Leave my coffee alone. Dude, unless someone comes up with evidence that caffeine gives you AIDS I’m never giving up my coffee.
The caffeine isn’t the problem. As Jon mentioned, it’s probably a net positive. It’s the artificial sweeteners, your body not getting what it wants, the possibilty of you over eating as a result, etc.
Cutting out diet soda has aided me in losing weight. Like MS, all I can do is report results here.
(Of course, I have stock in Coca-Cola so … drink up, y’all!)
I’ve lost about 20 pounds over the last four months (Six-one, now 190). I oversee three Italian restaurants, so dieting was never an option. So I:
Blood pressure is down, as well. I am trying to get off Diovan.
My ultimate goal is to get to 170.
For those advocating weight/strength training, what exercises might fit the following requirements (for me):
i.e. I’m thinking of stuff like push-ups, sit-ups, etc that can be done with little or no equipment. The last time I did sit-ups though, I think it gave me a headache. I’d be ok using small weights or platforms and such that I could easily tuck out of the way when not in use. Realistically, I’ll probably focus on the elliptical for at least the next few months, but I’d at least be open to considering other stuff to supplement it.
[Re: Wii Fit]
So I’m confused. I poked around the www.fidgit.com, and found a diary entry by Tom about Wii Fit, but not really an organized review or even a way to index any series of posts he made about Wii Fit. Is there a way for me to read what Tom had to say about Wii Fit without reading half the site?
Edit: Eh - I just read the GameSpot review of Wii Fit. It doesn’t sound like something for me…
Phil, doing push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, etc. takes up almost no time. Weight training doesn’t have quite the same time demands as cardio, just suck it up and eat the 5 minutes or so to do a round of sit ups, pull ups, and push ups. =)
Also, consider taking up a sport, as has been mentioned numerous times here – finding the motivation to “work out” is much harder than finding the motivation to “do something fun”.
They’re clustered around the bottom of the Wii category page linked from the sidebar, but this is probably the most relevant entry.
Phil,
Weights and machine aren’t needed for general fitness, simple exercises using your own body as resistance works well to increase your heart rate and fatigue your muscles enough to get results. As you mentioned sit ups and push are good, going up and down a flight of stairs for 15 minutes is good, doing lunges and deep squats without weights for 10 minutes is a killer workout, even jumping jacks will get the job done.
You can increase the weight by adding household items such as wearing sneakers or putting a backpack on, or holding a hammer in each hand. The goal is to increase your heart rate and fatigue your muscles enough so they grow. You know you’re doing enough if you’re sweating during and after.
Good videos for lunges, squats and others: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzT6PNRTQoY&feature=related
My personal story:
4 years ago I was 5’11" and about 240 lbs (similar to you, a bit fatter even).
My diet primarily consisted of trying to understand a few things and applying them to my life.
-The relationship between calories, metabolism, and weight gain. You want your body to feel like it’s getting just about what it needs every day so it doesn’t kick into super-slow starvation metabolism mode.
-The body needs roughly 1 pound of fat to store 3,500 calories.
-I’d bet your natural metabolism probably burns about 2,400 calories in a day when it isn’t trying to conserve. If you ate five 400 calorie meals/snacks a day you’d probably lose about a pound a week even without exercise.
-Drop stupid ideas about food. “Fatty” foods don’t make you fat - your body breaks the fat into calories similarly to anything else. Not paying attention to calorie intake makes you fat (and it’s easy to not realize that what many restaurants sell as a one-sitting meal contains more calories than your body needs for the entire day!).
Snacking is not the problem. Snacking can be part of the solution even - you could eat three 500 calorie meals a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and have three 200 calorie snacks in between. Also, drink copious amounts of water. It not only is good for you, it will make you fill “fuller.” You need to understand the caloric content of food though. That’s pretty much key.
A lot of diets that require eating specific types of foods actually work on this principle - a vegetarian diet isn’t “magic” because you’re cutting out those evil fats - non-starchy vegetables simply suck as an energy storage medium so people just aren’t getting many calories out of eating even huge salads. Also, there’s a limit to how many calories you can consume snacking on vegetables for the same reason - you will physically be full before you overeat from a caloric perspective.
Anyways, I’m 180 lbs now and have been for 3 years. Since I’m not actively trying to lose more weight, I generally consume 2,000-3,000 calories a day, spread out over my waking hours to keep the metabolism up. Occasional gorging isn’t even a huge issue - with a healthy metabolism your body might not try to extract and store every last calorie from that thanksgiving feast where you downed 7,000 potential calories in one sitting.
What everyone else has said about body weight exercises. In addition, a swiss ball can double as a bench for most strength training exercises, too - with the added benefit that having your body compensate for a little instability is good for your balance. And it deflates so you can store it.
Regarding food/diet issues - are there good sources of information that have pretty solid scientific backing?
