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

[АлександрД]

Dear Eliza!
In my region is very popular idea to keep good (not big) weight - is to follow just one (not only, but you must) simple rule - never eat after 18:00.

It is corresponding to Lorenzoid message about good (big) breakfast.
I will add - also small dinner and just something light for the supper, like an apple or carrot.
For the first month it could be little uncomfortable, and after you start to feel it like a norm.
I also have small excess weight, and try to follow this rules. Also walking up on the ladders and escalators of the subway. So my weight is not growing. I`m 5 ft 9 inch and 176 lbs, and wish to be lighter, but to lazy to forget about wrong food and beer

P.S. Bad advice: Are you smoking? If not - you can start It will close you hunger ... but will break your health..

 

[lowwall]

A couple of points. First, start the exercise now, regardless of what you decide to do with your diet. Unless someone is grossly overweight (or has a specific health problems that a physician has prescribed weight loss for), losing weight has little effect on long term health. On the other hand, improving physical fitness through exercise has both immediate and long term health benefits. You sleep better and feel better now and are less prone to everything from osteoporosis to heart disease later. The only thing a person can do that will have a more beneficial outcome to your health is quitting smoking.

Second, I'll throw in a diet suggestion that hasn't come up yet. It's called intermittent fasting (IF). The simplest form of IF is to do all your eating in an 8-hour window each day. You can only have water or unsweetened tea or black coffee at other times. For most people noon to 8pm or 1pm-9pm works well. As to what you eat, there are no restrictions inside the time window, although obviously you'll get additional benefits from sticking to healthy foods such as those in the model Mediterranean diet. I found it's pretty easy to stick with this after the first couple of days and it's a lot simpler than counting calories or trying to adhere to a strict diet.

Here's some general info on intermittent fasting:

What Is Intermittent Fasting? Explained in Human Terms

Intermittent fasting: Surprising update - Harvard Health Blog

Go figure: A healthy eating approach helps people be healthy - Harvard Health Blog - discusses a study which compared IF, Mediterranean, and Paleo diets.

 

[Kimela]

I meant to jump in here earlier - forgot - then lost the thread. Oops.

I did keto for two years. I lost the weight and kept it off, but there were times I'd want to eat something with some extra carbs (like a big, juicy apple) and paid for it with that uncomfortable feeling of retaining water. I decided it just wasn't going to work for me anymore. I wanted to be able to eat items from all categories but learn a more balanced way of doing things. So I also did MyFitnessPal - and it works great if you follow it very closely.

You will not lose weight from exercise. Someone else said you have to create a calorie deficit - you must burn more calories than you are consuming - and that's it. Exercise is to help get your body in better shape - but won't help (much) to lose weight. It might mean you can eat an extra couple spoons of ice cream (big deal). However ... once you get into the cycle of exercise AND changes to your diet AND see results, your brain will connect the two as "this feels/looks good" and they will reinforce one another.

My husband had a health scare a couple of years ago and the doc said "walk two miles a day". So we started doing that, and MyFitnessPal. He lost nearly 50 pounds in 6 months, and I lost about 20 (MEN!). If you walk a 20 minute mile that's 40 minutes. If you - unlike me - can do a 15 minute mile, it's 30 minutes. I suspect you can carve out 30-40 minutes of walking each day somewhere - maybe just start doing it on your days off. But do MyFitnessPal to keep your calorie intake in the range to lose weight and the weight WILL come off. I won't lie, it's not fun. No ... it can be miserable. But the benefits to your heart and the potential years it can add to your life (and diving) are well worth it.

My guess is that all of what you've read here is nothing new. (I joke that my failures at diet/exercise and good parenting are not due to lack of knowledge!). I hope everyone's stories help you figure out how to make the changes that are right for you. Good luck!

 

[ElizaDoolittle]

Back after a couple of days with the news of the first steps I've taken following some of your advice (I intend to follow more, but I'm starting little by little so as not to get discouraged).

