A few years ago or so I was 5'6" 276 pounds I got down to a low of 173 now I am about 180. I have been around 180 for several years but my goal has always been to get to 150.

I don't really know how I lost the weight originally. It happened around the time I built my house so I think it was just I was too busy to think about eating for a while.

I have been fluctuating about 10 pounds since then and now the pants are getting tight so I need to focus again and lose some weight and I still want to lose another 30 pounds to get to 150. (That's one tip I can give anyone else fighting this is get rid of the old clothes then you can't creep back up too much.)

I drive around all day for my job so the thing I fight most with is eating in the car and when I eat in the car it's always crap from convenience stores. I have tried to bring food from home but I always stop when I don't have time one day or whatever. Plus whatever I bring isn't what I am craving so...

Anyone else fighting with weight out there ?

Oh and I searched for "weight loss" on here and this thread was at the top of the results.

http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/89678

I use http://fatsecret.com to keep track of how much I weight, what I eat and if I did any exercise. I've lost about 30 pounds this year and more than 50 since I started trying to eat better around 18 months ago.

They also apps available for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.
http://www.fatsecret.com/connected/

Sounds like you are doing good ! I signed up on there and maybe keeping track of food will help. I have tracked food in the past but haven't been able to keep it up long term.

What's your goal ?

I'm 5'8" 285lbs with a large frame and any weight under 225lbs would be great. I was 195lbs when I graduated from high school in 95' and I would love to weight that again.

Not fighting it, exactly, but keeping a pretty close eye on it.

Today I weigh 10 pounds more than I did when I was in college 45 years ago (168 lbs then, 178 pounds now). I'm six feet tall, and if I could hold my weight at 175 I'd be happy. All of the extra weight is around my belly, it seems.

I have never given thought to the so called fad diets, I think they are ridiculous, and the theories change about once a month it seems. You know, eat only protein. No, eat only carbohydrates. No, don't eat carbohydrates. Eat grapefruit because it metabolizes fat. It's all bullshit. There is one way, and only one way to lose weight, and that is to consume fewer calories than you burn. Well, actually, there is an exception to that. Every Spring when the bicycle racing season starts up and I get serious about riding, I gain weight because I am adding muscle mass at the same time I am losing fat, and muscles are heavier. I'm only talking maybe five pounds here, nothing significant.

One reason I have been able to pretty much maintain my weight for 40-odd years is because I am fortunate in that I am not driven by food the way a lot of people are. You've probably been around people that, when they haven't eaten in a while, become surly and crabby, focused almost exclusively on getting food in their belly to the point that you don't want to be around them. There are many times that I will realize in the late afternoon that I am hungry, and figure out that I haven't eaten anything that day but am too busy to worry about it. I will be hungry, recognize that I am hungry and should eat, but it doesn't bother me.

FWIW, I believe there is some truth to the theory that eating breakfast is important for weight loss. Supposedly it "jump-starts" your metabolism. Sounds bogus to me, but when I moved from Alaska to California I was at my maximum ever weight, 195 pounds, and SWMBO started making me eat breakfast, and in a short time (6 weeks or so) I was down to 175. I believe that a balanced diet with at least three meals a day (including breakfast!) coupled with portion control and exercise commensurate with calorie intake is the key to weight loss, or at least weight maintenance.

tanstaafl.

Come live in the jungle. I've lost 40 pounds since Feb. without trying.

Not fighting, but I probably should do...

Ignore fad diets. The only thing that works for losing weight is this: "eat less, move more".

The only thing that works for me is a personal trainer, because I'm just not motivated enough otherwise. Unfortunately, I tweaked my knee a few months ago, and I recently started a new job, so I've not been in the gym for a while. The free gym membership that comes with the new job kicks in in a couple of weeks time, so I'm going to take advantage of that.

And I need to lay off the snacks. At least I'm not drinking as much as I was when at my last job.

