Weight Loss/Virtual Gastric Band/Etc

paradisiac · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:40

The Halk said:
I think just the hunger pains. It's said that we feel hungry but we're actually thirsty.

ah right, i drink loads of water at work, but don't really drink in the evenings. pretty much lost my belly since being single. just a little bit to go, and then a touch of toning it. im struggling though, did really well, now chocolate and stuff is tempting to blank out the depression of being lonely. maybe i will try to substitute the chocolate with water.

Raymond Lin · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:41

Castiel said:
Aye, cutting down on bread is a nightmare.....be careful of processed meats and added sugars to things like chicken breasts as well.....portion control is a big thing as well as calorie control. It's tedious at first but gets easier as you get into a routine.

Not only it is a nightmare in terms of change of diet, bread IS nice, especially the nice stuff. I also found that my food budget went way up. Bread is cheap! It is a cheap way to be full, fresh meat and veg is not so cheap. It is hard to get my head around paying £10 for a caesar salad or £10 for a pizza at Pizza Express.

The Halk · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:41

Castiel said:
Aye, cutting down on bread is a nightmare.....be careful of processed meats and added sugars to things like chicken breasts as well.....portion control is a big thing as well as calorie control. It's tedious at first but gets easier as you get into a routine.

I'm a bit concerned about the chicken kiev, turkey escalopes etc that I get. I suspect they're full of sugar, flour and starch.

I did a huge amount of reading before I lost weight on the modified atkins diet that I did, and I do understand things quite well now. Or at least I understand where calories come from, and that sugar is probably more evil than fats because of the response etc.

Calorie control is something I need to watch. I've always liked a big plate full - I used to body build a bit 15 years ago and my appetite hasn't changed.

I find when I get my doner meat and chips on a friday it's a very small portion and I feel I could eat three of them, but half an hour after I've eaten it I'm fine.

When I'm cooking for myself I'll need to keep moderating the amount of food that I eat. I think I do an alright job though.

Once I manage to find some form of exercise, and find a way around the hunger pains I can draw a line and stick to a diet for months until I lose a lot of weight. I find that's what works for me - it's how I gave up smoking, I set a date and it was easy.

Castiel · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:43

The Halk said:
That's what I try to do as well Raymond, however your starting weight is my target weight pretty much. Even when I was thin/skinny I wasn't a small guy. I had a 28 inch waist when I was 18 and I weighed I think 13 1/2 stone. I'm 6 foot and if I was in proper health I'd be intimidating.

Anyway, I do try to do what you do, but I couldn't eat as little as that. I'd be in physical pain. However even if I manage to eat what I'm eating I should lose weight.

I reckon I'm on about 400 for breakfast, 400 for lunch and 600 for dinner. Leaving me about 600 for fruit and other snacks (including the yoghurt) during the day. If I eat 2K calories then I should lose weight reasonably fast. The figures are rough because I've not really started yet.

2k kcals may be too much......it depends on your exercise and what you do for a living.....lose 500kcals a day from what you burn and you will lose a pound a week.....so work out roughly what your BMR is and then work out your calories from that....if you are doing little exercise (less than 45 minutes a day, on top of your usual routine) you might want to cut down to 16k-18k calories a day.

When I first began I cut my calories in half, right down to 1500 and only as I increased my exercise routine (as I lost weight) did I begin to raise it up....I now eat around 2500 kcals a day, but I'm putting in 90 minutes of high intensity exercise every days as well.....I am 6ft 2 and weigh in at 15st 2. I'm pretty heavily built though so take that into consideration.

Raymond Lin · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:44

Drop the kievs and basically anything processed that is yellow in colour.

That means breadcrumps and deep fried, sausage rolls, cornish pasties etc. A single sausage roll can have like 600 cal ! It is SO easy to eat 2 of those things and not be full. And then eat 3 meals on top of it. No wonder people get fat so easily.

paradisiac · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:47

Raymond Lin said:
Drop the kievs and basically anything processed that is yellow in colour.

