101 thoughts on losing 100 pounds
I lost a lot of weight a few years ago. I lost even more a couple of years ago, then gained some of it back when we had our first child. It’s not just women who gain weight during pregnancy! However, I have still managed to keep most of it off, and I have learned a lot about weight loss along the way. The Atkins book
- You will never lose weight because someone tells you to. Don’t even bother trying to motivate yourself to lose weight because so-and-so told you that you should. If you do, it won’t work. This may sound trite, but you have to want to do it for yourself. Then, and only then, you’ll succeed.
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Everyone has advice on weight loss. Mention you’re trying to lose weight and every single person will have their own 2 cents. Be patient – in most cases people are either looking to help you or help themselves through reinforcement.
- Calories, carbs, fat grams and other measures of food content are not as important as the quality and quantity of food that you eat. Each diet has some truth to it, but the secret to weight loss is simple: eat less, exercise more.
- Each measure of food content has some benefit, though, and each has some problems. Try not to eliminate anything completely, but a general tip is that your diet probably contains an excessive amount of carbohydrates. Look at that first.
- Get help. Research before you dive in. Do not start a diet before talking to a doctor or reading a book. You may be knowledgeable, but there can be weird interactions you’re not familiar with (for example, a low-carb diet gave me some really significant, er, constipation).
- If your dietary needs are expensive – for example, if you find that what you buy on a diet costs more than the junk food you were eating – ignore it! You cannot – I repeat, cannot – spend too much money on your health. All the money in the world is useless if you are dead.
- Soda has a lot of calories. Diet soda has a lot of sodium. Quitting both of them makes you shed a couple of pounds in days. Do it now. There is no reason for soda in your life as a regular drink. None. Seltzer is just as good, if not better.
- If you MUST drink soda, drink regular soda, not diet soda. One regular soda will at least satisfy you and fill you up for a while. Diet sodas just bloat you and fill you with sodium, not to mention aspartame.
- It is very difficult to cut high fructose corn syrup out of your diet, but you should. Bread should not normally need sweetener as the #2 ingredient, should it? Read labels.
- Once you quit eating junk food, some of it starts to taste pretty awful. Twinkies have a strange metallic taste. Have you looked at the ingredients in the food you eat?
- My personal opinion is that even low-calorie sweeteners like Splenda and Nutrasweet are a bad idea for dieters. Eating something sweet fired off weird hunger impulses in my brain, so I found it was easiest to just avoid every single type of sweets other than chewing gum altogether.
- Chewing gum, however, serves a lot of purposes when dieting. It keeps your mouth busy, it satisfies cravings for sweets and if you’re a typical dieter it hides the nasty halitosis (bad breath) that dieting causes.
- Ricola is an excellent herbal-flavored substitute for chewing gum. If you haven’t ever tried it, give it a try.
- If you have an organic foodstore near you, try some organic foods. I never would have looked twice at edmame/tofu mixes but I decided to try one at a local health foods store. It was amazingly good. Today I would rather eat that than potato chips. I wish I had some right now, in fact.
- On the other hand, there are some good diet aids that are non-natural, non-organic but still worth looking into. If you love sweet drinks, try Crystal Light, for example. Tea would be better but not everyone can “get into” tea.
- Farmer’s markets vegetables will show you why you don’t like vegetables. Once you’ve eaten never-refrigerated straight-from-the-farm tomatoes you’ll realize that the little flavorless round red balls in the supermarket are not really tomatoes. Farmer’s market veggies are a great way to fill up and learn to love veggies all over again.
- Almost any roasted vegetable can be made tasty with the right oils, herbs and spices.
- Spice has minimal calories, and so do herbs.
- Put enough cayenne pepper on anything and it will slow down your eating. It may even kick your metabolism up (albeit a very, very small amount).
- Coffee and tea without milk and sugar will taste just as good once you get used to them. Try a little less added stuff every day. Black coffee has 0 calories.
- Fried foods are always bad for a dieter. Always. Without exception.