I've been doing Atkins recently, I think this works for me to shift weight. I've been off it for a few weeks over my wedding period but am now drifting back onto a more sensible diet. As Roger says the general plan is to eat less, move more and try and cut carbs as much as possible without being really anal about it.

For me cutting out bread altogether as well as not eating in the car, and avoiding Haribo sweets has what really worked. I am now at a weight where I can exercise again without feeling like death.

So Atkins isn't a fad diet for me, but a lesson for my body about what is good for it and what I should really avoid if there are other options.

Cheers

Cris.

Most people are really susceptible to alcohol/fizzy drinks/sweets/snacks any reduction in consumption there has to be useful.

I don't know what kind of food you were bringing from home, but just try some fruits. Take a couple apples or pears or something that is easy to eat. Anything is better than snacks from a convenience store. If you are drinking sodas, try cutting back on them and drinking water instead. It is amazing how much just switching from soda to water helps.

Other than that, try to get more exercise. Even something as simple as a walk around the block after dinner helps.

Um, no. The reason that Atkins and related diets want you to cut out carbs is to trick your metabolism into thinking your body is starving and start consuming itself. (The high protein intake is to replenish the muscle that is eaten away by the starvation.) Unsurprisingly, this is not good for you. In addition, it seems to also cause your body to retain more fat when you stop starving, apparently in expectation that you will starve again.

Remember that there are only three types of items that provide calories: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Each also provides certain other nutrients beyond mere energy, but they largely don't factor into weight.

A person gains weight because he consumes more calories than he expends. Period. The only way to lose weight is to change that ratio.

That said, there are some psychological and physiological concerns related to what you eat.

Shorter-chain carbohydrates (sugars, mostly) tend to release their energy into the bloodstream quickly, as the body has to do very little to convert those carbohydrates into usable molecules. As such, if you're not consuming calories in an equally bursty fashion, you're going to have excess sugar in your bloodstream, and that will end up getting stored in the body as fat. In addition, candies are nearly pure sugar, which means that not only do you get that quick burst of blood sugar, but you also don't get any satiety through stomach fullness. Combine those two things, and you set yourself up to want more.

Also, one of the things that supposedly provides satiety is saturated fat. Back in the '70s and '80s, people decided that saturated fat was bad for you, to the point where it's almost non-existent in any sort of prepared food. As such, it can be hard to get enough saturated fat to convince your body that it doesn't need any more food, if you only eat packaged foods. Now that partially hydrogenated oils are being phased out due to their problematic characteristics, they are being replaced, frequently, with palm kernel oil, which is a saturated fat, which might actually help improve health, at least in comparison to the partially hydrogenated trans fats.

Anyway, my point is that pointing out any single food as bad for you, and avoiding that, pretty much is the definition of fad diet. Your body needs a mixture of carbs, proteins, and fats in your diet (as well as some vitamins that are not produced by the body) in proper ratios. The majority should be carbohydrates, preferably long-chain carbohydrates, so as to provide more of a time-release effect of the stored energy.

If you look at the evolutionary history of humans, this all makes sense. Plants were almost certainly the most common food available, which are mostly carbohydrates, with some proteins and fats, mostly from grains, and protein from meat being a relatively rare occurrence.

As it happens, I've recently decided to get "serious" about exercise and about tracking my weight. In particular, I decided to start swimming laps, which is something I haven't done seriously since high school. My routine is 3-4 days/week I'll swim a half hour (900-1000m), one day I'll play squash, and one day I'll go for a 4 mile run. So, how successful has this been?



In short, not very much, but at least it's going in the proper direction. You'll see the dots get denser around the end of August. That's after my daughter started kindergarten, and I now walk her to school every morning and then continue walking to the pool.

Why so little progress? Probably because I'm now far hungrier than I was beforehand.

The last time I got this level of seriousness about exercise was maybe twelve years ago, when I first started my job in Houston, and decided to take up a training program toward running a marathon. In the space of six months, I dropped from maybe 180 pounds to 147 pounds, at which point I looked like a twig, people thought I was unhealthy, and I might add, I was eating staggering volumes of food.