That means breadcrumps and deep fried, sausage rolls, cornish pasties etc. A single sausage roll can have like 600 cal ! It is SO easy to eat 2 of those things and not be full. And then eat 3 meals on top of it. No wonder people get fat so easily.

i think the biggest problem is, those are the things that are 'cheap'. and with things the way they are for most, this is a cheap way of eating. i know i used to just by cheap supermarket sausage rolls or cheese slices for work, but they are lethal if you don't want to get fat.

Sherbs · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:48

My biggest enemy is procrastination and laziness. I literally can't be bothered to do most things like exercise.

Some days I feel up for it some days I don't. Although I have noticed just biting the bullet and forcing myself to exercise makes it easier.

I want to cut bread out of my diet, I eat quite a bit of it.

I am 5ft11" and I guess around 14 stone.

Normally food consists of;

Breakfast: Hot pasty and coffee
Lunch: Sandwich, medium bag of nuts (pistachios/cashews) plus a Redbull, fizzy Drink or orange/mango juice
Dinner: meat and veg,spaghetti Bolognese, Meatballs and Pasta, Takeaways 3-4 times a Month. Eat out once a week, cause the missus likes it.

Castiel · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:50

The Halk said:
I'm a bit concerned about the chicken kiev, turkey escalopes etc that I get. I suspect they're full of sugar, flour and starch.

Processed chicken and things like ready made breaded chicken are a no go....buy frest chicken, cook it yourself and then you know it hasn't been bolstered with addititive, preservatives and fructose.(you'll also burn a few calories cooking and preparing it)

The number one thing that messes up a diet is processed food, even when the calories are ok, it generally is just empty calories or your body digests it too fast and you don't burn the energy so the body stores it as fat before you have a chance to burn it off....check the GI of foods and avoid the high GI foods even if they are deemed healthy.....stay with the low GI foods and the occasional moderate GI. There are plenty of GI tables on the interweb.

A great way to get low calorie protein and you can eat loads of it as well is Fish, just the standard plain cod portions in Tesco, take 3-4 portions (depends on size) steam in water infused with spices and herbs...or simmer in a tomato sauce (one you make yourself, dolmio etc has shed loads of sugar added), add that to 100g of boiled new potatoes, some veggies and you have a 600-700kcal meal that should keep you going til morning. Drink plenty of water and you'll be set.

No pies, no pasties, no huge portions of rice or pasta (big calories in pasta), no mashed potato and fill up on lean meat and fish (burn more calories as it works your digestive system harder) and low GI veggies.......

Raymond Lin · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:50

paradisiac said:
i think the biggest problem is, those are the things that are 'cheap'. and with things the way they are for most, this is a cheap way of eating. i know i used to just by cheap supermarket sausage rolls or cheese slices for work, but they are lethal if you don't want to get fat.

Exactly, I have noticed how much more expensive fresh food are, it is a LOT more. Carbs is cheap, junk food is cheap.

The easy way to fill up I found is eat soup.

One of those fresh soup in a plastic pot is like 300 cal in a 600ml carton. I normally get one of those, cost like £1.70, then go to the hot meat counter and get 2 pieces of chicken thigh at 55p each.

That's my dinner!

FoxEye · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:50

when you guys talk about cutting out bread, is that specifically shop-bought sliced bread? what about home-made bread? just as bad?

The Halk · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:50

I eat far more than 2K at the moment and my weight only creeps up. My diet was horribly unhealthy before I did the Atkins and while I've been ill/moving house.

I would imagine I'm roughly the same build as you. I'm 6 foot and I'm a little over 19 stone. I should be a lot less - I think 14 and a half is as low I'd be back to being slim again, lower and I'd look skinny. I'm heavily built as well - very broad shoulders.

What I've laid out as my daily foods I can't really cut back on - perhaps once I'm used to eating that I could cut back, but I tried it and stuck to it for 3 days and I had headaches, felt dizzy and had severe hunger pains. If I go lower than that it'll be worse.

I may find out I'm eating much less than 2K though once I try and do some figures on it properly - later this week. The vegetable soup I'm eating is water, stock and vegetables, I've let it cool right down and there's a thin layer of fat scum on the top, but too little to remove. The chicken salad sandwich uses the chicken I used to make the soup stock. Possibly the only way to cut down is to eat fat free greek yoghurt (which tastes awful) or change my dinner at night to avoid oil/fat in whatever veg I eat.

