17, unhealty weight, need to lose weight but its arkward

WootOps

Ok, so heres the story, im 17, i weigh 215 pounds (not healthy !) and im looking to drop 32 pounds to be in a healthy normal weight again, i was never even mildly overweight till i was 13 so hopefully i can undo 5 years of damage, the problem is that my family are very conservative and if i started visibly excersizing they would ridicule me and claim it was something to do with women, but its not, its for my health. The other problem is that we seem to have large dinners, to compensate ive been avoiding breakfast and lunch in most cases but im not sure if thats the best option. I cant leave the house without questions, but im sure i could escape for a walk or something.

heres an idea :

Walking for an hour a day and eating fruit every day for breakfast, - with this would it help me lose weight ? and how much could i expect to lose ?

WHIP IT!

I'll leave the fitness advice to the people here who know what they're talking about... but, personally, I'd start with telling the family to go get f*cked... Take a smaller plate at dinner and exercise as much as you want, when and where you want to... even if it means doing yoga in your leotard on the sitting room rug as your old man is trying to watch 60 Minutes...

It's your life, your body, your health... and ya'll only get one shot at it...

AlphaMale 3OO

WHIP IT! wrote:

I'll leave the fitness advice to the people here who know what they're talking about... but, personally, I'd start with telling the family to go get f*cked... Take a smaller plate at dinner and exercise as much as you want, when and where you want to... even if it means doing yoga in your leotard on the sitting room rug as your old man is trying to watch 60 Minutes...

It's your life, your body, your health... and ya'll only get one shot at it...

Took the words right out of my mouth. Or the tips of my fingers or whatever. Tell your family to fcuk off. Get the breakfast in at all costs. Fruit isnt too bad for breakie, porridge or weetabix would be better. Have some eggs maybe. Eat whatever size portions at dinner that your comfortable with. You seem to have really good motivation and at just under 16 stone, your not exactly obese. Try jogging for half an hour each day, gradually working your way up to 45 mins to an hour. You could join a gym too and get in on a weights programme. Plenty about that on the 'net. Eat a lot of lean meats and veg too. If you can manage all this you'll be set.

WootOps

thanks for the help, just a question or two :

what way should the eggs be done (i know fried isnt a descision) boiled / poached ?

also when you say lean meat you just mean meat with no visible fat, can i cut the fat off the meat after cooking to help with this ?

what about potatoes ? avoid ? (obviously avoid chips, but what about roast ?)

Odysseus

WootOps wrote:

Ok, so heres the story, im 17, i weigh 215 pounds (not healthy !) and im looking to drop 32 pounds to be in a healthy normal weight again, i was never even mildly overweight till i was 13 so hopefully i can undo 5 years of damage, the problem is that my family are very conservative and if i started visibly excersizing they would ridicule me and claim it was something to do with women, but its not, its for my health. The other problem is that we seem to have large dinners, to compensate ive been avoiding breakfast and lunch in most cases but im not sure if thats the best option. I cant leave the house without questions, but im sure i could escape for a walk or something.

heres an idea :

Walking for an hour a day and eating fruit every day for breakfast, - with this would it help me lose weight ? and how much could i expect to lose ?

Hi mate, firstly I have to say my first thoughts where they same as the other posters, tell them to go and fcuk off!! Then I remembered what it was llike to be 17. Additionally I used used to work qiute a bit with under 18s.

I suppose that the reality of the situation is you can't really do that, I may be wrong;) But in my own experience a teenager who tells his parents to fcuk themselves usually isn't doing it about healthly eating.

The best advise I can give you mate is to keep coming back here. Don't skip meals, read the stickies, ask questions, do some training. Try a few different types of training, there are body builders, endurance athletes, tri-athletes, as well as people who just want to be healthly posting here. So you should be able to find something you enjoy. Have you any ideas on how you would like to lose that weight? What are you own interests?