1) After dragging the under-desk elliptical from my home to my workplace (in the process of which I'm sure I lost millions of calories and a couple of fat rolls, if sweat means something), my boss told me there's no way I'm going to use that there, even when I'm not seeing customers, as those at the other desks would be distracted, with just a transparent partition between us. I don't really know whether it would make noise so as to be noticeable outside my cubicle. Now I have to decide whether to return the elliptical or keep it at home (where I could use it at the weekend).

2) I decided that Friday would be the best way for the thirty-minute walk to the next bus stop on returning home, since going to bed later is not so critical (I work on Saturdays, only later hours). I have to say I feel great after doing it. I have made up my mind to do other walks (from thirty to sixty minutes, if I can afford) at the weekend too. But I wonder whether I'll have to wait until next. The blisters on my feet look like I won't be able to walk much tomorrow. It's sad, after all I've walked (the only exercise I've ever really enjoyed - when I was a teenager and on holidays, I used to go to places 6-7 miles away from my home, have a picnic there and come back, just for the fun of it). I don't want to walk in a weird way because of the blisters, as I have lumbago (which is what made me stop going for walks, as anything over 15-30 minutes will make my back hurt), and it might get worse if I don't walk properly.

3) I tried not to have breakfast one day, and by 10.30 am I felt as if I was going to faint, so I ended up going to the vending machine and buying a Mars bar, the sort of stuff I hate eating (there's not much I can buy there). Having had diner at 9 pm, I really couldn't wait until my 2 pm lunch break with an empty stomach. I've almost discarded this, although it might be a matter of getting used to it (if Muslims can fast for so long during Ramadan, I suppose everybody can do the same).

4) I'm trying to reduce the amount of food I eat by leaving some in the plate.

5) I've also started to write down everything I eat on the My Fitness Pal website (I cannot use apps on my old mobile, the old Nokia type). I'm finding this difficult, since everything seems to be very approximate (there's no way I can know the exact calories according to the specific recipe they use at the restaurant, and I don't even know the weight of what I eat).

Except for the two days, the number of calories I've eaten is lower than my daily goal, but this daily goal increases every day, which I don't understand. And then, when I look up the net calories report, there's a red line with a daily goal which is the same every day. As if this weren't enough, my news feed says I haven't reached my goal. I'm puzzled about all of this, and I suppose I'll end up asking help on the forums. I don't see how this may help me, honestly, but I'll carry on writing down everything and see what happens in a couple of months.

Thanks a lot again to everyone! I'll visit this thread all the time, so I can add other things little by little.

 

[Shasta_man]

Thanks all for this thread. I haven't read it all but I got some good info and encouragement from it. As I write this post, I realize the number I need to lose just keeps going up! I recently realized again I have to change direction. I stopped the 2 1 mile walks I used to do to get work when Covid started and exercise was essentially zero until I started doing a little recently. Besides the health effects, the worst part is how uncomfortable it is being overweight i.e. fat. Hell, it's hard enough now, can't imagine more weight.

I think not eating extended periods just signals your body to store everything it does get as fat, so I intend to use MyFitnessPal (or similar) and eat breakfast, larger lunch and smaller dinner, doing mostly vegetables with a little protein, then no snacking at night. Timing dinner is important so its not too long to next meal otherwise you are starving and eat. I'll mention that I discovered (others probably knew already) going to bed before digesting food kills your sleep. I think food speeds metabolism so your body doesn't really rest for a long time. Every time I would eat later I wake up tired. I'm sure many of these things are only revelations to me.

 

[BlueTrin]

Thanks all for this thread. I haven't read it all but I got some good info and encouragement from it. As I write this post, I realize the number I need to lose just keeps going up! I recently realized again I have to change direction. I stopped the 2 1 mile walks I used to do to get work when Covid started and exercise was essentially zero until I started doing a little recently. Besides the health effects, the worst part is how uncomfortable it is being overweight i.e. fat. Hell, it's hard enough now, can't imagine more weight.

