Diets and Weight Loss

Yes, I tend to think that everyone who wants to lose weight and start exercising should track their diet. The goal is to burn more calories than you consume, so you don't want to overeat and exercise tends to make your hungrier. I would suggest any sort of food journal program online: spark people, fit day, or whatever other one you like to keep track of how many calories you are consuming. You don't want to end up doing loads of exercise, only to replace the calories you burned after your workout. You won't lose weight that way.

If you can get access, I really liked Jillian's 30 Day Shred (she's one of the trainers on the US Biggest Loser).  It's 25 minutes, and there are three levels of workouts.  It's pretty hard core.  At point point, in the Level One work out, she says "You probably feel like you are going to die right now!", and it was so true.  But in a good way.  It's two minute bursts of everything.  No rests for the whole 25 minutes, though.  I kind of thought the ab/weight portions were like resting, though.  At least you weren't doing pushups!

Just did my first workout with this DVD today and man... it's intense!  Is it really 25 minutes? It seemed shorter than that, but I did the entire level 1 workout.

I feel like i've got rubber legs lol.

Yeah - that's what she says, anyway.  It does feel shorter.  Level 2 has these godawful walkout pushups (raise your arms, touch your toes, walk yourself on your hands out to a plank position, do a push up, and walk yourself back on your hands to your toes.

SO AWFUL.  (But I felt a little like Superwoman when I was able to do it).

Yeah - that's what she says, anyway.  It does feel shorter.  Level 2 has these godawful walkout pushups (raise your arms, touch your toes, walk yourself on your hands out to a plank position, do a push up, and walk yourself back on your hands to your toes.

SO AWFUL.  (But I felt a little like Superwoman when I was able to do it).

How often do you do this dvd workout? I'm going to start out on 3 days per week (my off days) and work up to more. 

Every other day (when I'm being good!).  So it's more like a 60-day Shred!

Yeah, so... after a go on 30 day shred yesterday, i cannot move today LOL.

I just bought a set of weights and a thighmaster off of amazon.co.uk, both Everlast brand, for £20.

This life change was long overdue.  I look forward actually to sharing successes with other UKYers.

This life change was long overdue.  I look forward actually to sharing successes with other UKYers.

Eh, better late than never!  Good luck with it all! I have taken an "extended break" from exercising, but still watching my diet. I should really start working out again soon, though. Anyway, I am 16 pounds down from this time last year and counting. 

Well here are my results from this week:

Monday I started having 2 protein shakes per day.  They are 110 calories, 3 grams of fat, 3 net carbs and 17 grams of protein.  I've been jogging (no walking but jogging at a moderate speed) 2 miles twice a day.  It takes me about 20 minutes each time, so I've actually gotten in about 40 minutes of cardio per day.  I decided to step on the scale this morning and me amazed by how all my effort was paying off.  Result = 3lbs GAINED!  Excellent...not.  So I told myself, it's ok...I just gained muscle weight...let me take my measurements.  Overall measurements = 2in gain.  And trust me, considering that I'm around 35% body fat, that is not muscle gain!  My diet has stayed the same except I bought some whole wheat yeast rolls the other day and I've eaten 2 every night (I just couldn't resist!) and I've also been eating a lot more fruit.  I'm sure that has a lot to do with the weight gain since I do tend to stay fairly low carb usually.  Anyway, I've got to go grocery shopping this weekend so I'll be stocking up on my trusted old friends, fresh veggies, continue my 4 miles a day and see if next week produces any better results.  Of course I'm sure stress has absolutely nothing to do with gaining weight either.   

TarnLover, you should really try tracking your calories through some online journal thingy, that should help with your weight loss in addition to the exercise you are doing. Then if you make any changes to your diet, you can see how it affected you. Of course, there is also always water weight gain, if you have been drinking a lot of water, or hormones/time of the month stuff among other things that could cause you to weigh a bit more. Good luck!

There's also a free website that I've used for about 6 months called FitDay.com.  It allows you to track all the calories you eat (you just enter the food and it puts the calories in for you automatically) and also add in any activity and it calculates the calories you burn.  If you put in your weight goal, it will tell you how many calories you need to eat each day and also how much weight you need to lose each week.  You can track your body measurements and your weight also.  I love it!  And it's free.

Thanks for this - I signed up for it on Friday - I need the challenge of being able to 'chart' what I'm doing, and this looks, so far, to be relatively painless.

Although, of course, adding in the foods can be a little tricky, IMO - I don't agree with some of the calorie/fat counts of the foods that are on there (for instance, an egg salad sandwich - does everyone make them exactly the same?).  So I've got lots of 'custom' foods in there already.  Still, once I've got in the stuff that I normally eat, it will be really simple to just add those in, with the occasional new item to be added.

The same goes for exercise.  I haven't decided yet whether I want to try to gauge the distance of our long hallways at work that I trek back and forth on, always in a hurry, at least 1/2 dozen times a day!  lol  Or if I just want to stick with my 'organised' activities, like going to the gym, or using my Pilates for Dummies DVD!  Or walking the canal towpaths, which I've been doing on weekends lately...

I can see that it's a good tracker, though - just entering the things I've been able to so far, and then looking at my total nutrition for a day has been a bit of an eye opener (positively and negatively)!