- If you only eat foods that you have to cook or prepare, it slows your eating speed down. Buy blocks of cheese and cut your own slices for a sandwich and you will see what I mean.
- The exception is raw vegetables. They are very filling, have minimal calories and plenty of other benefits (fiber, vitamins, antioxidants). You can eat as many carrots as you feel like and probably only take in minimal calories.
- Water has volume. Drinking water fills you up, at least temporarily – but the nice thing is you can keep drinking it non-stop. You can always add a lemon wedge if you want.
- Alcohol has calories. Lots. I like alcohol, too, but it’s 100% unneeded calories.
- Some alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, are a lot worse than others. A margarita or a whiskey sour has lots of sugar, calories and carbs – almost any mixed drink is a killer. A glass of wine has some calories and carbs but there are some possible health benefits, as with a glass of beer. And one of my all-time favorites has some calories but no carbs: a dirty martini, shaken, straight up, dry with an olive and a twist. Maybe it doesn’t have so many health benefits as wine or beer, but it’s a nice way to flag the day as “over” and the evening as “beginning.” Plus, it’s hard to chug a martini.
- A salad bar is an invitation to disaster. 2000 calories of vegetables are still 2000 calories.
- Salad dressing has a lot of calories. Huge amounts, in fact. I love ranch dressing, but I stick with oil and vinegar – lots of vinegar and a little bit of oil. If you eat a salad drowned in dressing you’re probably better off just having some chips.
- You hear this often: multiple small meals make you feel much less hungry (eating 6 times a day instead of 3 times per day). I found this generally doesn’t work if you have a 9-to-5 type of job. What you can do fairly easily is eat a hearty breakfast, a raw food snack mid-morning (i.e. fruits or veggies), a largely raw food lunch (i.e. no heavy carbs or meat), a moderate-carb midafternoon snack (shortly before heading home have an energy bar) and then eat what you want for dinner but don’t eat too late. Trying to eat 6 equally-portioned type “meals” was very annoying. Snacking smart made better sense.
- Eating carbs within 3 hours of your bedtime is a bad idea - you generally tend to be at your least active late in the evening, and those carbs will not be burned off.
- Eating carbs for breakfast is a bad idea. You will be hungry again in an hour. Eggs, cottage cheese, or turkey is better. Fruits are OK, even though they have carbs.
- Eating carbs for lunch will make you drowsy in the afternoon, so it is a bad idea.
- Carbs are generally a bad idea. Other than natural bread once in a while, maybe rice and some pasta, there’s not a whole lot to say for carbs unless you’re training for the Tour de France. Even then, keep in mind Lance Armstrong gets his carbs from pasta, not from chocolate.
- Have you ever actually measured out a single serving of cereal? What constitutes a serving seems like it would not be enough to feed a baby, let alone an adult. However, that should give you something to think about how adults eat.
- Your eyes are almost always bigger than your stomach. Eat half of your dinner, wait 5 minutes – sip on some tea or seltzer or water or whatever – then start eating again. Half the time you won’t want half the food.
- If you eat your meals with overweight people, you will eat more. Period.
- If you eat your meals with healthy fit people, you may eat less… and save money.
- A broad generalization: almost any single-person entrée in the United States is probably about 50% larger than necessary for a normal human meal…at least.
- Restaurants don’t care if you eat everything that you are served. Their goal is to fill you up on free breadsticks, extra soda and alcoholic beverages before your entrée comes so you’ll go home happy…and fat. They won’t be there holding your hand when you get that coronary bypass.
- Unlearning the “eat because it’s tasty, not because you’re hungry” lesson is hard, but you can do it. Kids do not eat when they are not hungry unless you teach them to.
- American corporations want you to be fat. Advertising companies, drug companies, food companies and even the self-help/diet industry need fat people. Healthy people don’t buy weight-loss pills, or new belts, or books on weight loss, or Doritos. This is the worst nightmare of half the corporations in America: a healthy, educated consumer who doesn’t watch TV.