The injury level from all that running was simply unsustainable, so I backed off and, unsurprisingly, gained weight slowly but surely, maybe only five pounds per year, but it adds up. This is in no small part why I decided to make swimming be the backbone of my sorry-ass attempts at being seriously athletic again. It takes some serious talent to injure yourself in a pool. (As the air temperature drops into the winter, it will also take some serious force of will to continue swimming in the outdoor pool I've been using.)

I'm hoping that my new program will do the job. I suppose I could make adjustments on the eating end, but the thought of doing something drastic like cutting carbs gives me the chills. As it is, while I was running, I dropped sugary and caffeinated drinks altogether. I mostly now drink water, with maybe one beer a month. As such, the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.

Incidentally, if you try to fit a line to the blur of points starting in late August, it looks like I could be losing somewhere between half a pound and one pound per week, but I won't consider it to be "real" until I break 190 pounds. Similarly, these point clouds do a nice job of explaining how useless scales are at measuring your weight. I've done my best to be very controlled in when and how I weigh myself (in the morning, after my bathroom routine). I mostly put the variation down to how well or poorly hydrated I might be at the time.

Um, how about you know nothing about my reasons for selecting Atkins and should think carefully before passing comment.

For me Atkins is perfect for cracking an addiction to carbs and sugar in particular. As I said I have done that for a period and will now move to a more healthy diet, with a bend on cutting out massive chunks of pointless carbs my body does not need to function.

Everyone is different and different approaches to the same problem are needed. Ultimately Atkins works by reducing the number of calories you take in per day as you loose the feeling of needing to stuff your face every minute of the day and get a more health pattern.

Cheers

Cris

Cris, I understand where you're coming from, but be careful and please update us after you've hopefully successfully moved to a reasonable, healthy diet. I don't see much wrong with using Atkins to simply shed the weight, as long as it isn't the long-term solution. I know that the diet works, as my father went on it a few times, one of which allowed him to lose a significant amount of weight. The problem was that he and my mom never shifted to the proper diet afterwards and went back to eating whatever.

That's always been my secret.

I'm a bit over 180 right now and wish I was down around 160 or so. I had started at over 215 a few years back. If I really tried I could probably get down to my target weight fairly quickly. I can always lose weight if I just don't eat much. I'm one of the lucky ones who can actually "go hungry" and not feel any particularly ill effects. Some people get bad headaches, I don't usually get that.

The changes that allowed me to get back down to 180 from above 215 were:

- Ignore everyone who says it's bad to skip meals. Instead, try to think of how our bodies evolved: Being tolerant of feast/famine cycles. I don't believe anyone who says we should be constantly nibbling on food all day. One meal per day or even fewer than that should be just fine for most otherwise-healthy people who want to lose weight.

- Stop drinking sugared beverages and switch to diet drinks most of the time (first, DDP, later Snapple Diet Peach).

- Ignore your cultural programming that "hunger==emergency" and just allow yourself to be hungry sometimes.

- Stop having lunch at work. Do an eight hour shift with no lunch break. Go home an hour earlier and have a light (normal) dinner when you get home.

- Breakfast is a rare occurrence for me.

- Don't eat socially. If you do eat socially (for instance, a business lunch or a date), then subtract other meals to compensate.



That's all it takes for me. The more strictly I conform to the above, the less I weigh. When I gain weight, it's usually because I've been doing one of the above differently (eating socially a lot, going to lunch with coworkers, having breakfasts, that sort of thing).

I recently decided to start the process of getting healthier, as I have been overweight for about 10 years now. I could be doing more, but for now my thought is to just start moving more and start eating less.

To get into exercise, I've done a lot of walking. I typically walk five miles every morning, and in the past two weeks I've added a half-mile run to the end of those walks. Then I go about my day.

