolic rate and build muscle/bump up your cardiovascular system.
My diet secret: buy nothing delicious. My kitchen is fully stocked with bland, chewy foods like brown rice, beans, skinned chicken breasts, rice cakes... For lunch I have a salad. It's amazing how sweet a slice of bread tastes after 6 months avoiding refined carbos.
Don't beleive me? Fine, but don't come crying to me when you have a heart attack and die.
...
I suspect you won't have many of those
Yeah, because I am a living proof the hacker's diet doesn't work.
yes but wheat is low GI, rice is high GI.
Wheat takes forever to digest. And dont forget africans and natives american who eat next to no carbs at all ever.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Diets are all totally bogus! If you want to lose weight, the ONLY thing you have to do is some exercise! If you exercise every day you will not be fat! Its as simple as this. There is a big myth that you need to diet to lose weight.
Therefore I propose a new diet: The Exercise Diet.
In this diet you can eat anything you want, whenever you want as long as the daily total is less than ten thousand calories..
The only stipulation is that you do some exercise each day - whether you go skateboarding, go to the gym, ride a bike etc.
SIMPLE AS!!!
If people realised this, the diet industry would die. Actually I think the diet industry knows this, and plays on people's unwillingness to make an effort exercise. Worse than this, the industry presents diets as the only way to lose weight!
SURELY NOT!!!!!
First, you have to define "digest," and you have to define "burn." If, by digest, you mean that a chunk of bacon is absorbed by the intestines less rapidly than a chunk of rice, you may or may not be correct. It doesn't matter.
Actually it matters quite a bit. Since the process of digestion uses energy and the harder something is to digest then the less of it is likely to end up in the body in the first place.
:) You're right about that!
There's a big difference between "less rapidly " and "impossible." Just because something takes longer to digest (i.e. complex carbohydrates vs. table sugar), doesn't mean it won't be digested.
I made the same mistake :-)
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
[honest i'd talk to a doctor, but since my doctor is so busy he hasn't gotten back to me, even though i asked him to call back, once a week from late november through late january...]
:(
during the fall, i wasn't trying to lose weight but i wasn't eating[i had no money for food, simple enough]. i was also walking somewhere upwards from 10km a day, running a lot of that, working ~4 hours a day of physically taxing [as physically taxing as dishwashing/kitchen work gets, anyway...]...and then drinking high volumes of caffeine beverages on top of that. after awhile i started drinking cocacola, which is when i began to gain weight.
but before i did that i found i was fainting all the time. i couldn't keep consious. i would go a week without eating anything but a little chickensalt,or one of those flavour packages from the 'ichiban' style noodles local. i mean obviously, i was fainting from something between working too hard physically and not eating anything to replenish..and i was starting to lose weight[not that i was fat, at that point. i'm fat now, from the cocacola, mostly.] how do you avoid this? the only reason i drank cocacola to begin with was to keep energy reserves high. it's all nice and well and good to say that one will work harder but when your in a chair after a 5 mile run, after not eating for a week...and you have to study for a logic exam[oddly]...how do you keep your brain able to function??! i thought the solution for me should have been to get some provigil [i didn't sleep enough, either]... but my doctor i think didn't want to give me any[ie i havn't tried it yet because of that...]... but please...explain how one is to reasonably study, under those circumstances...or am i doomed to gain wait until i decide it's time to stoplearning and start to work on my body for awhile[while neglecting my mind so it rots?]...i don't want to drink cocacola or eat noodles just so i can stay consious any more
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Building on this, the only way to get rid of fat, is to increase your natural metabolic rate which means increasing your exercise. That is, cardiovascular *and* resistance (weight) training.
If you're really big/fatty then you'd probably want to do a lot of Cardio work to start with (maybe 30 mins, three times a week).
Fitness can be determined by a lot of factors, but it really is a vague word and can have differing meanings. For example, a fit person may have high stamina, or may be able to lift a lot of weight, or may just have a low body fat percentage.
My suggestion is go and find a gym that can give you a fitness test. You will be able to find out your body fat percentage and your trainer will be able to give you a exercise plan to shed those pounds! Good luck!
now given : i'm mostly ignorant of the food process, and health matters there. i'm interested in learning however, and would appreicate anything you can throw at me. i drink coffee like a vibrating fish. no sugar[i enjoy honey with my coffee, but i can't afford that. i can't afford sugar, either come to think of it]. in fact i had 2 pots within every 5 hours yesterday...which is a little more than usual. but i faint when i don't take in enough "energy" :)]...and still... it does not solve the fainting problem or make it any easier, or even really accomplish anything...
anyway, so at work i'm given an unlimited supply of CocaCola. which is extreemly unhealthy, of course!,..however, desipte me drinking sometimes upwards of 12-15 litres of water per [12-15 hour] shift...i still find i just cannot drink less than 2 litres of cocacola [with ice, lately. so let's say total cocacola intaken to be between 0.6L and 1.3L] and still function. but that's STILL a LOT of fat..and although i stopped gaining weight really fast, it's obvious i'm still gaining. HOW do you keep from fainting..? how can i keep studying? i try to fit roughly 16 hours a day of study, amongst other things...and unless i have some sort of carbs/noodles/energy in my diet to fill me i get not only hungry, but dizzy to the point where i'll look at my computer screen for 4 hours look at the clcok again and realize i'm ont he same paragraph, despite circling purple cyan magenta and yellow circles floating around me like the oil film on the first puddles of spring...and both while i was losing weight [read not drinking cocacola] and while i was gaining weight[read: drinking cocacola] i was drinking PLENTY of water. so much that i was not only always having to piss [i think i've masterred the ability of being able to hold in vast amounts of water in my system for moderate periods of time, doing this, though
and besides the water here is nOT HEALTHY...[woo rural water systems] it is really really dirty, i won't drink it at all unless i run it through coffee grounds first & boil it.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I used a *very* modified diet based loosely on the Hackers Diet.
Don't eat more than 40gms of fat
I lost 40kgs (80lbs) doing this. Also, weigh yourself every day, and chart it in your spreadsheet of choice. You get a psychological benefit of seeing your weight drop over time, and the small spikes that can occur over time don't derail you.
If the Hacker's Diet spreadsheets are "out of commission", this is news to me. I wrote them and have used them continuously since 1990. The Excel spreadsheets are available in six--count 'em--six versions compatible with every release of Excel from 2.1 through 2002 (Office XP). This is, of course, five more versions than should have been necessary, but the perpetrators of Excel prefer to treat users' investment in macros as a wasting asset rather than capital.
Being a multiple-document Excel spreadsheet, you need to open the main log document from the "Open" menu within Excel rather than clicking on the document icon or using the recent documents menu. Otherwise Excel won't find the associated history database which is cleverly hidden in the very same directory as the main spreadsheet. This "enhancement" first appeared in Excel 5.0 and has never been remedied by any subsequent version. As long as you open the main log from the "Open" menu, everything works fine. The Excel macros are unprotected; you can modify them as you wish.
The Hacker's Diet software tools are also available in a Palm OS edition, which can interchange data with the Excel spreadsheet and/or produce desktop logs in HTML format on any platform which can talk to a PalmOS PDA and run C programs. Complete source code, in the public domain, is available for all of this, either from my site through the link above or via CVS from SourceForge.
I havn't seen an important one mentioned:
STOP DRINKING BEER!
Beer has HUGE amounts of cals. Ever wonder why Girls put on so much weight when they go to college? All you can eat meals are one thing, but BEER is the real cause!
Many people make that mistake, saying that fat is bad. In normal quantaties, it's not!