Cadrach

WootOps wrote:

the problem is that my family are very conservative and if i started visibly excersizing they would ridicule me and claim it was something to do with women, but its not, its for my health.

Honestly, the best thing you can do is take the ridicule for 5 minutes and just get over it. Losing weight and getting healthy is nothing to be ashamed of, they know it as well as you do, and if you can be strong enough to get over a bit of mocking at the start it could make the rest of your life a lot better. All you have to do is declare "I'm getting healthy - eating a smaller dinner and going for a walk every day" and you're on the road.

Cutting out breakfast and lunch will have a negative effect on your health. You need a proper breakfast, ideally a bowl of porridge or muesli and a bit of fruit. Lean meat is like chicken/turkey/steak... some stuff like pork is not great. At your age and in your situation, there is no need to be fanatical, any improvement is a step in the right direction. But if you have no activity in your life at the moment, that should change. A walk a day is a help, but some vigorous exercise would be better... any chance of taking up a sport?

smdweb

Its not food that puts on weight, its your attitude to food.
Everyone needs about 1,800 - 2,300 calories per day, depending on your level of exercise and your gender.
In order to lose 1 pound you need to lose about of those 5,000 calories.

Fast dieting does not work - you need to change your lifestyle on a permanent basis. You have already acknowledged you wish to change which is great, next you need to do something about it.

Fruit is a good start, as it contains plenty of vitamins, water, protein and fibre, but can get boring, so vary your use of fruit. e.g. eat plain, fruit smoothies, fruit & natural yoghurt.

Next you need to plan an exercise routine, consult a doctor before you do this, since you are overweight, you will just need to check so you don't over-do things. Exercise every day when possible and try get the body to use up those calories.

Obviously you will have to avoid snacks, instead, try your fruit here instead, or 2 glasses of water which should supress any hunger pangs.

Keep a little log of your progress - when you see things working you will be encouraged. Best of luck with it, its not easy, but if you want to do it, you will do it. If it is important to your family, they will know about the meals ... if they don't get the hint then just eat what you want and leave the rest at meal times.

PS : The Dr. Phil book on weight loss is excellent and well worth buying

Peyton Manning

Just out of curiosity, how effective is walking in regards to burning calories?

smdweb

It depends on how fast you walk, the duration of the walk, as well as a few other factors i.e your weight and if you are carrying anything, e.g. a heavy rucksack or dumbells..

See here for some interesting figures...
http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist3.htm

and this excellent calculator at...

http://preventdisease.com/healthtools/articles/while_walking.html

If you are looking for a more complete list, everything from brushing teeth, walking, and swimming to football, mowing the grass and sex....
http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

nesf

Archimedes wrote:

Just out of curiosity, how effective is walking in regards to burning calories?

Burning calories or losing weight? You'll burn more calories in an hour's run than an hour's walk but that's not really an issue if you're very overweight/sedentary where it's versus an hour spent sitting watching TV. If you're fit, walking is probably going to be far too inefficient (in the sense of calories/hour) to make much sense if you're trying to cut fat unless you like hiking with a heavy backpack or similar.


In my opinion and I'm open to correction here walking does make sense for people initially trying to lose weight after years of inactivity simply because a) it's free and b) any bump in activity levels will help at least to begin with. It won't get you in shape to be running good marathon times or anything but it's definitely a starting point. There are more efficient and faster ways to get fit or lose weight but the KISS principle springs to mind, build a base to work from with walking and then look to something more intensive if you want to keep it going rather than jumping straight into some sport or activity that your body just isn't ready for and getting discouraged after a few weeks because of a lack of success etc.

Norinoco

Hi Op - are there any clubs in your area you can join?
Maybe your family will accept this more so that working out on your own.

Do you have a bike? If you don't could you borrow one?
Cycling for an hour would burn more calories than walking.

Definitely have a breakfast - porridge is easy and adding some fruit and milk will make it tasty.

