Need advice on how to lose 130 pounds.

[-Chen Stormstout-]

Exercise regularly

Never drink sugar sodas

Eat healthy meals that are in proper portions. Literally this is the one thing that is so hard for most people. A piece of meat the size of a deck of cards, four spoonfuls of rice and two celery pieces is the actual size of what you should be eating proportionally.

Stay away from bread, noodles, cookies, and potato chips

Understand that weight loss isn't a quick fix, it is a complete lifestyle change

Be disciplined and never give up on losing weight, even if you break down and eat a whole pizza or something, don't let that discourage you from eating healthy the next day and the day after that

Exercise Exercise Exercise

[Shuya82]

You can't cut back to 1800 calories and be weight training 5 times per week, your body will become starved and your craving for food will become impossible to resist. Try to eat 3-5 meals per day , small healthy meals, you have to keep your metabolism working and train it to keep working. Lots of water, no soda, beer, or any sugar based drinks.

and as others have said, contacting a professional is probably going to be best, the body is complicated and it's easy to lose control, or create a plan that's doing more harm than good. Good luck!

[Fogkin]

Just wanted to touch on these two things really quickly:



Having very few carbs (i.e. only getting complex carbs from something like veggies) means your body has to resort to getting energy from your natural stores (fat) if carbs aren't there. The idea isn't necessarily to just lose weight, but to lose body fat. It's pretty efficient way to do things. Not saying it's the only way to go, but it works quite well.

Furthermore, I'm not quite sure where you got your information about carbs (sugar) repairing your body. Every little bit of info I've ever found has never mentioned such a thing. Now I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I need a source (academic case studies would be best) to change my mind.



Meal timing/frequency is irrelevant. You can eat 1 great big meal or 10 meals throughout the day. Your body uses the same amount of energy to digest the food. (Source)

You could also look up the Thermic effect of food.

"When you eat your protein, don't take it solo. "You've got to have some carbohydrates," Livingstone says. "There's got to be some sugar in that protein to increase the absorption." Carbs not only help your body grow muscle, but they also provide you with fuel for your workout." http://men.webmd.com/features/eat-to-lose-weight

"Insulin also stimulates muscle growth by enhancing protein synthesis and facilitating the entry of glucose into cells. The satellite cells use glucose as a fuel substrate, thus enabling their cell growth activities. And, glucose is also used for intramuscular energy needs." http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article...lesgrowLK.html

Anabolic State

Decreased synthesis of protein, fat, carbs (growth, energy storage)
decreased breakdown of protein, fat, carbohydrate
Increased production of cells for immune system (WBC's of thymus and bone marrow)
Increased bone repair
Increase in sexual processes (Cellular, hormonal, psychological)
Improved digestion

When your challenges and skills are not equally matched and your challenges are greater than your skills, you approach and enter a catabolic state wherein your body basically begins to cannibalize itself averting and utilizing available resources for survival.
Catabolic State

Halt in synthesis of protein, fat and carbohydrate
Increased breakdown of protein, free fatty acids, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol for energy
Increased production of RBC and liver enzymes for energy
Decreased repair and replacement of cells with normally high turn-over (gut, skin, etc.)
Decreased production of cells for immune system (thymus shrinks, circulating white cells decrease)
Decreased sexual processes
Increased blood pressure, cardiac output
Increased salt and water retention
Impaired digestion

http://facstaff.unca.edu/cschrade/BF...lic_states.htm

Reason I quote that is because the whole reason behind eating 5-6 small meals a day is to help keep your body in an anabolic state over a catabolic state. If you want to read up some more on anabolism this is a nice article http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articl...lic-state.html
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articl...lic-state.html

[KresnikHellfire]

I don't want to sound rude, but i am going to give it to you without trying to spare your feelings. I am 16, and last year i weighed 180 pounds. I am down to 140 pounds this year. It is really easy to loose weight if you actually stick with it. You need to do 2 very simple things, exercise more, and eat less.
1. Do cardiovascular exercise like running, biking, and rowing. Muscular work outs are great to build muscles but are not that great at getting you to loose weight because they honestly don't burn as many calories. During an hour of vigorous workout at a gym you burn about 400 calories, during an hour of running you burn more than 800, or double the calories.
2. You need to make a calorie journal, it doesn't matter how you do it, it can be an excel spread sheet, it can be it a little book, BUT IT CAN NOT BE IN YOUR HEAD. If you try to keep track of calories in your head you will lie to yourself, that's just the way it is, its human nature. You need to decide how many calories you want to eat a day, there are numerous websites to help with this, and then record the calories of everything you eat. You can look on the back of packaging or on websites for calories information.
If you stick with it and don't give in or try any magical weight loss bull shit, you will loose plenty of weight.
-Carlucill

My experience was similar to this one, although I'm not sure how much it's going to help you because going from 22 stone to 12 stone is a massive step that's going to take a lot of work.

