exercising, any tips?

Your weight is pretty high for your height. I am 6.2 and used to weigh 16.2 stone and was unhappy with that. With a better diet and excercise i now weigh 12.5 stone and am a lot happier.

just get into a swing of excercise and basically i was lazy and just started to make myself do things and cycling, jogging, rock climbing basically things i enjoy rather than just excercise and it dropped off.

ps that has been the last 10 months i have dropped the weight. i started by not finishing meals on purpose as i would eat a whole meal even if i was full. now i hate the feelings of being full.
 
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1) Porridge for breakfast/lunch. Tart it up with dried fruit or a posh muesli.
2) Clean your teeth straight away after eating.
3) Avoid fat and sugar. The less you have, the less you miss it and the more you enjoy the natural sweetness of fruit & veg. (Having a little of what you fancy might do you good, but it also reminds you of what you can't have).
4) Eat as much fruit (not bananas!) and veg as you want.

Ok, got to go, but something there might be useful... though if you're cutting down for a long period (rather than the two or three weeks I need every year) it's less sensible to cut out all fat (apart from omega 3 type supplements). It certainly works for me, but that doesn't mean it'll work for everyone.

So, he should have a high carb diet, with no fat and next to no protein? not all fat is bad, cutting it out completely is bad.


you need to have more meals with ~30g protein in each if possible. Your body can only process about that amount at each meal

Got any evidence to back that up? I hear lots of people say 30g but have nothing at all to back it up.

Like anything, i'd say the amount that can be absorbed would be variable based on many things, one of which being the biggest thing - how big is the person taking it in.
 
Bacteria can start to breed as soon as you have eaten

You're right, but actually in terms of losing weight it cleanses the mouth and -- I find anyway -- helps put a sort of 'punctuational full stop' to the eating.

Part of the problem with modern eating habits (and I am as guilty as anyone, hence the regular lean periods despite a physically active job) is that we associate eating with everything. Watching TV, going out to a movie, playing computer games, long drives... the whole of life has an appropriate snack which is just perfect to accompany it. Even exercise now has a whole host of "energy drinks" associated with it, which always makes me laugh.

So anyone serious about losing some useless body mass (well, useless unless there's a famine) has to find ways of disassociating food from normal, everyday activities if they're going to keep it up. And the teeth cleaning thing is part of that process. I've found it very useful, but everyone will find different things which help them.

The goal though is to make eating a special and focused part of the day, not part of an all day, every day refueling process. We are not cows eating grass... not until grass comes in Pizza or Jaffa Cake flavour anyway.

Of course it's also important to mention that people's occupations and overall health can radically alter the way they have to eat. You wouldn't want a diabetic or long distance lorry driver to be going ten hours without food.

but if you want to avoid losing much muscle you need to have more meals with ~30g protein in each if possible.

Agreed, though in my experience (and that of much of the world's population) muscle is very resilient to a low protein diet. Professional/serious athletes will be a special case, obviously, because they want to maintain unnaturally high muscle/mass ratios.

Besides, as bigger folk lose weight they'll naturally lose some muscle that's no longer required to lug the extra mass around. So our knees will be grateful either way. :->

Why no bananas? I'm just curious :)

Bananas are a wonderful food. Good for you and they taste great... especially mashed with extra sugar, Carnation milk, and grated chocolate over the top. ;-) But they're laden with calories... which is why they taste so nice!

Fortunately the great thing about avoiding food like that is that the simpler pleasures -- like apples, tomatoes, and even salad -- start to taste much better. Normally their flavours are lost in the sea of calorific excess we all enjoy.

Morba said:
So, he should have a high carb diet, with no fat and next to no protein? not all fat is bad, cutting it out completely is bad.

Sorry, I didn't make it explicitly obvious, but I meant no unnecessary/added sugar or fat. No marg or butter, or fried stuff (or chocolate digestives), just the fat naturally present in whatever you're eating. Same goes for sugar... though in my case I love my coffee strong, black, and too sweet. So when in lean mode I prefer half a mug with a spoon of sugar to a full mug with two. (Ok, three if we're talking level spoons).

