Anyone want to do a weight loss challenge?

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My wife worked for one of the big slimming businesses - run by a very fat lady who drives around in a Rolls Royce. We tried some of the dismal recipes and systems and got put right off!
Not that we have a prob but we like food and drink and could happily overdo it, without a bit of forethought!
 
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Quinine is best for foot and leg cramps, best taken in Tonic with Gin 😇 and of course the essential Lemon, does that count as a vegetable it grows on trees. 🤣
Yes perfect but you need 5 a day, with ice.
 
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You've missed the point - it was eating "normally" which caused the excess weight - you have to work up a new "normal" and take control.
"eating less food and being continually hungry is definitely not the right way to go" ? But if you eat less food your appetite diminishes; you get used to a different regime.
"exercise is a very inefficient way of losing weight" true, but it can be really helpful in terms of making you fitter and feel healthier, along with more direct weight reducing measures. All part of taking control.

Point made above - exercise is good for cognition. If it weren't for the brain, most peoples' bodies would be relatively indifferent if no intentional exercise occurs.

In the event that someone had a weakness (like back stability, core instability, etc), the regime needed to strengthen that is a couple of minutes a day.

The density of food calories and the ease in getting them is, in my opinion, at the bottom of the problem.

I used to ride road bike often (this is 60 pounds ago - at 205 now, I couldn't ride my road bike because any belly at all is leg interference). I liked riding the road bike but never lost weight doing it (despite generally riding about 100 miles a week and timing while riding - boring otherwise). I do recall that riding led to sort of a depressed appetite for a few hours, and then the next day, a huge increase (didn't usually ride in the morning as if you really push the pace, you're rubbish for a large part of the middle of the day - would rather have that at the end of the day). What I liked about riding was the feel - run off frustrations, wear yourself out, totally calm afterwards - like someone opened a tap in your foot and drained all of the annoyance from the day out. Great for the brain.

I can tell at 45 that I'm going to need to start some type of light exercise - not for diet, but to maintain flexibility.

Thinking back about riding and the ravenous follow-up appetite, that was probably about a net zero (based on the fact that my weight never changed). To cut 500 calories out from normal takes very little effort and the appetite drops rather than going up.

Saw a lot of big bodied folks at the county park here going around the 5 mile path loop working themselves to bright pink (flush) and they never seemed to change in size.
 
Here is a little known fact that most are unaware of......There is no essential Carbohydrate !.....not one ...if we never eat another carbohydrate we will be healthy and fine provided we consume sufficient Fat and Protein and essential minerals and Vitamins

I missed this bit. Might I suggest you google the phrase "fat burns in a carbohydrate flame" and look up the Krebs cycle?

You are posting factually incorrect and potentially dangerous advice relating to peoples' health.
 
I missed this bit. Might I suggest you google the phrase "fat burns in a carbohydrate flame" and look up the Krebs cycle?

You are posting factually incorrect and potentially dangerous advice relating to peoples' health.
And recommending a masochistic and complicated diet of dubious value and exactly the sort of thing which people give up on and give up hope of losing weight. It's what keeps the diet industry so profitable!
 
And recommending a masochistic and complicated diet of dubious value and exactly the sort of thing which people give up on and give up hope of losing weight. It's what keeps the diet industry so profitable!

Well, a lot of that is free. If someone wants to drop 15 pounds fast and that's it, the atkins diet is quick, easy, you're done in a month. Many a meathead has tried to cut carbs and eat a lot of meat to "gain lean mass" and found themselves accidentally dropping weight.

Where things go sideways is when someone can't explain the diet they're giving you without doing it in some simple text and without requiring you to use proprietary foods or proprietary measurement devices. It's the green new deal (gimmick) version of dieting - wealth transfer included, and probably regressive.
 
I think there's some merit in a well considered reduction of carb intake, because it will reduce your calorie intake. For me - and I'm not suggesting this is the right or only approach - my weight loss was down to changing breakfast and lunch to things that I liked, but which kept me full for longer, adding snacks (but knowing what my calorie intake was), and forming sustainable habits. I was careful not to make myself miserable. I've kept it all off for several years now - I'm pretty much bang in the middle of healthy BMI.
 
I think there's some merit in a well considered reduction of carb intake, because it will reduce your calorie intake. For me - and I'm not suggesting this is the right or only approach - my weight loss was down to changing breakfast and lunch to things that I liked, but which kept me full for longer, adding snacks (but knowing what my calorie intake was), and forming sustainable habits. I was careful not to make myself miserable. I've kept it all off for several years now - I'm pretty much bang in the middle of healthy BMI.

you went the direction I'm looking to go.