From just a personal viewpoint, though, I weight 12 stone 4 coming home for a few months after University, and decided for my body frame that was wayy too much. I cut out biscuits and chocolate, eating bananas or apples instead, and had a small lunch and large dinner as my only meals of the day. I try to go for a jog whenever I can too, although I'm not so great at the exercising part :P
Anyhow, I now weigh 10 stone 12. It was definitely the change of eating habits that worked for me. If you live in a house with lots of biscuits or cake to tempt you, you might consider throwing them out and only having healthy options in.

[Radux]

"When you eat your protein, don't take it solo. "You've got to have some carbohydrates," Livingstone says. "There's got to be some sugar in that protein to increase the absorption." Carbs not only help your body grow muscle, but they also provide you with fuel for your workout." http://men.webmd.com/features/eat-to-lose-weight

"Insulin also stimulates muscle growth by enhancing protein synthesis and facilitating the entry of glucose into cells. The satellite cells use glucose as a fuel substrate, thus enabling their cell growth activities. And, glucose is also used for intramuscular energy needs." http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article...lesgrowLK.html

Both of these articles actually don't outright say (nor will anyone) that Carbs = do the same stuff as protein for muscles. The sugar is used to help as a transport system for the protein. Also, in both of these articles, they assume this is directly post workout (thus leading into your whole anabolic/catabolic states).

So post workout, the simple carbs are there to refill glycogen stores as well as transport protein.

In regards to Anabolic vs. Catabolic states, it is important to have some simple carbs post workout (specifically) to enter that state for maximum effectiveness for recovery. However, the thing it (within the confines of this thread of weightloss/fatloss) doesn't help with is fat loss. Keeping sugar in your body means your body will only feed off that, opposed to body fat, for energy. So if you're on a high protein/low carb diet, going catabolic isn't necessarily terrible. You break down your own body fat for energy -- thus putting yourself right back into an anabolic state.

One last thing I want to point out with this last section is that maximizing your anabolic state is only really important if you're body building. The guys who are packing on mass. For someone who wants to lose 130 lbs, it should hardly be on the radar. If you're exercising, have proper nutrition and have proper rest, they'll get lower body fat % and gain muscle (though not substantial) over the duration.

[xpose]

Exercise regularly

Never drink sugar sodas

Eat healthy meals that are in proper portions. Literally this is the one thing that is so hard for most people. A piece of meat the size of a deck of cards, four spoonfuls of rice and two celery pieces is the actual size of what you should be eating proportionally.

Stay away from bread, noodles, cookies, and potato chips

Understand that weight loss isn't a quick fix, it is a complete lifestyle change

Be disciplined and never give up on losing weight, even if you break down and eat a whole pizza or something, don't let that discourage you from eating healthy the next day and the day after that

Exercise Exercise Exercise

this is probably the worst advice you can give to someone trying to lose weight. Putting restrictions on foods just makes them want to eat it even more, not only that but you have no science at all supporting reasons to stay away from certain food groups since "eating healthy" is relative dependant on the person own perspective on what they deem is healthy.


To many people in this topic need to stop giving advice and just start reading articles from www.bodyrecomposition.com and learn basic human physiology since there is so much misinfortion in here I wont even bother to address it all and will instead post that website and take my leave

[Grogo]

Has anyone ever checked out the "17 day diet" from some Doctor? Seen it on Dr Phil one day as my wife was watching it and I took notice. Wondered how effective it was.

[Fogkin]

Both of these articles actually don't outright say (nor will anyone) that Carbs = do the same stuff as protein for muscles. The sugar is used to help as a transport system for the protein. Also, in both of these articles, they assume this is directly post workout (thus leading into your whole anabolic/catabolic states).

So post workout, the simple carbs are there to refill glycogen stores as well as transport protein.

