Lost 45lbs in 4 1/2 months Here's how

[Woody]

I'm down 50lbs from this time last year. I'd like to drop 20 more. It hasn't came off super fast, but it's staying off. Trying to eat better, and hitting the gym 3-5 times a week has worked for me so far. I could still eat "better", and I will. As said, it isn't easy. you have to want it !

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I would actually suggest you look a little further into the "smaller meals per day" concept... I have heard that for years, however I haven't found any current scientific studies that support it as actually boosting your metabolism.

Some reading you might be interested in: http://www.leangains...s-debunked.html

Like I said, I think there is quite a bit to the concept that different things work better/worse for different people - so I won't begrudge anyone who is seeking answers and applying them to improve their lives... keep up the good work :-)

Thanks for the good ideas DRM. I read your link. Might read more later. I don't understand the fella's recommendations but do not ATM have time to study. Have read a little bit on nutrition but dunno nothin. Perhaps there are many different metabolisms so that even a diet generically tailored to a specific disease would only work on certain victims of the disease? Some folk find Diet X effective and then they go evangelizing Diet X, wheras folk who find Diet Y effective will proceed to evangelize Diet Y to all the world? Experts report success with so many different diets. Any diet expert worth his salt has a cavalcade of success stories, but they don't trot out the failures? The failures likely drop out so that the diet guru can't realistically follow-up? Long-term evaluative research is difficult and expensive, ergo, it doesn't get done very often. People don't have the money or time.

Seems reasonable that a long term healthy lifestyle is better than yo-yo dieting. But one must select which healthy lifestyle. Pritikin differs from Adkins differs from Dean Ornish, all of whom trot out substantiating evidence and a chorus line of success stories. To say nothing of "the dietician's guild party line" plus countless additional best-selling PhD and MD diet gurus hawking "trademarked surefire systems". Perhaps nobody knows the ideal diet and perhaps there ain't no such thang?

I'm not a vegetarian but know some fine adventist folks, some of whom have survived long enough to get quite old. Obesity does not seem a common adventist problem, among the ones I've met. Have suspected perhaps there may be chemicals in meat that would make em more alert after they get old. Just an idle suspicion. Steak and bacon eating people I know who survived to old age, are surprisingly alert for their age but they are pitiful physical wrecks. The vegetarians I know who survived to old age are in remarkable physical shape but the mind got weak. Maybe that is just coincidence of the ones I know or maybe you just need to pick your poison. Would you rather be senile in perfect health or would you rather be alert and well-oriented as you experience yer body falling apart?

So anyway that's the only reason I wanted to contribute 2 bits to the thread. It sounds like most folks on this thread are young or middle-age. About any kind of calorie reduction works when you ain't old. What works great for five years, maybe it works great for 50 years and maybe it don't. Of course you have to survive five more years before you can keep on going another fifty years down the line, but there may be diets that seem to work fabulous until a certain age when you fall apart from the diet. Dunno, just guessing.

I don't know what diet to recommend, only mentioning that just because you can lose 45 pounds and keep it off a few years ain't no guarantee that the diet will be the "best one" fifty years down the line.

A few years ago I had to cut back on the protein because it was raising the uric acid and causing joint problems. Didn't cut protein out completely but cutting back to "reasonable" levels cleared the uric acid and the joint swelling/pain subsided. No matter if a diet guru tells you this is a myth, it ain't a myth at least for some people, so if you get arthritis/gout from the protein eventually you'll have to do something else.

I don't know if the "starvation mode metabolism" is a myth or not, but have been incrementally reducing the calories for many years just to "stay steady" at "only a little chubby". Maybe it is something other than "starvation mode metabolism" but what happened to me seemed to agree with that theory, but perhaps there is some other better explanation.

If I don't eat, I don't get hungry. If I eat, I get hungry. Developed type II diabetes some years ago. Perhaps it didn't have anything to do with the low carb diet and restricted calories. Dunno. Just sayin, the diabetes is worse the fatter you get so you don't want to eat enough to gain weight. I don't have enough willpower to avoid eating if I get dang hungry. If I eat three meals a day, I'm starved all day. If I eat one meal at night, I'm not hungry all day.

Now that fella on the link you supplied, he talked about weight loss and thermal whatever of burning food-- But when you eat it triggers an insulin response and if you eat a tiny little meal then your blood sugar barely spikes from the tiny bit of food but then an hour later the blood sugar is lower than it would have been if you hadn't eaten at all. So eating lots of little meals causes lots of daily insulin spikes which tends to lower your blood suger. It ain't about losing weight, its about keeping the blood sugar low enough so it doesn't hurt your eyes, heart, kidneys and circulatory system.

See, if I ferinstance fast all day then eat a meal a few hours before bed, my blood sugar before bed might be 140, but next morning having eaten nothing more all night asleep, the morning blood sugar might be 200 or whatever. Supposedly a "wake up liver glucose dump" or whatever. It is the same even if I don't eat for a whole day. The blood sugar when I get up will be higher than when I went to bed. If I fast all day the blood sugar will stay high all day and finally drop down below 120 sometime in the afternoon or evening. But I won't be hungry all day and so can avoid eating enough to get even more obese.

On the other hand if I eat a little bit every hour or two, the blood sugar runs a lot lower all day, but on the other hand I'm starving all day which causes me to eat too much and gradually gain weight which will make the diabetes worse. Depending on how the blood sugar behaves, has a lot of influence on cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Better blood sugar control gives better blood work front to back.

So the relative advantage of fasting all day versus lots of little meals has more to do with keeping all the chemicals in balance than whether the little meals with the same calorie count will make me lose more weight.

Its great in theory but in practice its very difficult to eat a little all day, or even three squares, because if you get hungry enough then yer gonna eat more. Not eating, not getting hungry, less calories consumed, lower weight but higher overall blood sugars.

I don't know if the previous years of low-carb encouraged the sorry shape I'm in or not. I just wanted to mention it for you young guys to consider. Lots of people get type II diabetes nowadays. I never pigged out on ice cream and candy, don't even like sweets. Might eat a piece of bread or potato a few times a year. Just avoiding sweets and carbs won't prevent it. For the long haul, ya might want to keep an eye out for research indicating that high carb. low carb, high fat, low fat, or whatever diets tend to encourage people to get the diabetes. Maybe its inevitable whatever you do if yer gonna get it. Or maybe they will find out that some diets encourage it more than others. Just a heads-up.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Lester Weevils