In the past (when I was younger), if I wanted to knock back 10 pounds because I was at the top of my variance range, something like atkins was fun for a little bit, but it becomes arduous to keep enough prepared meat around, and to try to keep the fat profile relatively healthy (translation, the one or two times I've had bloodwork done near a short shift on it, the bloodwork was a bit worse solely because it wasn't that practical to find enough calorie/fat/meat intake to keep the fat profile on the healthy side - that being 20% saturated, 80% unsaturated. That requires certain plant fats, etc - kind of gross).

The point of dropping 10 pounds here or there (or maybe 15 at one point, I can't recall - which would make my comment about the weight range not quite wide enough) was solely to prevent buying new clothes or when it was time to buy them ,not locking them in at the top of the weight range.

What's not great about those things (atkins, etc) is that in the long term, what will you (not you specifically) do for maintenance? It's hard to follow the maintenance part and keep weight on. And it's a pain while you're traveling and sooner or later food boredom leads to fatigue (from underconsumption).

I've hit that wall at 10 or 15 or whatever when you run out of a gas and you do get hungry - I'm looking to avoid two things - the fat man's urge (eat a whole bunch, three or four hours later you have ravenous hunger and the urge to eat more) - and the shutdown (losing too much too fast early on, which leads to coming out of the diet and not changing long term habits).

Landing in the middle somewhere (around 2 pounds a week) eliminates the hunger spike that comes after overeating, and the malaise from undereating. Carb cutback is almost a mandatory part of any diet because it's the calories that make the spike, and it's the ones that you eat when you're bored (because they're easy to eat without any food prep effort).
 
I held off a bit because I'm not sure it's useful to say "this worked for me", but possibly the thought processes (rather than the outcomes) will help someone.

I had a 38-inch waist, and wasn't happy about it. I looked at what I ate and saw a few places I could modify things. Breakfirst was first; I'd been having two pain au Chocolat and a coffee - an aeropress, little dash of milk, two sugars. I can't drink coffee without sugar, so that wasn't changing. Instead I swapped the p-a-c for a thin bagel, two slices of grilled bacon, and a little bit of ketchup. That worked well - knocked a few hundred calories out in one fell swoop, was delicious, and kept me full for longer. More on that later.

The other thing I did was swap most of my snacks for a maoam. Sweet hit, far fewer calories than one biscuit.

Next was lunch. I was mostly working from home. I loved pies. Higgidy or Pie Minister type pies. Switched to having half a Higgidy quiche; still hot, still something I actually liked, about a hundred calories less.

It dawned on me that eating bacon every day probably wasn't a great long-term solution. So I did some thinking and some sums - I'm a professional engineer, the only thing I love more than sums is putting a lot of sums into a spreadsheet - and came up with a thin bagel, full fat philadelphia, munchy seeds, some baby plum tomatoes, and a slice of parma ham. No nitrates in parma ham. And another hundred calories dropped.

Then I just got on with it. Weighed myself every few days but didn't stress about it. Over a couple of months I started to lose weight noticeably; after about a year I was wearing 32-inch trousers, and controlling my weight with cake and biscuits. I have added a mid-morning snack of some mixed nuts (because that's better than a biscuit or cake) and sometimes/often an afternoon yoghurt.

Erm. Long Post, sorry. What worked for me was finding out how many calories I was consuming, and then swapping things around, but always having food I liked. No hardship at any point.
 
I missed this bit. Might I suggest you google the phrase "fat burns in a carbohydrate flame" and look up the Krebs cycle?

You are posting factually incorrect and potentially dangerous advice relating to peoples' health.

I think perhaps you are getting confused with the various energy producing cycles in the body ;)

Krebs cycle is not relevant on a low or zero carb diet

On a low or zero Carb diet, ... the body has no Carbs to break down using the Krebs cycle , think about it ....;)

Instead our bodies utiise two processes called GLUCONEOGENESIS...and GLYCOLYSIS to create glucose from the Fat and Protein that we consume. Think of the Icelandic Inuit who until recent times had almost zero Carbs apart from sa few seasonal berries and lived entirely on Fat and Protein from Whale , Seal and fish .

If a low or non Carbohydrate diet is followed consistently for an extended period our bodies go into a state called Ketosis .This is when in the absence of any Carbohydrate Glucose source from Glycolysis or Gluconeogenesis our bodies use a process called Ketogenesis . In ketogenesis the body produces Ketones from burning Fat, both from the fat we consume and from the fat stored around our body.

There is no Glucose or Krebs Cycle involved in the Ketogenesis process and this is the basis of the Atkins Diet and other Low or zero Carbohydrate diets .
 
I think perhaps you are getting confused with the various energy producing cycles in the body ;)

Krebs cycle is not relevant on a low or zero carb diet

On a low or zero Carb diet, ... the body has no Carbs to break down using the Krebs cycle , think about it ....;)

Instead our bodies utiise two processes called GLUCONEOGENESIS...and GLYCOLYSIS to create glucose from the Fat and Protein that we consume. Think of the Icelandic Inuit who until recent times had almost zero Carbs apart from sa few seasonal berries and lived entirely on Fat and Protein from Whale , Seal and fish .

