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In this instructable I'll be giving advice on how to come to terms with weight gain, and also how to motivate yourself to lose the weight through nutrition and exercise. I've got to warn ya'll - this will be quite long! I'll be naming the steps so that you can skip forward to what you're interested in, though. Hopefully this will make for easier reading!
This will be an instructable that is updated frequently! If you can think of something you'd like me to add, please say so. I will try to find resources and add information as needed. Please leave feedback and help me improve this instructable. :D
DISCLAIMER - This instructable is meant as a basic guide. I'm a public health educator, so I am aware what I'm talking about. This is what I talk about all day. :P I have a few years of experience under my belt and plenty of resources, whether they be teachers, websites, or books! I only hope that something I say or link to here will help someone!
This will be an instructable that is updated frequently! If you can think of something you'd like me to add, please say so. I will try to find resources and add information as needed. Please leave feedback and help me improve this instructable. :D
DISCLAIMER - This instructable is meant as a basic guide. I'm a public health educator, so I am aware what I'm talking about. This is what I talk about all day. :P I have a few years of experience under my belt and plenty of resources, whether they be teachers, websites, or books! I only hope that something I say or link to here will help someone!
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Signing UpStep 1Consider how you became overweight. (Thinking Pose alert!)
The first step on the road to weight loss is seriously considering your lifestyle and how you've gotten to where you are - sounds cheesy, but it is indeed true. Did something cause you to cease physical activity or just become less active? Is stress leading to weird eating habits? Have the people in your life or your job changed your eating habits? It is important to consider that our eating habits are altered by many influences, including our cultural and social backgrounds, our environments, our emotional (or psychological) links to food, our body image, and our economic standing among other things.
Once you get to actively thinking about this, you might immediately come up with answers. If not, consider the following ways to track your habits and figure out what needs to be corrected:
- Keep a food diary for a few days. Try to write down everything you eat or drink. If you would like, take calorie counts for all of the items you consume. At the very least, you will most likely see a pattern!
- Take an inventory of the food in your house.
- Watch the way you respond to stress. Also see how the people around you are eating and if they change the way you eat. If your coworkers eat at McDonald's every day and you keep going with them... that is a problem habit! But normally, these are things you might not consider initially.
- Keep track of the amount of physical activity you're getting in a day. (Count walking long distances, consider the amount of the day you spend sitting down)
- Talk with friends and family about your weight gain. Ask them if they've seen habits you've overlooked. Perhaps they can shine some light on the problem!
- And last but not least, consult your doctor. If you can honestly think of no reason you're gaining weight and you're sure you're getting adequate physical activity and eating well, it could well be that there's something else wrong. And be completely honest with the doctor, too! ;)
Once you get to actively thinking about this, you might immediately come up with answers. If not, consider the following ways to track your habits and figure out what needs to be corrected:
- Keep a food diary for a few days. Try to write down everything you eat or drink. If you would like, take calorie counts for all of the items you consume. At the very least, you will most likely see a pattern!
- Take an inventory of the food in your house.
- Watch the way you respond to stress. Also see how the people around you are eating and if they change the way you eat. If your coworkers eat at McDonald's every day and you keep going with them... that is a problem habit! But normally, these are things you might not consider initially.
- Keep track of the amount of physical activity you're getting in a day. (Count walking long distances, consider the amount of the day you spend sitting down)
- Talk with friends and family about your weight gain. Ask them if they've seen habits you've overlooked. Perhaps they can shine some light on the problem!
- And last but not least, consult your doctor. If you can honestly think of no reason you're gaining weight and you're sure you're getting adequate physical activity and eating well, it could well be that there's something else wrong. And be completely honest with the doctor, too! ;)
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I've not been able to find time/be motivated to exercise after work, so I'll have to try before work since I seem to do better with a set schedule. Although I'm not a morning person, in that I can't seem to loosen up while following a DVD, so this time around I'm going to start with a stretching DVD.
Thanks in advance,
Yami
I like to exercise on an empty stomach just because I get pretty nasty stomachaches when I've eaten beforehand, especially with more strenuous activity like running. It could be the opposite for you!