Remeber your skin is just another organ. It needs those subcutanious fatreserves, if only to regulate temperature and who knows what else (nopt much research at all has gone into the skin as an organ).
A bit of fat is good...too much is bad (as in everything else in life).
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
"Your body is designed to burn food, not sugar. Food is turned into Glucose, but you arent designed to drink dextrose(sugar). Your body doesnt know what to do with it, so 100 percent of it gets stored as fat unless you are running a marathon and drinking it (gatorade).
Who is teaching you this stuff? Look man, our bodies burn glucose. "Food" is an abstract concept that makes it easier for us to think about what our bodies are doing to the stuff we eat. And, you're wrong -- our bodies do know what to do with glucose when we eat it. That's why we can administer pure dextrose as a drug to treat hypoglycemia. Your body doesn't care where it comes from -- glucose is glcose is glucose.
No one's arguing that all food is converted to glucose, its the speed that matters. Down 500 grams of glucose and have it absorb into your system within seconds, what is the chance that your body will burn 100 percent of it? Oh thats right 0. You will not burn it all and the majority of it will go to fat.
It's not 0, but I'll agree that you're not likely to completely utilize a massive amount of glucose unless you're undergoing some strenuous exercise. That said, you have to make up your mind -- a few sentences from now, you're going to argue that complex carbs are bad, because they absorb slowly. So what is it?
Rice takes forever to burn and digests instantly, its a fucking complex carbohydrate, marathon runners use rice and noodles, starches are high GI and take forever to burn, its equal to drinking a really high quality form of glucose which wont burn off with excercise, good if you want to run a marathon, REALLY BAD IF YOU WANT TO BURN FAT!
Ah, yes. "Proof by louder repetition." A favorite amongst slashdotters.
Why in the world do you think that glucose leads to fat? You still haven't justified this assertion. Your body wants to maintain a constant level of blood glucose -- it will attempt to do this (assuming you're not diabetic), by balancing the release of insulin and glucagon to regulate the uptake and release of glucose from your cells. Now, when you eat, your body converts whatever food it can into glucose, using the most efficient metabolic pathway available to it. Thus, eating results in the addition of glucose to your bloodstream, unless, of course, you choose to eat only fat and/or protein. In that case, you'd better eat a lot less food, because the caloric density of fat is very high, and, as I noted before, a high-protein diet can lead to other nasty things.
Avoid complex carbs as well, they take longer to digest but they take forever to burn
Again, I think you need to go back and think about your definitions, here. Complex carbs take a bit longer to get into the blood, but they're relatively quickly converted into glucose once they're there (complex carbohydrates are nothing more than long-chain polysaccharides, and are easily divided by hydrolysis -- your body does a good job of it). Once hydrolized, they're burned as efficiently as any other glucose molecule in your blood. The "problem" you're referring to is the tendency of the slowly-absorbed carbohydrates to provide a long-term rise in blood glucose levels. And remember, just a few sentences ago, you were arguing that the "quick-burning" simple sugars are bad! So which is it?
really starches have no purpose in the human body, we arent designed for it and thats why it spikes our insulin and then gets stored as bodyfat.
Let me get this straight -- because complex carbohydrates can possibly lead to insulin spikes (though this is far less of a danger than with simple sugars), that means our body "wasn't designed" for them? So, what -- I tell you that those protein supplements the weightlifters use leads to kidney failure, and you're going to tell me that our bodies weren't "designed" for protein? Does it even matter to you that human beings evolved from agrarian populations? That much of our metabolic ma
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
My dad lost 30 pounds on the Atkins diet. The good thing about this diet is you can still eat lots of good stuff prohibited on most other diets.
I, not on a diet, try to avoid sugary products b/c that's what wrecks health worse than excess fat or carbs in a diet.
This is why slashdot needs a -1, Incorrect dammit! moderation. You can't mod him flamebait, because you'll get metamoderated all to hell, the same with troll. The only thing you can go for is overrated, but in the slashcode, if you mod over/underrated, you'll get moderator points less and less frequently.
While it's in the code, I didn't really believe it until I tried it - I get points once a week now just by bringing up the funny/interesting/informative and letting other people deal with the crap.
*shrug*
John Walker's book mentions the "mechanics of mitochondria" - para. 1. Doesn't he mean the mechanics of metachlorians?
Ceci n'est pas une
Actually, you're still better off with the OJ. Although it has more calories, it's a good thing to drink if you're genuinely hungry but can't eat a meal yet. It definitely takes the edge off your hunger. Can't say the same for a soda.
If you're just thirsty, though, go for water.
Have you read the Moderation Guidelines Addendum?
This was NOT the topic I meant to reply to..
"And fat is not nutritious. "
This just isn't true. Olives, nuts and certain kinds of fish all have fat in them that is good for your heart and the fish (and flax seeds) contain omega 3 fatty acids.
Exercise is more important than diet (assuming that you don't consume anything that really is bad for you, even in small quantities).
Consistency is important. Don't start a lifestyle that you can't continue.
Don't have unrealistic expectations. The mainstream media promote images of the human body that are neither realistic nor desirable. Having fat is natural and being too thin is to be avoided. Being fat is better than starving or being anorexic.
How much you eat ought to take care of itself, so watch what you eat instead. Don't allow yourself to become obsessed with food. If you can, eat plenty of dull healthy (low in sugar and fat, but perhaps high in other forms of energy) food and keep yourself busy between meals (you'll not be tempted to snack and the work will make you fitter). If you require pleasure from eating, then eat healthy food that is nice. No one needs to consume chocolate, ice cream, sugary drinks, etc.
Don't let it get in the way of things that are important to you. After all, you want to be fit for a reason.
... _Fats and Oils_ by Udo Erasmus, later reissued under a less "Fats and Oils" kind of title, maybe out-of-print again who knows.. anyway, read it and weep..
hemp seed oil is best vegetable source of important Omega3 fatty acids, but you'll never get any from them since they are heated to sterilize and heat destroys fatty acids.. hence the weeping...
To lose weight, eat less calories.. to tone body mass, excercise enough (or more)...
I trie dworking out regularly, it always make me hungry...&*$
"Fight plaque, not Iraq"
21 and strong as i can be/ i know what freedom means to me/ and i can't give a reason why/ I should ever wanna die-ee
NO KNOWN DIET WORKS ... As it stands today, if you are fat and want to not be fat, the only scientifically proven method is a fat prison. A place where you are literally locked up and unable to eat. ... eat what you will and be happy
Translation: I have, or have convinced myself that I have such poor self control that I that I will eat myself into a stupor unless I am physically restrained from doing so. I am unwilling to change myself. Furthermore I have convinced myself that all other overweight people are like this too. This defeatist attitude is my justification for my habits.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Yes, I understand where the number comes from, but I was just subtracting my daily Calorie intake from the 2,500 recommended for an average guy, and adding up the differences. Apparently, I'm a perfect example of a guy whose build and activity levels correspond to needing exactly 2,500 Calories a day to maintain weight, and furthermore my activities over the period were 100% efficient at burning fat to make up the shortfall. Or maybe I was just lucky in that the differences from these ideal figures cancelled out... :o)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yes that was intentional, was curious how long it would take for someone to notice. :)
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes,
A low-carb diet will fool a person into eating less
calories!
Hoorah! Why? Because MORE people like to eat the food and the quantities on these diets and will STICK WITH THEM.
The problem with losing weight for most people is NOT physiology. It is psychology. Not willpower but moment to moment instincts being activated by our most basic activity - eating food that our bodies instinctively like and desire.
