Yo Yo Dieting

Story of my life is going up & down w weight.

How do you maintain your weight relatively stable throughout the year ?

 

For it to work long term William, it has to be a lifestyle change. Healthy, calorie restricted diet coupled with regular exercise which includes both cardio and weight training. A good goal for weight loss is about 1-2 lbs per week but it may not always work that way.

I personally watch what I eat most of the time but allow myself the things I enjoy, I just do it in moderation. I personally do weights with a trainer twice a week and cardio, usually running, 3-4 days a week. If I can help at all, let me know.

 

+308.

I lost 40 lbs about 5 or 6 years ago, and have kept it off. I used to weigh 185+. I now weigh 145 (Weigh myself daily, same time each morning- range from 143-146).

You need to change how you look at food. The big realization for me was how little you really need to survive. That made me change how I view my portion sizes. The good part about it is that I still eat what I want to eat, just eat less of it. Couple that with excercise, and you should be good. But you have to be consistent.

It's OK to let a day slip (or even a couple days or a week- for instance, when you are on vacation), but you need to get back into your routine as soon as you can.

I try to keep my caloric intake to about 2000 calories per day, which is a number that works for me. Now that I've been doing it so long, I use estimates for food that I eat. When I first started, I would look everything up, and keep a precise count. But after a while, you can just figure out how many calories a meal has.

The calorie knowledge is important. It's crazy how many calories some stuff has. The example I like to use is Oreo cookies. One serving size is 150 calories. How much is a serving size? 2 cookies. Who the f--- eats only 2 oreo cookies??????

It's that kind of knowledge that you need to learn. Like many other things in life, having data will lead to your success. Figure out how many calories someone your height and weight should need, then try to live within that range.

A good diet plan I've seen on the web is called the Hackers Diet. Although I didn't use this plan specifically, it is similar to intent to what I did:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/


Good luck. And stop worrying about Obama.

Dom

 

My yo-yos all have a perfect hour-glass shape. I don't plan to change a thing for them.




Jedi

 

I dropped 40 lbs, maybe 4 years ago; 46 yo now.

I used cycling, joined a group, got a great coach, and race against the 20 year olds. Weight's stable, but does take a fair bit of time training. My coach claims my base caloric intake is roughly 4,000 plus the 1-3,000 calories consumed from the workouts. Just numbers really.

Having a group and external goals outside of a scale made all the difference for me. You probably don't want to be a scrawny cyclist; lots of other activities out there.

There's definitely an addiction to clocking along at 20-30mph on the flats and carving a tight technical turn on a 50mph descent .

 

Wow, you take in 4000 calories a day? How tall are you and how much do you weigh? I'm guessing that you must do alot of cycling to burn all of those calories off?

It is just numbers, but they make a difference. Your excercise routine is burning alot of calories. If you stop excercising, or cut back dramatically, you will need to reduce your intake or else gain weight again.

The numbers matter. See the hackdiet link I posted to get a fair example of why they matter.

 

The older I get the less I can eat Now I'm back to tuna & celery but I lost 5# this week so thats good.

I travel a lot & its easy to get lazy sometimes but I try to never take more than a week off my workout. I found anymore than that & getting back into the groove is SO difficult. Thankfully I have a great trainer and now have a clue on my diet

Last week I went off my regular diet a few days & ate what normal Americans eat and gained like 8 #s almost instantly LOL

No more sodas, popcorn, & pizza for me for a while

 

for dieting - calories are a huge part of the battle; I agree with you. And agree with your Writer - it's a lifetime to understand. I'm 6', mid 160's, and weight myself once every few weeks. Travel for work a fair bit so sometimes challenging.

For me, I find the high end intensity workouts really shed the pounds, much more than the easier 'fat-burning' stuff much of the low-end fitness rags harp on about. It does take a lot of work to get into good enough shape to take on extended, and intense, interval training. For me, that's 94%+ of MaxHR. (just did my first VO2max/lactate lab test: 69ml/kg VO2, most excellent for 46yo).

I've also found I live best on protein - lots of it.

