Awesome Chris in undoing >10 lbs of holiday in 2 weeks!

One thing I have found that really works is the zigzag method by Dr Squat (a power lifter known for doing something like a 1000 lbs squat). Anyone interested in eating right should read this article,

http://drsquat.com/articles/zigzag.html

The basic concept is that you zigzag your food intake over the week. So if you want to loose weight without loosing muscle, you eat under your calorie needs for 5 days out of the week (by skipping eating fat, and eating the same amount of protean), and for 2 days out of the week eat slightly above normal.

Realistically 2.5 lbs of fat loss a month is a good goal.

heh, heh, heh :) This made me pull my ruler and the calculator. After much computations, I do not think I can hand-over to you my trophy for "The man who can hold the most donuts without using his hands!"

"Look honey, no hands!!" :D:D

I got up to about 190, I'm 6'1, and started feeling like crap. Mainly this was because I stopped going to the gym, ate ice cream at least every other night of the week and had nothing but red meat & greasy Thai take-out food often.

My problem was not the weight so much as just feeling like crap all the time...stress and work and having no time do not help..

So, after the Holidays I decided to cut out the red meat (I like it but not THAT much), and add a whole pile of grains, fruits and vegetables.

Look up Alton Brown's Good Eats episode on cooking with pouches. It's easy and you can cook things like a whole salmon or trout with all kinds of vegetables and stuff. Yummy. Cooking is also fun--make the time!

I have been eating bran (bran is an excellent source of natural fiber) muffins, drinking plenty of water (water alone makes a HUGE difference--stay hydrated!), cranberry and pomegranate juice (both are very high in antioxidants), orange juice, Green Tea, eating bunches of carrots, okra, spinach and celery, bananas, apples, pears...I love these things...and for dessert I now have a small bowl of chopped mango or something similar...a hell of a lot better than a bowl of ice cream! My girl also makes pickled cabbage, home-brew beer with different grains and she grows all kinds of vegetables that are delicious.

Other great things to eat are barley, brown rice, tomatoes...

Fat is very important to maintain most of your body's tissues, especially fish and nut fat (or seal meat!) because they are high in omega-3's.. DON'T cut out fat!! Keep a balance of a bit of fat (% DV is pretty correct), carbs and protein. The key is calories.

In my travels through South America and since dating the girl I am now, I have realized that a vegetarian lifestyle is nothing to sneeze at. I came home the first day (and I LOVE MEAT) and decided I was going to make a delicious stew-cabbage, celery, carrots, chicken broth, mushrooms and a PILE of potatoes to get that "hearty" feeling. Add some seasonings. Wow, that was good stuff. I never would have thought that a vegetable stew or vegetarian meal could be so filling and tasty. Try it. I am a convert, though I'll still eat meat.

Eat like 4-5 meals daily, more like 'grazing' through the kitchen than flat out eating huge meals. Huge meals also make you sleepy (FOOD COMA) because insulin is released and that kills your blood sugar. Another great late night snack is a bowl of cereal! Pick your favorite, most of the cereals have a good balance of vitamins and minerals, and Milk is also really good for you. 1% my favorite, just make sure it is NOT Homogenized--WAY more fat, incl. saturated fat (bad). I never buy chips anymore, ice cream and I don't keep soda in the house anymore. I might have a soda sometimes just when I feel like it but that's more rare and I try to limit it.

Keep a tally of what you eat, don't put cream in your coffee/tea...the little things add up!

I ride my bike every day to and around school, and up in the hills when I am home..

Now, I need to work on not having a cigarette every day .. BTW, I'm 20 but someday I hope to be old and still rockin' out.

After 2 months down to 174. This is good.. but I'll keep 'improving', a NY08 resolution is to go to the gym 5 times per week. 170 would be nice . I remember TRYING my hardest to ADD weight in high school, I was 150 sophomore year and wanted to be 180 for Varsity..didn't quite get there!

sorry Trek, i can't
i'de have to gain weight 20 pounds to reach that 190 lbs target

believe it or not, i grew up living in a snackbar... not figuraly, but litteraly , my mum owned one
i ate fries , burgers and fried food, and liters of cocacola, multiple sittings a day, at age 22, i was 1m80 weighing 57 kilo

when she sold the place i moved out (i was living on my own there, she didn't live there), stopped eating the greasy food ... guess what, the two years that followed, i went from 57 to 77 kilo...now i'm 31, at around 78, no movement either way on the scale

so my advice, buy a fast food joint:D

Stijn is that Huxley quote from Brave New World or Doors of Perception, and Heaven and Hell or something else?

I like it.

welll, to be honest, i haven't read the book or anything, it's been on my to-do list for ages, since i've done my share of tripping, so it should be interesting for me to read it... i just never got around to it....

