Losing weight when you don't have time to lose it

[ElizaDoolittle]

Oh, I get it. It's not just eating Mediterranean food, but some types of Mediterranean food. Salads and grilled food. I'm a lot into salad; I love it. I'll google a bit for ideas on healthy dishes that I can prepare and take to work. Honestly, as I said before, I cannot picture myself having this sort of cold food every day, but even if I only have some days, that will be much better than what I do now.

uncfnp, thanks for that screenshot. I had no idea there were websites like that. Of course, the numbers will be approximate, as I suppose they will depend on the proportions among the different ingredients, but it will help, for sure. I've already created an account on that website, hoping it'll be of help, too. And I'll have a look at that WW programme, too (though when reading foreign sites I always have difficulty figuring out the equivalents to products that aren't available here).

I could actually do what lowwall says, and walk half an hour when I go out of my workplace. But that would mean arriving home half an hour later and since I only spend there 9-10 hours a day as things are now, that would mean, in turn, going to bed half an hour later, because the house chores need to be done. Is that a good idea? I already sleep less than I should, and I've heard that lack of sleep promotes overweight. So maybe I wouldn't be gaining anything. And, anyway. I cannot imagine being still more tired than I am now. But if you think it would compensate, I'm willing to do it.

Using the one-hour lunch break for walking is something else I can do. As I've just said, I cannot figure out how to prepare cold food for everyday without making it terribly boring, but I will certainly do so a couple of days a week, to begin with.

As for living closer to my workplace, or working closer to my home... I wish it were possible! After leading this life for almost forty years, since I was 17, I don't think I'm going to change now. At first I did it because I was young and I thought I could do it, but now I need to live where I live at present (basically because of a son who is in an institution for handicapped people, and whom I visit every day), and at my age, changing jobs sounds like an illusion. I'm lucky enough not to have lost my job because of the coronavirus crisis, because getting jobless at my age is virtually equivalent to premature retirement.

I've already ordered an under-desk elliptical, I've started reducing my portions at home and leaving some food on the plate when eating out, and I'll choose two days to eat a salad at work and go for a walk afterwards.

I see how this is very little, but I'd like to know, does just a little bit of change make a (very small) difference, or is there a "threshold" of activity/calories reduction below which I won't notice any difference at all?

Thanks once again! Feeling so helped is really encouraging!

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Skip breakfast and eat a sensible lunch and dinner.

 

[lowwall]

No there is no minimum when it comes to exercise. Every bit helps. There is a maximum, but that's for elite athletes to worry about.

Maybe do the longer walk to catch the bus home on Friday along with the other stuff? You can catch up on chores on the weekend. Do that, two lunchtime walks during the workweek, and something active on the weekend days and you'll have a good basis on the exercise front.

Along with cardiovascular fitness, the other part of physical fitness is weight or resistance training. You don't need weights or a gym for this. You can do it at home with a few sets of pressups and squats and the like. 10 minutes a day is enough for this to be effective (muscles react to use very quickly).You don't have to worry about bulking up, women's muscles mostly become more defined with moderate resistance exercise rather than larger.

If you Google something like "resistance training without equipment" or "bodyweight training for women". You'll find lots of suggestions. Here's a couple:

The 9-Minute Strength Workout

Bodyweight Workout: At-Home Strength Training Without Weights | PRO TIPS by DICK'S Sporting Goods

If this works well for you, you can even add a cardio component. For example, an exercise called a burpee has become really popular because it combines a few of the standard bodyweight exercises and if you do them fast it also becomes a high intensity cardio workout.

Or make your own exercises with scuba gear. Put on a bcd with tank seated. Stand up. Standing on one leg at a time, put on your fins. Now reverse.

But seriously, maybe you can get a swim in on the weekends? Use you fins (or get swim fins if your fins require a boot) and do underwater swims. That will directly help your diving.

 

[tarponchik]

You will actually save your time by eating less. Most of the weight loss happens through taking in less, not through burning away more.

 

[Marie13]

An Apple Watch or Fitbit is great for keeping track of your movement.

 

[ElizaDoolittle]

Skip breakfast and eat a sensible lunch and dinner.

