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The 2020 OTF Weight Loss Intention & Mutual Support Thread

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    Counting calories doesn't stop you sinking beers, of course. You just have to count them... Nor does it mean your target has to be 2500 calories day after day. It can be 2300 during the week and 3000 at the weekends. Just as effective.

    Anyone who suggests their weight loss plan is the way that people have to try has already marked themselves out as a untrustworthy cove to be drowned out by copious use of an foghorn. Or worse. What works for individuals is very much a personality fit.

    Ultimately, as discussed up thread, the theory is very simple: calorie intake < calories used. Or calories used > calorie intake - the semantic meaning is the same but the order used carries a nuance; the 'greater than' form implies increasing exercise as the key, and the 'less than' implies decreasing the amount consumed. Most successes are likely to be a mixture from column a and column b.

    It doesn't matter how someone looking to lose weight achieves that inequality. Or the timeframe the intake/expenditure is averaged over. Or indeed that they know the ratio. Just that overall there is an inbalance in favour of the burn rate.

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      Originally posted by Janik View Post
      Anyone who suggests their weight loss plan is the way that people have to try has already marked themselves out as a untrustworthy cove to be drowned out by copious use of an foghorn. Or worse. What works for individuals is very much a personality fit
      ​​​​
      Was that comment directed at me?

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        Absolutely not. You very clearly stated it was a solution that worked for you but wouldn't necessarily for others. It was meant as a general observation on the diet industry.

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          Originally posted by Janik View Post
          Absolutely not. You very clearly stated it was a solution that worked for you but wouldn't necessarily for others. It was meant as a general observation on the diet industry.
          Ah, fair enough.

          Like I said, 600 calories really isn't very much. Several of my (overweight) friends were aghast at the idea when I mentioned it in passing. Personally, I got used to it after a while.

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            It's one smallish or low calorie meal in a day, basically. With only water to drink. Right?

            I wouldn't do any exercise on that, that is for certain. But on a rest day, yeah, maybe.

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              The way I did it was no breakfast, small salad for lunch (no dressing), small piece of meat or fish with some steamed veg for dinner. Plus unlimited Diet Coke / water / black coffee + aspartame. Every Monday and Thursday.

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                It's a fascinating diet and seems to work well for many people. My fear is that I wouldn't eat "normally" during the five days. I suspect I'd binge like a maniac, which I think would screw the whole thing up.

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                  Originally posted by Janik View Post
                  It's one smallish or low calorie meal in a day, basically. With only water to drink. Right?

                  I wouldn't do any exercise on that, that is for certain. But on a rest day, yeah, maybe.
                  You could do the fitness bit very early in the morning after maybe just a coffee, which is what I usually do.

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                    Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                    small salad for lunch (no dressing)
                    The no dressing bit would never catch on here.
                    Last edited by Sporting; 29-07-2020, 04:53.

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                      Originally posted by Sporting View Post

                      The no dressing bit would never catch on here.
                      A bit of canned tuna helps it go down.

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                        Originally posted by Sporting View Post

                        You could do the fitness bit very early in the morning after maybe just a coffee, which is what I usually do.
                        Not sure how good an idea this is. All the professional and word-of-mouth advice I've seen/received on training regimes is to eat something with carbs and protein within 20-30 minutes of finishing exercise. Most stress just how important this is. Otherwise the body reacts by doing the starvation mode thing TG outlined up thread, which was an important evolutionary adaptation; exercise followed by no calories would have meant an unsuccessful hunt back in the day, and it's vital after a failed hunt not to deplete the energy reserves so that the next opportunity to kill dinner has as good a chance of success as possible. Therefore when presented with energy expenditure followed by little or no fuel coming in, the body breaks down muscle for energy instead. Exactly what you don't want when dieting.
                        That is why athletes in training have all those protein bars/shakes etc to replenish in breaks or at the end of sessions. For us amateurs, a sandwich will do the job perfectly adequately. Peanut butter being my go to (one slice of bread, some low-fat spread, 15g of peanut butter, 250 cals or so).