The dieting is much harder for me, but to start I cut out the worst of the bad eating habits and I'll work from there.

Doing everything all at once doesn't work for me. Behavioral changes happen for me if I introduce them to myself slowly. It's been working, and I'm very happy about that. My next goal for exercise is to slowly ratchet up the running distance. I don't know what my next diet goal is, but I have to pick something.

Oh, and I've been using technology to help me. I purchased a Fitbit and a WiFi Scale. I LOVE the Fitbit because I'm a data nut. I like tracking my progress, meeting goals, that sort of thing. The scale will come into play a little later. I've decided that once I lose 10 pounds, I'm going to start having the scale post my weight to Twitter as a sort of "public shaming" method to losing the rest of the weight I want to shed.

So yeah, I have a big goal, but I'm hoping I'll make it. I have a related question that I'll post in another thread so as not to take this one off topic.

Hey, you can do what you want. I wasn't trying to tell you what to do at all.

It sounded to me like you were suggesting that it's not a fad diet. It clearly is. It is also, according to most health experts, simply unhealthy, and is definitely unnatural. It might be more healthy than being significantly overweight, but only if you do it for a short period of time, and my observations show me that that simply doesn't work. It, like all other fad diets, seems to require that you follow their rules forever, and if you don't, you're likely to put back on more weight than you started with.

Again, the only rule for losing weight is "consume fewer calories than you burn". There may be techniques that help with that in a psychological or physiological manner, but there's no magic bullet.

I hit a personal high of 285 earlier this spring, and decided I needed to get to work. Back in 2002 I was mountain biking a lot and went from 230 at the time to 200 over the summer without changing my diet at all. I knew I just needed to get exercising.

I haven't changed my diet too much yet, and need to do more there, but I'm currently down 25 lbs to 260. Fortunately I was pretty much already off soda, with the occasional drink once a month or so, so that hasn't been a struggle. The junk/fast food and just overeating have been my biggest hurdles.

Over the summer my friends and I did a "biggest loser" type competition. Just purely for ourselves, and a bit of bragging rights. We tracked both weight and our hours exercising. That helped motivate me a bit to get out there.

This will be the last month of good weather where I can ride my bikes outside. I'm going to really have to work hard to keep exercising indoors over the winter. I'm a bit like Roger in that I struggle staying motivated. Having someone to work along side me helps me keep going.

Atkins is not a fad diet, it teaches you and your body what your body needs and where it's natural balance is. Everyone judges it on the first stage, which you only do for a very short period. Then you move onto increasingly balanced stages once you have reached certain goals. I don't think people read the book, or at least it appears that way.

I've lost 3 stone on Atkins, and I have another 2-3 stone to loose to be back at the weight I was when we last met face to face. I have given myself until our ski trip at the end of January to loose another stone then a year to get to my target weight and fitness level.

Things I have found that my body doesn't need on a regular basis are bread, pasta, sweets (candy) and sugared drinks. I plan to control my intake of these foods but will for example have bread when I feel like it rather than on a regular habit basis like at breakfast.

I have missed fruits while on the initial stages of Atkins, I am enjoying introducing some fruits and juices back in. I have been careful to balance the lack of vitamins and minerals with substitutes, this is often over looked I think.

The real truth of it any massive diet change can be unhealthy, they are all the same really. But going into it informed and knowing the signs of you not doing things quite right are very important. On Atkins I have had to increase my salt intake a little, I never used to have to add salt to my meals. Noticing the signs and making an adjustment is all in the book, but so many people I have heard about don't seem to have listened.

One other point I'd like to make is I haven't needed, at this point, pay out for some rip off diet product. I would include Atkins own products in this, they are such a scam. Learning what your body needs and learning a few new cooking techniques is all I needed to do.

Cheers

Cris.