Was just looking for a new avatar, and felt like posting Eric Cartman with "i hate hippies, they all wanna change the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad" ... but i felt that Eric Cartman just ain't obscure enough for my taste since just about everybody runs around imitating him with quotes of "RESPECT MAAY AUTHOROTHAAAY" and what not,
so i went looking for something else about changing the world... so i found the Huxley quote and avatar

at random intervals, i just decide on a new original avatar, this time it was Huxley... :D

I got a 'wakeup call' a few months ago during a mandatory physical exam. I hadn't been to the doctor in many years. As the nurse grabbed the 200lb weight on the scale, I remember a sense of disbelief. I hit 199.5 whereas I thought I had been holding at my typical 185-190-ish for years.

Then I got my blood test results back...cholesterol >260 and triglycerides fairly high as well.

I'm on Zocor now and have lost about 7lbs, mostly through drinking less alcohol and juice, eating less meat and refined flour/white bread and more veggies, fish, nuts and whole grains. The exercise thing has always been tough for me, but we have a Lifecycle here and I'm forcing myself to do that. I like to hike and there are good trails nearby but it's time consuming to get a good workout that way. Trying to motivate to get out on my mtn bike.

I'll be happy to be back around 190 and with better tone & stamina. All the stories and tips in this thread are good encouragement!

My update:

I am still stuck at the 8 lbs. lost since Jan. 1. Although I feel better and my pants are not snug anymore because I have been eating much better(very little sugary stuff) I have been at 184 for over a week now. I haven't done any "working out" or anything but have been walking more while at work. I spend a lot of time in the car traveling between accounts and cities.

So, how do I get past this hump? My plan was to jumprope each evening for as much time as the kids and wife will let me( I was shooting for a solid 45 minutes). I haven't done any at all. (not the family's fault, mine.)

When I lost the 55 pounds 10 years ago I was on a route delivering to accounts so I got excercise daily just by going to work. Today, not so much. I do more thinking and less of the physical work now.

Any ideas guys?

I want to get in on this, As of jan 1st. i was 210lbs(i'm 5'8), i was down to 185lbs after my accident, with 25lbs if muscle loss of muscle loss. I was so weak, that i couldn't do a push up, 5 weeks being stuck in a hospital bed really messes you up :(

but i'm finally healed enough too start going to the gym again, i'm down to 206lbs and did my first push up 2 nights ago :D

MY goal is to be 190 lbs by easter while tying to pick up some muscle.

i was 210lbs and worked out 4-5 days a week before my accident, i could bench 300lbs, now is 100lbs, so i got a long way to go.

5',10" and was 185, now about, uh, fu(k it never mind.

It's nice to see so many of you interested in improving your health.

I must admit...All the "bad" foods are like an addiciton. Ughhh.


KT

Oddly enough this isn't a "starvation diet". It is just enough caloric intake to keep the body going. Also after doing this a few weeks it becomes hard to eat much more than that! I did this program under strict medical supervision, seeing the doctor every week & getting blood work done every 3 weeks. I wouldn't recommend anyone out there do it any other way!

Congrats to everyone who's been shedding those pounds!

Michael

I'm stuck at 244 for right now. Time to cut calories too.

I think regulating my time and exercising regularly is going to be my battle.



KT

I exercise pretty well, I've known for years it's the diet side of things that I have problems with.

Had my first weigh in under 230 today, at 229. That's 41 pounds down from 11/1.

9 pounds from now, I'll fall out of the "obese" category into "overweight". That will be a nice milestone, I'm looking forward to it.

Just my two cents:

Atkins diet = I know several people who had great results but no one has kept is up... as I understand it your not even supposed to keep to it because if you stay on it too long it can damage your body.

South beach diet = My friend was above 400lbs and now is below 300lbs and says he is never hungry so it works for him. It would never work for me because logistical I can't live on frozen meals.

Taking small steps works best for me... IMHO it is better for your body and more sustainable, use the stairs instead of the elevator/escalator, go for walks/bike ride a few times a week, eat smaller portions (stomach will shrink and eventually you get full on less), eat healthier foods. I don't weigh my self but I went from a 38 to a 33 on that plan... unfortunately I have gone back up to a tight 36...
So I am in...

But for me I am cutting out the alcohol, and I ordered the YOU book, we will see how that works AFAIK hard alcohol is okay on a diet but I am cutting it for other reasons... it has been messing with my mind a little too much and I have some big life decisions coming up to make that are going to require a clear mind.

Michael great job! 5 months -100 lbs...very good...Looking at your pics you can see that you took a little off everywhere, face, neck shoulders mid section etc. very good work way to stick with it

Yes, when I get one of my attacks, I surrender to gobbling 2 boxes/day of Crispy Creme donuts.

I operate on a eighty/twenty rule... stick to your diet eighty percent of the time but allow (or reward) yourself with some bad food twenty percent of the time. That way you avoid the guilt/depression trap when you fall off the (diet) wagon. Plus you don't feel trapped into "I will never have another [insert high calorie food] again."