Yeah lean meat is good; fish (particularly oily fish) is as good or better
Only problem is that fish tend to rot and hide it very well (merchants often pour sea-water on fish to hide the smells of decay), they also absorb polution better than plants.
If you eat fish or other sea-food, better buy it alive and have the butcher kill it for you; it won't solve the polution problem, but at least you'll know it's fresh.
Working for necessity's mother.
Low-fat food is just as nutitrious as high-fat food, but more healthy because it contains less fat.
That has yet to be confirmed. Fat is not necessarily bad.
You eat the same amount of it because your body needs a certain volume to feel full, not because you have to reach a certain fat-content before you can stop eating.
The parent post was implying that your body eats to obtain a certain amount of *calories* before it feels satisfied (not volume). Since fat packs more calories per pound than any other digestible ingredient, you can eat much less fatty food than low-fat food, and yet be just as sated. Furthermore, most fats have a certain chemical component which when broken down in your stomach makes you feel fuller than you really are.
But take all claims with a grain of salt (especially what the government says about healthy eating - they know less than anyone in the field and even the people in the field aren't sure what the answers are).
See:
Thread on food
Comprehensive NY Times article discussing fat in diet
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I was extremely wary of this low-carb stuff, but after doing some research, I decided to give it a try.
And it worked, undoubtedly. Not only did I lose fat, which was plainly obvious in the mirror and with my clothes, but I built muscle, which was plainly obvious in the gym. And this effect has been shown in studies (losing fat while gaining muscle on a low-carb diet). Not only that, but I felt FANTASTIC for the two weeks I was on it.
Here's the catch... you eat less carbs, but not less -calories-. This is only one approach to a low-carb diet, but that's what I tried. A typical breakfast might be 2 egg + 2 egg white omelet with lots of chicken or ham, and cheese, plus 4 sausage links on the side. I'd snack plenty between all my meals, and all my meals would be a pretty large serving of food. Remember to take your vitamins, and Bob's your uncle.
Unfortunately, trying to eat foods with no or extemely little carbs was something I just couldn't keep up... I love to cook, and I love food wayyyyyy too much. But I was indeed thoroughly impressed by the results and experienced no ill effects. Don't starve yourself, take your vitamins, and don't severly restrict your carbs for too long (2-4 weeks, I'd say), and <infomercial>You too can lose weight fast!!</infomercial>
Whatever, dude! How many hours of exercising will it take to burn 10,000 calories? Hrm, more than I would spend working a full time job each day? Just exercising isn't the right answer for people who no longer know when they are hungry and just eat when they feel like eating.
In late 2001 my brother weighed 338 and decided he wanted to lose some tonnage. What he did was so simple; eat less, move more. He didn't change his diet very much, just smaller portions and more water. He walked more and did a little exercise, like stationary bike or tredmill every once-and-a-while. He did this (and is still doing it) and after 6 or 8 months was down to 253 and has been staying there since. I tried it for 6 months last year and went from 250 to 228 in 4 months. Unfortunatelly I fell off the plan and am now back up to 242. I'll have to get back to it one of these days. We wish we could get my other brother to try something... He's somewhere in the 450 range.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
I have been tracking my weight loss for the past 54 days using a low fat, high carb diet and exercise. The daily diary tell exactly what I ate and how much exercise I did. On one of the entries there is a spreadsheet for calculating weight loss for a male based on exercise and calorie intake. The log is linked off my web page at
http://homepage.mac.com/rgbuice
To this point the speadsheet is not exactly accurate (based on my 54 days of data), but it seems to be close. My doctor told me that in 15 years he has never had one patient successful with the Atkins type diet. I started off at 315 and am now about 270. That's not bad for 54 days!
The only thing that works is exercise and the 40-40-30 (protein, carbs, fat) diet. You have to stay consistent with both. If you can't jog or workout in the gym, walk for 1/2 hour a day. The "experts" keep changing their fad diets and exercises every year.
;) .
Remember how the ab exercise equipment was supposed to give everyone "washboard" abs and the exercise equipment from Suzanne Summers was supposed to give women great thighs and asses. Well I don't see the abs or the asses
If you don't lose weight from walking, its more exercise and more relaxing than coding 12/7. Think of it more as a stress relief. Ask your work to give you 1/2 hour a day to go for a walk particularly if you're working 10+ hour days.
IMO its better to take of your body and your career. Not just the latter. Your career will end prematurely otherwise.
My point is that a sane diet involves looking at everything you ingest, not just food.
[this
Been doing low-carb diets (two of them, one twice and one once) for over 3 years now, and I can give folks some useful facts without all of the confusing opinion that everyone wants to throw in:
;-) When you go back to a "normal" diet, you'll find you can gain the weight back very fast (I gained about 90% back)
1. If you simply eliminate 80-90% of the rice, other grains (and products made from them like bread), starchy roots, and sugars from your diet, you will lose weight.
2. Cheating is good. Simply put, if you do the above you pretty much need to cheat in order to maintain some balance in your diet. I recommend a glass of OJ or V8 at least once a week and a bowl of high-fiber cereal once a week (Fiber One has a good fiber/carb ratio).
3. Losing is easy, so is gaining. The problem is that you have to have an exit-plan because after a year of this diet, you may have lost 50 lbs like I did, but you're going to be sick of not eating sandwiches.
4. The Carbohydrate Addicts diet is somewhat less effective, but does give you a major win: dinner.
I started my original diet again and a doctor suggested, for reasons unrelated to weight, that I switch to the CA diet (you can find the book just about anywere, but you don't need it). The diet is simple: even more strict carb reduction with no snacks coupled with a one-hour dinner of whatever the heck you want. The book has some maintenance plans that basically leave you on the diet permanently in a way that is not very difficult live with. The way this diet works is by tricking the body's insulin-release process. By eating low carbs for 2 meals and then limiting yourself to one hour for your "reward dinner", you end up processing that dinner pretty much the same way as you would a low-carb meal.
5. The cold hard truth is that while a low-carb diet will work, excersise still can't be beat. If you get 20 contiguous, minutes or more of sweat-inducing activity in per day, at least 3 days per week, the aerobic benefit is gigantic.
Good luck all!
I agree, although some competetive weight lifters eat upwards to that amount every day just to maintain muscle mass :)
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Check out Weight Watchers. It's a pretty easy-to-follow system to help you eat nutritiously, especially if you find the Hacker's Diet nearly incomprehensible.
Native americans ate mostly meat? Maybe the few purely nomadic ones, but the majority of the seasonal nomadic types had maize, potatoes, and other more local starches.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
With this kind of articles even women will start reading
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
What a retard.
Yeah, it's really obvious that Jared from Subway weighs more than he ever did.
All of his lean muscle mass has him pushing the scale at 420 lbs.
Oops, it's slight of hand, they just also burned off 10 pounds of water.
Um, no one carries 10 pounds of water they can just "lose". It doesn't work like that.
But of course, you're clearly a Ph.D. in biochemistry, so we should all just shut up.
Or maybe you don't know what the hell you're talking about? Nah, that's not it.
This is not the Atkins diet... this is a sure way to drive yourself insane...
Even the atkin's diet, the most restrictive of the low-carb diets, has you go down to =20 carbs a day only durring the first phase: Induction. After which you increase your carb count durring the next 3 stages.
I have done this and do *not* suggest it if you don't want to feel destroyed for the first week to 4 weeks. Extreme carb restriction is fine if that 's the way you want to do it, but go slowly and decrease to that level slowly. By going slowly you will build up the enzymes that help digest fats and proteins... it's the lack of these enzymes that causes brain fog and extreme fatigue, etc. durring atkin's first phase.