I started looking at my own habits after noticing my waist grew by three inches over the time I've been in Austin. Generally, I've had a pretty high metabolism rate, and combined with my lifestyle in Colorado, things were kept in balance. Once I moved to Austin though, two big changes occurred. I've been less active outdoors, and I've also had access to free or cheap soda and snacks at work. Cutting back to one soda a day, and opting for water or green tea has helped stabilize my weight. Now I'm looking into things to keep me more active, with simple things like walks around the neighborhood and such. Hopefully I can reverse the trend with just these steps, as it has been nice to go most of my life without worrying about it too much.

I will say that one of the easiest things for me, for some reason, was to drop soda from my diet. I did that about six years ago, and in the time since I've had one soda (I was going through a hard time and really freaking wanted a cherry coke), and one sip of another (how can you NOT try a sip of celery soda?).

Other than that, I've kicked high-sodium foods, which was tough for a ramen nut like me.

One of the tips I like that I've heard is to "shop the perimeter" at the grocery store. The idea is that there's more preservatives in the stuff in the middle.

I've had two 'major' weight loss attempts in the last 6 years. At the beginning of 2005 I weighed approx. 340lbs. I say approx. because the scales at my local doctors only read up to 320! Over a period of 12 months I got down to 260 by doing nothing other than eating less. My doctor initially advised against any major exercise due to the stress on my joints.

Five years later I was back to 308lbs and with less than 6 months before my wedding, I decided to try and shift some weight and within 4 months I was back down to 260, this time by a combination of eating less and swimming (something I took up again about 18 months ago). In reality despite weighing approximately the same as I did last time I lost weight, I've actually lost more fat this time around, my waist size is at least 2 inches less than it was last time and my biceps and chest are about 1.5-2 inches larger than when I started again. I'm 6ft 1 and fairly heavy set anyway, my dad and various phys ed teachers always said I'd have made a cracking Rugby prop forward if hadn't been so allergic to pain!

From my experience Bitt is correct in saying the fundamental crux of losing weight is less in, more out. When Cris started on the Atkins I seriously considered it as well, but it seemed far too restrictive. I love my carbs and I've found I can enjoy them in moderation and still lose weight as long as I exercise as well.

Currently I'm swimming 4-5 nights a week doing at least 1.25km in 30 mins each time, I eat a salad for lunch and drink diet soda (which I really need to cut down on) but I have a relatively normal evening meal and then usually have a 'treat' once or twice a month. I admit that I've plateaued at my current weight and am finding it more difficult to shift any more pounds. It probably means I'll have to kick the exercise up another notch or cut down more on the food.

Looking at the whole experience I can say that while looking/feeling slimmer is great (some of my T shirts I was wearing back in March/April are now distinctly tentish!), the best thing is feeling fitter. Being able to tackle 2-3 flights of stairs without being knackered is great!

My biggest problem is that I sweat like a pig at the slightest exertion, regardless of its toll on my stamina (and always have, even when I was a normal-weight kid), and I get dehydrated easily, even when drinking copious amounts of water. I've been to the emergency room half a dozen times having gotten in that situation.

I don't eat all that badly, though I could certainly do better, but I just cannot seem to do any exercise for any useful length of time that doesn't leave me trembling and nauseated from dehydration.

In comparison to you, Andy, I can run up 2-3 flights of stairs without too much effort, but ask me to walk leisurely for an hour and I just can't do it.

It really sucks, because I would like to weigh less, but I just cannot seem to exert enough energy.

Seriously, I'm not suggesting you actually do it, but go and buy the new version of the Atkins book and give it a read. It makes a lot of sense if you are in that situation. There may be a few things in there you find useful and make sense.

It has shown me that carbs & sugar do not equal more energy. You need to train your body, I have more energy now that I have for ages. I used to go through 2 or 3 shirts photographing a wedding but now I keep the same one on all day, my energy levels are more stable and I sweat a lot less. A lot of that could be put down to the weight loss itself but there is something to be said for looking at what you eat and the effect it has on you.

