Weight Loss

 

When I started trying to lose weight the main things I initially did were to stop drinking soda pop, I cut out fast food, and that’s it. The weight loss was slow, very slow, but it was happening. So I got more and more dedicated and this is what seems to have worked and is still working for me. From what I have learned from reading, the internet, and magazine articles, is that when you start a diet you should begin a low-carb diet for at least the first 2 weeks as this is believed to “trick” your body into burning fat instead of carbs. When you burn calories, either naturally, which is mainly what I did, or by exercising, the body first burns the carbs that are stored in your muscles and it then burns the fat stored throughout the rest of your body. So if you don’t have those extra carbs in your body it will start burning it will start burning fat cells right away. After about 2 weeks you can slowly start to introduce carbs back into your daily meals.

Calories are separated into 3 categories with alcohol being a 4th but not a big one if you don’t drink often. The 3 categories excluding alcohol that make up calories are fat, protein, and carbs. From what I’ve come to understand is that daily you should try and keep your carbs around 45 to 55 percent, 25 to 35 percent fat, and 15 to 25 percent protein. This would be considered a balanced diet. I use the website www.caloriecount.about.com to help with and keep track of everything I eat throughout the day. After you input everything you ate or are going to eat there is an analysis button you click on and it creates a pie chart, which shows you your percentages for everything you’ve consumed. The website is not a must but it is extremely helpful and definitely recommended.

The first step in any “diet” is cutting out the junk food. I call it a “diet” because if you really change everything you consume it’s not really a diet but more of a life style change. When I first started I simply stopped drinking soda, which is crazy because that’s ALL I used to drink. I now drink water, a lot of it, teas like diet Snapple and diet Lipton, crystal light is really yummy and low on calories, and I like coffee so I use the fake creamer and Splenda. I stopped eating fast food and cut way back on Chinese food. Now I usually wait until I’ve reached a weight lose goal, say 15 lbs, then I’ll allow myself to indulge in Chinese food or whatever it is you like that’s not good for you. This way you can still enjoy the bad stuff but not all the time, and it makes you want to be that much better until you can eat it. Sometimes I won’t even want it when I get to the goal I’ve created because if I’m doing good I don’t want to hinder my progress. Below are some alternatives and tips that may be helpful.

Pasta: If you are going to eat pasta of any kind make it wheat pasta. Wheat pasta takes longer to break down in your system so it makes your metabolism work harder and burns more calories. Plus, it’s just more nutritious for you in every aspect. Regular pasta breaks down fast and goes straight to your blood stream and fills you up with carbs immediately. Avoid ramen noodles. I know they are crazy cheap and easy to make but they are not wheat and are loaded with sodium, roughly 1500 mg of sodium per pack. You want to try and aim for 2000 mg of sodium so 1500 is a lot. The extra sodium in your body dehydrates it, which slows down calorie burning and retains water weight.

Sodium: If you know you’ve had more than 2000 mg of sodium or are eating a meal high in sodium (1000 mg or so) drink plenty of water. The extra H2O keeps you hydrated and is said to flush out some of the extra sodium. Whenever I go to subway, I eat there a lot and I love it, I always get a big cup of water and make sure and drink as much of it as possible because a 6-inch sub has at least 1000 mg of sodium. Sodium wasn’t a big deal for me at first and I had no problem losing weight without watching it. But, it became more of an issue and when I started watching it more closely and choosing certain things over others, because of the lower sodium, the weight loss seamed to move along at a faster rate. Healthy Choice frozen meals are awesome for this reason. They all are low in sodium and I think they taste great.

Fruit: For the first two weeks of the low-carb meal plan do not eat fruit. It’s good for your body but is mostly carbs from sugar. Good carbs because they are natural compared to processed carbs like cookies, snacks, etc., but carbs nonetheless. After the two weeks though introduce fruit back into your meals and/or snacks as they are healthy for your body. Apples, oranges, grapes, and berries are all delicious and nutritious snacks. If you are going to eat fruit or other things rich in carbs try and balance them out by snacking on low or no carb foods such as almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds/kernels, meat, or other foods low in carbs.

Veggies: Same thing goes for veggies as did for fruit. Cut out the high carbs veggies, which are most of them except for lettuce. After the two week low carb period introduce them back in. Steamed veggies are great with a bit of butter and salt.

Bread: Always eat wheat, same concept as pasta. For sandwiches I use Pepperidge Farms 7-grain wheat bread, which only has 9 carbs per slice and 60 calories per slice. For snacks or sometimes breakfast I’ll toast with butter either Monk’s Cinnamon Raisin Bread or Pepperidge Farms Breakfast Bread. The butter evens out the carbs and protein in the bread and balances out nicely.

Water: Drink a lot. 8 to 16 cups of water a day. Things like coffee or milk (I drink soymilk but drink what you like) or tea all hydrate your body as well. Soda is what’s not good at all for you because it dehydrates you and is shown in studies to restrict weight loss and increase obesity by something like 30%. Even diet soda so stick to water. Buy crystal light if you get bored with water, or I drink diet Lipton tea and diet Snapple. Anything’s better than soda because of the syrup they use to make it. All in all, stay hydrated.

Things I Do/Things I Eat: I eat a lot. Not at one time but spread out. This is my daily nutrition summed up. Breakfast @ 6:30am, snack @ 8:30am, snack @ 10:30am, snack @ 11:30am, lunch @ 12:30pm, snack @ 3:00pm, supper @ 6:00pm. Sometimes I cut one of my snacks before lunch out and eat it after lunch instead but still, I’m snacking a lot. I love food and I love to snack so I just snack on healthy stuff instead of junk. If your not a food freak like me it should be even easier to lose the weight but make sure you try and not go more than 4 hours without eating something because your body shuts down and starts to store fat, instead of burning it. By eating healthy and snacking in between meals as to not go 4 plus hours without food, your metabolism stays burning strong. This technique reminds me of a fire. You have to keep the fire burning. As you continue to put wood on the fire burns stronger, but if you put too much on (eating too much in one sitting) it smothers the fire and takes longer for the flames to build back up. That’s why I spread everything out; it keeps my metabolism burning all day. When snacking I separate things into serving sizes and keep them in zip-lock bags. I’ll separate a serving of Sunchips, almonds, or whatever healthy snack your going to eat and take that with me instead of the whole bag or can. This way I don’t mowchow and eat more than I should have. Some other healthy snacks are wheat crackers, breakfast bars, any type of nuts, bananas, berries, apples, oranges, celery, carrots, light yogurt or non-fat yogurt. These are just some of the healthy snacks I can think that I eat. Discover what you enjoy and figure out healthy portion sizes.

Bottom Line: If you want to lose weight, you most likely will. If you dedicate yourself to eating healthy and plan ahead all it takes is time. If you make excuses about why you ate things you shouldn’t have, or why you drank things you shouldn’t have, or why you didn’t plan ahead by bringing and/or preparing snacks/meals for the day, you will never really achieve your goals. Do not eat if you know you are going to sleep soon, at least 3 hours before bed, and do not weigh yourself all the time, maybe twice a week at the most. The human body fluctuates. Weighing yourself too much just frustrates you if you don’t get the number you wanted, and if you weigh in low, it may prompt you to eat something you otherwise wouldn’t have because you think you can afford it. Any questions email me at the email on my www.caloriecount.about.com page. username is bleeb129. I hope this is useful in helping you achieve weight lose and overall living a nutritiously healthy lifestyle.

congratulations on your loss!  some great tips in there -- thanks for sharing

thanks coach_k, my post is edited and email is off, i directed them to my page if they wish to contact me. thanks again

These tips are awesome.. thanks for sharing! Hopefully more people read this and get some good info..

 

=]

hey thanks bryndhildr, i wasn't even going to post this, it was meant for people around my hometown who have noticed the big change in my weight and have asked for help. i got tired of explaining everything to them when they would probably just forget so i took some time and typed it out. pass it along to whomever you wish that may need info/help. my emails on my profile in you wanna chat or have any questions

Useful information, thanks!

However, the carb-restriction thing won't work for me to do, unless I decide to give up running for two weeks.
Already have cut out all of the non-natural carbs, though, thank goodness.

since you snack so often, can you give us a sample of your day?

Original Post by helpless:

since you snack so often, can you give us a sample of your day?

 I would be interested in seeing that as well. Thank you for sharing everything though; very practical, useful, and true facts.

Congratulations! You are an inspiration. My husband can't believe how often I eat. Every 2-3 hours I am chomping on apples, oranges or something healthy. But his calories are a lot more than mine at the end of the day. He is not over weight though.  My biggest downfall is 90 calorie lowfat granola bars that I think I will quit buying. I eat 2 a day and they have too much sugar.