Isn't this supposed to be bad? I've aways believed that the heaviest meal of the day should be the breakfast, and the lightest one the dinner, so as not to end up going to bed with a full stomach. Besides, here in Spain we don't usually have strong breakfasts, like people have in other countries (of the type you have when you go to a hotel where you can have anything you want, with bacon and eggs and all that). Anyway, even though skipping breakfast were good, I think I'd try it only if everything else fails. I really cannot work (or do anything else) properly with an empty stomach. On the few days when I haven't able to have breakfast just before my working hours started, because of a traffic jam or something like that which has prevented me from arriving fifteen minutes in advance (that's all the time I need for breakfast), I've been tired and irascible until I've found five minutes to run to the snack vending machine (something I never do otherwise, as I don't like the stuff it sells). My lunch break is at 2 pm, and I have dinner at 9 pm, so that would mean 19 hours in a row without eating.

lowwall is right. The Friday is the day to walk to the next bus stop on my way home. Thanks for the idea! I'll also consider the possibility of resistance training. Ten minutes a day doesn't seem too much time. As for "a few sets of pressups", that'll be an approximation. I haven't been able to do more than one, not even in my best days, so in the beginning it won't take as much as ten minutes, but I hope I'll improve little by litte. As for my muscles growing bigger or more defined, I don't really care much about it. Having been a widower for lots of years now, and with three grown-up childres (the youngest one being 18), I'm past the days where my looks mattered to me. I cannot exercise with my diving equipment, as I have none apart from the mask, the snorkel and the computer. I hire everything else. And there's no swimming pool in my place (only the open-air one which opens between June and September). But I'll try to do something at home, at least to start with.

I hope the combination of eating less, the under-desk elliptical, at least two days of resistance training, walking for half an hour on Fridays after work, and two days replacing my lunch with salads and a walk will bring about some sort of noticeable change. If so, I'll be on the right track. And maybe that'll encourage me to try and find some more time where there is none to carry on adding new things.

I'll report back in a few weeks and let you know how well I did following all your advice. I never expected to get so many ideas in such a short time!

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Breakfast is the most worthless meal of the day, especially when it is usually full of carbs like cereal and potatoes and white flour. At most, I eat a powerbar for breakfast if I lifted heavily the preceding evening.

Dinner is my heaviest meal but still not that heavy. Your problem is carbs and total calories. You need to keep your main caloric consumption to a lunch to dinner window and be heavy of protein and fiber. You want foods with a high satiety index that make you feel full on smaller amounts. Also, drink more water after dinner.

 

[Sifossifoco]

Weight watchers. They have an app that will count everything you eat for you

 

[BlueTrin]

The important thing, in my opinion, is to find a routine that you can do for the long term. It takes a fairly time to achieve weight loss and (in my opinion) it’s more about being able to sustain it.

If you eat chocolate, pastries, sweets, you’ll be able to lose weight by just cutting these and replacing them with an extra salad or low carb/low fat meal.

Do you eat any of these on a daily basis or drink alcohol on a daily basis ?

 

[Lorenzoid]

I enjoy breakfast, and I feel it helps get my day off to a good start, both physically and mentally. I vaguely recall (yes, very authoritative) that research has been mixed on whether it is "the most important meal of the day." It's possible that a useful weight maintenance diet would be a small breakfast, as many Europeans do, the main meal at mid-day, and a small supper in the evening, but who really knows. The problem with that kind of diet is that for most working people these days, a relaxing non-fast-food mid-day meal is virtually impossible. So my thinking is that if one has to eat at their workplace, then have a solid breakfast and eat a small, maybe high-protein meal at mid-day, because your options will be more limited or the temptations greater at mid-day.

Breakfast is the meal that keeps me from feeling like I'm perpetually on a diet. Most weekdays I have one boiled egg, a modest amount of fruit (which the low-carb diet fans will frown upon, but it makes me feel good and doesn't seem to throw the whole diet off), and coffee, and this keeps me feeling full enough until lunchtime. On weekends I often enjoy two fried eggs and a very small portion of not especially fatty sausage or bacon--but no bread product--and this is my reward for the week. There are variations in how the eggs are prepared, and what the protein is, and sometimes a vegetable gets thrown into the mix, but weekend breakfasts are always of that size, and never any bread. Saturday, after just such a breakfast, I did a 7 mile walk in the forest and felt great. I should mention that regular, vigorous exercise seems to curb my appetite, not increase it. Occasional exercise, on the other hand, makes me hungry.

It's certainly possible that there is no one diet that works for everyone. But as far as breakfast, that's what works for me.

@BlueTrin , great question about alcohol consumption. Now there is a pile of carbohydrates. Definitely the hardest thing for me to give up.