Want to know the secret of Atkins: he causes you pain and suffering in the first phase to cause an extreme diaretic effect leading to major body weight loss of mostly water. This is the "miracle" of atkins. Afterwards you lose weight at the same rate like you were doing a low fat diet... the difference and *only* difference between a low carb and a low fat diet is this:
1) Low carb diet helps reduce how much one eat's for a large chunk of the population (not everyone though! Still will be easier to control your portions if you eat this way though.)
2) Low carb diets, while not helping you lose *weight* faster do help a lot with body composition. You will lose a larger percentage of *fat* versus lean body mass (muscles and organs) then on a high carb / low fat diet...
That's it! There are no "metabolic advantages! There are no fat mobilizing hormones like Atkin's describes. He's a nut job mostly... but that doesn't mean the low carb diet can't be done and done well to great effect.
But low carb versus low fat is just about optimizing things. The real equation is calories in = calories out to maintain weight. If you want to lose weight, burn more calories then you take in. If you are gaining weight then you are taking in more calories then you are burning. Simple...
The *best* and most healthy way to lose weight is to increase exercise _first_ and primarily. Then only slightly reduce calorie consumption. Create a deficit in this manor... it's the best for healthy and sustainable weight loss... otherwise you will eventually go nuts cutting insane amounts of calories. Exercise is the key to success people... period.
Use the Z-modem protocol between Information Superhighway routers to compress the plaintext. ~LordOfYourPants
"Medical rasons" and "cosmetic weight loss" are obviously very broad. So, what are likely goals for weight loss?
- Fighting a risk of heart disease
- Pleasing the physician
- Complying with social expectations
- Looking more like a movie star
- Experimenting with human engineering
- Adapting to a new lifestyle
- "Feeling better"
- ...
Not that the goals have to be very specific, but I really think we should know why we diet. Whatever the reasons, they are personal and legitimate from one's own perspective.Food is on my mind a lot these days for two reasons. First, I'm trying to "get into shape": I was starting to get exhausted every time I raced up a set of stairs and it was a good time for me to get into a more active lifestyle. (I did read Walker's "Hacker's Diet" and even use the Palm version of the "Eat Watch" but I don't necessarily follow it as a diet plan).
Second, I'm scheduled to teach an intro-level anthro class soon and food is an important part of human experience. Obviously, while eating is "just" a biological need, culture plays a huge part on how people perceive food, weight, and health. One would say that, in the grand scheme of things, the body is as much a part of culture as any other human product.
Oh, BTW, the US Dept. of Agriculture has a searchable nutrient database. There's even a free (beer) version for Palm.
Alexandre http://enkerli.wordpress.com/
If you eat fish or other sea-food, better buy it alive and have the butcher kill it for you...
Buy? What's this buying stuff? I buy flies and lures; the fish are free (well, after I've paid Big Brother for the privilege of trying to eat).
/me gloating about his boss paying him to go fishing...and providing the airplane to fly to the stream
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
"... the zonisamide group lost 14.1 pounds of body weight versus 2.2 pounds for the group on placebo."
Remember, a doctor can prescribe a drug for a different disease than it was originally approved for. This means that a new diet drug, mechanism unknown, is available now.
once you get to 10% or so bodyfat (and perhaps even more than that - closer to 12% even), you stop responding as well to the low carb diet.
the overall result that you want is a caloric deficit. you need good fats, and you need protein in order to maintain (And even gain) muscle mass. therefore, the obvious part to modify would be the carb intake. reducing carb intake results in your body having to modify its goals from burning carbs as fuels to ketones - this process takes about 2-3 weeks and can leave you "spacy" in that time. for this reason alone, many people never make it through that period - especially people in our field that need to be sharp in the head in order to work well - high carb diets leave plenty of brain fuel - as do low carb diets over time, but your body has to adapt to it.
other things to consider would be the number of mitochondria in your muscles and how much energy they expend - you want to maximize these in order to raise your metabolism. in order to maximize these, you maximize muscle mass. in order to do that, you have to have the amino acids available to do that, so you need protein intake to be high enough (roughly 1g of protein per pound of body mass is plenty to gain muscle if you are working out).
also consider that protein is more thermogenic - when your body processes it, it takes energy to act on it, giving off heat as a byproduct - which is excess energy expendature, meaning your burning more calories.
in the end, if you have a high % bodyfat (20% or higher), then the low carb diet will make you lose fat very quickly and noticably.
once you get down closer to 15-18%, try the cyclic diet where you go 5 days of low carbs, and then you "carb-up" on the weekends. with this method you will get down even further and you can even add muscle mass on it (rare on other diets).
then once you get under 10-12% bodyfat, you can then switch to an isocaloric diet with a refeed on the weekend and you get the carbs for your mental function (if you don't like the way you feel when burning ketones), you get your fat loss from lowered caloric intake, you maintain muscle, and then the refeeds on the weekends lead to anabolism for a good part of the week.
I personally find exercise to be most effective for me. I can eat more carbs if I want, but low glycemic carbs - then I can train and burn calories that way.
when you burn 10K cals or more in a day, it doesn't matter too much what you eat if you are getting the correct nutrients.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
I don't think I could give up rice. Not only do I like it for things at home but no rice = no sushi. I dunno that I could live without sushi :)
Oh, and then there is beer as well....
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
Yes, but if you are consuming more calories than you're eating, on a regular basis, your metabolism will slow to compensate. The result: you'll be hungry, tired, and won't really lose that much weight. And when you give up on the diet, your slower metabolism will take a while to compensate for increased intake-- so you'll gain your fat back.
Similarly studies have shown (I don't have them available) that people who switch to light cigarettes in an attempt to aid their health just end up smoking more of them so that they get the same amount of nicotine, and as a result actually hurt their health.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
10000 calories was not intended to be taken literally. (If anyone ate 10000 calories a day I expect they would explode. This is something like 5 times the amount of energy your body uses in a day).
My "diet" plan was written in the style of other diets, a lot of which say e.g. eat anything you like as long as you don't eat more than 1800 calories etc. the 10000 was intended to signify that as long as you do some exercise every day, you can more or less eat what you want.
The sedentary western lifestyle is the reason that so many people are obese. The huge prevalance of cancer in the western world is a symptom of people eating more food than their body needs (in addition to constant exposure to small quantities of many harmful chemicals in city air and in food/water etc.) People who exercise live longer, healthier lives. It is as simple as that.
Humans (particularly males, hence the size/strength adaptations) evolved in an environment where they would be physically exerting themselves a lot of the time. Humans did not evolve to sit in front of the telly/at a desk/on the internet for 70% of their waking life.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
You see fat Americans, Americans are the only ones eating sugar all the time, the asians eat rice, but they have been doing it for thousands of years and their genes have adapted, you try eating rice for a while and see what happens.
I know one fat asian guy - he eats lots of rice and sugary stuff, plus he doesn't exercise. Genes are mostly irrelevant - eat too much carbo or eat more than you burn and you will gain weight.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Bzzzt. Wrong again.
See, you lost me here. I agreed with your arguments up to this point, but "Bzzt. Wrong again" makes you look like an ass.
I am overweight(yet quite active, basketball, raquetball, etc)
People who are skinny seem to fall in 3 catagories
1. Very high metabolism
and/or
2. Exercise ALOT
and/or
3. Stop eating when they are full
Since most people are #1, can't do #2, if you have to go with #3.
But losing weight is quite simple.
