Advice for Successful Dieting

http://dalethoughts.com/2012/02/advice-for-successful-dieting/

by dmd149 • 14 years ago

7 17 14 years ago

What an interesting article! I want to try this one. I really want to lose some pounds. Im on calorie counting recently but sometimes I am not in the mood to list all the food I ate for a day. I hope this will help me. I want to lose 20 to 40 pounds before the year ends.

dmd1495• 14 years ago

Yea calorie counting is a pain. Which diet were you thinking about trying? Slow carb or intermittent fasting?

mitchie_luna2• 14 years ago

I think I would try the slow carb, it looks interesting to me. I hope this will be effective to me.

Urgo• 14 years ago

Some good tips here, thanks. Shameless plug to follow..

For me I've just started back up on the diet thing but I use a gadget called a fitbit to help me. I did this a couple years back and it worked really well. Basically the fitbit (an internet connected pedometer basically) logs all my steps and calories burned during the day and I log the food I eat and as long as I keep burning more then I eat weight loss! Have already lost about 2 1/2 lbs since I started back up on this a week ago.

Ok now the shameless plug.. I'm running a contest on youtube right now sponsored by fitbit if anyone wants to win one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cWEn0RF3-Q

pors3• 14 years ago

Yeah fitbit is great. If you follow a calorie counting diet it helps you by adjusting the allowed amount of calories based on how much you move. It is also an amazing motivator to get off your butt.

Almaviva• 14 years ago

I would add that you need to be realistic about what is possible. Realize you can easily fluctuate your weight plus or minus ten pounds. A pound of water isn't very much, and your body's glycogen stores plus water can amount to 5-10 pounds. So low carb dieting will lead to weight loss of that much very quickly as you use this up.

Don't succumb, like this article does, by treating this as meaningful or sustainable. Realistically, a pound of fat loss in a week is extremely good, and amounts to a 3500 Calorie deficit. Most people can't do much better than this without quite extreme measures, so you can not get demotivated when a 5-10 pound loss in the first week doesn't continue.

dmd1495• 14 years ago

Yea the water weight with low carb diets is significant. With cheat days on slow carb diet I'd usually gain back anywhere between 3-5 pounds.

I find that I generally feel better overall when I eat less carbs. My advice, however, is applicable to whatever diet you choose.

sayemm• 14 years ago

Best book on fat loss and getting ripped is Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" - http://www.burnthefat.com

It's around 500 pages, but once you read it, you'll never have to read another book diet/nutrition. This book, and the title, explains it all.

pors3• 14 years ago

Yuk, this page hit me with a "don't leave this page" alert when I closed the window. A good book will sell itself.

steve8918• 14 years ago

There really is no secret to losing weight. It's very simple: eat less, exercise more.

The food being served in developed countries are highly processed, and make us very prone to gaining weight. Highly processed carbs turn into blood sugar very easily, and if you live a sedentary lifestyle, like most of us, then that blood sugar gets turned into body fat. It's very basic biochemistry. The reason why we are eating highly-processed carbs is because food manufacturers get a high profit margin from feeding us from pre-processed food rather than original ingredients.

If you want to lose weight, the key is to either burn the blood sugar by exercising, or by denying your body the blood sugar in the first place, through a low-highly-processed carb diet.

But what that entails is rejecting the current 21st century lifestyle of eating quick, convenient meals, and working so much that you spend your entire life in front of a computer. You really need to change your lifestyle in order to lose weight and have a healthier body.

I spent several years working and doing nothing after college and gaining massive weight (over 50 lbs). About 8 years ago, I decided to lose weight, and just by exercising and eating marginally less, I went down down about 20 lbs. But the vast amount of my weight loss came when I did the South Beach diet, and lost another 30 lbs. That's when I realized how terrible highly processed carbs are.

I kept that weight off for about 3 years, until I started focusing on side projects and working about 16 hrs a day in total. I stopped exercising completely for the last 3 years and since then, I've gained back about 20 lbs.

My goal this year is to lose those 20 lbs (actually in the next 4 months, fingers crossed), and to work less. I've already started cooking the majority of our meals, and having complete control of the ingredients helps a lot.

dmd1495• 14 years ago

Congratulations on your weight loss. I agree, the basic formula is simple. However, there are definitely some behaviors and environments that are more conducive to eating less.

Same thing with exercise. There are some environments that lead to more exercise. When I studied abroad in France, I lost a lot of weight because I walked everywhere and ate less overall.

Good luck with your last 20 pounds!

pors3• 14 years ago

> It's very simple: eat less, exercise more.

It's not simple all. 90% in succeeding with a diet is psychological. Will power won't do it, which is why I like the article: it gives advice to make it easier on the mind (don't starve yourself, manage your environment etc.).

omegant• 14 years ago

+1 on everything on the post. I lost 17 kg on the paleo diet( net loss, as I have gained a fair amount of muscle following gymnastic bodies WODs), but it's sometimes difficult to follow when you are traveling a lot, as I do. You don't realize how the vast majority of food you find on bars, cafeteria and restaurants is based on wheat or sugar till you try to avoid them!

Since january i am following a semipaleo Lean gains diet( semi paleo in the sense that I mostly avoid grains and sugar, but drink some milk or have some pasta or a cookie every now and then). I had regained some 4 kgs before chrismas due to really poor diet( only 3 months that I didn't take care of the diet and ...bam!). Now I've managed to lose 2 kgs and improved strenght(only cardio is 15 min once or twice a week as active recovery). Definetely experiencing a nice body recomposition... Lets see if I can get to 10% body fat this way...( now I am more on the 20% :/

amac• 14 years ago

I posted this a while back:

Eat Like A Caveman To Lose Weight

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/237563.php

It's obvious, but missing from the title is the fact you also need to add exercise.

ccanassa• 14 years ago

> 3. Your environment is stronger than your willpower.

False.

I lost 30kg last year and this article goes against mant things I learned during this process.

Losing weight is all about willpower. People are solving the wrong problem. Instead of trying to find the perfect diet you should be trying to increase your willpower.

Felling hungry is inevitable, sure you can eat veggies until you are bloated (like the article suggest) but you will still fell hungry when you see someone eating a pizza.

dmd1495• 14 years ago

That's great you lost 30 kg.

>Felling hungry is inevitable, sure you can eat veggies until you are bloated (like the article suggest) but you will still fell hungry when you see someone eating a pizza.

The idea is that when you get a pizza craving from someone eating pizza, you're in an environment where you don't have pizza available to you.

What kind of things did you learn when you lost all your weight?

Advice for Successful Dieting

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