quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
Unfortunately my twice-broken leg is seriously not a fan of running - cycling might have to be my substitute.

I have five breaks in total on my legs and I run just fine. As far as my legs are concerned anyway.

I lost ten kilos last year, which was wonderful. But I really need to lose ten more.

I think everyone has their own specific issues. I never ever eat candy, but I really love pork and butter and mayonnaise. And that type of goodness. Specially at night, and it doesn't make a difference if I've had a great dinner.

My diet last year was simple: sticking to vegetables on weekdays. I haven't regained the weight, even with my bad habits.

But to answer Bravus' actual question: I think you need to look into the mirror, if you dare. Like you, I have been training a lot, and at this day and age, if I got back to my honeymoon weight of 56 kg, I would damage myself. (I know this from experience, this is why I even started with the fatty stuff. Problem was, it accelerated over my head).

Good call. So far I've resisted the urge to inflict 'before' photos on y'all. It's pretty easy to see what I need to get rid of, and once that's gone I'll stabilise... there's not really a magic weight number.

Graph of my weight over the past 40 weeks, in pounds:



Methodology: Eat what you like in any given meal. Although, there are some constraints beyond that:

The first week I ate
- one meal on Monday
- one meal on Friday
- muesli for breakfast + one other meal on Saturday and Sunday

The next 18-19 weeks I ate
- one meal on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
- muesli for breakfast + one other meal on Saturday and Sunday
- no meals on Tuesday or Thursday

No snacks, nothing to drink but water and black coffee (and I didn't even do coffee for the first ten weeks).

After those first 19-20 weeks I stopped the diet. This involved two main changes
- started to eat on Tuesdays and Thursdays again - but still only one meal.
- I now eat with other people.

That last bit is kind of essential to participate in society. People do food several times a day; you get kind of cut off if you don't join them.

So I'm averaging 7-10 meals a week (plus muesli at weekends), and I'm now drinking alcohol/soft drinks when I'm out too.

No additional exercise (although I tend to do a reasonable amount anyway) and I have indeed had to buy a whole new wardrobe



I feel better for it but I absolutely would not recommend this diet approach to anybody else. It's very unhealthy (I've mitigated by starting on daily vitamin pills), it requires absolute willpower and in the "7 meals a week including muesli" phase it's very anti-social.

On the plus side, I lost a quarter of my body weight by eating whatever I wanted on any given meal. You can't believe how pissed off the girls in the office are that I'm eating pizza, or a full roast dinner with jam roly-poly & custard for pudding, or a full-scale kebab and chips for dinner, and losing weight.

The question is Cederic, with such unhealthy eating patterns, will the weight stay off?? For me, my diet is about changing my eating patterns FOR LIFE..

After my weight loss stalling for a couple of weeks (only 1.5lbs lost over the two weeks.. though I wasn't exactly "good" those two weeks!!) I'm trying a slightly different approach.. Still doing weight watchers, but taking my points allowance as a week, rather than a day if that makes sense.. so, one day eating much less than my daily allowance, next day my daily allowance, the next over it.. to try and stop my metabolism getting used to anything!

I agree, it doesn't feel sustainable over the long term.

When I stopped the really silly bit of diet in September I did expect to gain half the weight straight back. As the graph shows, that didn't happen, and I'm currently almost a stone less than I was then.

The last six weeks have stayed within a 3lb range, but I've been doing far less exercise than normal (for various reasons). Starting back up again (going dancing too - do we have a dancing thread?) so it'll be interesting to see whether I've reached the bottom or whether weight will continue to drop. I'd have been happy hitting 240lb anyway, so the rest has been entirely a bonus (and curiousity that it's kept working).

Hopefully my graph shows, although you can stall for a week or two, it isn't significant. So don't lose heart

94.4 this morning. A bit slower than some diets, but I'm really missing nothing and depriving myself of nothing. Just stopped random snacking, random candy in the middle of the afternoon and the worst excesses of my former diet, and added a lot of water instead of Diet Coke. Few less beers, but full-on beer and pizza at Trivia night a couple of days ago didn't derail things. I really do think I can keep living like this quite comfortably, and I'm still losing at least half a kilo (bit over a pound) a week on average this way. Feel more energetic in myself too: which is unsurprising when I'm lugging 4 less kilos (9 lb) around all day every day. Should be even better when it's 10 kg gone...

Oh yeah, I'm doing a weekly weigh-in on my Facebook status message - it's just one other small measure that helps keep me accountable.

When my husband died I lost my appetite. Seriously, I couldn't enjoy food for 7 months. I lost about 40lbs without trying. All I could gag down was raisin bran and bananas. I am eating again but I find that a diet low in fat and meat helps keep the lbs off.

after a few years where I pushed 250 I was 204 at the pool the other day. I'm riding the stationary bike obsessively (like 5 hours a day) and other things but it could be because I'm sick. gonna make the most of it and try to keep it off.

I am eating 4-6 'meals' a day. Few really large ones but several small meals a day. It might just be a yogurt and banana but every 2-4 hours I want to be eating something. Muscle milk is a great meal replacement if you are looking for it, lot of protein, some fat, some carbs. Chocolate is pretty tasty.

The First thing in the morning I do a protein shake, gets the metabolism started, then about an hour later eat breakfast. I am holding steady in weight 195-197 lbs but the mix is def moving from fat to muscle. Also the constant eating helps with maintaining energy levels.

quote:

When my husband died I lost my appetite. Seriously, I couldn't enjoy food for 7 months.

sorry

I lost quite a few pounds shortly after moving to Austin. Lots of walking around in the hot sun, 20 minutes each way to get to the closest bus stop, carrying a backpack with laptop, notebooks, paperback reading material, maybe some sound related gear. I had to get somewhere 4 or 5 days of the week, so look at 40 minute walks almost every other day, carrying a small load. No major diet changes. Exercise works.

I heard recently that a combination of fish oil and exercise works better than exercise alone.