Want to get fit, shead stones and eat healthy for the new year

purpleshoes_2

JoseChungsDoomsday wrote: »

Fasting is not healthy, full stop. Anyone who doesn't see that needs to think a little harder.

Dieting isn't always about eating less, it's about eating the right stuff when you're hungry. That means less processed food, more vegetables/fruit and healthy snacks.

Cutting down on the amount of processed sugary products (sweets, fizzy drinks, sugar in your tea etc) alone can help you lose a stone over a year.

The second part is get more cardio - doesn't mean running a marathon but it does mean walking more and increasing your general activity. The 5k nine week plan is good but won't suit everyone.

Don't be fooled by the headlines of some weight loss programmes. Anyone can pay a 'specialist' to agree with whatever they want. A proper daily diet is whats needed for energy and general mental health.

More cardio and lifting weights, preferably heavy ones.

Tubbss

Ive lost over 6½ stones - I really cut back on the booze, cut out bread, pasta, fried food, cut back on dairy (killed me as I LOVE cheese!!) and ate loads of fruit, veg and lean meat. Around a year ago I also took up jogging and started to exercise (I won a treadmill) - at first I struggled to do 1km but by pushing myself and increasing my targets all the time I increased my distance upto 15km in 75mins. I did this without joining any club or following any "diet plan".

I allow myself a few treats a week (mainly Haribo!) , and the occasional takeaway and my friends and family cant believe the change in me! (one who I had not seen in ages walked past me in the supermarket as he did not recognise me!)

The biggest cost has been the new clothes! Ive dropped from a 44" to 34" trouser, lost 3 inch off my neck and wear a medium t-shirt instead of XL

staffordshire_girl

A few years ago we did a detox, we used Carol Vorderman's detox book as it has 28 days of recipes for all meals, however some are using hard to get ingredients and some just sound aweful, so we got a Gillian Mc Keith book and did some substituting, Result was lost a stone in a month, only exercise was daily walking, nothing silly and it changed our eating habits

fairy_lights

purpleshoes wrote: »

If you cut everything out of your diet thats unhealthy you may end up giving in and eating lots of it. Many people including some of the healthiest people I know live by the 80/20 rule, meaning they eat healthily 80 per cent of the time and have a treat or two the rest.

I agree that moderation is important and a little bit of junk food won't do any harm, but think sometimes it can help to go cold turkey for a while to break bad habits.
I've got a massive sweet tooth and if I keep chocolate and sweets in the house I always end up binging on them, as hard as I try I just can't hold myself back and limit it to occasional treats.
So last year I gave up sweets/chocolate/cake etc completely for a few months to try and break that habit and although the first few weeks were hard I soon found myself no longer craving sugar and started eating much healthier. Unfortunately Christmas came round and I ended up back to my old ways

Kendall80

Eat more to lose weight. Reduce fat/sugar content and eat every 3 or 4 hours. Speeds up the metabolism. Also, get a good nights sleep. Some cardio and weights will hasten the process.

bugslet

JoseChungsDoomsday wrote: »

Fasting is not healthy, full stop. Anyone who doesn't see that needs to think a little harder.

.

I think it depends on the individual.

From an entirely personal perspective, I feel better not eating in the morning and waiting till about 2 in the afternoon. That might not be in line with blood sugar gurus, but I can only go by personal experience.

I have tried again and again different diets, and the simple fact is if I have breakfast, I invariably want to eat something else, usually sweet. And I'm only eating breakfast because I'm told I should and therefore over-ride what my body is telling me to do.

Each to their own.

purpleshoes_2

fairy_lights wrote: »

I agree that moderation is important and a little bit of junk food won't do any harm, but think sometimes it can help to go cold turkey for a while to break bad habits.
I've got a massive sweet tooth and if I keep chocolate and sweets in the house I always end up binging on them, as hard as I try I just can't hold myself back and limit it to occasional treats.
So last year I gave up sweets/chocolate/cake etc completely for a few months to try and break that habit and although the first few weeks were hard I soon found myself no longer craving sugar and started eating much healthier. Unfortunately Christmas came round and I ended up back to my old ways

I don't keep junk food in the house either, but the previous poster was talking about never eating any junk food again.

supermassive

purpleshoes wrote: »

To be fair, if people want to eat flour, they don't need to eat pizza, cake, and burger buns. I'd always advise people to eat sweet potato instead of potato but now and then isn't a problem. People don't get obese by eating very little, in general. They eat too much, they don't keep a food diary, they underestimate what they are eating. I didn't get obese by eating an occasional pizza or a portion of potatoes now and then, I got obese because I ate too much, too much crap stuff, too big portions of the healthy stuff. I eat junk food occasionally. If I go out for a meal and I want a plate of chips or a pizza I'll have it. That plate of chips or pizza won't make me obese again, because I do enough exercise and my overall diet is good enough.

Junk food is addictive, there is no doubt about that. But its not the flour or the potatoes that will get someone obese, its the frequency of consumption and the quantity.

Plus what's added to them. You bake a potato and add tuna and salad, compare that to a huge pile of cheese and coleslaw.

I have a family member who has never had a weight problem in her life, she will eat chips a couple of times a week, she eats potatoes a lot. But her diet is on the whole balanced and she eats sensible portions.

Supersized portion sizes are a major reason why people put on weight. Junk food in itself doesn't get people fat, otherwise everyone who ate it would be obese. That's not the case.

The problem is, and this is scientifically proven, that people don't have an 'off' switch for certain foods. I'm a food addict and could eat fatty, sugary foods until the cows come home (or until I turn into one), but the way to make it easier not to overindulge, it to just not indulge. Any step that's not a step forward is, indeed, a step back.

The way I looked at it back then was that flour absorbs and expands, so what's it going to do inside me?

There are no foods that aid weight loss in a healthy and effective manner that contain a large percentage of flour, potato or refined sugar. None at all.

I'd say allowing yourself these things every now and then (and I stress NOW AND THEN, not daily or weekly) is brilliant if you want to maintain your weight for the rest of your life, but in terms of losing the weight in the first place, it's only ever going to hold you back and never propel you forwards to a position at which you'll be happy maintaining. It'll always slow you down.

supermassive

dawyldthing wrote: »

^ there's a book from James Duigan which echos that above

Echoes me? And I thought I made it all up through years of education and fattening!

trailingspouse

Would agree about not keeping junk food in the house.

When the kids were young, I refused to buy Coke. I couldn't see the point of spending good money on bad food.

These days, I don't buy fizzy pop, crisps, or sweets. I just don't buy them. I don't even go down that aisle at the supermarket.