Physical Fitness, Health & Weight ManagementStaying fit and physically healthy is essential! Remember, we aren't subsitutes for your physician! As always, talk to your doctor before following any suggestions or advice!
Hi, I am 23 years old and have been gaining on pounds and this is getting to me. The thing is that after several efforts of exercise and dieting, I don’t seem to get any slimmer! There are many ways to lose weight, but I have exhausted all the ways I know. I have consulted a few people but all of them have been telling me the same thing. It isn’t helping me and only making my fears worse.
Is there some way to make me feel better!!!
If you want to lose weight then you have to reduce your calorie intake and exercise more.
"Diets" may help you lose some weight but what it really comes down to is making sure you have the daily discipline to not over eat and to to get your body moving.
Maybe you are not actually even aware of how much you are eating. Think about starting a food diary for a few weeks and see how many calories you are actually eating every day. Your body needs about 1500 (+- 150) calories a day for its steady state metabolism.
If you don't want to compromise on food then go running more often, if you don't have the time then just eat less...
Note: the 1500 is what you need without any physical activity. It's just to keep your body working. You will lose more if you are really close (or under) that mark, but you will gain even more weight once you're eating normal again. You should find a healthy calorie intake and stick to eat. The weight loss will be slower, but permanent.
You can google for calorie calculators online. There you can see how much you need for your acitvity profile. Then stay under it, but don't go down too far.
Exercise. Not only cardio, but weights as well. For every pound of muscle you burn more calories, plus while dieting your muscles will decrease much faster.
I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion that you keep a food diary. My guess is that you have no idea how much you are actually eating.
When I started to keep a food diary, I was amazed at how a simple sandwich and chips could add up to 500 or 600 calories! Once you know WHAT you're eating and HOW MANY calories that represents, you can make choices to reduce your intake. For instance, you can choose breads and cereals with fewer calories per serving, eat high-volume low-calorie foods (like fruits) to stay full, make sure you eat only ONE serving at a time, and balance larger meals (like when you go to a restaurant or party) with smaller meals for the rest of the day.
Just look at breakfast cereal. If you're a breakfast cereal eater like me, you probably just dump a bunch of cereal into a large bowl, pour in the milk, and plow in. But look at the serving size listed on the box. Often, that ranges from 1/2 cup to 1 cup. Take measuring cups out and measure that serving size, just to get a gauge of how much (or in this case, how little) that actually is.
When I did this, I discovered that I was usually eating more than two servings of cereal each morning. Once I added in the milk (also more than one serving usually) and the fruit and piece of toast I also ate with that, I was eating 600+ calories before I even got out the door in the morning. With my food diary, I found that I was eating more than 2,300 calories a day, way too much for me. I had to knock that back to 1,600 to be able to lose weight.
I didn't know why I wasn't losing weight until I began keeping a food diary, measuring serving sizes, and counting calories. There are great calorie calculators online to help you get started, and many restaurants have begun posting the calories for their menu items online as well. Also, this doesn't have to be a permanent thing. Once you do it for about a month or so, you'll get a better gauge for how many calories certain food items are and you can just keep your diary occasionally to make you're staying on course.
In my opinion, losing weight isn't about a certain diet, eating ONLY this and NEVER eating THAT. Eat whatever you want--just make sure it fits into a calorie count that allows you to lose weight.
Food diaries may sound tedious, but in my opinion, they're the only way to lose weight. Count up how many calories you're eating per day on average, and then knock that back by 500 or so. Do this and the chances that you'll lose weight are 100 percent. People just don't realize how much they're consuming until they see the numbers on the page.
Last edited by josie54; 3rd June 2008 at 11:45 AM.
I think the best approach to weight loss is to first become physically fit. Once that happens, your increased metabolic rate should take care of the rest.
You need to be intelligent, honest, and serious about exercise if you are to have any hope of succeeding. It will take months to achieve a decent level of fitness. You need to eat the rights foods, and coordinate your meals with your routine. For cardio, you need to get your heart rate up (150-160BPM). I try to keep my heart rate around 150-170BPM for at least 30min, but I've been at it for nearly five months. Once you start feeling the endorphins (not during exercise), you will know you are doing it right, but be careful not to burn yourself out.
The "breakup" diet has always worked for me... I'm down 15 pounds in less than a month!
I think you need a deficit of 2500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat.
Four pounds in a week would be about 10000 calories. I think you are burning muscle, and dehydrating yourself.
If you want to lose weight fast then I would agree to following some of the suggestions posted here. Otherwise, just keep a positive attitude and a mindset that you CAN lose weight eventually. For some people, losing weight is easy, and for others, it'll take some time and effort. Go with your pace, maybe increase it a little as you go further, but don't expect to see results overnight. It's unhealthy and unrealistic to think that way.
