Fatties. My money where your mouth is.

[Rev. Good Will]

kraln is the coolest

[Kraln]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm down to 331.2 as of this morning, from 334 on the start date.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've dropped to 316 from 323 on the start date. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Russ M.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm down to 331.2 as of this morning, from 334 on the start date. Quite fascinating what not eating fast food and/or pizza can do for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

To to rain on your parade, but a change that small can just be water weight. Don't get too worked up about loss/gain of 3-5 lbs in either direction, especially at our size.

[/ QUOTE ]

Water weight is STILL weight, damnit!

[Dids]

Agreed.

I say that more so that when you find you've gained that BACK even though you've been working out like crazy and eating well you don't kill yourself. I went through that a lot when I lose a lot of wieght a few years ago.

[matrix]

caveat: I'm thin - I've always been thin - I have never been overweight I've never had to lose weight - please bear this in mind when you read the following.

Other background - I have worked as a chef, I know a shedload about food nutrition having attended way too many Food Science lectures in the past - My mum used to work for weight watchers and I know a little about how they work as well - several family members have had long and continuing struggles with losing weight ...

LOSING WEIGHT IS EASY!!!!!!!!!!! ***

(anyone who tells you otherwise is misguided at best I think)

*** - provided that you actually want to lose weight that is. Getting to the point where you want to lose weight enough to do something about it (and I mean really do something about it) is the hard part.

simply eat less - and excercise more that really is all there is to it.

And for the sake of all that is good - SEE A DOCTOR - especially if you are in the morbidly obese sector before starting ANY weight loss plan.

I suspect the people now flaming me haven't even read this far and hit the reply buton after they got to the ALL CAPS bit - but whatever.

FWIW my "personal problem" on a similar level to weight loss is quitting smoking. I this was also very easy to do ONCE YOU START THINKING THE RIGHT WAY ABOUT IT.

as far as weight loss goes I think the right way to think goes like this.

i) THIS IS EASY - perhaps easy is the wrong word - I mean it is very acheivable and unless you truly believe that you can actually do it yourself it's not going to happen. It's not so hard that you cannot do it - there is NOTHING that you can't do if you really put your mind to it.

Thinking about it like - zomfg this is so hard - I don't want to give up junk food/(favourite snack) - I can't find time to exercise - woe is me - it's too hard I just can't do this - is a fast ticket to remaining where you are - fat and unhappy.

If you are fat and happy then good for you!

You CAN lose weight - it IS simple - ANYONE can do this.

What you are actually doing is breaking an addiction and changing your eating habits.

Habits especially entrenched ones are easy to change if you want to. e.g. In the US you drive on the right - if you go to a country where you have to drive on the left everyone finds it relatively simple to drive on the correct side of the road (probably a bad example but hey) congrats - you just changed a habit - see it's not hard.

ii) A diet is for life not just for weight loss.

A diet is the sum total of what you eat - nothing more nothing less. Avoid calorie controlled ones they are a waste of time and effort. To lose weight and keep to a new lower healthier weight requires a permanent change of diet - You can't lose weight - then go back to what you eat now - you will put it back on way faster - give up your diet now and resolve to keep it gived up.

iii) It takes a LONG time to lose weight effectively - you didn't get to where you are now (fattie) overnight. You won't get to being a thinny overnight either - this is a long haul thing and you need to accept and be prepared for it. you lose weight much faster at the start than you will later on - losing more than about 2lb a week is going too fast once you get a month or 3 into things (at least for the average person) your doctor will be bale to advise you what a good loss rate is for you personally, everyone is different - my 2lb a week figure is a rough ballpark guesstimate once your body has got past the shock factor and your weightloss settles down to a stable amount.

iv) expect setbacks. Sometimes you will crave the food you left behind - somedays will be very dark - somedays you will give in and eat "bad stuff" - if this happens you are not a bad person - you can get back on track - don't let bad days get you down too much.

losing weight suggestions:

Keep a diary. Weigh yourself once a week. Write down everything you eat every day (this is hard work at first but I think is one of the best ways to change what you do)

Losing weight is hard work - everything in life that is worth something usually is. When I say this is easy I mean it's simple to do - not that it's not hard work - it is.

For the first week - do not change anything you eat/do. Just record it. Once you have your week down go through what you ate. Start with small steps and aim to reduce the amount of calories you eat and also aim to up the healthy food (or start eating at least some)

e.g. Say you eat fast/junk food often decide that for the next week instead of having supersized stuff you'll have regular. Or you'll eat subway instead of McD's - just change a little something - write down this change and log how much weight you lost because of it. Rinse - repeat.