When you are full stop eating, and don't eat again until you are hungry again.
I know it is much much harder than it sounds. But this seems to be the only reasonable way to lose weight and keep it off. These low carb or low fat diets seem to be alot of work, and I can't believe they are the most healthy diets.
Plus, if you teach yourself to stop when you are full, don't eat until you are hungry, it becomes easy to lose or mantain weight yet you still eat generally what you want, just not as much of it.
Now if I could only follow my advice.
Using the same logic, one can treat kidney failure by drinking less fluid - if you drink only as much fluid as you lose, you cant get fluid retention and swell up (as people in kidney and heart failure tend to do).
This is not 100% accurate. In normal mammals in the wild, this would surely be true, but humans do not consume a natural diet. Salt and alcohol are two substances which will cause water retention. Another major culprit is cooked food, as heat damaged proteins cannot be utilized by your body and instead are secreted through your sweat glands as a waste product (same way as certain proteins in onions, giving your sweat a different odor). All protein is hydophobic, thus resulting in water retention in the outer layer of your skin. This results in acne, dry skin, and in many people facial edema.
Delete a gene from a mouse, and it gets fat, even on the same caloires of a normal mouse.
I have heard this before, but there was no such study. The gene in question seemed to involve hunger. The mice in question did consume more calories than the other mice. You cannot magically produce fat from nothing. A glucose molecule or a fatty acid molecule is the same size in an ant, elephant, or mouse. These people were also feeding mice wheat based pellets, ignoring a well known fact that wheat products contain opioid peptides and are addictive. Most likely, the genes had nothing to do with hunger but response to mu-opioid agonists, ie those mice crave opioid drugs more than others. This is also the case with humans. Opioid peptides derived from wheat and dairy products are added to pretty much every junk food. MSG is another addictive substance.
Point is, we didn't spend thousands of years in evolution without developing tight regulation of our metabolism.
There is not tight regulation as you speak, your metabolic activity is supposed to be tightly connected to appetite. Unfortunatley, our shift to a diet of cooked food, wheat, and dairy products has created a situation where people aren't craving the food but the drugs they contain. You have a drug delivery system rich in calories.
Thus the problem with simply dieting - for most people, in the long run, it just doesn't work.
It can easily work, if people eliminate addictive foods from their diet. But to comment on your statement, if what you say is true, then all hope is lost for the human race.
Because they are fighting their programming.
Programming? You mean like genetic programming? It is an absolute myth, plain and simple, that human beings are predisposed to gluttony. It is simply not true. A simple survey of photographs from past would show you that humans today are SICK, and it is not normal. Food has been plentiful in the US for most of its entire existence, yet obesity of the level today simply did not exist in the 19th century and early 20th century. Look at pictures of the beach at Coney Island in 1920 for example, when food was plentiful in NYC. There were no fat people at all.
There are plenty of examples, but the evidence is overwhelming that humans eating a normal western diet are following an addictive behavior pattern, not a normal human one.
I will give you a hint, governments do not want it to become widely known that opioid drugs are found throughout our food supply. It is only a secondary reason that companies add them so that profits increase due to customers eating and buying more of their crap. Governments want opioid drugs in foods because they create contentment in the people. Secondary effects like asthma and constipation are also quite handy in keeping a people from revolting.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Granted, as you lose weight your body needs less calories to maintain its basal metabolism, so it does get harder to lose weight, but these things aren't dramatically scalable: if you eat like a pig, you don't just develop a super-fast metabolism, you gain weight. If you starve yourself, you don't just slow your metabolism, you lose weight too.
I've done some research into this (using the Hacker's Diet as a jumping off point), and have lost 17 pounds (9% of my total starting weight) since Jan 8th -- a pretty sustainable (hopefully permanent) weight loss on a new eating regimen that doesn't feel like a diet or leave me feeling deprived -- I just don't feel like a glutton any more.
The key is to go slowly. And I'm not saying that excersize isn't important, just that you can't ignore diet as well.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
My birthday is coming up (the "big" 3-0, of course) - so I thought it would be in my best interest to have a full physical done. I had an idea that when the blood work came back, there would be hell to pay. I am your typical geek - little in the way of exercise, high fat/high carb food consumption (ie, Jack in the Box and KFC on a weekly basis, lots of home cooked meals like polish sausage and fried potatoes, grilled rib-eye steak, homemade fried pork chops), and worst of all, funky eating habits (no breakfast, no lunch, three helpings at dinner).
That all changed when I got my blood work back the next week, and was prescribed Lipitor for high cholesterol.
Attention all geeks - I cannot stress this enough - if you are overweight and eat like I eat, get your blood work done, and change your habits - before they get to a point where they kill you. It isn't hard to do, and can be a little fun (ok, not much - but it is interesting, to say the least).
Ok, so now I am on Lipitor for the immediate future. As soon as I got my bloodwork back, I was what could be called something like "low-high" range - in that I had more than reccommended total cholesterol (a bit over 200), a lot more of the bad cholesterol, and less than needed (a lot less) of the good cholesterol. I immediately (the night I picked up my prescription) changed my diet and my habits.
1. No more fast food, unless it is a healthy alternative like Subway (no mayo, etc), or some kind of chinese food (chicken and white rice, but the chicken can't be fried).
2. No more fried foods.
3. Eat on a regular basis - I now eat a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner, all normal size portions - no more triple-helpings at "dinner".
4. Eat more grilled foods - chicken and seafood mainly, every now and then, pork (lean chops). The upside is that I love chicken - I just can't have it fried.
5. Eat more baked foods - lemon-pepper baked salmon and rice - yum!
6. Take a walk on regular basis - I now walk about 1-2 miles every evening after I eat.
7. Park further away from places - this isn't something I always do, but I do more often now - not only do you get a parking space all the time, but you get a bit of exercise as well.
8. No more "sweets" - ie, processed snack cakes, candy bars, etc.
9. Drink less soda - no more 44 oz drinks from Circle K - I drink a lot more water now, I also buy flavored/carbonated water. I also drink a fair amount of soy milk (Silk brand is the best I have found, so far).
10. If you drink milk, go with 1-2%, and where you can stand it, drink soy milk as I noted above - I tend to buy vanilla flavored, and have it with cherrios for my breakfast.
11. Eat more fruit and vegetables - steam your vegatables when/where you can - or roast them, or bake them, or have them raw.
12. When you are full, stop eating - this isn't as hard if you are eating regularly. When I switched to a breakfast/lunch/dinner schedule of eating, I found out I was eating a lot less food, and I filled up quickly.
When you buy food, look for the lowest of everything on the back - however, most of the time you will have to compromise. Typically, if it is low fat, it is high carb - or it will be vice-versa. Rarely will you find foods (especially processed foods) that are "perfect" in all categories. Many foods are actually completely "empty" - they have calories, and that's it - Redi-Whip is like this. What is nice about these is that if you keep your daily calorie count low enough, you can use redi-whip, chocolate syrup, and low-fat vanilla ice cream and have a nice "sweet" that isn't too bad for you.
Eat more fish and seafood - salmon, catfish and others are pretty good eats, prepared right. Just don't dip in batter and fry - bake or grill instead. Grilled pork chops with barbeque sauce are fi
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
and don't forget that, pound for pound, fat contains 9 times the caloric content of sugar!
;-)
bzzt, wrong. (ahem.)
Carbs & protien: 4 calories/gram
Alcohol: 7 cal/g
Fat: 9 cal/g
So, you're kinda right, there is a '9' in there, so maybe you just had a typo, but the proper ratio is 2.25x. Not ragging on you, just wanted to make sure future readers knew the proper facts.