I’m basically with Jon Danger here. I drink lots of diet soda. I’m not going to ignore or discount the possibility that it in some way contributes to weight gain, but my null hypothesis in this case is “no effect” (or nearly none, because it has zero or near zero calories). To get me to switch from a habit that I find enjoyable, I’d like to see a bit more evidence than a correlation study.
Similarly, I see lots of diet/health claims out there:
Eat 6 meals (instead of 3)
Eat whole grains
Drink lots of water
and so on.
I’m sure some folks do follow some or all of these steps and lose weight, but that doesn’t necessarily prove that each individual step has any real effect.
I understand the basic formula that consuming less calories and/or burning more will lead to a lower stable weight. And I understand that consuming food with low calorie densities may help trick my body into consuming less calories overall. But going beyond that, I’d like a bit more evidence on any given theory than simply the endorsement of somebody else that they’ve done it and lost weight.
I’m not trying to be overly critical, and certainly I am not an expert myself. But with so much information out there, I’d like something to help cut through the clutter, and, beyond my gut reactions to certain claims, evidence/scientific study seems a good way to do so…
Minor quibble…
It takes more energy for your body to convert proteins or carbs into body fat than it does to convert dietary fat to body fat. (Thermic Effect of Food, blah blah blah…)
You’re right, though. Cutting fat from your diet without reducing caloric intake or exercising isn’t really going to do too much for you.
Got a bike yesterday…started riding to work today. My legs felt like the were just not working after a really big (er very small) hill.
It made me realize just how out of shape I am. I really hope I stick with this- I definitely need the exercise, need to loose some of that playing video games softness, and just make sure I stay healthy.
I will NOT give up my beer though. I figure I’ll just go around the block one extra time.
But yeah, I knew I was soft but honestly I had no idea until I started riding up that incline. Pretty sad. Heh, at least I have a nice gauge to see how I progress.
I don’t necessarily think you’re tricking your body. One thing you have to be able to deal with is hunger. What do you do if you logically know your body doesn’t need to eat but you feel hungry anyways? Do you eat so you can feel “satisfied” or do you pull a mind-over-matter and apply your force of will?
Some foods contain a lot of calories but do little to satisfy. Others fill you up with few calories consumed. The real “trick” you pull on your body is when you eat things that are so packed with concentrated sugars that you’re dropping 500 calories in a couple bites. It satisfies your need for energy, but not your want for food.
The diets that tell you to eat low-calorie density foods assume you lack the willpower to control your appetite or to understand the caloric content of the foods you eat.
For the record, you can get caffeine free soda, including diet, caffeine free. That’s what I drink. It has nothing to do with weight. I got used to it when my wife and I started to cut back on sugars. I still consume a lot of sugar, but not from my coke!
Obviously, the best approach is to lower overall calories, but I’d recommend going to a diet expert (or your doctor). Get a plan for you. That’s the biggest problem with diets and such, IMO. They aren’t tailored. They go with percentages and such. You need a dietician that can work with your specific needs.
If you’re biologically hungry, you should eat. And you should eat before you get ravenous, because being ravenous is a situation ripe for overeating. If you are NOT hungry and you want to eat, you have to figure out what’s going on - are you bored, lonely, anxious, just want the taste of food, are socially obliged to eat? and deal with that situation rather than eat.
Letting yourself get too hungry is never a wise idea. If you’re hungry, you need to eat until you’re just satisfied - not stuffed, but satisfied.
Stick with it. For ~5 months I trained for a long hill laden endurance cycling event, much of it climbing hills. You’ll be surprised how quickly your body will adapt to those hills. As long as you hit them with some regularity, every time will be easier.
In my case, during our training we climbed a 1.5 mile hill that brought our mph to ~4-5. The first time we did it I barely made it to the top, breathing so heavy I thought my lungs were going to come out of my mouth. The 2nd time the hill felt shorter and my breathing was less intense. By the rd or 4th week (4-5 times up the hill) my breathing was barely taxed by the time I got to the top.
Just so you know, you lose this endurance almost as fast as you gain it, but it doesn’t take much to maintain it as long as you stick with it. :(
:)
Another good tip is to realize you aren’t taking on a temporary diet, as the connotation implies. Instead, you should accept this as a life style change. You can temporarily adhere to a very strict diet to lose weight fast, but realize you need a permanent eating habit change to avoid gaining it all back. It’s almost always better to learn the correct way to eat (for your body) and make it a permanent solution instead of trying a crash diet to lose quickly.
This is very easy to do. Buy yourself a set of free-weights, and look up free weights excercises online (I am sure there are guides everywhere). These can be done in a living room with a sturdy chair.
Very little equipment, and results.
Agreed. Ideally, you’d get a bench and a set of plates, but it’s amazing what you can do with a set of dumbells: