Any one else on a diet? Share tips and encouragement.

tyeeslayer

Super Member
I started 3 weeks ago. Although I was not what was considered obese, at nearing 50 I have to keep things in check. I am 5'10" and started at 205. I am down 13 pound in 3 weeks.
I am trying to keep things at 1000-1200 calories a day and make all my calories count.
Fresh fruit and veggies along with lean protein. Very little carbs, sweets, alcohol and salty snacks.
The first 10 days was the hardest and now I find if I eat to many carbs it angers my lower intestinal tract.
My goal is 175lbs.
 
Tyeeslayer,

You and I are right in the same wheel house ... I am 50 about 5'10" and now weigh in at 194 ... down from 208 about a year ago ... I do a significant amount of weight training 4 days a week ... about 1.5 hours in duration ... I do not restrict calories but I do restrict the time in which I consume the calories ... my diet is based on a time restricted eating ... I don't take in any calories until about 10:00 to 10:30 am ... and I stop eating by 7:30 pm ... you can have a day or two where you do not watch the time ... I also use apple cider vinegar as a supplement before meals to curtail appetite and regulate blood sugar levels ... lots of info on the web for the time restricted eating and the apple cider vinegar ... I never feel hungry ... I don't watch my fats ... use whole milk yogurt and cottage cheese etc... butter and oil oil ... I don't eat any refined sugars ... except for special occasions such as a birthday or the occasional summer ice cream ... good luck!
 
Yes, I do need more regimented exercise. I am a truck driver (13-16 hrs/day) but I only work 3 days a week. My off days I am fairly active around the house, but no real cardio. My energy levels are good but to extend the effort for extra exercise is hard to start. I know, I know once I get started it will get easier. I do take apple cider vinegar pills and garcinia cambogia twice a day.
 
Yes, I do need more regimented exercise. I am a truck driver (13-16 hrs/day) but I only work 3 days a week. My off days I am fairly active around the house, but no real cardio. My energy levels are good but to extend the effort for extra exercise is hard to start. I know, I know once I get started it will get easier. I do take apple cider vinegar pills and garcinia cambogia twice a day.

I hate going to the gym - it feels so boring and silly.
So I try to stay outdoors all year round. Getting into wild edible plants and other things helped me a lot. Instead of just hiking or biking, which can be plain painful and requires huge motivation at times, I go mushroom hunting, wild berry picking, harvest wild plants such as wild leeks, solomon's seals, dandelions, plantains, morels, reishis, and endless list of other things. I do this almost weekly all year long. On average, I climb mountains and hills that are 3 to 4k feet high and roughly 8-10 miles each time I'm out there. A few friends of mine are into kayaking, and others into cycling. Just gotta find something to do that's also fun.
 
I started a health plan about 18 weeks ago sponsored by work and have lost 15 pounds without doing any extraordinary exercise. Starting at 188 pounds, I never thought of myself as being obese or massively overweight, despite what some charts may say. My current weight is the least I've weighed in at least 30 years, probably longer.

The biggest change in my diet has been a reduction of carbs. Breakfast is now a two egg microwave omelet with spibach and cheese, and lunch isn't a brat, but fruit or leftovers. Portions are smaller, and I eat what I should; not as much as I can. I also find myself not hungry in the mornings as low carb breakfast maintains a better blood sugar level and I'm not getting cravings when it drops off the spike.

Aside from the weight loss, my acid reflux and heartburn has all but vanished and my blood pressure has dropped 10 points.

I now have a new goal of 165 pounds and since my busy time at work is over, I intend to cycle more and continue to eat better. With a doable goal 1#/week, I should be close or past it by my birthday in September.
 
I started a health plan about 18 weeks ago sponsored by work and have lost 15 pounds without doing any extraordinary exercise. Starting at 188 pounds, I never thought of myself as being obese or massively overweight, despite what some charts may say. My current weight is the least I've weighed in at least 30 years, probably longer.

The biggest change in my diet has been a reduction of carbs. Breakfast is now a two egg microwave omelet with spibach and cheese, and lunch isn't a brat, but fruit or leftovers. Portions are smaller, and I eat what I should; not as much as I can. I also find myself not hungry in the mornings as low carb breakfast maintains a better blood sugar level and I'm not getting cravings when it drops off the spike.

Aside from the weight loss, my acid reflux and heartburn has all but vanished and my blood pressure has dropped 10 points.

I now have a new goal of 165 pounds and since my busy time at work is over, I intend to cycle more and continue to eat better. With a doable goal 1#/week, I should be close or past it by my birthday in September.
Nicely done. I have noticed a reduction of carbs makes me feel better. I have not cut them out entirely, I still have the odd slice of bread or english muffin, although when I do I now now make them whole wheat.
 
I lost 10 pounds just going cold turkey on the cokes.

I am thoroughly convinced that the over indulgence in carbs, especially sugars in all forms and processed starches, truly is the #1 health issue in this country, and the major contributor to the diabetes and heart disease issues here, as well as the knee, hip and ambulatory issues due to obesity..

Rant and rave all you wish about meth, heroin, marijuana and opiates, overeating carbs probably causes more problems than all the others combined.
 
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I now have a new goal of 165 pounds and since my busy time at work is over, I intend to cycle more and continue to eat better.
We ought to hit the Macomb Orchard Trail one of these days...perhaps the first official SMAC bicycle run? :D

I am thoroughly convinced that the over indulgence in carbs, especially sugars in all forms and processed starches, truly is the #1 health issue in this country, and the major contributor to the diabetes and heart disease issues here, as well as the knee, hip and ambulatory issues due to obesity..
Definitely. And somewhat related, I can see that high fructose corn syrup is contributing a lot to the obesity in the US these days, especially in kids and teens. Their parents will plunk 'em down with a 2-liter bottle of pop (soda for you non-Michiganders ;) ) and a bag of chips as a snack. And so many products we buy at the store are loaded up with HFCS, such as salad dressings, even ketchup. I read all the labels before I buy anything. HFCS is a non-sale for me. I get this weird bloated feeling if I accidentally ingest it.