If a low or non Carbohydrate diet is followed consistently for an extended period our bodies go into a state called Ketosis .This is when in the absence of any Carbohydrate Glucose source from Glycolysis or Gluconeogenesis our bodies use a process called Ketogenesis . In ketogenesis the body produces Ketones from burning Fat, both from the fat we consume and from the fat stored around our body.

There is no Glucose or Krebs Cycle involved in the Ketogenesis process and this is the basis of the Atkins Diet and other Low or zero Carbohydrate diets .

the initial weight loss on a keto diet is mostly water

the long term effects of ketosis aren’t particularly healthy.
 
I'm afraid I'm a bit old school and just go along the lines, it's OK to be hungry. Don't graze, don't skip meals, 3 average meals per day, nothing after 8pm. I'm vegan but don't think that's an advantage.

Stick to this 90% of the time, but I certainly understand cravings, sometimes I crack and end up eating (gorging) on dung for 2-3 days and it's a real mental effort to break it. My line of though is normally thinking about all the running and rowing etc I've done and it would be a shame to waste all that effort.
 
I'm afraid I'm a bit old school and just go along the lines, it's OK to be hungry. Don't graze, don't skip meals, 3 average meals per day, nothing after 8pm. I'm vegan but don't think that's an advantage.

Stick to this 90% of the time, but I certainly understand cravings, sometimes I crack and end up eating (gorging) on dung for 2-3 days and it's a real mental effort to break it. My line of though is normally thinking about all the running and rowing etc I've done and it would be a shame to waste all that effort.
This is pretty much me. I'm also vegan but again not a deciding factor in my opinion. The one take away from this post that I would reiterate is that it's okay to be hungry, in fact it's normal and natural.
 
I’m no good with being hungry - I go very quickly from mildly peckish to hangry and then full fight-or-flight, so I made my meals smaller and have regular snacks - I eat five times a day.

If you can learn to be comfortable with being hungry it is a huge advantage. When the world is a bit more sane I’ll see if the GP can solve my hunger issues!
 
So this mornings 5km run was along the canal (520 calories measured). Very scenic but no undulations so can be a little monotonous on the legs. Mainly hills from now on and canal for the odd speed training. Lunchtime we both went for a 12km round walk to the next village, pint, ham cob and back. The walk will probably be around 800 calories. Something else that I noticed after several months of not exercising is my resting heart rate has now risen to 62 bpm instead of 50bpm. I'm hoping that will come down.
 
it's OK to be hungry..

ditto this, though I recognize, like sporky said, some people will find the urge distracting at the very least.

the hunger part on a diet ("hi, your stomach is empty, just letting you know") is an easier thing for me to get by than the large carb meal and the surge that happens a few hours later when your brain is telling you "we're at full steam, you can put more fuel in now without snuffing the fire".

There's inertia with overeating, and then the other way if you stop.

The thing that's tougher for me in dieting is the judgement of when to eat if you're going to ignore the hunger signal. Because, for me, and probably for most people, the initial hunger is transient.

Then three hours later you forget what you were doing and think "God, I'm so tired! what's going on!!".
 
Fascinating article on the Inuit who have a very low/zero carb diet. However they also eat a very specific set of fats and proteins in a very specify way, much of it raw. You can live on just fat and protein but not if it's butter and grilled steak, and much of the items that support the Inuit Paradox are protected by the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act, so aren't available in Lidl or Waitrose.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-inuit-paradox
 
Fascinating article on the Inuit who have a very low/zero carb diet. However they also eat a very specific set of fats and proteins in a very specify way, much of it raw. You can live on just fat and protein but not if it's butter and grilled steak, and much of the items that support the Inuit Paradox are protected by the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act, so aren't available in Lidl or Waitrose.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-inuit-paradox
Very interesting read thanks, a quick google after reading that suggests the average life span of an Inuit is 64-67 compared to 79 years of the general population of Canada. So whilst I’m sure there are other factors involved it clearly isn’t a diet if you are looking to live to a good age.
 
Very interesting read thanks, a quick google after reading that suggests the average life span of an Inuit is 64-67 compared to 79 years of the general population of Canada. So whilst I’m sure there are other factors involved it clearly isn’t a diet if you are looking to live to a good age.

I'm not sure there's any good information to say that the diet has much effect either way. The only information that I can find shows very high mortality rates for young ages (relatively - 4-5 times higher than the rest of the population), including a lot of respiratory diseases (like TB).

A lot of diabetes, too. I recall seeing a special on CBC (or something presented by CBC) a few years ago about the fact that consumption of food includes a lot of unhealthy garbage shipped to FN settlements. I vaguely recall that it was obesity and diabetes related and outreach and education was a problem (not sure why - lack of effort, lack of interest, etc).
 
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