- Being fat is not a human’s natural state. If you are overweight and lose weight, you will feel happier. Not just because you are thinner and look better and feel better, but you were intended by nature to be a runner/tree climber/gatherer/builder.
- Keeping snacks in the house is just plain dumb. It is bad enough to walk by 50 vending machines at work, but don’t keep snacks lying around at home.
- Canned soups are a disaster – salt, calories, preservatives, and not satisfying. No one loses weight eating canned soups.
- Putting pictures of fat people from magazines and supermodels or athletes or whatever on your mirror will keep you motivated. Not that we should aspire to that body shape, but the simple fact is that it will keep you motivated.
- If you are hungry in the evening before bed eat a slice of cheese. You will sleep better and not wake up ravenous.
- The first thing you should take into your body when you wake is water. Not spring water, not flavored water, but filtered water. Cold, and a lot of it. It will kill your appetite right off and wake you up. It will cleanse your system for the day.
- Natural colon cleansers may not help you lose weight, but they will make you less hungry. This is purely my opinion, but I think sometimes people eat to mask the lingering toxic effects of having too much gunk in their intestines.
- I’m sure you know the feeling – after eating a big pile of salty potato chips you need something sweet “just to mask the salty taste in your mouth.” Down that road madness lies! Never chase food with food. Chase food with water, and lots of it.
- Drinking cold water burns more calories than drinking lukewarm water (it lowers your body’s temperature slightly, so your body expends energy to warm it back up).
- However, you should learn to enjoy lukewarm water. If you can only drink ice-cold water, you will be restricting your options too much.
- You will miss some foods worse than others. When I was doing a low-carb diet, I dreamed of bread. Don’t give in. Saying “just one piece” is the equivalent of a junkie saying, “Just one hit.” Don’t do it.
- Butter and oil have a lot of calories but sometimes sneak into food, so keep an eye out.
- Dieting is lonely. Dieting around others who are not is torture. Tell your friends and family what you are doing, and do not let them push food on you.
- Caffeine is an appetite suppressant. Using a suppressant to diet is like using speed to quit crack. You have to conquer this thing on your own.
- Drinking green tea and herbal teas is good for you, and it keeps you feeling full.
- You may hate cauliflower. Fine. You will hate dragging your overweight body up the road when you are 60 if you do not eat veggies instead of bonbons more, though.
- Small, nibbly foods are a bad idea even when they are healthy. Do not keep anything you can grab by the handful and eat lying around the house – even nuts, fruits and veggies if you like them enough to overeat.
- Meat should be viewed as a flavoring, not as a food. Never eat a piece of meat at any one meal bigger than your palm.
- There is no particular reason for you to eat beef, pork, lamb, etc. You could get all of the protein you need from poultry and seafood. If you like the taste of red meat, fine, but there is no need for you to eat it.
- If you go on a low-carb diet, you will get sick of meat. This is not entirely a bad thing.
- Don’t be too sure that being a vegetarian or vegan is a good way to lose weight, either. You can eat nothing but cheese pizza and French fries and call yourself a vegetarian – it’s the quality of the food you eat that’s more important than the label you apply to yourself.
- A small handful of nuts (almonds, for example) will keep you going for hours. At the same time, three handfuls of nuts are about 2000 calories.
- Milk does not work into any diet plan be it low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb. Avoid it. Soymilk is better for you.
- Fruit juice is almost universally too concentrated, even organic/natural fruit juices. Cut it down with water. I usually drink about a 25% juice/75% water mixture now. Straight fruit juice tastes like syrup to me.
- It is very, very easy to drink a lot of calories, particularly since most people don’t really think about calories in regards to drinks (except for soda, which you hear about in the media). Which has more calories, 8 ounces of milk or 8 ounces of V8? Beats me. Water has no calories, though.
- There is no greater feeling than suddenly discovering you can wear that pair of pants that did not fit you a couple of months ago.
