Need some weight loss tips

[TobyKenobi]

In my dieting experience calorie deficit is the best way to lose weight. There are many diets and fads, but track what you take in and how much you work out. The rest is math.

First calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Next lets assume that you are sedentary and multiply that number by 1.2. This new number is essentially how many calories you will burn in a day if you play games all day and maybe walk around the house a bit.

Now start tracking your calories-in each day. Keep a log, don't try to guess because you'll be surprised how far off your guesses can be. Also keep track of how many calories you are burning through workouts. The goal is that you want a net calorie deficit in order to lose weight. You can use the estimate of about 3500 calories per pound of fat to determine how much of a deficit you need in order to lose the weight you want. Now you wont necessarily lose a pound for every 3500 calories, because there are a lot of other factors, but I've dropped 15lbs in 3 weeks using this style of dieting along with 15-20 miles per week of running. Also when I diet like this macronutrients don't seem to have any affect on my weight loss (e.g. I lose weight just as quickly with a 65% fat, 30% protein, 5% carb, as I do with 60% carb, 25% fat, 20% protein).

[Souma]

Hi there, you seem pretty motivated and I hope you stay that way. Some suggestions here aren't bad at all, but some are just utter rubbish.

How tall are you and how much do you actually weigh? That'd be a good start.

Now, I suggest you take a look at http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=121703981 it may seem a bit complicated, but it'll help you calculate how many calories you actually need on a daily basis. Cut that amount back by 20% and you will lose weight. Someone said you should cut back on protein, DON'T! proteins are very important and if anything, you'd want to cut back on carbs (sugars). Drinking water is not bad, but don't overdo it, replace things like coke and sugary drinks with water, but keep drinking milk or coffee, that's completely fine. It's about being able to stick to the 'diet', not just losing a lot of weight really quickly, but about changing your lifestyle.

Exercising is important, but you don't want to overdo it. Give your body time to rest between workouts. 48 hours is preferable, but not necessary. Exercising 7 times a week may sound like a good idea, but it will be pretty hard to keep up. 3 times a week is plenty, just make sure you do the right workouts.

http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5...ining-program/ may seem pretty silly, but it does work. Cardio is nice but you probably want to look lean, not skinny. This way you will build muscle and lose fat, instead of just burning fat and gaining minimal amounts of muscle. Your weight really isn't all that important, it's just a number, it's more about how you look and how you feel.

I hope this helps a bit, I'm not an expert, so make sure you read up yourself as well. Bodybuilding.com actually has a fair amount of info, some of which really is great info.

In case you're really motivated, perhaps http://www.leangains.com/ is for you. It's pretty rigorous, but a lot of people have gotten great results with it.

Good luck!

Edit: refer a few posts down, fats aren't an issue.

[neccowafer]

If you've been way out of shape for years, you are probably gaining muscle mass by working out about as fast as you're losing fat. Which isn't bad. Really, it's body composition that is more important, not weight.

If someone weighs 300 pounds but most of that consists of muscle and bone they're still healthier than someone who weighs 200 pounds but has a small frame and has very little muscle mass. It's all relative. I would stop looking at straight numbers and try to find a clinic that can give you a body composition test, then you can compare later. Even if you lose like 5 pounds only, it may be that you lost 15 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle, which is way more important for appearance and health than just losing 5 pounds of fat.

[Deleted]

Loosing weight is freaking simple. You can sit on your ass and loose weight without gym and cardio. It's like this...

More calories consumed than you need = weight gain
less calories that you need (let's say 10-15% less, below that is not that healthy considering catabolism) = weight loss.

There are online calculators for calories needed, use this for example http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
Loosing weight is no real sience, what cardio does, it basically allows you to eat more - you can cut your calorie intake or increase your calories burned, either way is going to work. If you do both and cut your calories a lot, you will loose both muscle and fat.

[Deleted]

Screw the calories... People stare themselves to death on those things... Ignoring the fact that science has long-since proven that it's unhealthy to stare yourself to death on them.

Eat regularly: breakfast, lunch, dinner. And when you do, eat as much as satisfies your body's needs. Your body will tell you how much energy you need to keep going, and since that amount varies person to person, calories will do shite for you there. If the calories are too high for your personal metabolism, you'll gain weight. If you eat too little, your body will go into survival mode...and you'll gain weight.

Secondly, limit the variation in your diet. Eating Chinese, Italian, Thai and fricking Martian foods makes for really tasty eating, but it confuses your body to hell and back. It can't rely on knowing that it will get certain chemicals regularly because your diet is too varied, and in response it just stocks up on everything it can. That's not to say you should only eat cheese and bread for the rest of your life, but limiting your diet helps a lot. It'll let your body settle on what it can expect, and if you get a craving for something particular, odds are it has something in it that your body needs (Oo! Pickles, anyone? Sodium deficiency in pregnant women). Except when it's McDonalds, lol =) Oh, and stay the fuck away from any instantfoods. Half the condiments in them are poison, even "healthy" bowls of rice...

Outside that... Just stay away from the snacks and keep exercising, the rest will go by itself.

[m4xc4v413r4]

Get up early, drink some water, do some light exercise, eat decent breakfast, drink some water go biking until lunch, drink some water, light exercise, eat lunch, do whatever you want, drink water, light exercise, eat blabla (can't remember the english word for that afternoon meal is), drink water, go biking some more, drink water, light exercise, eat light dinner, do whatever you want, go to sleep, back to beginning.

Obviously this is only really doable if you don't have anything to do. If you do have things to do, try to do the things that fit the schedule.

Basic things to take into account to lose weight: drink water, at least 2 litres a day, eat small amounts of food but often, every 3-4 hours, don't eat crap, don't drink alcohol, if you like a sport, do it, you train harder if you like what you're doing.

By light exercise, i mean push-ups, abs, etc etc (in small amount), warm up exercises, stretch exercises. You don't need to go to a Gym, Gym is only worth it to build up muscle in large amount.

mmh, can't remember anything else right now

btw, about you not noticing loss of weight, don't worry about it, you're doing a good enough routine (this assuming you really eat healthy, blablabla, everything you said), in the beginning it takes time to notice, and you have to take into account that you are losing fat and gaining muscle, muscle weighs more than fat, so, sometimes you can even gain weight in the beginning, but you'll get to a point where the overall weight will drop way faster. Gaining good amount of muscle and losing good amount of fat is a months thing, don't expect to see decent results in no time

[grakes]

You only need to drink water when your thirsty... not when you can... Drinking more water than your body needs creates water weight...

[Appletini]

I lost 25 pounds over about three-four months not so long ago. It was a simple diet. Like others suggested, I ate 5-6 times a day. But I only ate 1250-1350 calories per dayalso.

The point of the diet was to keep my metabolism turned on while consuming fewer calories. If your metabolism is on but you only have a few calories in your stomach, your body will switch to its secondary energy system--burning fat.

I hardly increased my workouts over this period, and I didn't work out much. Had I been working out, I would have eaten more calories (in the interest of muscle building), and probably would have broken even.

Now I eat more (~1750-1900 calories/day over four meals), but I work out for about an hour a day (Elliptical, cross-training, lifting, etc).

Also, if you'd like a Fitocracy invite, let me know (PM me). Good luck!

[Zaios]

Fat isn't bad either, but try to eat less saturated fats.

WHY are you telling him to eat less saturated fats? Refer to my post about how one does not need to worry about heart disease or cholesterol concerning saturated fat. Eating more of it will suppress hunger and help loose weight. AVOID processed vegetable oils, not saturated fat. I don't know why people say this with little to no evidence backing this up. There is no data whatsoever that proves saturated fat is bad for you.

[Souma]

I lost 25 pounds over about three-four months not so long ago. It was a simple diet. Like others suggested, I ate 5-6 times a day. But I only ate 1250-1350 calories per dayalso.

The point of the diet was to keep my metabolism turned on while consuming fewer calories. If your metabolism is on but you only have a few calories in your stomach, your body will switch to its secondary energy system--burning fat.

I hardly increased my workouts over this period, and I didn't work out much. Had I been working out, I would have eaten more calories (in the interest of muscle building), and probably would have broken even.

Now I eat more (~1750-1900 calories/day over four meals), but I work out for about an hour a day (Elliptical, cross-training, lifting, etc).

Also, if you'd like a Fitocracy invite, let me know (PM me). Good luck!