I don't have much confidence in the 4000 base caloric intake - seems a bit high to me, but whatever. that being the calories I supposedly require before adding on the training load. Yesterday's ride popped up at 2,800 calories on my HRM. Doing the math would be almost 7,000 calories to stay neutral.

The numbers are fun to play around with - but, losing weight to keep a number on a scale happy was, and is, no fun. And I don't think many people can sustain it, I couldn't. Where heading out with a group of friends, working well as a group, having some laughs and some tears - and staying fit because of it, is sustainable. I know I'm more extreme than most, the idea of a lifestyle change is the goal, not to follow my specific example and details.

 

I tend to bounce up 5lbs or so, for each week I'm travelling, but it comes off just as quick. Hotel breakfast's seem to be a big culprit. Pizza and Pasta add pounds so fast it's like instant fat.

 

I have a friend who is really knowledgable about diet and exercise and he eats low carb all the time. Here's some links on his website. The guy really knows what he's talking about. He's done a lot of research.

http://www.clinical-exercise.biz/

 

Wiliam - youi may need to use a different approach.

All this talk about protein, and less carb is a bit of nonesense, the reality is "Liver" function. This is the real secret that is never talked about.

Your liver is what cleanses you, too much protein is hard for your liver to break down, as too much carb - take care of your liver and you wont have these issues.

Ex / Eat as many antioxidents daily - blueberries, apples, beets, carrots, walnuts use warm water , not "hot" water and squeeze a fresh lemon daily.

You will find by adding this to your travels, you can have the slice of pizza as your meal, and the popcorn (without butter) and you will stay at a steady weight as opposed to gianing and bouncing.

Its ok if you miss some exercising, you wont bang up 8 lbs in one week again

 

Slim people never diet.

I haven't put on a single kilo for the last 12 years, I'm a bit over 30 now.

You need to do some simple research and cut out the nasties out of your every day food.

Things like sugar, simple carbohydrates, alcohol (red wine in moderation), table salt and hydrogenated and animal fats. Which means stop drinking any soda (diet included), stop eating any junk food, avoid MSG in all foods (most commercial fast food like KFC, McDonald's and Burger King are full of MSG), avoid all potato and corn chips like Doritos.
Avoid eating red meat, switch to lean skin free chicken, fish and cultured soy like tempeh, natto and miso (TOFU and other commercial soy products are NOT health foods). Avoid all commercial dairy products, especially pasteurized milk.

Stick to raw, organic diets full of fresh vegetables and fruit, green teas, fluoride free water, mushrooms, nuts, brown rice, sweet potatoes...

you see, dieting is terrible, it needs to become your new lifestyle. Once you change, you don't go back. Most diets, diet pills, shakes, formulas, drugs are a scam! They don't target the real issue. You will lose weight then gain it right back when you go back to your old habits. This change must be for life, not for a month or two.

Don't forget to exercise 3 times a week, particularly aerobic exercises which forces blood around your body carrying oxygen.

But you will not make this change because it will be too hard for you and most people around you will not help either because it's "weird and wrong" to eat healthy, so much easier, nicer and tastier to bite into a juicy burger with bacon.

Best of luck.

 

My brother watched the movie "Fat Head" and started low-carbing. He has lost 30 pounds. He hasn't added an exercise routine.

A "diet" has to be something you can live with for life. If you deprive yourself of too much you'll hate it and go off of it.

 

Eat and exercise consistently to make sure the lifestyle is there to maintain your weight. When you yo-yo diet, you instantly lose that weight, but once you go back to your original lifestyle, the weight packs right back on.

 

My story Too..

This summer I have tried something New...
Replace as many meals as possible with Fruit..
Grapefruits have been my lunch for 2 months now...those late night binges are now apples and cherries...Granola

all comments so far are true, you have to change the way you look at food. It must come from within..
Fast food is a must not..anything deep fried Forgetaboutit!
I also try to maintain higher gears when bicycling...Must stand on pedals to go uphill..must sweat more!
Situps are mandatory!
Dropped 10lbs. this summer, lookin for another 10, and the washboards will appear