Have you ever been on a diet?

[JackDaniel's]

I'm fighting with my pounds every day and one thing is sure : It's not easy at all !

I need to get rid of these extra pounds because they are realy affecting my health !

Have you ever tried to loose weight? Did it worked for you ?

[Licker4U]

Sure, I lost 25 pounds in seven weeks on the Atkins diet. I never felt hungry, never felt I was doing without. (Any diet that lets me eat all the bacon, sausage, meats and veggies I want is alright by me) I cut my carbs down to around 40-50/day, less than he suggests. I cut out what I've always called "starchy" foods - potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, etc. I also started walking around the neighborhood and doing situps and simple exercises when I got home. Once you get near your target wieght, start adding carbs back in. Can't live on a low carb diet forever. Worked for me.

[Greenguy]

I did The Fat Smash Diet (you can find it on Amazon for $10 or so) and it worked wonders until I stopped doing it

Seriously, it's horrible for the 1st 2 or 3 days, but I lost 15-20 lbs during the 2 months I was on it.

[JackDaniel's]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I did The Fat Smash Diet (you can find it on Amazon for $10 or so)

I didn't heared about that one before I think I'll give it a try

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by JackDaniel's

I didn't heared about that one before I think I'll give it a try

It really is a common sense diet - the 1st 9 days are basically fruit & vegetables, brown rice, some oatmeal, yogurt & fruit juice. The worst part of it for me was no caffeine

After that, you can eat some meat (chicken, fish, etc) & a couple of other things (like 1 cup of coffee)

But it did work

[ecchi]

Originally Posted by Greenie

The worst part of it for me was no caffeine

Now that I could not cope with, I am seriously addicted to the stuff. But I am curious, caffeine is fat, sugar, and calorie free, so how does giving it up help you loose weight?

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by ecchi

Now that I could not cope with, I am seriously addicted to the stuff. But I am curious, caffeine is fat, sugar, and calorie free, so how does giving it up help you loose weight?

If you have issues with sugar, like I do, caffeine can cause your sugar to yo-yo more than normal. I gave up caffeine about 3 months ago and WOW do I speed if I have any, lol.

I tried atkins diet for awhile, lost weight. then I went through CEA-HOW (compulsive eaters anonymous) which is a 12 step program and their diet is fanatic. I lost the weight, but you are basically eating about 1,000 calories a day. I was always hungry. No flour. No sugar. you weigh and measure everything. Very fat restricted.

When I went off that, I slowly gained up to about 10# over what I am now. Tried atkins again, my cholesterol went up to almost 300. So now I'm back to vegetarian and my cholesterol is the lowest its been in my life.

I'm finding out I have to cut out all high carb / sugar junk foods or my sugar goes too high. Even things like too much brown rice can do it. It is tough to lose the weight now, since if I eat too many carbs, I pour insulin into my system, that makes your body super efficient at fat storing, and I'll gain back the last 5# I lost.

So my diet today is a long-range style of eating that you can find in the book / website ultrametabolism.com by Dr. Mark Hyman. I am working on exercising more too. If I stick with that, I lose weight, and I don't feel deprived at all. It is a "whole foods" diet, eating foods in natural or as close to natural form as you can.

JackDaniels, you might want to pick up a cheap blood gloucose test kit. Eat something that has sugar / carbs, check your sugar 1/2 hr, 1 hr after and se where it goes. If too high (over 200 is diabetic, over about 170 is pre) then know you can't eat that. It helps finding the foods that is triggering that and avoiding them, so you don't keep producing excess insulin and turning your body into a fat storing machine.

[Useless]

Diets are for fat people. They are also mostly bullshit. Gimmicks, crap theories, and money-making schemes. It took you all your life to gain that weight, so don't be in a hurry to lose it all. Truly, if you want to lose weight and maintain your new heroine addicted Olsen twin-like figure, you should not make drastic changes to your lifestyle. The diet plans which force you to completely modify your habits and food choices almost always fail.

The key to successfully losing weight in a healthy and natural manner, and keeping that excess tonage off, is to continue eating what you would normally eat - just less of it. Would it be far healthier for us to eat other, better foods? Sure, but is it realistic? Fuck no.