I'm no prize in terms of weight, but am working on it. Dinners at home are a protein and a salad usually--I don't even have a potato anymore. I also nearly eliminated caffeine from my diet as of a few days ago. Went cold turkey. (I only have a slight headache today. ;) ) I was drinking a ton of iced tea (two of us were going through a gallon of homemade iced tea per day), and the occasional diet cola. The only problem now is that if I go out to eat, I can't stand drinking plain water. Iced tea and diet cola are about all I like to drink when I'm out. Lemonade from a gun (think Minute Made) likely is loaded with HFCS, and any hand-made lemonade is probably loaded with sugar. At home I can make decaf iced tea, and caffeine-free diet cola.

I mainly have to control portions. Stop the second helpings. That sort of thing. And if I weren't so slammed, I would be back out on those trails three or four times per week like I used to do. Exercise really does help a lot in weight reduction. :)
 
Myself and the wife are on a Paleo diet until we loose 10-15. Tough going for someone who loves bread.
 
I don't crave bread like I used to. I noticed that when I've changed my eating habits. I will cut something out, then I will crave it for a couple of weeks. After that, the craving seems to go away. These days I make my sandwiches as wraps, rather than using buns or thick bread. The only weakness is I like croutons in my salad, and will make some homemade croutons out of older bread. But it's not a lot per salad...
 
I really don't see much difference between HFCS and table sugar. While there is a slight difference better them in monomer content and sweetness, their still quite calorically similar. Actually, I've always thought the true advantage in HFCS was that it a fluid than one can pump for more control in the production process.

Generally, it's a strawman in the whole sugar issue, too much is just too much regardless. Fruit juices also can be a source of too much sugar.
 
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HFCS is more of a political product, IMHO--the corn growers having more political cloud than the beet or sugar cane growers. In essence, corn growers are subsidized by the governent, making "corn sugar" cheaper for manufacturers to produce beverages and packaged foods. Notice that the US is the only user of HFCS.

I have found that aside from taste (it has an icky cloying sweetness that cane sugar does not), the bloated feeling or flat out stomach aches I get when I accidentally ingest it tell me that something is seriously wrong with it. The body does not process it the same way as naturally occuring sugars, which is what makes it dangerous IMHO.

The title is a bit overwrought, but here is one such viewpoint:

http://drhyman.com/blog/2011/05/13/5-reasons-high-fructose-corn-syrup-will-kill-you/

HFCS and cane sugar are NOT biochemically identical or processed the same way by the body. High fructose corn syrup is an industrial food product and far from “natural” or a naturally occurring substance. It is extracted from corn stalks through a process so secret that Archer Daniels Midland and Carghill would not allow the investigative journalist Michael Pollan to observe it for his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The sugars are extracted through a chemical enzymatic process resulting in a chemically and biologically novel compound called HFCS. Some basic biochemistry will help you understand this. Regular cane sugar (sucrose) is made of two-sugar molecules bound tightly together– glucose and fructose in equal amounts.The enzymes in your digestive tract must break down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body. HFCS also consists of glucose and fructose, not in a 50-50 ratio, but a 55-45 fructose to glucose ratio in an unbound form. Fructose is sweeter than glucose. And HFCS is cheaper than sugar because of the government farm bill corn subsidies. Products with HFCS are sweeter and cheaper than products made with cane sugar. This allowed for the average soda size to balloon from 8 ounces to 20 ounces with little financial costs to manufacturers but great human costs of increased obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease.Now back to biochemistry. Since there is there is no chemical bond between them, no digestion is required so they are more rapidly absorbed into your blood stream. Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis (the production of fats like triglycerides and cholesterol) this is why it is the major cause of liver damage in this country and causes a condition called “fatty liver” which affects 70 million people.The rapidly absorbed glucose triggers big spikes in insulin–our body’s major fat storage hormone. Both these features of HFCS lead to increased metabolic disturbances that drive increases in appetite, weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and more.But there was one more thing I learned during lunch with Dr. Bruce Ames. Research done by his group at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute found that free fructose from HFCS requires more energy to be absorbed by the gut and soaks up two phosphorous molecules from ATP (our body’s energy source).

This depletes the energy fuel source, or ATP, in our gut required to maintain the integrity of our intestinal lining. Little “tight junctions” cement each intestinal cell together preventing food and bacteria from “leaking” across the intestinal membrane and triggering an immune reaction and body wide inflammation.

High doses of free fructose have been proven to literally punch holes in the intestinal lining allowing nasty byproducts of toxic gut bacteria and partially digested food proteins to enter your blood stream and trigger the inflammation that we know is at the root of obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, dementia, and accelerated aging. Naturally occurring fructose in fruit is part of a complex of nutrients and fiber that doesn’t exhibit the same biological effects as the free high fructose doses found in “corn sugar”.

The takeaway: Cane sugar and the industrially produced, euphemistically named “corn sugar” are not biochemically or physiologically the same.

It's not that sugar is so great for us either, but that HFCS is a lot worse than sugar in how the body processes it, and the damage it does. This is far from the only study I've read on it.

It's true that all sugars are harmful in their own way, yet HFCS has enough going against it that there's a reason so many of us avoid it, and why so many products are now advertising their products are free of it. ;) (And why the corn industry sets up a lot of web sites to debunk all of the studies showing how dangerous it is...)
 
Lay off the bread, pasta, snacks and drink tons of water. You're doing a great job! Need to lose a few myself.
 
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