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                          Ah, but I do have a small something after the shower. The heat here at this time of the year mitigates against outdoors exercise at other times of the day.

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                            Sorry, that point was in reference to exercise on the '2' days of a 5/2 diet - that is what I don't think is necessarily advisable. It wasn't meant as a critque of morning exercise, which is a very standard practice. Blame the quote function on this site only including what was written in the post quoted and not what that post was itself responding to.

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                              My previous post was at the start of May, when all looked on track for achieving my personal goal for the year before Summer. However, the wheels have come off. Since the table became unwieldy, here is a pair of graphs:



                              The yellow bars clearly indicate when we were no longer allowed to go to the office; most of my stair climbing comes from going to my office on the seventh floor multiple times per day. The one-week conference trip to the USA (mid-February) clearly shows in the weight graph.

                              Mid-May was my tenure evaluation meeting. The final decision came through in early July. Stress eating and reduction in exercise produced the effect which was to be expected. Now we're in the process of buying a house. The life events all resolve positively, but I need to get back on track with the weight loss again (this week's average looks like it will end up above 79, which is worse than the start of the year).

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                                Another conclusion is that the one-week conference trip to the USA did just as much damage (1.8kg) as seven weeks of stress eating (May 03, 76kg until June 21, 77.9kg).

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                                  I'm wondering whether the very detailed analysis and stats gathering you and Janik do re this stuff would be helpful/useful for the rest of us.

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                                    Ah well, I guess that you go again Wouter, as Steven Gerrard would say.

                                    My weight is still on a plateau, though the most recent weigh-in had me a low-point for the year, if only just. I'm happy where I am but would like to see where I get to with more exercise, which I'm currently resisting. I did a lot of walking during the first few months of lockdown but there's been a huge reduction in the last couple of months, so I need to get back into the habit.

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                                      To be utterly honest, my earlier good intentions had gone completely to waste (no pun intended) and being lazy and slobby and still enjoying the late nights with a bottle or two of red and a sandwich or two, my 6' 2" inch frame was back up to 15st 4lb (214lbs) again. Then last Saturday I went to a BBQ (leave this bit out for the more delicate readers amongst you who won't want to know the details) and today I'm now 14st 8 lb (204lbs) a 10lb weight loss in under a week!*

                                      Flippancy aside, it has not been a pleasant week, not helped by the fact that I've not been able to take any time off of work (my fault I know) but what it has done is to put my mind into positive gear and once normal eating habits return, which they gradually are doing now, is to keep the almost certain weight increase as down as much as possible and to really aim to achieve my 14st goal.

                                      * I'm certainly not advocating this as a weight loss choice in any way. God, not in any way.

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                                        I've lost significant amounts of weight at least 5 times since I was 15. At my worst, I was 159kg but got that down to 95kg (with the help of the OTF Facebook fat group). That was seven years ago though and with work stress, MBA, toddler and general sedentary lifestyle I was back up to 127kg last month. It causes mental health issues (both as a symptom and a subsequent cause) and has clear health concerns.

                                        We are expecting a second child in March which we are really excited by. This with the clear disadvantages to being obese in Covid times are my timebound motivators. I don't think I could cope with my current level of fitness and tiredness with a newborn if I don't do anything.

                                        I'm 23 days in to logging food on MyNetDiary and have my steps activity linked to it. I'm down to 123kg so a step in the right direction. Goal is to get to 100kg by end of February with a longer term goal to be 85kg by my 40th in June 2022.

                                        I plan to use this thread to post regular updates, vent, look for support and give support. I have avoided the thread since it first appeared as I wasn't in the right headspace for it. The posts from hobbes and others on the War on Obesity thread really resonated with me.

                                        Hopefully others will also be looking to get back in to the swing of things.