And I'm not positive but I think the ratios hold up when you switch to Imperial measurements.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
At first I thought good idea, then realized it wouldn't work--it would lead to the question "what part of the post was incorrect?" better to reply with the relevant facts, preferrably soon enough to get modded up. :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"A lot of people don't realize that resistance training is essential to losing weight"
"I get a lot of funny looks when I mention this"
"Obviously, resistance training is essential to increasing the muscle tissue and resting metabolic rate."
So, if it's obvious, *why* do you get funny looks when you mention it. You're quite correct, but the problem is that people have been lead to believe that you use resistance training to bulk up and cardio to lose weight. It's astonishing how often you see fatties sweating it out on a treadmill and never going near the weights. Fools.
So many people think you either have to be vegetarian or not. Everything's on a scale, though. Yes, you can be a strict vegan and still be strong and healthy (ever heard of Carl Lewis?), but this takes some knowledge of nutrition to make sure you get all the protein you need.
:)
So many people stop there, but it does make a difference if you just try to minimize the amount meat you eat, and avoid things like veal that require particularly unpleasant lives for the animals. If you have a choice between two things that look good on the menu and one is vegetarian, go with that one. Personally, I'm *almost* vegetarian; I still eat poultry occasionally, and pepperoni pizza.
Raise your kids this way too, and maybe your daughters won't hit puberty at 9 like the bulk of her McDonalds-fed classmates.
If you don't know any of the various negatives to eating meat, do some research... hormones, antibiotics, colon cancer risks, often unnecessarily cruel conditions for the animals, environmental damage, etc. etc.. Just be aware and choose some reasonable compromise from there.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
You're right that OJ has a few more calories... but how much will you drink over an entire day?
How many calories are in 16 or 20 oz of juice?
What about a 6-pack (or more) of 12-oz colas?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
http://www.musclegaintips.com/
Yes, the guy is for real. Yes, it works. You can find him in:
http://www.bodyofwork.com/
A common assumption made by these diets is that without heightened blood sugar (and consequently insulin) levels, the body will not so readily metabolise or store fat.
I've been reading half a dozen (I like to do my research) books on the subject by various authors and am quite convinced that it is not purely low calorie intake that is helping me. I believe I'm consuming far more calories (meats, cheeses etc.) than I would be allowed to on a low fat or low calorie diet.
When one looks at hot potato chips as being just about as bad for you by weight as a block of good Swiss chocolate, the priorities naturally change.
An aside for people getting into the low carbohydrate diets, GI is not the be all and end all, there are plenty of examples where GI does not hold up as a valid measure, one also needs to take into account the GL of foods. I'd highly recommend reading:
A very interesting article on GI/GL
The Glycemic Index - By Rick Mendosa
http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm
Seventy something landscape A4 pages of GI/GL data
Revised International Table of Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL Values--2002) By Rick Mendosa
http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
At the rate I'm loosing weight (16lb/month) without starving myself of the good things in life (juicy steak & a good Greek salad), I'm not changing anything.
Plants have cholesterol too. More than enough for hormone synthesis needs, actually. This fact has been well-known by dieticians and doctors for decades.
No offense but what the hell are you talking about?
AFAIK plants contain similar steroids, but no cholesterol.
Ramen, Ramen, Ramen is not on the approved list.
I should hope not - the thought! Only varelse are for eating. You should have known better.
The theory goes that carbohydrates (starches and sugars) are easily (quickly) converted to glucose. This causes an overabundance of glucose in the blood, and an insulin spike. The insulin spike reduces the blood glucose levels by causing the excess glucose to be stored as fat.
The argument goes that the insulin spike eventually results in hunger, as the glucose level is reduced. So shortly after you eat a heavy dose of carb calories, you find yourself craving more, and a lot of those calories have gone into fat storage. Atkins & co. say that by avoiding these easily-converted-to-Glucose substances (carbohydrates), you reduce insulin spikes and their aftereffects.
I also understand that there's an additional effect touted by these diets: your body converts fat into Ketones, which do not burn as efficiently as Glocose. Some of them are flushed right out of your body without being consumed.
Is this summary incorrect? I've heard many refutations of the Atkins theory, but they rarely meet his arguments dead on. Even the "meta-study" mentioned above misses the point-- that low-carb diets often work where "normal" diets fail, because they control appetite. I personally have tried the Atkins diet, and though I would never repeat the experience, I have to admit that I did steadily lose weight for a while without being hungry. Of course, I craved carbs more than anything in the world and could barely run a mile...
Understanding the Kreb's cycle is important, but it's not the full story.
Do you even understand why a food's GI is important? How the insulin response affects the availability of different fuels? The difference between juvenile and adult-onset diabetes, and why so many public health officials are terrified by the latter's appearance in teenagers and even children? (Or why some people think that's tied to the widespread availability of soft drinks to children?)
Finally, do you know the real history behind the food pyramid? It was covered by several of its authors in a recent Scientific American piece on a revised pyramid.
The Kreb's cycle is important, and far too many diet authors push their own agendas. But claiming that the Kreb's cycle is all you need to know is comparable to saying that you understand, oh, memory management and therefore you understand everything involved in a modern OS & applications.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Let me just kick in here and bolster this: going on Atkins does not mean automatically eating less food. Overweight people probably should eat less food, but low-carb diets do not primarly work by reducing calories, as mhanoh says above.
Now, why would people be making claims like this? FUD. The sales of Carb-rich food (simple carbs in stuff like Pringles, Cocoa Puffs, Snackwells, yogurt, ad nauseum) = Big Business. And Slashdot readers know what happens when Big Business is threatened with reduced profits. Letting someone borrow a book is committing Print Piracy, right? Reducing your intake of simple carbs -- or even most carbs -- is anywhere from "not really working" to "bad for your health", depending on where you listen.
As a guy who's lost 35 lbs and kept it off with Atkins + reasonable exercise, I can tell you that those ideas are FUD -- and untrue.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
My gout prohibits a high protien diet. What am I supposed to do, eat Crisco? ;)
.....go and live in Iraq with no money. We would sure lose some weight then.
Lost about 30lbs myself, shouldn't lose any more..
I think that Atkins can/does reduce appetite, and therefore the total amount of calories consumed.
Contrast with low fat diets, which directly reduce calories but are harder to follow because they don't reduce appetite.
As far as big business goes, this is correct. Low-fat, highly processed products are a big money spinner - you are replacing relatively expensive things (meat, butter, etc) with cheap starches, AND selling for a bigger markup. It's much harder to do low-carb processed food, and heaven forbid people stop eating processed food at all..
He does have some point, actually. After all, if dieting is so effective and so easy, why are there fat people? The only answer is - it's not easy. And that means, there are people for whom it's so hard that they can't do it. Having a brain that won't perform a particular behaviour is no different to having a damaged muscle - they're both broken body chemistry.
If the body is seriously hungry, it is capable of generating "hey, eat stuff!" impulses at a level lower than you can block with your conscious mind - just like if you haven't slept properly for days, you can't stop yourself nodding off, no matter how important it is that you don't. Using willpower against your own body's urges tends to be a losing battle, and you just wind up beating yourself up for eating.
This doesn't mean that you can't lose weight by dieting, though: it just means that fat people don't deserve to be insulted or attacked because they don't immediately go down to a diet of one lettuce leaf per day. This is one of the advantages of the Atkins diet: although it might be true that "low carbs don't make a difference, it only works because you're eating less", high-fat foods make you feel fuller, and are less of a jolt to the system for people who are used to eating a lot of fat.