In regards to Anabolic vs. Catabolic states, it is important to have some simple carbs post workout (specifically) to enter that state for maximum effectiveness for recovery. However, the thing it (within the confines of this thread of weightloss/fatloss) doesn't help with is fat loss. Keeping sugar in your body means your body will only feed off that, opposed to body fat, for energy. So if you're on a high protein/low carb diet, going catabolic isn't necessarily terrible. You break down your own body fat for energy -- thus putting yourself right back into an anabolic state.

One last thing I want to point out with this last section is that maximizing your anabolic state is only really important if you're body building. The guys who are packing on mass. For someone who wants to lose 130 lbs, it should hardly be on the radar. If you're exercising, have proper nutrition and have proper rest, they'll get lower body fat % and gain muscle (though not substantial) over the duration.

I wasn't saying that carbs do the same thing as protein. I know they don't by any means. But they are needed in rebuilding muscles after an intense workout, be it only to refuel glycogen. But carbs and protein work together in rebuilding what was broken down. I guess I didn't specify what I was saying originally. But also the more muscle you have the more calories you burn at a resting state so in theory if someone wanted to lose weight they would want to build muscle mass to maximize the amount of calories they can burn in any given day.

While yes if someone wants to lose 130 pounds fast without regards to building muscles then the whole anabolic vs catabolic isn't important. But to me I wanted to maximize my results even if it meant I wouldn't lose weight as fast as possible. Plus for someone losing 100+ pounds they are going to have loose skin so if you can build muscle as you lose the fat the signs of stretched out skin won't show as bad as if you just lost weight without weight lifting.

There are so many ways to get from point A to point B, was just giving my two cents and how I went about achieving my goals. By chance how do you know so much about this? Just curious, I did countless hours of research when I started really working out heavily so I knew what was good and bad for me and my body. I will say a lot of information i read did come from body building websites and articles. Also Men's Health has a lot of great articles on exercising an dieting, if any of you need some reading material for the bathroom I'd recommend picking up an issue.

[Radux]

By chance how do you know so much about this?

My first degree was in Kinesiology. I started out after college as a personal trainer and did that for 2 years (note: my gym went under). I've been back in school for something different; not because I don't love health/fitness/nutrition, but rather there's next to no work for exercise science in my part of the world.

Note: this doesn't make me an expert in the field. Far from it. I've done my own research (as well as always encourage others to do their own) at nights when I have a question needing answered. I also am still good friends with a few of my old professors, as well as classmates who actually went out and found a job in the field. I consult them if I can't find the information I want online (or if it's hardly sourced).

My big thing with internet research in regards to health/fitness/nutrition is that, like you said, there are so many ways to get from point A to B. I happen to get into these threads not necessarily to drive my own thoughts home, but rather to ensure that bad advice isn't given. Now I'm not pointing fingers by any means, but there's a ton of bro-science out there for a lot of things. That's why, when I say to go look it up, people need to check credentials of the articles and the authors (much like you would for a trainer) to make sure the information is accurate and not full of holes.

[Fogkin]

My first degree was in Kinesiology. I started out after college as a personal trainer and did that for 2 years (note: my gym went under). I've been back in school for something different; not because I don't love health/fitness/nutrition, but rather there's next to no work for exercise science in my part of the world.

Note: this doesn't make me an expert in the field. Far from it. I've done my own research (as well as always encourage others to do their own) at nights when I have a question needing answered. I also am still good friends with a few of my old professors, as well as classmates who actually went out and found a job in the field. I consult them if I can't find the information I want online (or if it's hardly sourced).

My big thing with internet research in regards to health/fitness/nutrition is that, like you said, there are so many ways to get from point A to B. I happen to get into these threads not necessarily to drive my own thoughts home, but rather to ensure that bad advice isn't given. Now I'm not pointing fingers by any means, but there's a ton of bro-science out there for a lot of things. That's why, when I say to go look it up, people need to check credentials of the articles and the authors (much like you would for a trainer) to make sure the information is accurate and not full of holes.