- Needing to go buy a new belt because your old one is too big is a close second.
- Measure portions. You should never eat more at one sitting than fits on a plate. By plate, I mean a plate, not Thor’s shield.
- Getting “checked out” is a real mood-booster, even if you are in a relationship.
- Jogging helps you maintain weight loss and fitness. Lifting weights helps you lose weight. However, walking is the best exercise because you can so easily do it any time of the day without any special equipment.
- Being happy burns more calories than being depressed.
- Stairs are free workout machines. Elevators and escalators are rides.
- Jogging is easier when you have good shoes.
- Never go to the supermarket on an empty stomach. You will end up buying more than you need and probably at least one thing you should not eat.
- Try not to watch too much TV. There are many ads for junk food and whether you pay attention or not there is a lot of unconscious programming going on there.
- Another good reason not to drink too much alcohol is that your judgment gets impaired. I am not talking about dancing on the table with a lampshade over your head – I am talking about standing next to the bar grabbing a handful of chex mix.
- You don’t wear out shoes as quickly if you weigh less.
- The first time you walk by a friend you have not seen in a while and they do not recognize you because you have lost so much weight is an amazingly positive experience.
- You can quit wearing black clothes all the time. Black is slimming, but being a healthy weight is slimming-er.
- There are some places on your body that will never lose their fat, and there is no point in expecting them too. Even when I lost 100 pounds, jogged 4 miles a day, and lifted weights 3 times a week, my final roll of flab on my gut never went away.
- People get angry if you tell them how you lost weight. This was an amazing thing to see in practice. Nobody wants to hear that you did it by watching your food intake and exercising. They want to hear that you wore a special belt or took a pill. Hearing they need to quit drinking Coke really fires some people up.
- Gaining weight is incredibly easy for most people, even with a very healthy diet. Once you have wrecked your metabolism by being overweight, it is even easier.
- If your knees, back, ankles, shoulders, neck or any other joints hurt and you are overweight, losing weight will very likely help them. My feet used to hurt a lot, and that pain abruptly disappeared when I lost weight.
- In the same way, gaining weight is – oddly – going to put more strain on your back and knees than being overweight but holding a steady weight.
- If someone takes a picture of you when you are at your peak weight, keep it. Treasure it. Frame it. Use it for motivation. I still have a photo of myself that looks like I ate a McDonald’s. Not a McDonald’s hamburger…an entire McDonald’s building.
- I will never forget that when I was over 300 pounds, people would cringe on airplanes when I sat in the seat next to them. The looks you get are awful. Maybe they aren’t fair, but they are there. Avoiding those looks is another benefit of losing weight.
- Airplane seats, bus seats, subway seats, even office chairs: for some reason the American seat-building industry thinks all Americans are svelte and trim. Chairs in America need to start being built to accommodate 300 pound people, but nobody wants to admit this fact.
- For years, I could not see my feet while standing up. That is a horrible thing to admit, and I’m ashamed to say it even today.
- I also couldn’t touch my toes, or tie my shoes without sitting down. Kneeling became very difficult.
- Remember that you have only one life to live. A helpful thing for me to remember sometimes is that your average person has around 29,000 days on this earth. I try to think whether I would trade 1 day for potato chips. Would I give up 1 week for a steak, one month for a lifetime of Coca Cola? It may not cost me that much, but I don’t think it’s worth the chance.
- If you are afraid that quitting smoking will make you eat more, you should be afraid. However, you should still quit. Using cigarettes as an appetite suppressant is like fumigating your house with poison to get rid of one mouse. Sure, it may work, but at what cost?
- Your skin tone will suffer from being overweight. If you are severely overweight, be prepared for wrinkles and sagging skin when you lose weight.
- Sex is better if you are fit… and you will probably get more of it, regardless of whether you are married or single.
- Diet pills are worthless. I tried one, green tea pills, and although it made me lose some additional weight it was mainly because they made me so dizzy and nauseous I didn’t feel like eating. I could accomplish the same thing by sniffing garbage.