Although, of course, adding in the foods can be a little tricky, IMO - I don't agree with some of the calorie/fat counts of the foods that are on there (for instance, an egg salad sandwich - does everyone make them exactly the same?).  So I've got lots of 'custom' foods in there already.  Still, once I've got in the stuff that I normally eat, it will be really simple to just add those in, with the occasional new item to be added.

I don't know about FitDay, (I used to use it, but that was before I did much of my own cooking), but on SparkPeople, they have a recipe calculator, and I use that to calculate my own tuna salad, spaghetti sauce, and things like that. Also, I manually enter in a lot of my foods so I know exactly what I am getting calorie-wise. For example, if you select lean ground beef, you get x amount of calories, but I found by entering in "Lean Steak Mince" and putting the exact information on my package that the calories were much lower in my spaghetti sauce than originally calculated, thereby allowing me luxuries like grated parmesan and light garlic toast.  It's time consuming to do at first, but as I tend to buy a lot of the same sausages, beef, and things like that, so once it's entered, I can just select it and go. Also, you can edit recipes, which is great because I may do a recipe differently the next time depending on what I have on hand that day. I highly recommend it for home cooking, as I make all our meals at home now.

Just wanted to pop in and say I've had success with these:

Find out your fat/fiber/calories here:

http://www.calorieking.com/foods/ [nofollow]

Then do the Weight Watchers points here:

http://www.webmilhouse.com/pointcalc.php [nofollow]

I don't follow WW strictly or go to meetings, but I find it helps keep me in line.  I also have the calculator function on my phone, so I occasionally use it at the grocery store.  Sounds kind of anal and nerdy, but it works for me.

So I've got lots of 'custom' foods in there already.  Still, once I've got in the stuff that I normally eat, it will be really simple to just add those in, with the occasional new item to be added.

I can see that it's a good tracker, though - just entering the things I've been able to so far, and then looking at my total nutrition for a day has been a bit of an eye opener (positively and negatively)!

I also have a lot of custom foods.  You have to remember that all the pre-calculated nutrition information was mostly entered by users (your custom foods become available for others to use as pre-calculated foods).  So when I first started using this website about 6 months ago, I added a load of custom foods (mostly from looking at the nutrition value on the packaging).  So for egg salad, I looked at all the nutrition content of every ingredient I add in (egg, mayo, mustard, onion, relish and paprika), measured all the ingredients (to make sure I was using the correct values) and added them all together.  Now when I click on 'egg salad', it is exactly what MY egg salad is.  I also did the same thing for regular salads, so instead of having to put in every single ingredient in my salads, I can just click on 'salad' and it has the nutrition content of all the basics.  If I decide to add some shredded cheese, croutons, or any other extras, I just click on those to add to my list. 

The first day I used this website, I hadn't started my diet yet.  It was very interesting to see how much I was actually eating (around 2300 calories), but even more eye-opening to see the breakdown of fat, carbs and protein (my fat was THROUGH THE ROOF).  Now my breakdown is about 60% carbs, 25% protein, and 15% fat (which is healthy). 

The thing I like most about fitday.com is that you can put in your goal weight and it tells you exactly how many calories you need to eat a day to lose that amount of weight per week.  I also like to see the goal weight chart and track my actual weight to see how close I am.  I'm usually under it (until I hit this plateau) so it actually motivates me even more to keep going.

On a positive note, for whatever reason, I think my weight on Friday was a fluke (maybe I was retaining water or something - I have to watch my sodium really closely due to blood pressure and if I eat too much, I swell up like a balloon) because I stepped on the scale yesterday and today and I was 4lbs lighter (which means I actually lost 2lbs for the week).  I thought those 4 miles a day would pay off!!  I've also been using the stairs instead of the lift (4 flights up and down 4 times a day).  That's harder on my body than the 4 miles of jogging...lol.

Thanks, ladies, I think I'm getting the hang of it!  Now, if I can just get the hang of losing weight, once again, and keeping it off, for a change!

From the beginning of January to mid-April, I lost 14 pounds just by changing my lunchtime routine to low fat with lots of fruit, and joining a gym and getting back into the habit of doing my Pilates DVD.  Then I stopped...what with my brother and his family visiting in June, it actually took me until the 1st of September to take myself in hand again.  Happily, I only gained 5 pounds in the 'off season', and have now lost a total of 2 pounds in the last 3 weeks.  I have a feeling FitDay will really help me figure out the diet portion of it - although I started this on a weekend where I'm a little more relaxed in my eating habits anyway, I can see I'm eating WAY too much fat!

The thing I like most about fitday.com is that you can put in your goal weight and it tells you exactly how many calories you need to eat a day to lose that amount of weight per week.

This is what I found amazing about this site.  I put in my goal weight and the time by which I want to lose it and it told me how many calories to cut on a daily basis to get to that goal. And it's a managable amount that isnt going to leave me starving.  I sort of felt like "well if someone had simply put it this way sooner..."

Im happy to report that, a week in, I have lost 5 lbs.  I was crippled for 2 days after that 30 day shred dvd workout which left my couch potato legs in agony, but back in the saddle again.  It's prolly mostly water weight but hey.... 5 lbs... woot!