As for the dinners - maybe suggest putting the food on the plate yourself so you have more control over the portions. What would be a typical large dinner in the evening? Are we talking veg and meat here - or large portions of pasta - or curries? You will need to get this sorted.

Hanley

If you're getting too big a dinner then why not just eat some of it instead of polishing off th lot?

When the rents see food being wasted they'll soon cut down your porition size.

deisemum

Could you tell your family that your gp has told you to lose weight for health reasons? If not just ignore the ridicule?

Are other members of your family overweight? If so do you think that may be a factor in ridiculing your efforts as it's forcing them to look at their own weight?

I'm 5 weeks into a healthier diet and 2 weeks doing exercise. I've been given 4 weeks to build up to an hour's exercise per day at least 6 days a week. I'm just so unfit so it's a bit of a shock to the system to start moving but I'm trying to go for a walk with purpose such as walk to the shop and places like that, not just go for a walk for the sake of it which bores me no end. I've started back at Curves and it's going ok. I've lost about 7lbs and have a long way to go. I don't expect quick results as the weight didn't go on overnight. I'm a volunteer in a study and I've got to lose a substantial amount of weight for the study to work. There are doctors, dieticians, nurses, personal trainers, postgraduate students involved so I'm being monitored throughout the whole 12 months that this study will run.

Don't skip meals, have smaller portions instead

crotalus667

WATER !!!!!!!!!

Ok I I cant give you any real advice on a lot of the exercise stuff but what I can help you on is this , drink a pint of water before/with each meal this relay helped me when I first started cutting down of portion size’s .

I weighted until I was a lot heavier and older than you are now before I did any thing about it trust me do something about it now it will only get worse if you don’t ,

just treat it as a lifestyle not a diet and you are half way there (the other half is the gym/ what ever exercise makes you happy)

As far as your family goes , this world is full of morons don’t let them bully you out of doing something you want to do especially something so important as improving your health

Newaglish

You never know how your family might react - I know it may feel a bit vain to start exercising and taking care in your appearance but they would most likely think "Great, Billy is getting some exercise. I bet he'll look/feel great/better etc."

As far as eating etc. goes, I just think you should keep it simple, stick to natural, unprocessed food, lean meats, plenty of fruit & veg etc. Read the stickies, they're pretty handy.

Walking is alright exercise and a good place to start, but after a while you might think about changing the hour walk into a 10 minute run / 50 minute walk, then keep upping the running (perhaps in intervals) and cutting the walking until you get down to a good 20 -30 minute run without a break. That way you'll be burning using more energy and spending less time doing it.

ali.c

WootOps wrote:

if i started visibly excersizing they would ridicule me and claim it was something to do with women, but its not, its for my health. The other problem is that we seem to have large dinners, to compensate ive been avoiding breakfast and lunch in most cases but im not sure if thats the best option. I cant leave the house without questions, but im sure i could escape for a walk or something.

I feel for you, its awkward that you are old enough to know that you want to change things but not old enough to take care of your own food. Some thoughts though
1. You cant control what people around you eat and what type of tempations they put in your way you can to some extent control what you eat
2. Just because you are given a big dinner doesnt mean you have to eat it all, you may not be able to control whats on your place but you can what you choose to eat
3. I have a feeling that the slagging will stop once you start to see results
4. Could you start a sport or something fun that wont induce slagging from them
5. You have to do this for yourself, maybe explain to them that you are doing and would like their support but will perserve without it if necessary as your health is important
6. Most parent slag their kids about women/guys, just ignore it
7. I am 25 and my mam still asks where i am going when i leave the house even though i didnt live at home for years, so your not alone
8. Dont skip meals, at least make sure you eat breakfast lunch and dinner but do endeavour to control your portion size

Rambled on a bit sorry, good luck anyhow!!

davyjose

If you are really worried about what your parents think you could always take up a sport. But to be honest it sounds as if this is as much a PI as a fitness issue: at 17 you need to begin establishing some sort of independance from your parents - so what if it is to pick up some girls? You're 17 ffs.