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                                          All power to you, sir. You've made a great start.

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                                            August to early September was fairly disastrous for me in terms of weight / health. Four birthdays within three weeks meant a surfeit of cake, crisps and general crap, which left me craving chocolate and junk food and eating some almost every day. My weight had gone up to 66.6kg (an ominous sign if ever there was one) or BMI of 27.6.

                                            Last week I got my triglyceride blood results back and they are absolutely terrifyingly sky high. It's a combination of a) side effect of one of my medications, b) non-functioning thyroid and c) my body having a hair-trigger response to being even slightly above optimal BMI.

                                            So, now the kids are back in school and I have a tiny bit of breathing space before my new job starts, I'm trying to kick-start myself into healthy eating again. I will have to go back on my super-strict diet which is designed to lower triglycerides, because I cannot be having a heart attack or a stroke while I have young kids. The way I do this when I've been eating crap is to start by indulging myself in healthy treats. Today, I bought myself a whole punnet of strawberries (usually the kids devour them before I get a look in). I also massively up my intake of beans and pulses and lower my intake of white carbs. Eggs and chilli kidney beans for breakfast. Chickpeas with roast butternut squash, beetroot, sweetcorn and cherry tomatoes for lunch. Had to go into town to collect daughter's new shoes in the evening, but instead of getting a Gregg's vegan sausage roll, I treated myself to an M&S black rice and edamame bean plant kitchen pack, and some watermelon and mango.

                                            There is a digestive downside to the sudden increase in bean consumption, but on the plus side, family members are more likely to leave me in a room by myself for a while.

                                            0.3kg down so far. Approx 15kg to go.

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                                              I hadn't done a BMI calculation in a while. It turns out that I am current 0.014 under being obese. Of course, we all know that BMI is risibly simplistic, but it's still nice to be ever so very slightly not-obese right now. A small number of pounds drifted off over the last four weeks after many piled on during the start of covid (and the preceding two years).

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                                                Went to a free trial of a boot camp in the park today. It was fairly brutal but I need something to kick start me. With a two mile round trip walk there and back it's a pretty good evening workout. I did a board of trustees meeting over the phone on the walk back which made me feel like one of those very competent eighties lawyers with shoulder pads.

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                                                  Week one of my new sedentary job and I've put on 1.2kg. Boo. Mother-in-law bought me a kilogram of M&S chocolates for my birthday and I've eaten all of them (well shared a few with the family) so that is probably most of it. GP is referring me to a specialist because of my insanely high triglyceride levels despite being young (ish), only a little bit overweight and not drinking alcohol. I might have to switch mood stabilisers or start statins. Part of me would like to try weaning off the mood stabilisers completely because they mess with my metabolism, but the realistic part of me knows that this is the longest I've ever gone in my adult life without a major depressive or manic episode.

                                                  So, which is worse, risk of heart attack and stroke, or risk of being sectioned again?

                                                  The actual answer is that I need to stay on the mood stabilisers and just eat salad and do intensive exercise every day, but it's hard to keep that type of regime going.

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                                                    Balderasha, a change in routine can have significant changes to diet and exercise levels. Good sign that you are on it already though. You have my sympathies on managing medication and the balance between physical and mental health that comes with it. As you say, salad and intensive exercise is difficult to be sustainable - hopefully the specialist can offer solutions.

                                                    I'm six weeks in and 6.5 kgs down, now at 120.5kg. Tracking diet everyday as I eat the food so helping with meal choices as I go. One thing that is new for me is that I have bought a kitchen scales which has been really helpful in terms of portion control. Working from home at first was a negative being so close to a well stocked kitchen and the stress that simultaneous work and childcare brought. I've turned it in to a positive now with lots of control over breakfast, lunch and dinner now. Motivation levels are high so can avoid sweet treats etc. for the moment. Mini twisters ice lollies at <40 calories are helping as a treat.

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