- Television will make you hungry. You can’t imagine how many food-related advertisements there are on TV until you start trying to lose weight.
- Once you start to lose weight, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it ten years ago. However, once you’ve lost the weight you’ve meant to lose, you’ll forget that euphoric feeling and be tempted to eat a little bit of junk again. This is the hedonic treadmill in fine, fine form.
- Once I lost weight, I was afraid of getting fat again, but not so afraid that I didn’t start justifying eating things I wouldn’t have eaten when I was dieting.
- There is not one single thing at Starbucks that you can have on a diet, except black coffee.
- Appetizers are almost always the worst, heaviest, most caloric foods on the menu. Stick to entrees.
- The failure rate for dieters is high. Even successful dieters – like me – often gain the weight back. I managed to lose 100 pounds, then gain some back, then lose some again. I’ve never come close to gaining the 100 pounds back, but I do put on 20, lose 20. You have to think of it as a battle. You are Custer, and food is the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes. Food will keep coming and coming and coming. You will lose if you stop fighting it even for a minute. I tell myself this every day: My will is stronger than my urges.
Good luck, and never give up!
Other reading:
- Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, New and Revised Edition
- How to lose 100 pounds, part 1
- 67 ways to outlive 106 billion people
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Very inspirational, thank you for the great thoughts!
This is brilliant. I am in the middle of a diet regime ‘The Burn Fat 4 Dummies’ plan and i have already lost 8 Ibs in 10 days, but this is amazing and has helped to motivate me further to lose more weight. thanks for this.
Many of the things on this list contradict what my doctor reccommended that I do… And as for saying that we don't “need red meat”, well, actually, we do. That's how the human was designed. That's how the back teeth are designed. Also, red meat is harder to digest, which keeps you feeling fuller for longer.
But, I do have to agree: running is a good thing. Something you didn't mention (or maybe I missed it) is that running may also help fight off heart problems. It's hard to run, though, if you have asthma.
recently went through number 79. Hard
recently wen through number 79. Hard
Good work on the weight loss and a nice list of things most people forget about when trying to lose.
Thank you so much for this post. I've lost 40 lbs, and have another 50 to go before my target weight, and I found myself extremely amused by your list. All of it is true! Every single one!!
You've reminded me to keep a watch on my carbs, and keep up with my veggie/fruit intake, thank you! You are a great inspiration! <3
After thinking on your post some more, and browsing the comments, I wanted to add that I'm really proud you're so knowledgeable about nutrition. I've read several books involving diet, nutrition and exercise, and everything you talk about — Milk ads being paid for by the NDC, lactose in milk being difficult to digest — are all things that I've read before and know are true.
As a lone dieter in a sea of overweight fast-fooders, I feel awkward sharing my knowledge, and silently berating co-workers who get Doritos out of the vending machines every day. Knowledge about successful weight loss has been amazing for me, but it leaves me depressed that the rest of the world doesn't know what they're doing to themselves.
I'm proud of you for your weight loss (you look absolutely incredibly, and extremely handsome!), and for beefing up your knowledge, it makes me not feel so alone!
i am curious. you did atkins, but you seem to be concerned with calories as well. we are vegan so atkins is off – limits for us – we get our protein from beans & tofu, sometimes (homemade) seitan. what is your average caloric intake in weight maintenance? I am still working on my last 5 lbs (to be 125 lbs. ) @1400 calories/day. I know numbers for a girl are different but I am interested in whether you get to eat more calories if you are low-carb.
thanks for the awesome post. Its motivated me into getting back on track with my weight loss.
I'm currently 235 pounds and looking to loose about 50 pounds by xmas. I'm hoping that with your 101 thoughts and exercise I'll be able to achieve that.
Thanks again,
Insanity540
Wow! This list couldn't have come at a better time. Summer is coming to a close and my goals are still not reached. Normally I shy away from printing anything, but this one deserves to be printed and stuck on the firdge! Thanks!