I think not eating extended periods just signals your body to store everything it does get as fat, so I intend to use MyFitnessPal (or similar) and eat breakfast, larger lunch and smaller dinner, doing mostly vegetables with a little protein, then no snacking at night. Timing dinner is important so its not too long to next meal otherwise you are starving and eat. I'll mention that I discovered (others probably knew already) going to bed before digesting food kills your sleep. I think food speeds metabolism so your body doesn't really rest for a long time. Every time I would eat later I wake up tired. I'm sure many of these things are only revelations to me.

If that helps, I get better fat loss when I use only a small deficit rather than a big deficit in calories.

I use a deficit of 300 calories when I diet to look leaner.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

cocaine was always my go-to for weight loss.

not so much any more.

 

[FezUSA]

Highly recommend that you check out the book "The Obesity Code" by Dr. Jason Fung.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1771641258

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

Thanks all for this thread. I haven't read it all but I got some good info and encouragement from it. As I write this post, I realize the number I need to lose just keeps going up! I recently realized again I have to change direction. I stopped the 2 1 mile walks I used to do to get work when Covid started and exercise was essentially zero until I started doing a little recently. Besides the health effects, the worst part is how uncomfortable it is being overweight i.e. fat. Hell, it's hard enough now, can't imagine more weight.I think not eating extended periods just signals your body to store everything it does get as fat, so I intend to use MyFitnessPal (or similar) and eat breakfast, larger lunch and smaller dinner, doing mostly vegetables with a little protein, then no snacking at night. Timing dinner is important so its not too long to next meal otherwise you are starving and eat. I'll mention that I discovered (others probably knew already) going to bed before digesting food kills your sleep. I think food speeds metabolism so your body doesn't really rest for a long time. Every time I would eat later I wake up tired. I'm sure many of these things are only revelations to me.

That and a big issue for me was staying up too late. Even if you eat a moderate dinner at a reasonable hour...if you stay up till midnight or later watching TV or doing whatever, you’re going to be prone to snacking.

One key for me was going to bed a bit earlier. When that didn’t happen...having a small snack instead of junk food just so I wouldn’t go to bed hungry. Ex. Cereal or Toast with peanut butter, instead of fast food, frozen pizza, etc.

I’ve kept the 30+ lbs off, but I slipped a bit the past couple of weeks. Working towards detoxing from all of the red meat and sugar (cookies and mocha lattes, lol) that I had over the holidays.

 

[Shasta_man]

@Barnaby'sDad Excellent point about staying up later literally working out to more snacking. My problem wasn't eating the sugar but eating the ok stuff too late. That then killed my sleep which pushed the next day later before I was functional which again pushed the night later again. I also had kids later in life so that meant my life started at 9 PM. So get something done, then relax and then blink it's 1 AM again. Had to change that.

I also learned at least for myself that you'll never go to sleep watching TV. It's always next commercial, then next commercial. Never feel satisfied and the show works you up. So I switched to reading a book in bed then crashing, even if it means using the headlamp while the wife is already asleep. It does two things: first very important is it focuses my mind on one thing. Instead of reeling from how nothing makes sense in our current insanity world, the 25 things I need to do at home and the 75 things I need to do at work, I focus on the book. Second is it gets tiring reading and start nodding off mid-book and after a few times of that, drop the book, roll over and go to sleep. But DON'T START THINKING OF STUFF AGAIN otherwise, you're caught up again. Of course there is also the pad next to the bed to write things down so I don't constantly go through a list of things I need to do.

Lastly, trying to make bedtime consistent rather than earlier during the week then 1 AM on weekends. That rollercoaster doesn't work either.

I had to chuckle at myself about all of this because, if you stop and actually think about what is happening, a lot of it makes sense. But we don't usually think very deeply about these issues because we're busy with everything else.

@BoundForElsewhere I'll just speak for myself here. nah, the go fast never worked. It just worked out to use up everything else to no effect and then you feel bad because you were stupid and have no money now. I have this annoying thing called a conscience that doesn't let me stray too far. I know right and wrong, it's just how long I can ignore it.