I accept that there are some obese people with serious problems in this regard. I have great doubts though if the majority of overweight people are like this. I think it's a cop-out to avoid changing a pattern of behaviour that is good in the short term but bad over time.
Even then, there are a large number of things to do to encourage yourself to eat less. Note that none of them have anything to do with having the willpower to not raise the spoon to your mouth, or with weird food diets.
For instance,
- If late at night, you can't resist a slice of chocolate cake that's in your fridge, then WHY WAS IT IN YOUR FRIDGE IN THE FIRST PLACE? If you don't buy it you can't eat it.
- If your stomach is empty, drink a glass of water. If you have to eat, eat an apple. Or brown rice, or something low-calorie.
- Blood sugar levels and the feeling of satiety lags eating. If you still feel hungry after eating a moderate portion, wait 20 minutes.
- Eat three times a day, every day. No more, no less. Don't snack, don't alternate between binging and fasting.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
YOu refer to bodybuilding knowledge like if it was the greatest thing.
Bodybuilders also regularly use harmful ways to enhance their muscle mass, disregarding any effects for their general health.
Your statements about crabohidrates are ludicrous.
Nature chooses the path of less resistence, so it ie enough to look how many more mammals are vegetarian than carnivores. This is not casual, meat (protein) is much harder to process than sugar (carbs). Whoever told you all that stuff about protein is eithr lying to you or is focusing the information in a very narrow point of view with very narrow objectives (perhaps growing body muscle?) that have nothing to do with the general good health of a normal individual.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... then clearly that fad did not work.
The only think that works is education, and education in synthesis says that what matters in the long term is moderation and variety.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Exactly. For example, many "light" or "reduced salt" soya sauces are merely diluted versions of the original recipe, meaning you pour twice as much sauce on the meal as before, so it just costs you more.
RTFIngredientsLabel.
Come back in 2 years and then tell us where your weight is. Amazing how with one freaking month you can judge this fad as the greatest thing since slaiced bread. Talk about short termism.
YOu are not changing your lifestyle, you are recurring to panic measures.
Eat well (less of most stuff, more variety), exercise more.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Please, don't confuse the ability to lose weight with being healthy. You could starve yourself and lose weight, but not be healthy. Read this article from Scientific American. Read other scientific articles on health. If you follow some crazy diet just to lose weight, you may face bigger health problems down the road.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Well said. Of course, you can't build muscle by just eating protein. So start lifting those 22" trinitron monster monitors!
:-D
Aha! Something we can finally blame the LCD monitor manufacturers for!
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
From what I understand, if you lose weight too rapidly your body starts cutting muscle tissue as a way to slow your metabollism, even if you strength train. The muscle loss and its associated reduction in metabollism can take years of resistance training to fix.
It's only supposed to be an issue if your calorie deficit is very high, something like 750 calories a day or more. That's how yo-yo dieting happens.
That has yet to be confirmed. Fat is not necessarily bad.
No, and in fact your body needs to intake some amount of fat to live - the 'essential fatty acids' or those that your body can't syntyesize.
Cholesterol, though, is generally considered to be bad (HD vs LD debate notwithstanding) and eating certain types of fats (saturated fats) causes lots of cholesterol in your body. So probably best to avoid saturated fats as much as possible (usually animal fats).
The parent post was implying that your body eats to obtain a certain amount of *calories* before it feels satisfied (not volume). Since fat packs more calories per pound than any other digestible ingredient, you can eat much less fatty food than low-fat food, and yet be just as sated. Furthermore, most fats have a certain chemical component which when broken down in your stomach makes you feel fuller than you really are.
But there's also the immediate feeling of fullness caused just by the volume of food in your stomach, and in that case, this argument is reversed. That is, eating X volume of fat causes you to feel about the same as X volume of carbohydrates or protein, but contains more than twice the calories. True that in the longer term you will probably feel about as satisfied by taking in the same number of calories, but too many people eat until their stomachs are full, and in that case it's better to eat less calorie dense stuff.
And as an aside, I can't believe I just wrote a nutrition-related comment on slashdot..
Then I started counting calories for real and upped the level of my workout. In the last 6 months I've lost another 35 pounds, and I'm within 15 pounds of my goal weight. No fancy diets or support groups, just working out and watching what I eat.
My clothes fit loose (I'm going shopping for a new wardrobe soon), I have more energy, and I'm getting compliments from people. It takes time, but it works.
----
Most juices have a ton of sugar and almost as many calories as soda. An 8oz. serving of OJ generally contains 110 calories. An 8oz. serving of Coke is about 95 calories.
The ONLY way juices are better than sodas are the vitamins and nutrients you get.
This sig is worse than my last.
If I recall correctly, Jim Fixx was a smoker too. That could have caused his problems.
As an alternative to pop, I switched to tea. Iced, hot, whatever. As long as you drink it without putting any sugar in it, it's a nice choice to have besides just water. I figure it's probably ok for you, as when my grandma recently found out she was diabetic, her dr. told her she could drink as much tea as she wanted without causing problems with her diet. It seems to be helping me lose weight, just because all the empty sugar calories from the soda aren't in my diet anymore. And I really like it!
As a bonus, it's been suggested there are other health benefits to drinking tea.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Here, and here.
Frankly, with my relatively sedentary lifestyle, it's absolutely obvious to me that if i could manage a coke or a piece of cheesecake after physical therapy, i'd be home free. (I recommend anybody heading for a carnivore's diet to make sure that they know what gout is, because it's something that anybody making sudden changes should be aware of. )
Here is an interesting site for calculating calorie use by activity. No, it doesn't have every activity. And it's pretty general. I advise you to enter your weight- in pounds, i think, and put the counter at 1 minute. Then multiply that by how much time you spend jumping rope, walking in circles, twiddling your thumbs, whatever- it will give you an idea of the average amount of calories someone your size burns off. I don't have to remind you that averages lie- but it will still at least be a ballpark figure.
And in the meantime, i'm up to six meals a day, and down to a size 3. In women's clothing, that means that it's very, very difficult to buy things that don't have tweety bird on them... because the odds of finding clothes that fit increase the more time i spend in the kids department.
Frankly, I say again that we've been through all of this before, and if anybody from the last debate is posting again at the same-or-higher weight after telling us how much they lost, I'm amused.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
That's an interesting analysis which fits pretty well with my idea of how capilatism deals with excess production, but I wonder if you can give me some links to more information on this topic? Especially the "addictive chemicals in our foods" bit. No offense, but it's pretty strange information and I'd like to verify it!
gcb AT alec DASH longstreth D0T com
> Does it even matter to you that human beings evolved from agrarian populations? That much of our metabolic machinery is shared at the molecular level with herbivore species? How much evidence do you need to see that we are, in fact, "designed for" carbohydrate digestion?
The facts disagree with your assertions.
According to a variety of sources (Google is your friend!), the agricultural revolution only happened about 10K years ago - not a lot of time on an evolutionary scale. Prior to that, out hominid ancestors were hunters/gatheres for some 2M years (during which meat was a significant part of their diet).
"Prior to that, out hominid ancestors were hunters/gatheres for some 2M years (during which meat was a significant part of their diet)."
And prior to that, we evolved from non-human primates, which eat diets consisting predominantly of plant material. And don't forget -- we're 99.9% identical at the genetic level to our closest non-human primate ancestors.