This plan will slowly over about 3 months (this is a long haul thing remember) evolve your diet into something much better and you ought to start seeing good results within a month. Once you have kept good records for a few months you'll find you don't need to do this anymore aside from keeping weighing youreslf and noting down your weight that is)

There are numerous web resources on eating healthily but basically look to eat more fresh fruit and veg - cook for yourself at least once a week - slowly cut out fast food/microwave ready meals and the like almost completely. Eat a lot less white bread/potaoes/pasta - Eat a lot less fat - particularly avoid animal fats - saturated fat - EV Olive oil is much much better to cook with than almost any other oil.

Eat more stuff like oily fish (tuna/salmon)

Eat more wholegrain foods.

Basically look to make a lot of small changes to what you eat over along period of time - they will add up to a huge change. Making overnight BIG changes are harder to keep to and can sometimes be counterproductive.

Exercise:

If you excercise more and burn more calories than you eat - you loe weight - if you eat more calories than you burn you gain weight.

If you excercise lots while you are "on a diet" (FWIW thinking that you are on a diet is I think the worst way to go about stuff) then stop exercising when you are done even if you have the healthiest diet there is - you will put weight on again. In the same way that a diet is for life - an excercise regime is also for life.

your body adjusts to the status quo - and you have to keep excercise up - or slowl wind ot down when you are at your target while slowly reducing your calorie intake if you want to maintain your target weight.

Simple things that can increase your excercise - if your house has stairs - make a point of walking up and down them a few times extra each day. When you sit in your couch to watch TV - stand up sit down stand up sit down - about 5 times before you finally sit down and relax - Take walks - take up a new sport. You don't have to join a gym.

The point of this post is to inspire people maybe to eat better and lose weight - I think bisons free cash plan is better insipiration and this is a great thread he's started - good work. I'm broke and can't do the sponsoring thing but I hope this post helps a few people out there a little.

You CAN do this it IS simple - be positive and you stand a better chance of obtaing the results you want.

There are other weightloss plans - I think my diary plan tho is simple and effective and I know from (my brothers) personal experience that it works. Whatever plan you use - however you go about losing weight - best wishes and I hope it works well for you.

[Dids]

"caveat: I'm thin - I've always been thin - I have never been overweight I've never had to lose weight - please bear this in mind when you read the following."

Sorry, but I pretty much can't read the rest of this post after this.

The mechanics of losing weight are simple. However, the reason we're overweight is because we lacked the motivation/drive/discipline/whatever to take those simple steps. I'd wager that most of the fatties, like me, can't even really explained WHY we do/did what we do.

Changing that isn't that easy. I think, frankly, it's a gross misunderstanding of the problem to suggest that it is.

[GambleGamble]

[ QUOTE ]
"caveat: I'm thin - I've always been thin - I have never been overweight I've never had to lose weight - please bear this in mind when you read the following."

Sorry, but I pretty much can't read the rest of this post after this.

The mechanics of losing weight are simple. However, the reason we're overweight is because we lacked the motivation/drive/discipline/whatever to take those simple steps. I'd wager that most of the fatties, like me, can't even really explained WHY we do/did what we do.

Changing that isn't that easy. I think, frankly, it's a gross misunderstanding of the problem to suggest that it is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Secondededed....

[matrix]

[ QUOTE ]
"caveat: I'm thin - I've always been thin - I have never been overweight I've never had to lose weight - please bear this in mind when you read the following."

Sorry, but I pretty much can't read the rest of this post after this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you prefer if I flat out lied and tell you I was obese and overcame your struggle as well?

[ QUOTE ]

Changing that isn't that easy. I think, frankly, it's a gross misunderstanding of the problem to suggest that it is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes changing your habits/addictions IS easy.

I stuggled with quitting smoking for a long time until someone got me thinking differently.

Quitting smoking is breaking an addcition - so is losing weight I think. Both these things ARE easy to do once you start thinking about them the right way.

I came up with my weight loss plan after success on the smoking front and helped my brother lose a lot of weight with this so I am confident that it's very effective.

If you want to ignore what I say because I lack first hand experience you are perfectly entitled to do so. I wish you all the best with your planned weight loss and hope you get filthy rich as a fringe benefit with all this sponsoring [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Dids]

"Yes changing your habits/addictions IS easy."

Pretty much think this is [censored]. Congrats on doing it yourself, but for most folks, this just flat isn't true.

[nation]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes changing your habits/addictions IS easy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow you're a moron. There's a reason why it's called an ADDICTION. It's not easy one bit, it really takes a lot of hard work for anyone to break a habit or get out of a rut.