To me it makes total sense that if you do something to loose weight, then stop doing it and go back to bad habits you will quickly put the weight back on. I have started with Atkins and will end with a sustainable diet that I understand and know is healthy but still be able to eat the things I like too. For the moment I need to focus on exercise as I am naturally very lazy!

Cheers

Cris

I don't really think Atkins sounds as dangerous as some health experts make it out to be. I am not an expert in it but as I understand it you do eat pretty normally after completing the initial phases of it. The initial phase does sound crazy how they say you can't eat most fruits even but you don't keep that up long term I beliver. For me I don't feel like I am a carb addict I don't really crave sweets I crave things like chicken or steak.

Cris what have you done to stop eating in the car ? I think if I could do that it would help a lot. It's really not too hard to find healthy options at fast food places anymore so I can do good at lunch if I try but I always want to be eating something when I drive long distances.

I don't think I'm being clear. I could go on and on if it were just the exertion of energy. (Well, I'm overstating the case.) It's solely the dehydration that bothers me. I quite simply get overheated. I don't think diet has anything to do with it, as my dad had the exact same issue, and he was rail-thin.

Just will power I'm afraid. I do keep a bottle of water in the side pocket most of the time now though.

I used to be one for picking up a couple of bags of sweets when paying for fuel, I'm not perfect I break the new rules sometimes, but it's usually just tictacs or something. The past few weeks I have let some bad habits return, which to be honest has been great to realise that it's me that is the problem and that I know what happens if I eat that stuff.

I am not a fan of diet drinks, I have too many at the moment, it's the next thing I am going to cut out. Not for loosing weight just to be more healthy.

The biggest problem I have is eating out at midday. It's just carb central, it's so hard to get something nice that is also balanced. Most prepared salads seem to have pasta, cheese and mayo in them, not exactly a healthy option! Lunch times = bad times

Cheers

Cris

Yea, I'm not suggesting you try it, just read it as it's quite interesting. I think there is sound advice in there even if you don't plan to actually follow the whole diet.

If you suffer from dehydration then Atkins probably isn't a good idea without medical advice. I've had to up my intake of fluids along with salt, this has prevented me suffering from cramps and headaches which is a common complaint of people on Atkins. You end up peeing a whole lot more in the first stage !!!

If you are continually feeding your system with carbs to get energy then when that resource runs out then your body is not conditioned to start burning fat. So over an hour say your energy level will drop until your body kicks in. What I have noticed is I get a big rush that I can now actually feel if I have sugar, if I don't have sugar I find I am able to just plod along more than I used to. Say I had a bag of sweets now, I would more than likely get a bot of a headache then want to go to sleep, showing what sort of a state my system was in when it was always being topped up with carbs.

Cheers

Cris

In Utah?! I think you are being far too cautious.

For at least 15 years I (and a bunch of other bike club members) rode our bikes all year, regardless of the weather, in Fairbanks, Alaska. One of our most fun group rides was the "New Years Eve" ride, which started at midnight on December 31, sometimes in temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero.

I confess to being a wimp, my normal cutoff temperature was minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Not because I was too cold, but because it just wasn't as much fun, having to layer up to the point where it took significantly more work to bend my knees, and colder than that the bike didn't work as well, the shifters would get stiff, sometimes the pawls in the freewheel would stick and the pedals would just spin without providing locomotion.

As a rule we would wear exactly the same clothing that people would wear for cross-country skiing. Nobody thinks it's strange to see skiers out in sub-zero temperatures but for some reason they think it's extraordinary to see people on bicycles.

tanstaafl.

I don't think I have lost much due to exercise. I have friends who started running and have lost weight but I really do not want to do that. I like going for walks but I don't think that really burns enough calories to matter much.

I have only been drinking sugar free things for several years. I have friends that did that and lost a bunch of weight but that did not happen for me.

Bitt have you went to a doctor about this ? Maybe you have a thyroid issue or a deficiency of something ?