I saw this quick weight loss tips in some site – but the list here is comprehensive. i always believed that losing weight is a matter of changing your lifestyle. its not just diet and exercise – although including that in your daily routine is important. Whats more important is you do not think of weight loss as a “timed project”. Just decide what things are good for your body and just do it over a period of time. do it slowly – do not try lose weight in 5 days or 20 days or 30 days – just do it gradually – and that's the only way you will be able to “keep the weight off” – otherwise you are just kidding yourself!
Oh man, this list is sooo comprehensive. I am gonna add a few to my own list. Btw, I have to agree on #8 on diet sodas. Aspartame is still sooo unsafe, wonder why was it even approved in the first place?
And you sure both pics are yours? If so, that's a real motivator for those looking to lose weight. Good job there! It's all about hard work!
Thank you for 65! I enjoy having something other than water to drink in the house, but I usually find my fruit juices sweeter than necessary, and I go through them too quickly. This is a really good tip.
I can completely see where you are coming from. I lost 100 pounds in 2 months when I was going through a divorce. I managed to keep it off for 3 years, but I have slowly gained it back with each child I've had. (a 4 year old, 3 year old, & 1 year old) I swore that I would never be big again because I felt fantastic after losing the weight. BUT, here I am again. I know I would feel better, but it's hard to take that first step because it makes you feel like you are “giving up” the good stuff. All I can say is that the rewards are worth it & your quality of life is so much better as the weight melts away. My husband is deployed so I plan on shaping up for his return this summer.
Many now interests how correctly to eat. The number of the people dissatisfied with thefigure or health recently has increased and, as consequence, trying to get rid of excessweight. You should pick up a diet approaching you, and also learn to make correctlybalanced diet.
At one time I lost 77pounds of pure flab.
Now that I work in a diferent area, with diferent schedulles it is much harder to keep the weight off.
I was in an internship in a nice office where I had to mantain computers, and now I'm a cashier at a local supermarket. The really odd schedulles kill your dieting plans. So much so that I've almost gained all of the weight I had lost.
Not a lot of time for the bathroom, so got to kill the water intake…
I've always cringed at exercise and I tell myself the same thing every time.
I'll gain a lot of my dorment muscle again.
If you've ever been a weight-lifter and gotten into shape ONLY because of that.
It'll take about 2 years with the right set… You'll look great, but if you're already 6 feet tall; AND you're buff… It won't be great to visit your local clothing store.
Most people that don't want to loose pounds with exercise and snack all the time. Even as a meal! I'm guilty of that…
Water is going to be your all time snack.
After exercise of any kind… Drink water and do not eat food! Wait!
To loose stomach, or gut if you want to call it. It's actually easy…
Use chi kung breathing exercises or any martial arts breathing exercises.
Compressing your stomach muscles while you breath for any portion of time will make a diference. The lower abdominal area nearest to your legs is the hardest and most rewarding, because it'll almost never be fat again. You might get fat and flab will drop and cover it, but no past that point.
This exercise you have to picture… Really tall pillow, and must be hard enough to keep your upper body raised off the floor.
Put your chest on it, hands beneath your face. Watch TV or something….
Just lie down with your upper body raised enough to stretch your entire stomach.
That is it! Your own body weight will generally make you use your stomach to breath instead of your chest. The stretching will make you use the lower abdominal muscles even more. Just depends on how high that pillow is.
I mean really high! You should feel like you could easilly keep something the size of your own head under your stomach. Just watch out for your back.
My weight loss had only a few musts.
-
Drink only water.
No sweets, or bread (only rarely for both)
Less of every food.
Avoid sauces.
Almost no meat. (Make the amount of meat on your plate look ridiculous)
-
All cravings should first be tackled with water. Just keep it around…
PS.: Sorry for the huge comment.. =)
Thanks for spending the time writing up your tips for us, absolutely invaluable information! Congratulations on the weight loss too.
Great information – thanks for sharing!