ZENER

All the above is great advice except nobody has really touched on the parent/child thing. I'm not inferring that you are a child but from your mam/dad pov you are still that.

As a parent of an 18 y.o. who was grossly overweight at 14 (about 14 stones)- in fact embarrassingly so for him - although we didn't know how to broach the subject at the time. For all you know your parents are probably thinking the same thing as you are and are maybe thinking to them selves that they don't want to upset you by calling you overweight or to put it bluntly "fat". Parents fear the worst in these situations, especially with girls - anorexia being the number one fear - "if we put too much emphasis on looks weight will they go overboard - when is the right time to talk about this to him/her ?"

It's a delicate subject to talk about and at your age the body goes through many transformations and it's difficult as a parent to know whether to let nature take its course or to intervene, but you have realised this - with credit to you - and need to take charge yourself and go about deciding what YOU really want. As someone above said you only get one chance to live - I applaud you for making the right choice now and not later.

Good luck on whatever you decide to do but realise you made a very important decision for you. Well done !!

ZEN

Gumbyman

Hey! Well done on deciding that you want to do something about your health. It is the path to happiness. I can't offer much in the way of wisdom but I seriously encourage you to keep the faith here and weather whatever it takes to get fit. I started off a few months back and have lost a bit of weight, packed on a bit of muscle which is nice but the best part is that I feel a lot better about my own self.

Porridge is great for breakfast. Hot or cold. Somebody else said here about drinking water before dinner. Sounds like a great idea. You said yourself about fruit. You could even have an apple a half hour before dinner and it will take the edge off the appetite. My downfall was that if there is food in front of me I tended to eat until I could physically eat no more. Don't do this! Look at your dinner, estimate what is a normal portion size, eat that and no more.

There are lots of things you can do in the comfort of your bedroom for privacy. You can pick up a set of dumbells in argos very cheap. Also, sit ups and squats.

Get a notebook and write in it every day what you eat over the day. Every single thing. It'll help motivate you. Keep track of all your exercise too. Same reason and you can chart your progress. If you have a good week reward yourself at the weekend.

Walking and running (like was said earlier - walk then run then walk) is a great idea. Stick on some good music and away you go. You could get up an hour earlier in the morning for this if it is handier. You should be drinking 2 litres of water a day too.

If you are running on the road get a good pair of runners (asics gel for eg) to protect your knees from the impact.

Try to eat protein foods (egg white, tuna, tofu) as you need protein to build muscles when you exercise. More muscles = higher metabolism = higher breakdown of calories and fats. Best of luck with it! Don't let the fambly keep you down. Rise up.

Gumby.

Roper

Hey man, walking will do it but in Ireland's weather you're likely to find plenty of reasons not to leave the house. My reccomendation would be to join a club or a class- be it aerobics, tag rugby or 5 a side soccer. Most places are extremely welcoming and the added impetus of having friends and companions who are lookig for you to turn up each week should spur you on. Try out a few activities and find one you'll enjoy.

Hanley

Hanley wrote:

If you're getting too big a dinner then why not just eat some of it instead of polishing off th lot?

When the rents see food being wasted they'll soon cut down your porition size.

Exactly.
Personally I find I'm not so hungry in the evening, I eat a lot more during the day then a small meal at night - I think that's far far better for you than skipping other meals

justsomebloke

Roper wrote:

My reccomendation would be to join a club or a class- be it aerobics, tag rugby or 5 a side soccer.

or even a martial art for which you could check out roper's sig

Khannie

jsb wrote:

or even a martial art for which you could check out roper's sig

Exactly. You wont get slagged for that. I can attest to getting a p"roper" (badum-tish!) workout at ropers place!

Roper

Yes, we also teach the patented "Parent-Stopping-Headbutt"...*

In all seriousness I wasn't pimping, see my open day thread for pimping! I just think that for people to get fit the big box gym is not the way to go. As pointed out in another thread, the aim of these places is sales, sales, sales, and unless you're a self motivated individual who knows their way around a gym you probably won't get much benefit IMO.