Fair enough. Thanks for answering. Just sounded like you are pretty knowledgeable on the subject, figured you were either in the medical field or a personal trainer or somewhere along those lines. Sorry to hear about the gym, and you're right, Indiana isn't the best place for health nuts with all those farmers But I agree 100% about doing research especially when it comes to your own body. Like you said, never know who is giving you the information online. A lot of stuff I've read I always run by my nutritionist to make sure I was informed correctly and he always lets me know if it's valid or not. Gotta love having an ex fiance who worked for a baseball team, made some good connections there haha

[Melpo]

My first advice to you would be to consult with a physician first and then work with both a dietitian and personal trainer. At least for the first few months.

This is where the thread should have ended. Good advice.

A girl who lied about her weight, came on a blind date with me, and while shoveling down a piece of chocolate cake on the date muttered: "Oh! I wish I could lose weight!"

"Seriously?" I asked. "Here's a tip. Stop eating so much junk and get your fat butt on a treadmill for an hour a day!"

Date didn't last long after that.

Consult a physician before any diet change. Losing weight is really simple. Consume less calories than you burn while retaining the nutrients to sustain your body. ie Exercise more, but eat the right, low fat foods.

[rabbimojo]

Putting in another vote for "eat less burn more".

The absolute most important thing is to make yourself do it every day. Make it a habit, a lifestyle. Become the new person, someone who eats healthy things, lives a healthy life.

Surround yourself with people who are doing the same, who believe the same.

Maybe start here: http://nerdfitness.com/blog/
Hell, front page has a guy at 310 (spooky) who lost 128 pounds (also spooky).

It isn't hard to eat healthfully for one day, or to work out for one day, right? Not *that* hard.
So, do that today.

Do it tomorrow.

Do it the next day.

Do it every "next day".

If you do this, you will get there.

Simple as that.

[melsmeg]

Although everyone is offering their advice with the best of intentions... a good portion of this advice is based on misinformation. I do not believe that common knowledge is truth. In other words "exercise and eating right" for the rest of your life will keep you thin... eh. Contrary to popular belief... it is not just a matter of eating less, or eating less of a certain horrible food. Oh and any diet you have to go through an actual maintenance that doesn't allow you to eat within reason whatever you want... is not a cure for being obese... it is a bandaid.

That being said, if you are truly serious about losing weight it is my opinion that you find this book "Pounds and Inches" by Dr Simeons. His diet protocol has been around for over 60 years. The only reasons this diet is not more mainstream is because as a cure, it would put all other weightloss diets/schemes to shame and out of business. Also it is very restricting and requires more of a commitment than many are willing to give. I suggest you pick up the book, its not very big, then get the spray (not injections) and follow the HCG diet protocol given with the spray. I have recently started this with about 8 of my relatives after watching one of my aunts lose over 100lbs. This is a cure, you do not have to do something crazy after the treatment periods to "maintain" your weight, just a breezy period where you set your weight, like programming your body to stay at your ideal weight.


Good luck with whatever you chose to do.

[-Chen Stormstout-]

this is probably the worst advice you can give to someone trying to lose weight. Putting restrictions on foods just makes them want to eat it even more, not only that but you have no science at all supporting reasons to stay away from certain food groups since "eating healthy" is relative dependant on the person own perspective on what they deem is healthy.


To many people in this topic need to stop giving advice and just start reading articles from www.bodyrecomposition.com and learn basic human physiology since there is so much misinfortion in here I wont even bother to address it all and will instead post that website and take my leave

Telling someone to eat healthy and telling them not to eat Big Mac's is the worst advice you can give to someone losing weight?

Really?

Weight loss and eating healthy is about discipline.

Eating healthy isn't dependent on each person's perspective on what healthy is.

[Deleted]

3 Big Mac's per day would leave abouts -400kcal for average person if one doenst eat anything else :>

[Azshira]

The path you are about to take is a lifestyle change, remember that. You want a steady goal and do the process slowly and safely, something you could keep up. I WOULD NOT recommend any diets you see on the internet because most of them are fads and in all honestly they do not work for the long term. You will want to slowly take yourself off as much junk food as possible and replace it with nice healthy foods. Going off all junk food just off the bat will probably not be a good move, but taking it out of your routine bit by bit, you won't miss it. Feel free to have that 1 day a week to have something you desire, just don't overdo it :P

What you want is to create a calorie deficit, whereby you are aiming to lose X amount of calories over the week. So how do you make a deficit? It's quite simple subtraction really, if you counted up the calories you ate a day and it came to 3000, you'd probably want to get a good deficit of lets say 20% which is 600 less calories so... 3000 - 600 = 2400 calories a day. Now since you are eating 600 less a day alone, 600 over the course of a week. 600 x 7 = 4200. There are 3500 calories in a pound, so you are losing just over 1 pound a week just from making a deficit alone.