Sandy
THis is a very interesting list. I lost 130 lbs using WW and have finished several marathons now. Airplane seats are much more comfy now. HAHAHA
101. You look way younger. Holy crap you look like married with kids to college.
Thanks so much for your support of Atkins. I convinced my Dad to go on it because I was worried about his cardiac profile (to all those other people: Atkins is actually great for your heart health). He's lost 40 lbs, lowered his cholesterol, and has reduced some of his medication.
So happy that there's someone out there who doesn't just dismiss it out of hand. Pat your self on the back!
Some good authors to read: Gary Taubes, Dana Carpender, Mike Eades
I congratulate you on loosing the weight, and you have some good points in your post.
And you are absolutely correct about only you can make the decision to loose weight, it has to be from desire, and necessity to properly motivate you.
It seems that you have had a hard time loosing that weight by reading your list.
This is because you did not eat a balanced diet consisting of lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and good fats.
You say that working a 9 to 5 job caused problems eating six times a day was annoying.
You don’t have to eat equally proportioned meals, all you have to do is eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, and they are simple and quick.
Its not about making you feel less hungry its about keeping your insulin levels balanced so you don’t crave food.
Never ever drink soda its toxic, if you need something sweet try a teaspoon of raw honey instead.
And if you truly want to keep that weight off you need to do weight bearing exercises to build lean muscle.
Lean muscle burns body fat 24 hours a day!
# Caffeine is an appetite suppressant. Using a suppressant to diet is like using speed to quit crack. You have to conquer this thing on your own.
# Drinking green tea and herbal teas is good for you, and it keeps you feeling full.
LMAO
Also… milk has been PROVEN to help people lose weight. Several other things on your list were either questionable or blatantly ridiculous.
With that said, there ARE some good tips on here.
Spry chewing gum is my best friend.
Hey Steve! Great post. I lost 80 pounds last year myself and are now at the mantaining-the-weight part. Found your post though Stumble and must say I'm happy I did.
I had a couple of smirks and laughs going through your thoughts as they made me realize that my journey appearently wasn't that different than it is for other dieters.
Anyway, thanks for the great post; it'll go directly to my permanent DIET-collection… along with that framed before-after picture set
Take care!
Christian
(Germany)
@REL: I'm not sure who's proven that milk helps people lose weight. The first study I found when I googled milk weight loss (http://is.gd/wF00) seemed dismissive of that claim.
As always, the list is simply my thoughts. I don't claim to be an expert – these were simply my own thoughts on my own weight loss experience.
This is an amazing list. I have been pushing myself to walk an hour a day for the past few weeks, and have already started to feel that my pants size is feeling a little loose. While I can't see the differences yet, my clothes are looser on me, so it helps to reinforce that the long walks are working.
I Love this LIST
Your story and tips were so inspiring. I've gained over 80 pounds in the last 2 years from medication and going away to college. What you've said here has truly motivated me. I am excited to wake up tomorrow morning with a new outlook on dieting. Thanks again and congrats on your amazing weight loss
thanks for this! its good to hear from someone who has actually lost the weight themselves, and you have! 100 pounds is amazing. this page is an inspiration to me.
I dont mean to be rude, but there these tips on losing weight sound like you someone who has an eating disorder. I'm currently battling anorexia, and many of those sound like the tricks and tips people with an ED use…
@andrew: I'd be curious to know which tips sound like ED problems…. I don't think I have an eating disorder since this tips restored me to a (physician-approved) healthy (not anorexic) weight.
For most of the world, carbs make up 50% of the average daily food intake. Humans are carb-eaters, and not doing so is (depending upon one's specific genetic makeup) unnatural and unhealthy. It will also lead to yo-yo-ing once one goes off their low-carb diet.
It isn't the amount of carbs that's the problem, it's the type. I like this list, but I'd amend it to state that refined, “white” carbs such as refined sugars, white bread, white rice, and regular pasta are bad, while up to 50% of one's food may be derived from whole, unrefined carbs such as brown rice, pulses, whole grain anything, and fruit.