Activities like tag rugby, 5 a-side, badminton are the sort of thing that people can play at any level. Obviously my own club fits into that bracket as well but that's not for everyone either.







*Please headbutt responsibly.

mini Maple

hey, I think you need to just eat little and often! your only 17 and you could do yourself a lot of damage if you diet too much, I cut out chocolate and lost lots of weight! and wholegrain breakfast, like porridge every day, there is no added salt or sugar in it, if you eat the same portion sizes every day your metabolism will learn to use it all and you will start to notice the pounds falling off!

WootOps

ok just a question, i keep really late hours ( 3 or 3 am in the morning before i go to sleep, then get up at 9) could this fatigue be working against me in terms of weight loss ?

deisemum

WootOps wrote:

ok just a question, i keep really late hours ( 3 or 3 am in the morning before i go to sleep, then get up at 9) could this fatigue be working against me in terms of weight loss ?

It could, there've been a few reports confirming this but I don't have them to hand. From what I remember reading about it is that when you're tired you may go for sugar boosts and also the longer you're awake you're more likely to feel peckish when you'd normally be asleep.

Also if you're tired then you probably wont have the energy to be as active as when you're well rested.

I'm a poor sleeper myself, 4 - 5 hours max and my sleep pattern is dreadful since I had my second son nearly 10 years ago. He was a bad sleeper who never slept more than 2 hours straight until he was 15 months.

If I do try and go to bed a bit earlier then I wake during the night and can't get back to sleep.

nesf

WootOps wrote:

ok just a question, i keep really late hours ( 3 or 3 am in the morning before i go to sleep, then get up at 9) could this fatigue be working against me in terms of weight loss ?

I think it depends on whether you actually need more sleep or not. Some people can live on 4-5 hours of sleep a night with no ill-effects, others need 8-9 hours etc. If you're fatigued every day from a lack of sleep then it'd probably be a good idea to get more sleep.

There's no real set number of hours here, people vary hugely on how much sleep they actually need at night.

Rossibaby

mate join a sports team simple as that.firstly it gives you discipline as there are certain nights that training is set for so you cant put it off to suit you.i have found if i run or walk on my own its so hard,you overthink and it seems your running for ages.but if there is a ball,a goal,and your having fun you do the same amount of work but you wont even feel it...

davyjose

nesf wrote:

Some people can live on 4-5 hours of sleep a night with no ill-effects

I think you'll find for the most part these aren't the people who are in good shape. TBH, I think when you say "live on", you mean "survive on" 4-5 hours sleep.
OP, try to get 8 hours sleep a night, if you can't do this, fair enough, but I think if you switch off the TV/put down the book/turn of the computer at a reasonable hour you will be able to.
Personally, since I started working shift work 2 years ago (and in doing so, massively disrupting my sleep patterns), I've found it much harder to stay in shape. Even just from the sense of having the energy and focus to get me to & thru a gym session. So Yeah, I think your bedtime could be seriously affecting your weight.

nesf

davyjose wrote:

I think you'll find for the most part these aren't the people who are in good shape. TBH, I think when you say "live on", you mean "survive on" 4-5 hours sleep.

Some people need less sleep than others, some people get more affected by broken sleep patterns etc. 8 hours is an average figure, some people need more, some less. I really don't function well if I'm getting less than seven hours personally. If you're working against what you need, you're not going to be healthy. If your body needs 7 hours then sleeping for 5 or 10 hours for extended periods isn't going to be good for you.

From what I've read, the problem with shift work is more the irregular sleep pattern and the sudden changes than how much sleep you are getting.

davyjose

I'm not sure it just not a case where these people don't feel the effects of tiredness as obviously, and can function at a higher level than others, with less sleep.
I doubt there are many professional athletes out there who get 5-6 hours sleep a night, and if so, I would say they are in a minority.