I'm convinced though that for now the key things are to avoid eating later at night when the hunger pains rear their head and to get my feet/legs fixed so I can walk for 8 miles a day.

Mickie · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:52

i used to be 11 stone 5 year back, a month ago i was upto 15.4 stone, mainly because i would eat too much, breakfast, i'd fill the bowl, i'd then probably have a kitkat, then have a greggs sandwich and a cake, get home snack more then tea, big ish meal then snack some more after that, so i slowly put on the weight..

ive just lost 11 pounds in 5 weeks, just by riding as much as poss and calorie counting, just to make sure i dont go much over 1500 calories a day..

so far ive never gone a day where im starving so it works out great for me..

everytime i do a 50 mile ride i lose a pound

The Halk · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:53

Raymond Lin said:
Drop the kievs and basically anything processed that is yellow in colour.

That means breadcrumps and deep fried, sausage rolls, cornish pasties etc. A single sausage roll can have like 600 cal ! It is SO easy to eat 2 of those things and not be full. And then eat 3 meals on top of it. No wonder people get fat so easily.

Chicken in breadcrumbs is as far down the processed food route as I'm happy to go. Even then it's in order to save time. I need to find alternatives for the meat in my meat and veg.

I do know about GI and I use that as a way to guess how long something will fill me up for. That's why I don't eat white bread, and why I use wholemeal pasta etc.

The Halk · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:54

FoxEye said:
when you guys talk about cutting out bread, is that specifically shop-bought sliced bread? what about home-made bread? just as bad?

White bread is the worst, as it's very quickly turned to glucose, brown bread is usually not much better, wholemeal bread is a bit better, but bread is best avoided if possible.

Sherbs · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:54

Raymond Lin said:
then go to the hot meat counter and get 2 pieces of chicken thigh at 55p each.

That's my dinner!

They off the rotisserie?

Raymond Lin · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:57

FoxEye said:
when you guys talk about cutting out bread, is that specifically shop-bought sliced bread? what about home-made bread? just as bad?

I just don't eat bread unless i have to. When i eat a Whopper I take a few mouth full and then just eat the patty leaving out the bread.

I was stuck in worcester last month due to train delay, ordered Double Burger and Chips from O'Neils.

This was the left over. I had eaten 1 and 1/3 patty, and about 1/3 the chips. I don't know if you can tell, I tried to scrap the cheese off as well.

You got to learn when to stop eating.

Raymond Lin · 9 Jul 2012 at 00:58

Sherbs said:
They off the rotisserie?

Yup, I even been known to take the skin off the thigh and strip the meat and put it in my soup

And don't eat bread with the soup either.

The Halk · 9 Jul 2012 at 01:00

Raymond Lin said:
You got to learn when to stop eating.

I've been doing that - not easy!

I went to an indian buffet last night with friends for someone's birthday. I had one plate of starter and one plate of main course. No desert. Still felt bagged up and tired later on... but if I wasn't trying not to force feed myself I'd have 3 plates of main course.

I - and the rest of my family are now aware we shouldn't clear our plates, but it's the ration book mentality that's been pushed into my generation and my parents generation, so we have to fight the feeling that it's bad to leave food on the plate.

I just have to tell myself it's the same shoving it in my face as it is putting it in the bin, I don't enjoy it when I'm full and it's being wasted... either it goes to a landfill or my belly.

Sherbs · 9 Jul 2012 at 01:00

Ah, I've been wondering about the rotisserie. I assumed it was very bad, akin to KFC.

Asda does 5 thighs for £2 which is easily tempting to eat them all.

Raymond Lin · 9 Jul 2012 at 01:03

Sherbs said:
Ah, I've been wondering about the rotisserie. I assumed it was very bad, akin to KFC.

Asda does 5 thighs for £2 which is easily tempting to eat them all.

Considering i normally have like at most 800 cal by that point, 2 chicken thigh and soup isn't going to be that bad, especially when i take off the skin.