~1300 calories a day is very little, I would assume you're a pretty small person to be able to maintain on ~1825 calories a day. Especially when you work out every day. May I ask how tall you are and how much you currently weigh? You have sparked my interest!

Side note, meal frequency doesn't mean that much http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Meal%20Frequency you can eat big meals, small meals, whatever you like, as long as you pay attention to your calories.

Also to Zaios, I've edited my post to remove that bit, thanks for the info.

[mynameisjona]

How do you live on 1300 calories a day? An average person burns at minimum ~1 calorie per minute no matter what they are doing (aka: sitting down/sleeping you burn that much) which equates to ~1440 a day. Of course you could be smaller than the average person but 1300 calories if you do anything (like walk around even a little bit) isn't really enough to survive on

[Galbatorixx]

Okay you got hit and miss answers all throughout the thread. For one, quit focusing on the numbers on the scale and start looking in the mirror to track your progress. Real talk. I sit at 9% bodyfat YEAR ROUND, and have a double bodyweight bench and triple bodyweight deadlift to show for it as well. It's FUCKING EASY. And I'm going to share my secrets with you right now.


1.) Do not look at scale
2.) Eat 100g of Protein a day
3.)Workout 4-5 days a week for 30-60 minute sessions. (I personally do 35-40 minute sessions).
4.) If you arn't hungry, then don't eat. Its pretty simple. If you aren't hungry for breakfest, then don't eat it. Your metabolism isn't going to magically slow down if you wait a few extra hours to eat your first meal in the day. Infact, You could try intermittantly fasting (I do this) and go 20 hours of not eating and 4 hours of stuffing your face everyday. It works and its easy.
5.) Set a Calorie limit and STICK to it. 1400-700 is a good amount.


Remember, It's not how long you workout for. You go in there to stimulate the muscle for growth and that's it. You don't need to be in the gym for hours to be ripped and strong or fit. Muscles grow while you rest, not while you smash them to smitherenes. Remember that. If your weight on the scale isn't budgeing, it's because you're gaining muscle mass on top of your fat loss. So if you're only losing a pound a week that is still very good! You should expect to only lose 1-2 pounds a week regardless. Any faster and you should start questioning if it is just fast you're burning. There is 3500 calories in ONE pound of fat, but there is 600 calories in ONE pound of muscle. Keep it slow and steady and keep your fire on the fat. It is impossible to burn fat at a super high rate, just like it is impossible to get fat overnight. Remember that. It's going to take time.

Summary:

Eat only when you're hungry
Stay under your calorie limit
Eat more Protein
Lift for 30 minutes a day 4-5 days a week.

My credentials:

Nutrition Major @ Auburn University
Personal Trainer for 3 Years
Been Working out for 10
Competed in Powerlifting
Competed in Bodybuilding
Have been trained by Professional powerlifters and bodybuilders

It's really that simple.

[Rabian]

Last May my bf and I broke up, I hopped on the scale and realized I had gained about 20 lbs over the course of our 2 yr relationship due to eating out more and just being more comfortable in general. I started treadmilling 4 miles each evening, walking at a speed of 4.0 on a 15% incline, which burns about 1000 calories in 1 hour. As far as dietary changes go, I eliminated "waste" foods and drinks, such as pop, candy, etc etc and now I drink only water and green tea. I ate whenever I felt hungry, about every 2-3 hrs, a small portion around 300 calories. Now 5 months later I have lost 23 lbs and converted a lot of fat to muscle, however there are times when my weight loss would plateau for a few weeks. Don't worry if your weight stays the same for a few weeks! This is natural, the body goes through cycles, stress or other factors may be impacting you. Just keep doing the right thing and the pounds will fall off eventually!

[kimura]

congrats on your initiative! Easiest way to lose body fat is to make a
complete lifestyle change. Thoughts, habits, actions, & even friends or
family members will have to be eliminated if they are counter productive to
your weight loss goals.

next you will need to equip yourself with the nutritional intelligence that
will help you understand what kind of fat burning foods you should be
eating and which foods you should avoid. Once you have a solid nutritional
understanding, everything else will be easy street. Find a program that
will guide you & give you step by step plan that will remove the guesswork
and uncertainty.