Mmm... I appear to have turned into a calorie bore. :-) Still, in order to help control my bad back I've been keeping an eye on my weight for 20+ years, and some of my thoughts may be useful to some.

Every time my belt hits the "lardy git!" notch I get a bit down at the prospect of restricting things for a few weeks. But there is something satisfying about taking control of your diet, and doing it in regular small doses is a lot easier than waiting until you've got a long hard slog ahead.

I tip my virtual hat to anyone who manages to lose serious amounts of weight. I find it tough enough losing it in 7-14lb chunks once in a while.

Andrew McP

PS It occurs to me I still haven't said much about the exercise subject. One of my "secrets" is to record lots of TV I really enjoy and save that for daily exercise periods. The exercise itself isn't burning off much extra flab, but it beats sitting watching TV with a packet of biscuits, which is what I might be doing normally. It also develops a positive feedback system where you're getting a double reward.

And of course walking for long distances is made useful and enjoyable by exploring the massive number of podcasts freely available. This all goes towards my point earlier in this extended essay about altering lifestyle habits in an enjoyable way.

The trick, of course, is sticking to the good habits when you've hit your target weight. I enjoy eating far too much though, which is why I have to have a few weeks of 'calorie holiday' every year. Now, however, I think I need a typing holiday. ;-)
 
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its bread that does it for me i think. i eat far to much of the stuff!

I have also noted that if I eat a lot of bread regularly then my weight does increase.


As some posters have stated, need to eat less. I tend to have only breakfast in the morning and then a family meal in the late afternoon. I don't eat at night time and I think eating at night time is a bad idea unless you are really hungary.

What I have found with eating at night is that soon after I go to bed, I can't sleep properly as my stomach feels bloated and heavy.
 
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hey guys thanks for the replies,

last night i tried some of those back exercises that were posted and they were pretty cool.
on a side note i went to my friends last night and they all ordered take away, pizza's kebab, indian. argh i refused to fail at the first hurdle and didnt order anything. that was the easy part. when the food arrived and i seen them all eating i wanted some.
by the end there was a pile of food people said i could help myself to but i didnt go for it!

on the walking part i find it extremely boring, i walk for a living (pretty much, binman) and cant deal with the "lets go for a walk somewhere".

banana's are one of my fav foods and i normally choose a banana over a bag of crisps until i run out of banana's.

i dont normally eat after 7pm and i dont normally start eating till about 11.30ish the next day (as i've said gonna start eating breakfast) i get out of bed about 7:30am.

im going to go for another jog today after work. im on my dinner break at the minute ^_^.

btw, whoever wants to take up jogging and feel they cant because theyre so unfit. i stated earlier i started with farklet training (means speedplay).
when i first started what i used to do was use lamposts as indicators and what i did was jog for 2 lampposts and walk for 2 and jog for 2 and so on. this kept my heart rate down and my breathing controled.

a month or so later i was jogging for 4 lamposts and walking for 2, and eventually at my peak before i stopped i was jogging for 6, sprinting for 8, jogging for 6 walking for 2. over and over.

another tip ive found. as i was 21stone at the time my ankles took one hell of a beating running on the paths and always hurt. so now i always run on the grass right next to the path and it helps so much.
 
... as i was 21stone ...

All food except vegetables need to carry health warnings like cigarettes do IMO ...

Every mc donalds, KFC, and Burger King need a big sign in the front door saying:

'Eating too much of our food is disastrous to your health and well being'.
 
Every mc donalds, KFC, and Burger King need a big sign in the front door saying:

'Eating too much of our food is disastrous to your health and well being'.

i agree, i think people know how unhealthy these places are but still eat there as they do taste nice
 
doesnt help too much with fitness, but i've found leg raises to be an amazing workout, does your abs aswell as your legs.. i find them far more effective than situps and far less boring
 
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