I could go on -- into the archeological evidence (fecal fossils, among others) that show that human diets were much heavier on fruits and vegetables than they are today, but you're good with google, so I'm sure you can find it.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
"The theory goes that carbohydrates (starches and sugars) are easily (quickly) converted to glucose. This causes an overabundance of glucose in the blood, and an insulin spike. The insulin spike reduces the blood glucose levels by causing the excess glucose to be stored as fat."
Your summary sounds correct, from what I know of Atkins. And there's a general truth to this line of thought (high blood sugar -> insulin -> fat storage), but I think it plays kind of fast and loose with the science to conclude that carbohydrates lead to fat and are therefore Bad (tm).
Insulin mediates the storage of fat, it does not cause the storage of fat. In fact, insulin really only "tells" your cells to absorb sugar from the blood. What they do with the sugar is dependent on what they're doing, and what their energy requirements are. Thus, if you're Lance Armstrong, and you eat a diet consisting almost entirely of complex carbs, and you go out and ride 100 miles, your body will probably use all of that sugar. Alternatively, if you are Jack Black, and you eat a bag of Cheese Poofs, you are, most likely, going to store all of that excess sugar as fat. Carbohydrates are not inherently bad --excesses of them are.
Now, given targets for most diet plans (overweight individuals), there's some wiggle room: many people who start the Atkins diet would do just as well on any low-calorie diet plan. The low-carbohydrate angle is really just a trendy hook that sucks people in. And I think that's what the parent article suggests -- low-carbohydrate diets achieve much of their benefits in a very traditional way (when you're on the Atkins diet, you don't eat as much).
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Oops. You're right, of course. Good catch.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
And the parent poster looked like a hell of a fine human being when he started swearing in the face of a logical argument, right?
Plants (many of them, at least) do actually contain cholesterol -- a lot of people misunderstand this. However, there is significant debate over the question of whether humans can digest it or not. I think the consensus is on the "not" side, at the moment.
Either way, the argument I was countering is moot -- the human body is perfectly capable of generating all of the cholesterol it needs. You don't need to eat meat to maintain critical hormone levels. This is why vegetarians don't end up spasming in the streets after a month or two of low/no cholesterol diets.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
That's an interesting analysis which fits pretty well with my idea of how capilatism deals with excess production
,Frister ,H. in : Barth, C.A.& Schlimme, E., Milk Proteins : Nutritional, Clinical, Functional and Technological Aspects. Darmstadt 1988 / 143.
,Opioid peptides derived from food proteins. The exorphins. J. Biol. Chem.1979 / 254 (7) / 2446-2449.
,H. et al, Milk protein-derived opioid receptor ligands. Biopolymers. 1997 / 43 (2) / 99-117.
,Substance P as neurogenic mediator of antidromic vasodilation and neurogenic plasma extravasation. Arch. Pharmacol. 1979 / 310 (2) / 175-183.
You have been reading too much marx. Excess production is pretty much irrelevant from a social standpoint. The history of wheat as a tool of social control goes way back to ancient egypt at least. As Nero said, all the people need are bread and circuses.
Industrialization was nothing more than a new way to keep the masses busy, to keep them from revolting. This was such a failure early on that compulsory schooling had to be instituted to train the masses to accept boredom, drudgery, and bureaucracy with open arms.
The fact that many companies add addictive substances to food is somewhat ancillary. It is not that they are capitalistic, it is that they operate with the express consent and support of the government.
Asthma cases are increasing by orders of magnitude every decade, the once rare condition of autism is now affected one in every 100 males. Americans spend over six billion dollars a year on laxatives. 1 in 7 americans will be on an antidepressant drug at some point in their lives.
To the powers that be that control information and regulations... none of these things seem at all connected, and that is the problem.
The guiding principle of what you and I call society is control. It is not at all based in any concept of material wealth, it is an inborn desire in every man to impose his will on another. A small portion of men use pure violence. The vast majority attempt to enslave a man's mind. Religion. Government. Schools. Social Customs. Food. Most everything you hold dear is a construction, part of the prison for your mind.
Anyway, its a huge topic. Food and drugs are a minor aspect, I would look into the history of compulsory schooling first.
but here are some citations. You can get these journal articles from the US National Library of Medicine or from a commercial service like Medline. You will probably have to go to a library to get the whole articles.
1) Meisel, H.
(2) Svedberg, J.et al, Demonstration of beta-casomorphin immunoreactive materials in in vitro digests of bovine milk and in small intestine contents after bovine milk ingestion in adult humans. Peptides 1985 / 6 / pag.825-830. , Loukas, S. et al, Opioid activities and structures of alpha-casein-derived exorphins. Biochemistry 1983 / 22 (19) / 4567-4573. , Zioudrou, C. et al
(3) Flood, J.F. et al, Increased food intake by neuropeptide Y is due to an increased motivation to eat. Peptides 1991 / 12 (6) / 1329-1332. , Koldovsky, O., Search for the role of milk borne biologically active peptides for the suckling. J.Nutr. 1989 / 119 (11) / 1543-1551.
(4) Teschemacher, H. et al, Chemical characterization and opiod activity of an exorphin isolated from in vivo digests of casein. FEBS Lett. 1986 / 196 (2) / 223-227. , Chang, K.-J. et al, Isolation of a specific mu-opiate receptor peptide, morphiceptin, from an enzymatic digest of milk proteins. J. Biol. Chem. 1985 / 260 (17) / pag. 9706-9712.
(5) Teschemacher
(6) Bell, R.R. et al, The influence of milk in the diet on the toxicity of orally ingested lead in rats. Food and Cosmetics Toxicology 1981 / 19 / 429-436. , Lembeck, F. et al
(7) Read, L.C. et al, Absorption of beta-casomorphins from autoperfused lamb and piglet
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Holy shit. A /. post with a detailed bibliography. Quick, someone call Jerry Falwall, Hell just froze over.
Once upon a time I went from a fairly big, but mostly trim 270 lbs (I was fat, but not obscenely so) to almost 400 lbs in the space of maybe 2 years (obscenely fat). Subsisting mostly on a diet of Coke, Mountain Dew, chips and McDonald's double quarter pounders.
:-)
I figured at one point my soda intake alone was nearly one half to one gallon a day. Replacing soda with water, I went from 390 lbs. to 315 in less than five months. Much of which I've put back on since I started drinking soda again (back to 365).
Good God, all you fellow fat-bodies out there. LOSE THE SUGAR!!! You've motivated me to dump, not drink, but dump this Mountain Dew down the sink, and fill it with water in a symbolic gesture of my kicking the soda habit. I did it once, maybe this time I can kick it for good? Thanks, dudes.
-Chris Kaminski
365 and counting.
It seems to go well beyond simply drawing people in, or you'd have a lot more people abandoning it after a week of eating hamburgers without the bun. I think the hook is that many people can manage their hunger better on low-carb diets, so they eat less without feeling as hungry.
If that's true, it's unfair to dismiss it as a "trendy hook". It's the core of the diet's success-- normal high-carb low-calorie diets are a recipe for hunger, because the body immediately responds by trying to get rid of them. And if you're not Lance Armstrong, you're even worse off, because your body gets rid of them by dumping them into fat.
I'm 6ft and it'd be nice to get down to 200lbs ! Of course my body was designed to carry lots of muscle, and I'm fairly strong without ever lifting weights. Everyone's different I guess... if I weighed 170, I'd be in the hospital.
The immediate cause of death was a fall that caused a head injury. Last year, Atkins received treatment for a heart condition, said to be caused by an infection unrelated to his diet.
The current average life expectancy for American men is 74.0. It's too early to start throwing questions out about Robert Atkins and his diet, but his untimely death will eventually spark them.