I'm not doing any real fasting, but I'm eating a lot of nutrient rich and calorie poor foods, like cabbage soup. I'm obese, so my BMR is almost at 2,000 calories, and the high fiber food I'm eating any given day is almost certainly not that much, try to eat 2,000 calories of squash, and chicken stock, it's not easy. And I'm exercising as well, but I daresay I'm not doing anything unhealthy.
It's not entirely sustainable, but you can't expect a person to eat the same way for maintaining weight as they do for losing weight. I don't think you have to explicitly count calories every day, you can ballpark it, and when I fall short of my BMR I am not worried. My guidelines are these for while I have excessive body fat: if I don't feel faint, and I make bowel movements every day or every other day, I am eating properly. I'll certainly eat more than my BMR when I reach a healthy body fat percentage, but I don't see the point just now.
if anyone is serious about losing weight, they need to cut carbs almost completely out, with no refined carbohydrates or starches. during the weight loss period i would minimize fruit as well (not long term). it will be difficult at first to break addiction to the blood sugar surge/crash cycle, but once you get over the hump it will be fine.
there is lots of new science on this. carbohydrates and ESPECIALLY SUGAR are bad for your, and hormonally they induce production of fat.
you don't need to take my word for it, try it. try one month on a 60% carb calorie restricted diet, and one month on an extremely low carb sensible calorie diet. the difference will be night and day.
1 Hour of chewing gum = 11 calories burnt X 12 =132 calories a day burnt :D
There are several "tricks" to losing weight using this method - maybe I should write them up as my own Instructable, but it probably wouldn't be original enough - all of the info is there on these sites.
Tips:
Weigh every day, but just record what the scale says and graph it using a sliding average. Your weight due to fat isn't likely to change more than a few ounces per day, but your daily weight can vary several pounds. Using the sliding average not only gives you more accurate results, but it helps psychologically if you understand what is going on. If you don't want to do the math yourself, use a spreadsheet or web site to do this.
The average male takes in around 14 pounds of water, food, and oxygen per day. That means if your weight doesn't change, you excrete 14 pounds of water, solid waste, and carbon dioxide. Anything your body "holds on to" is because it is converted to fat or muscle. Interestingly, much of the weight you lose is excreted as carbon dioxide and water rather than solid waste.
Your BMR can be estimated, but if you graph your caloric intake and weight correctly, you can refine the estimate to determine how many calories per day it takes to maintain your weight. Consume less than that and you WILL lose weight.
Sometimes it takes a few days of near fasting to kick your body into a fat burning mode. Before that, your body conserves energy thinking that it may need that fat later. A near fast for a few days convinces your body to start using reserves.
3500 calories = 1 pound of fat. Every time you consume an excess of 3500 calories, you gain a pound. Cut out 3500 calories and you lose a pound. Note that it would take 10 HOURS of exercise to lose 1 pound if your diet remains constant.
Personally, I don't recommend drinking an excess amount of water or "filling up" with low calorie snacks. Your stomach physically shrinks when you reduce the amount of food you're eating and helps in the feedback loop to prevent you from feeling hungry. Staying "full" of water, celery, or pickles keeps your stomach stretched out. After a few days of dieting, I am satisfied with very small, balanced meals.
Above all, if you are going to stick with it, don't deprive yourself! If you have a craving for ice cream, eat a SMALL bowl. If you want chocolate, eat small pieces of rich, dark chocolate. Just remember that a splurge for one item or meal means that you need to cut back on the others to balance it all out.
Eat fats in moderation, but don't try to eliminate them if you like the taste of food. Most flavors are fat soluble, so cooking everything in water or chicken broth isn't going to taste as good as if you used a small amount of olive oil.
Sugar isn't inherently evil, but it packs a lot of calories in a small, quickly digested package. Avoid sugared sodas and super-sweet desserts.
When you start out, record everything you eat, weigh it if necessary, and count up the calories. After a few weeks, you can start doing this in your head for common foods. Always look up and weigh out portions of new foods.
Frozen dinners are your best friend - they have wide variety and their nutritional information is right there on the package for a full portion. They can take much of guesswork out of the process.