To be fair, I see Andew's point: I also did many of these things when I was anorexic. I think the only difference is in the quantity (I'm going to hope you weren't eating less than 1000 calories a day whilst losing your 100 pounds). Aside from your carb hatred, I think all of these tips sound valid, when done in moderation.
Why do carb reduction diets have such a bad rap? I'm sorry, but for many people, myself included, going on an induction diet for three or four weeks can take off ten pounds or more. I get a complete blood work-up each year, and every year my doctor is amazed at my high levels of good cholesterol as opposed to my low levels of bad cholesterol. I curb my carbs, that's it. That's my whole secret and there's nothing anorexic about it.
Yes, 50% of the world's diet now may be carbs, but prehistoric man was mostly eating proteins and foraged fruits and nuts. There was no wheat. There were no potatoes. Carbs are not what we are biologically meant to eat. There's nothing in the least weird about keeping carbohydrates at the bottom of the food triangle.
@Hannah: Well, I was eating far more than 1000 calories a day when I was losing the weight, it was simply all non-carb calories. And I'd argue that refined carbs are the worst, but when you're in a weight-loss mode – not weight-maintenance – carbs are not useful. Once I hit my ideal weight, I worked non-white carbs back in – but on a weight-loss regimen, even whole wheat carbs slow down weight loss. Humans ARE carb eaters, but carb avoidance puts you in the ketosis state that kick-starts weight loss. I wouldn't go low-carb long term, at all – I eat carbs today – but if you are trying to lose I think you should avoid them.
Everyone should do what works for them. Carb avoidance worked for me. I still ate a healthy, normal caloric intake (lots of meat, cheese and leafy greens) but simply avoided carbs. Low-carb doesn't work for my wife, for example – she seems to do better on low-fat. I do very well on low-carb. Different people are different – that's why everyone should consult with a physician or dietician or other professional before doing a serious weight loss program (….I did).
@Ruth, @Hannah: And to add on Ruth's comments, yes – humans are naturally meat and foraged vegetable-and-nut eaters. Processed whole grains and other carbs were later in the evolutionary cycle. Meat and raw veggies and nuts are the core, caveman menu.
But that having been said, the post is “my thoughts” and nothing more, as I say repeatedly throughout the post…. worked for me and nothing more.
I'm bookmarking this…this is really good stuff. Thanks.
#34 is so true. I started measuring my cereal when I began losing weight. It seemed like such a small amount compared to what I used to eat, which was probably an entire bowl. :/
And to #10 I stopped eating chips and when I put one in my mouth after a few months of going without the oily texture tasted pretty bad.
These are all very good thoughts. Thanks for sharing them.
#34 is so true. I started measuring my cereal when I began losing weight. It seemed like such a small amount compared to what I used to eat, which was probably an entire bowl. :/
And to #10 I stopped eating chips and when I put one in my mouth after a few months of going without the oily texture tasted pretty bad.
These are all very good thoughts. Thanks for sharing them.
“Milk does not work into any diet plan be it low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb. Avoid it. Soymilk is better for you.”
I can't disagree more with that one.
The other bits of advice are generally good but I stay away from soy as much as I do from corn syrup and deep fried starchy foods. I've lost a hundred pounds myself by staying away from most carbs and eating sensibly and I have kept it off for over a year now.
I count soy as a carb and like most beans it is essentially poisonous until cooked. Cooked it still contains trace amounts of ricin. No thanks. I'll pass.
Overweight people who reduce their salt/sodium intake lose some water from the body and therefore lose weight and lower their blood pressure. Eating more fruit and vegetables results in greater and faster loss of weight and further lowering of blood pressure because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables helps to displace sodium from the body.
Overweight people who reduce their salt/sodium intake lose some water from the body and therefore lose weight and lower their blood pressure. Eating more fruit and vegetables results in greater and faster loss of weight and further lowering of blood pressure because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables helps to displace sodium from the body.