Thanks for sharing!

thanks for the replys everyone, its good to see ppl actual read it, i really hope some of it helps. sure, heres what  i ate the other day. its usually the same, just a little different when it comes to lunch and supper, snacks are usually the same changing here and there.

breakfast @ 6:30am: 2 cups kashi strawberry fields cereal and 2 cups silk soymilk unsweetened, snack @ 9am: 1 slice of monks bread raisin cinnamon, 1 slice pepperidge farms blueberry breakfast bread. both toasted with about 1 tbsp ICBINB lite, snack @ 11am: 1 serving of harvest cheddar sunchips, lunch @ 12:30pm: healthy choice beef tips portobela and a yoplait lite yogurt cup, snack @ 2pm: 1 serving of almonds, snack @ 3:30pm, 1 medium size orange, supper @ 6pm: 6" roast beef subway sub with pepperjack cheese with lite mayo, oil and a bunch of veggies, snack @ 7pm: half a serving of almonds and  couple blueberries.

later guys, good luck with your weight lose

Great tips! But the 16 cups of water a day is pushing it imo!!!

new studies show that women should have at least 9 cups. 16 cups is a lot, but water is yummy. thanks for the heads up though, ill lower it to 12 or so

Thank you so much for posting this and congrats on your loss. I, too, am not able to do the carb thing as I detest most meat and stick to veggies and fruit. However, I did lose nearly 50 lbs on eating certain veggies and fruits and grains and nuts so I know it can be done. Unfortunately, I gained a good amount of it back and am now starting over. Don't think that has to do with the veggies though. More to do with stress and overwork and giving in to fast food french fries. You are right, that can be a big down fall. I do not do that any more and I gave up pop long ago.

One question: How about diet pop? My daughter keeps telling me it is still bad and can still work against a diet. How? It has no cals. I have heard a lot about crystal light and am going to give that a try. I love gatorade but it has cals. and am looking for something besides water once and a while.

Anyway, thank you for the post.

maryann10646, i think they have sugar-free gatorade now. either that or powerade, which is practically the same thing. as far as diet soda (pop, haha), it's basically the sodium and the syrup in the product. and supposedly something in it makes you want sweets. (??) anyway, when i go without it for awhile and then drink it again, i definitely notice a difference. i don't think it necessarily affects the readout on the scale, but i'm more bloated from the carbonation.

Congratulations on your weight loss! And thank you for sharing your helpful tips.

I really need to stop drinking so much diet soda. I feel that I am addicted after all of these years. I can drink around 6 cans a day! I do drink water in between, but it's not enough.

I attempted to stop the diet soda and a few days later I had the most incredible headaches, ears ringing, the shakes, and my mood.... oh boy. I was not a joy to be around.

I'm trying to drink two large glasses of ice water for each soda I have.

I have tried Crystal Lite, and I have no idea why but crystal lite causes me to get UTI infections. Now one would think that soda of all things could cause this.

 

Congratulations on your weight loss... but some of your advice I don't understand and find to be really wrong. You say that fruit and even vegetables other than lettuce should be cut out for the first 2 weeks of dieting, but breads and pastas are totally fine? Correct me if i'm wrong but are fruits and vegetables the most natural, perfect sources of food? How can eating them be wrong but eating bread and pastas be ok?

Hi jennc2!

He says that for the first two weeks you should not eat any carbs! None! It is along with the atkins theory of weight loss that you have to kick start your metabolism with the way you burn off the weight. If you just watch your calories you will lose weight, however it won't be fat loss, it will be muscle loss. If you eat nothing but lean meat and lean dairy for two weeks you will trick your body into thinking you have to save your muscles and go directly for the fat! It does work and I am going back to the first step again to trick my body again. After the two weeks are up you can start to add healthy carbs back in your diet. I hope this helps! Also, as far as the diet soda, it has been known to break down the muscle cells because of the carbonation in it. Yeah, I liked my diet soda as well! :-( But after the initial headache period is over, you really don't miss it very much! 

Now for my question, how long did it take you to lose this weight bleeb? Just curious!

Is it too late to do the 2-week no carb thing if you work out regularly and eat pretty well already?  I'm a pescetarian and it would probably be pretty difficult for me to pull off doing this since I only eat fish and vegetarian products, but I think I might be able to.

I read recently the basis the pro's are using now is simple.  1 oz of water for every 2 lbs. of weight.  For example a 200 lb. person should drink 100 oz. water daily.  This is a lot of water but think of what we are requiring of our systems with all the extra weight.  Also How many people know that water is actually a natural diuretic!

Good stuff and very motivational. I am down 80 pounds this year using similar methods. I did not do a ketosis kick start, but got here anyway.

I think the references to "wheat" products should probably be read as "whole wheat", ne c'est pas?