You are not the only one having problems trying to lose weight, without any success. I know that it is very frustrating to try all sorts of things and still be in the same shape…..I too have faced that!!! Just a couple of weeks back I came across Weight Loss 2008 that not only made me glad I did (I finally got a product that does the real thing) but got the work started. It has been a great way for me because it doesn’t throw up obstacles but gets the job done.
I'm glad that worked for you, but I wouldn't trust a site like that. Anyone professing to have the "secret" is likely full of bull, if you ask me. I think lovelorcet, nevermind, and josie54 pretty much said it like it is.
The WAY to do it isn't the mysterious or difficult part. It's the actually doing it and sticking to it that's hard.
Hi, I am 23 years old and have been gaining on pounds and this is getting to me. The thing is that after several efforts of exercise and dieting, I don’t seem to get any slimmer! !
I wonder if you overdo both the dieting and the exercise and can't, therefore, sustain either beyond short bursts?
Say you cut down your daily intake by 1000 calories and do a punishing work out every day that increases your calorie burning rate by 600 (taking account of the increase in your metabolism post-work-out). Ten days - if you can stick to such a "put my life on hold" regime - 16,000 calories burned. Around 4.5 pounds of fat loss...which you might not see on the scales due to increased muscle tone. All that effort and deprivation probably won't seem worth it.
The mechanics of losing weight are simple. Eat less, exercise more. Overcoming psychological barriers to weight loss is the hard part. A lot of those psychological barriers are maybe caused by people taking a punitive approach to themselves. "I'm fat. I must repent through deprivation and boring, soulless treadmill pounding." Also, unrealistic expectations of very rapid weight loss.
People who invent popular diets tend to be off-puttingly zealous and controlling towards the reader, in my opinion. There's often a sense of "Cancel all your plans: Your life is mine for next 6 weeks" about them.
A more realistic and sustainable approach would be "here are lots of low calorie, healthy recipes. Try to use these for a minimum of 8 meals a week, eat what you'd normally have for the other meals, and make some effort to avoid snacking between meals. Find ways of incorporating exercise into your social life or as part of relaxation so that it's fun rather than a chore.
In doing that, you re-educate yourself into a healthier lifestyle that you can sustain long term...rather than getting into that deprivation of starvation/gluttony of rebellion cycle/self-loathing/comfort eating pattern that keeps so many people unnecessarily overweight.
Taramere has it right. In essence, eat healthier low-cal meals, cut out the unhealthy snacking and exercise moderately.
I would suggest you find a good low-calorie cookbook (I'm partial to the American Heart Association One-Dish Low-fat meals book) and construct weekly menus based on the recipes off the cookbook as you make a shopping list of what you will need.
I've lost 82 pounds since I changed my lifestyle 7 months ago and that's how it started. I got scared because my husband's cholesterol had turned out to be much higher than it should be, so I made a decision to change his diet to improve his heart condition. As a result, mine changed as well. He lost 65 pounds of excess weight, I've lost more since I was more overweight than he was.
Now we do exercise but we don't over-do it. He runs 2 miles and swims a few laps at least three times per week. Myself, I swim 1 mile three times a week (about 80 laps in a 75 feet pool). It's worth noting that this is a fairly recent development and for the first four to five months of our change, we did no exercise whatsoever and still lost weight through reduced calorie intakes.
Weight loss is about as simple as math gets. Calories in < Calories out. Too simple to work? Try it yourself. You just have to understand what your body's needs are (1500 calories a day seem a very reasonable starting point) and be very disciplined and realistic about what you put in your mouth. Consider whether the calories you're about to eat are worth it. Sure, you can eat that candy bar for 250 calories... or you can have a salmon steak sprinkled with paprika with a side of marinated mushrooms. What do you think? To me, the choice is clear.
Lastly, invest in a good bathroom scale. If you are very overweight, you will not begin seeing the progress in your body until you've lost a good amount of weight. The bathroom scale will keep you motivated because it will show you the progress and keep you in the right track.
Avoid processed foods, especially fast food or soft drinks. Your body is getting less than nothing from these types of foods. Reduce excessive carb intake like the second serving of pasta, unless you need it to run a marathon.
Graze on healthy foods such as uncooked veggies and some fruit, instead of eating large meals, and your stomach will shrink accordingly.
Exercise! It will do your mind and body good.
Healthy weight loss requires will power until your habits and tastes change to the point of becoming a lifestyle change.
Btw, caesar salad dressing is a killer for calories.
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Please note: The suggestions and advice offered on this web site are opinions only and are not to be used in the place of professional psychological counseling or medical advice. If you or someone close to you is currently in crisis or in an emergency situation, contact your local law enforcement agency or emergency number.
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