Drink a glass of water before dinner. Then, simply give yourself slightly smaller portions. Only moderately smaller portions at first. Ease in to it. When you have completed that bucket full, and you are sitting there thinking that you are still hungry, there are two things you must consider: 1 - you are NOT really hungry. We aren't intended to consume huge amounts of food in a single sitting. That feeling of hunger is there because you are accustomed to a different level of satisfaction. You are NOT hungry. 2 - You WILL eat again later. It's far healthier to eat smaller amounts throughout the day than it is to eat larger amounts only 3 times per day. You are a webmaster. I know you're snacking all day anyway. (Changing what you tend to snack on is an excellent choice. I find those small carrots a great treat and the loud crunching makes me feel like I'm eating something sturdy and fattening. If I have no carrots, I'll eat cheap store-brand frosted oatmeal cookies. )

Accustoming yourself to smaller portions is simple and happens much faster than you'd think. Within 2-3 days you'll find that you experience a little pride in your ability to easily serve yourself moderate amounts of food. There will be dishes which you have always loved and it doesn't hurt to treat yourself to a little more of those. Just keep in mind, you are treating yourself - not going back to stuffing your gut at every meal.

Don't weigh yourself every day. True and lasting progress takes time. Rome wasn't built, r*ped, and pillaged in a single day.

Get off your fat ass once in a while. You don't need a gym membership or a $400 exer-cycle (like the one gathering dust behind me). Take a short walk a couple of times per week. Don't look for the closest parking spot at the mall. Read the board and pace back and forth in some kind of semi-psychotic loop of anger, frustration, and paranoia. That's my exercise regimen.

This moderate change should work for most people. There are those who use food as a twisted sort of self-medication due to being gangbanged by a tribe of aboriginal woodsman as a child or what-not. Diets don't work for those people. They should seek psychological treatment for such duressing issues.

[FanTC]

Back in the early 90s I got way out of line with weight. I was in college and boozing every day and eating pure garbage. My weight got up to 264 pounds, which was rather unflattering on my 5'9 inch frame.

I bought a home gym and decided to start working out. I found an article in a muscle magazine that answered a reader question on how to add muscle but take off fat, written by some big black guy that was multi time winner of the bodybuilding championships. He replied to cut fat, carbs, sugars, dairy, eggs, etc(all the good stuff) to decent levels and exercise regularly.

I couldn't follow his guidelines, so I made my own. First I totally quit drinking. If recommended fat intake was 30 grams a day to lose weight, I cut it to 10 and stuck with it. I started eating tons of rice and veggies and counted every fat gram.
A can of tuna and a can of english peas with a slice or 2 of bread might be the days allowance of fat.(veggies are virtually fat free, with the exception of corn, so 5 cans of veggies was free eats) It was grueling for sure. In just over 4 months, I dropped from 264 to a skeletal 132.

I was so skinny I looked like if I lost 2 more pounds that I'd fall through my ass and hang myself.

No telling how much I damaged my body, but once I started eating regular again,my body reached it's happy medium and I gained back to about 175 and stayed there. Now, about 15 years later, I can eat all I want, when I want, and fluctuate between 175 and 190.

Being as everybody's body works differently, I personally think your best bet is to try various things, giving them time to work or fail, but not lingering on them too long, and find what works best for you and your lifestyle

[Licker4U]

Originally Posted by FanTC

and find what works best for you and your lifestyle

Sex is a good exercise...

[ecchi]

Originally Posted by Licker4U

Sex is a good exercise...

Yeah it is. When I was first diagnosed diabetic and the nurse told me that I should take more exercise, I pointed this out, and the fact that I had neither a wife or girlfriend. Then I asked if the NHS (the state healthcare in Britain) could supply me with prostitutes.

Unfortunately she did not have a sense of humour.

[ecchi]

I used to diet, and I came to the conclusion that there is only one diet that really works, and it is:

Eat the things you normally eat, but eat smaller portions.

Anything else is too much hard work and too hard to stick to.