And dont forget about cardio! not just any cardio either but High Intensity
Cardio. Get that heart rate up & keep it there for several circuits at a
time! Tennis, Swimming Laps for time, Boxing, Kickboxing, Jiu jitsu,
rockclimbing, hell even dancing will all give you a good sweat! good luck!
singledigitbodyfat.net

[ptwonline]

Step 1: Use your age and weight to figure out your basal metabolism (what you burn before exercise)

Step 2: Add in the amount of calories you are burning from exercising. 600 calories or so is about 1 hour of fairly intensive cardio depending on the activity, your age, your weight.

Step 3: figure out what you are eating, the approximate portion sizes, and then figure out how many calories are in those

(there are online resources to help you with all those)


Once you figure out how many total calories you are burning and how much you are consuming then you can figure out adjustments you need to make in order to create a larger calorie deficit. A pound of fat takes about 3500 calories to burn off (this is oversimplified but generally speaking it is true). Work towards eating fewer calories and exercising more to create about 1000 calories/day deficit. Then you should lose about 2 pounds/week.

I did the above steps and have basically created about a 1500 calorie/day deficit for myself. I have now lost 48 pounds in 112 days. They key thing is tracking what you eat and drink, adding up the calories, and not to skip anything out. By holding yourself responsible that way you'll be less tempted to snack or eat portions that are too large, and you'll get an idea of what you want to "spend" your calories eating and what is just wasteful or less desirable. I love bread. Too fattening. So I mostly cut it out. I used to snack late at night a lot. Now I have to count it in my daily total, so I've cut it out.

What also really helps is to eat the same foods fairly regularly. That way you are eating things that you know the approximate calorie amounts and the portion sizes you should be eating, and so it is harder to accidentally overeat. Not sure how many calories are in that chicken caesar salad? Don't eat it. Look it up so you can know for next time.

[queendonkey]

You only need to drink water when your thirsty... not when you can... Drinking more water than your body needs creates water weight...

I'm actually pretty sure your body only tells you to drink water when you're dehydrated. So if you drink when you feel thirsty, you're already letting your body do what it shouldn't. This is why you should drink water regularly throughout the day... to prevent this.

[Deleted]

Hello Reape

I was totally in the same boat as you and you know what my secret is? DISCIPLINE

Without religiously following a weight loss system you will never be able to achieve your goals. I have found over the years many people flutter in and out of using all sorts of none sense but I will now tell you the system that got me where I am today (9st - from 15st). The system is and I have been using it for years. It is mainly targeted to men looking for a six pack but the owner has developed a more woman-focused part of it now for us ladies!

I had days when I thought 'oh my god I cannot be bothered' but I went ahead with it anyway. This is the level of discipline I'm talking about. Oh and it took 2 years to get to where I am - it does take time for REAL weight loss so don't buy in to any of these 'lose weight fast' none sense sites!

Hope this helps :-)

[omniscience]

This is allready a 3 page long dicussing about your weight loss and yet alot of the replys are false and some are true, some are half true and it's not easy to uncover what is right and what is wrong. Even though I want to sound like i'm correct, you shouldn't take all answers for being correct if the argument isn't there.

Your body burns stuff in your body in order of Carbohydrates (Sugars) > Fats (Fatty Acids) > Proteins (Amino Acids).

There isn't an "order" mechanism in your body like the one you described. You're right about the categories which can be used in the metabolism but it's not as simple as you state it. (Inc wall of text)
"Research in the early part of the 20th century discovered a way to evaluate the metabolic mixture metabolized during rest and exercise from measure of pulmonary(lung ventilation) gas exchange. Because of inherent chemical differences in carbohydrate, fat, and protein composition, they require different amounts of oxygen for complete oxidation of each molecule's carbon and hydrogen atoms to the carbon dioxide and water end products. Thus, carbondioxide produced per unit of oxygen consumed varies with the type of substrate (fat, carbohydrate and protein) catabolized. The respiratory quotient (RQ) describes this ratio of metabolic gas exchange as follows:
RQ = CO2 produced / O2 consumed

Let's set up the equation for carbohydrate first:
C6H12O6 + 6O2 --> 6CO2 + 6H2O
RQ= 6 CO2 / 6 O2
= 1,00

The same equation is made for fat:
C16H32O2 + 23O2 --> 16 CO2 + 16 H2O
RQ= 16 CO2 / 23 O2
= 0,696 (~0,7)