1 pound may not seem like much to you, but add that up every week of the year - that's 52 pounds right there. Of course the body will adapt to this over-time so you'll need to change it around. You do not need to eat lesser than that, but it will require you to change up a suitable exercise routine.

Remember this (DENS): Determination + Exercise + Nutrition = Success.

Please note all numbers are just off the top of my head, they are not to represent how much you are eating, the 20% is a mere guideline, but a solid number. Have veg with every meal, protein and water. Keep hydrated throughout the day.

Before starting an exercise regime, talk to your doctor. Team up with a nutrionist and a personal trainer.

I wish you the best of success

[Demonakat]

3 Big Mac's per day would leave abouts -400kcal for average person if one doenst eat anything else :>

Calorie counting isn't enough to lose weight. Also... there was this movie made called Super Size Me. If you haven't watched it, you should. You'll learn a lot.
(The movie forced McDonalds to make a healthier menu and to stop saying "Would you like it Super Sized?"

---------- Post added 2012-01-21 at 09:01 PM ----------

I posted this on another thread but I'll post it here as well.
There is a smartphone app called MyFitnessPal - Calorie Counter. It's also a website, if you don't have a smartphone.
You plug in height/weight/age/gender and so on, and then it'll calculate how many calories you should take in per day to lose weight. It has up to 2 pounds - in increments of .25 pounds - per week. It helps you gain control of how much you're eating, you plug in whatever food you ate that day, and it'll tell you the calorie count for it. It also tells you roughly how many calories you burned per workout. Very handy, you should try it out.

[Penatar]

1. Stop lifting if you want to lose weight. I've put on 20 pounds since I became a serious lifter 7 months ago.
2. If you're 310, unless you go anorexic, your body type probably won't get to 180. It's not weight that matters, it's fat %. I'm 270 pounds and have 17% body fat which is in the normal range. That's how much muscle I have.
3. Your muscles will be sore until you get used to it. It's called delayed onset muscle soreness.
4. More muscle takes more calories to maintain, so of you maintain 1800 calories, you'll burn more fat throughout the day regardless of what you are doing, even sitting on the computer.
5. Why not protein shakes? They are on of the best sources of protein with little to no fat or sugar and low calories. I consume 50 a day from shakes an it totals 280 calories.
6. Avoid red meat.
7. Stick with it, we all burn weight at different rates, some people take months to see results but then see huge results.

[Stankymcgee]

1.Do not Stop lifting if you want to lose weight.

4. More muscle takes more calories to maintain, so of you maintain 1800 calories, you'll burn more fat throughout the day regardless of what you are doing, even sitting on the computer.

Fixed that part for you. As to number four that is correct. Lifting weights is very important for losing weight. You do want to gain some muscle mass albeit you do not have to over do it if you don't want to be huge. Like someone else said don't go on a diet, make changes to eat healthier. Diets are short term go with a lifestlye change you can see yourself enjoying basically for the rest of your life.

[worprz]

Well it depends on what you want, I would say stop lifting to get the best out of both.

Let me explain, if you want to build muscle you need to eat enough calories to build muscle but not so much that you gain fat. Now you could continue lifting while eating less but it has a little problem, your body gets used to lifting over time so even if you don't eat correctly and continue to lift it will be harder for you to gain muscle later on if that is what you want. For example though if it is your first year ever lifting it is possible for a male to gain 25 pounds of muscle in one year IF you are doing everything correctly and assuming you do not have the genes for muscle building. Each year you weight lift the number of pounds you can gain decreases regardless of how much muscle you did or did not gain.

I would suggest start by eating less and going for hour jogs/bike rides everyday. Sure you could just start a diet but the problem with starting a diet is that they are harder to stick to because you completely change your everyday habits and it makes it really hard on you and easier to quit. I would suggest take out a few items at a time, for instance stop drinking soda and quit eating between meals while continuing to run / ride a bike every day. After you become used to not having those select items out of your daily life remove something else and eventually replace the food you have with healthier foods.

I have lost 90 pounds in a short amount of time by this method and I believe it is the easiest way to stick to a healthier life style than just straight up changing everything all at once.