(Although if you eat a lot of things with sugar in them try to cut those out. Sugar is not very fattening, but in a healthy human it causes a sudden rise in blood sugar levels, followed by a sudden drop in it when your body removes the sugar from your blood. Unfortunately your brain interprets this drop in blood sugar as a need for food so makes you feel hungry. So sugary foods make it very hard to stick to the "eat smaller portions" ideal, or any other diet you try. And do note that because sugar does not have a lot of calories in it, you will find it in many diet foods too.)

Oh, and exercising more at the same time helps as well.

[ecchi]

Oh and the really bad news on that sugar thing is the way that your body neutralises alcohol in your blood is by converting it to sugar. So you got to treat alcohol as sugar too (including low sugar/low carb alcohol - it is kind of pointless making an alcoholic drink low in sugar when the alcohol is going to be converted into sugar in your bloodstream).

[JackDaniel's]

UW you should become a counselor !

You have convinced me

I think what UW said should work for anyone who wants to loose weight

[oldbrad]

I had a starting weight of 265. Stayed at that weight a couple years til i decidided to get back in shape. I started eating 6 times a day and exercising.

Like most things, after 2 weeks it becomes habit and much easier to stick with.

6 meals a day with a 40/40/20 split. protein/carbs/fat.

Eat about 3 hours apart and have a meal directly after exercise.

20 minutes of high interval aerobic activity 3 times a week.

45 minutes of compound movement weightlifting 3 days per week (alternating upper and lower every other day).

Simple as that. Eating more frequent meals, drinking tons more water and exercising.

I gained muscle (lifted weights for 1 month solid before changing diet and reducing calories) and lost fat over 5 months or so. try to either lose fat or gain muscle, dont try to do both at the same time. I went from 265 and probably 35% bf with no muscle to 215 at 11% with a decent amount of muscle.

I'm about to do it again and maintain it as my weights been rising again, i just like fast food too much

I followed a diet very similar to the body for life book, i'd recommend it.

[Linkster]

oldbrad - that sounds very similar to the one that Ive been using - that definitely works - it is not a diet - it is a lifestyle change
Tom Venuto has a great program and his website is http://www.burnthefat.com/
He really does dispel every myth in diets/low carb BS/supplements and does it scientifically - and I havent been hungry once - 6 meals a day (5 for women) lots of tap water, and good sensible exercise - and yes you can even have caffiene(coffee) - and it works extremely well. I paid for the entire book I was so impressed and he has a complete support forum with loads more info/recipes/science as well as just plain motivational crap that you may or may not need
Other than this stuff I picked up in Vegas(no not the money LOL) Ive been sticking to it with no effort other than some small changes in my schedule that are well worth it - cause even with my heart in the shape its in I can do this and that makes it fantastic for me

[Simon]

"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating,
and in fourteen days I had lost exactly two weeks." - Joe E. Lewis

-- and that's the best results I've had with diets too.

[stuveltje]

i am dealing with diets since i was 15 , but there is only one thing what will help to loose you some weight........: eat 3 times a day (normally healthy food) and do some sports, and yep i am that person also who use those short time loosing alot of weight diets, but i have to agree: all you have to do is change your eating habbits and move your lazy butt, now even i am talking that wise about it, i have some weigth problems everytime too, why? because i am to lazy to do sports or moving my butt and i like bad food and eat when i want to

[JackDaniel's]

Originally Posted by stuveltje

i am to lazy to do sports or moving my butt and i like bad food and eat when i want to

That is extremely encouraging

[Arafura]

Low carb/Atkins is awesome. I ate an amazing ribeye steak this morning and slathered it in butter. Yum! All the studies have shown that fat is not harmful unless you eat it in combination with a bunch of carbs. It's like a seesaw: you wanna eat a bunch of carbs, cut back on the fat. If you like fat, cut the carbs. But you have to pick one approach and stick with it, so it just becomes a matter of figuring out which you enjoy more. I'm going with bacon every time.

[Lot]

It worked. But it should be done unde doctor's control for sure after all necessary tests

[zandre]

i think it is much better to start exercising if you wanna lose weight

diets could be dangerous, and if you do some sport you will also improve your health and condition

don't be lazy and do not rely on diets - that's my advice to you