Proteins dont simply oxidize to carbon dioxide and water during energy metabolism in the body. It's a much longer process through the liver which splits the amino acid molecule to let it excrete from the body in the form of sweat and urin. The remaining part then oxidizes to carbon dioxide and water, but this process require a lot more oxygen than fat (which require more oxygen than carbohydrate to oxidize)." William D. McArdle, Frank I. Katch & Victor L. Katch, Exercise physiology, seventh edition

This is a very good tool for measuring when we're burning fat and when we're burning carbohydrates whenever we're exercising (assuming an exercise which isn't near rest). To clarify, when a person is working at nearly maximal effort (we can call that max pulse or max heart rate (HRmax)) he's probably beginning to hyperventilate because the muscles require alot of oxygen. This means the concentration of carbon dioxide will raise in his lungs, thus the equation above will yield a RQ of somewhat above 1, hence all of the energy is coming from metabolised carbohydrate. If we reduce the work load to 50% of pulse reserve (which basicly is your maximum heart rate - your resting heart rate) the RQ will conservely decrease to the RQ value of fat.

Now, what does this tell us? It tells us that the best way make the metabolism burn fat, is to exercise at lower work loads (around 40-50% of the maksimum work effort).

But, it's not as simple (lol!) as that because alot of factors other replys allready have mentioned influence on this. For instance, the food you eat contribute alot to your workout. If you eat a largely carbohydrate amount of food before workout, the RQ will yield a number somewhere near 0,9 under rest and work. Your training condition along with the time and intensity of the work also influences in this, hence you have to think about alot of thing before starting toloose weight.

As stated in the beginning, I want you to believe this (because I study this in my daytime) but I want you to think about that there's not one answer, but several which can be correct. I've argumented about mine now and hope you believe it (you can look it up at the book i've posted).

[Radux]

First off, omniscience, thanks for the post. You're right that I was probably a little to generic with my categorizing of how the body gets its energy.

You're completely correct that it will highly depend on the form of exercise and nutrition. Obviously if you're attempting to lose weight with minimal exercise and just do it through diet, that's when carbohydrates are the pure enemy.

Just by walking (or basically any aerobic activity) will promote the body to grab energy from fat, mostly due to oxygen always being present. Turn that the other way around (anaerobic exercise and no oxygen being present), the body immediately goes for glucose from food or your glycogen storage.

When I used to train people, I would highly recommend my clients to try a ketogenic diet along with a lot of weight lifting. That way, if they expend their glycogen stores, the body has no choice but to burn body fat. That's the point, right? Lose weight, lose fat, increase lean muscle mass: be healthy.

So yeah my bad on being a little too simplistic (I especially appreciate the biochemical aspect), but more often than not it's better to give general advise on a forum like this opposed to involving chemistry.

[omniscience]

First off, omniscience, thanks for the post. You're right that I was probably a little to generic with my categorizing of how the body gets its energy.

You're completely correct that it will highly depend on the form of exercise and nutrition. Obviously if you're attempting to lose weight with minimal exercise and just do it through diet, that's when carbohydrates are the pure enemy.

Just by walking (or basically any aerobic activity) will promote the body to grab energy from fat, mostly due to oxygen always being present. Turn that the other way around (anaerobic exercise and no oxygen being present), the body immediately goes for glucose from food or your glycogen storage.

When I used to train people, I would highly recommend my clients to try a ketogenic diet along with a lot of weight lifting. That way, if they expend their glycogen stores, the body has no choice but to burn body fat. That's the point, right? Lose weight, lose fat, increase lean muscle mass: be healthy.

So yeah my bad on being a little too simplistic (I especially appreciate the biochemical aspect), but more often than not it's better to give general advise on a forum like this opposed to involving chemistry.

I agree on most of the arguments here. I'm just about to end my 3rd physiology course at my studio (so i'm still a green scrub in alot of other subjects) and I thought it was a good way to test some of my knowledge.

Alot of what I read atm is about training and the effects of training, so I cant really(and didn't) describe what diet is best to eat when you're trying to loose weight(the next course post christmas will teach me that!!).

As a note to OP(also what Radux said), fat is quite good when alot of oxygen is present since it yields more energy and body then uses it in the metabolism resulting in weight loss.