Need your help..

magicface1

Hi Guys,

I jumped onto the scales today and I am 16st 11 im 5ft 10 my bmi is 33.7. I couldn't believe it when I looked down. I have been depressed recently and turned to food to help me get through and not happy with me personally at the moment. But enough is enough and I want to change my life I will adjust my diet and will up my exercise. If I could get advice from anyone on what to eat and what I would need to do to get the weight down...

Cheers

magicface1

magicface1 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I jumped onto the scales today and I am 16st 11 im 5ft 10 my bmi is 33.7. I couldn't believe it when I looked down. I have been depressed recently and turned to food to help me get through and not happy with me personally at the moment. But enough is enough and I want to change my life I will adjust my diet and will up my exercise. If I could get advice from anyone on what to eat and what I would need to do to get the weight down...

Cheers

I'm in the same boat, same weight. Same mental state. I know what I need to give up. I know I need to exercise. I know all the things I should do. But keeping the weight off is the problem. What I really need is counselling to find out why I'm gorging myself like this, why I'm feeling down. To understand at a deeper level why I'm doing this to my life. Maybe that could be what you need also?

To answer your question:

1. Eat less calories than you expend each day and you're certain to lose weight. Avoid all processed food is a crude but effective way to keep the weight off (although personally I'd make an exception for beans on brown toasted bread). Give up butter, full fat milk, sugar, salt. You won't miss them.

2. Walk/Run/Cycle each day. A 30-minute walk per day will make a huge difference to your weight. As you also know exercising, particularly strenuously, releases endorphins which make people happy.

3. A two-day detox, living on fruit and water alone, could be the boost you need to start this. I was absolutely knackered during it and slept through most of it but I was full of life after it. It's like that feeling you get when you've finished a good run or come out of the gym except longer lasting.

Definitely make a point of getting counselling asap. Best of luck.

dan_d

Good advice from Fuaranach, except maybe for the last point...a detox can be good for 2 days, but only if you follow it up with good diet habits rigorously afterwards. Might be a bit much to start on.

Get the food pyramid and apply it. 5 portions of fruit and veg a day - as a suggestion, maybe proper orange juice at breakfast (not the diluted, sugary own brand stuff), banana/grapes/apple as a snack or at lunch (with a sandwich) and then 2/3 veg with your dinner (no butter or anything on them).Stop eating white bread, go for brown or multigrain instead. There's some good quality brown sliced pans out there.Stop buying processed food - if it's in a box, and can be heated up in minutes, avoid it. Stop eating take aways. Stop drinking fizzy drinks, replace with sugar-free Mi Wadi, or Robinsons or something, if you feel you need a sweet drink (well diluted). Grill everything you can, stop frying food.

And....drink loads of water...

If it's too much to do by yourself, you can join weightwatchers, or another weight group and they'll help.I don't know if you're male or female but they have meetings for mixed groups and also male only and female only. It gives you a plan, makes you write stuff down, so you're concious of what you're eating.

And you have to exercise. Go for a fast walk or cycle every day possible. If you're a member of a gym, see if they'll do a fitness assessment for you, and give you a programme...some gyms do it now for free and it gives you targets to aim for and is more structured than doing it by yourself.

Otherwise there's some good info over on the fitness forum, expecially about nutrition (though I'll warn you, there are some absolute purists over there!)...but they give good advice and are always willing to help, so have a look.

Well done on realising there's a problem and you have to change. It can work for you, and you'll feel absolutely great when it does.We only get one life, we need to make the most of it and give ourselves the best chance possible at it.

LeahK

Go to the Nutrition and Diet section here on boards...the people there know what they are talking about. Plenty of great stickies on what to do, also try the fitness forum. You'll be surprised by the advice you are given, a low fat diet is not necessarily always the best. I would aim for low carb, high (good) fat and protein diet along with some excercise.

For a week create a food diary (can also do that in the Nutrition section) and write down everything (make sure its everything, every snack etc) that you eat. You'll probably get a shock on how much rubbish you can put away.

I have a food diary on here and I find it brilliant..loads of support and encouragement from people! Hope to see you there

metamorphosis

Id take a look at the stickied threads in both the fitness forum and the nutririon and diet forum. A wealth of free info there that will do you to lose any weight you want and you would pay a lot of money to hear the same info from qualified professionals.

Best of luck OP - it can be done. Head down and thenk LONG TERM


Also agree with the detox part - don't detox. No need. Your body has a built in detox mechanism - they're called your liver and kidneys.

EDIT: Leah got their before me

mrpink6789

Calorie Deficit and plenty of exercise, September 09 I was over 21 stone, today I'm just under 14 stone.

Start off small, brisk walk every evening to get the heart rate going, cut out all the junk. My vice was pints and jellies! I still have my pints but had to give up the sweets and takeaways for a while there. Even giving up the junk food can make a massive difference.

Agreed with everyone above though, have a look at the fitness forums, great advice in there.

Best of luck!

magicface1

Hi Guys seriously thanks very much for all your info and I am taking all of this on board and seriously thank you.. I'm a guy, I went back to college as a mature student this year and have just joined the college gym today so that's one think I wanted to do for ages.. I was very active when I was younger playing sports and that but now not so much but that is going to change now. I am putting together a food plan with fruit taking over chocolate or sweets and trying to cut carbs out as I have been known for having loads(big portion) of spuds(will cut that down a lot now). I normally skip breakfast but will try to do that for start weetabix or something with good fibre maybe a apple or banana before lunch then maybe brown/multi grain bread sandwich minus butter(another thing I over use) and maybe some other piece of fruit between lunch and dinner then (a lot) smaller portion than normal cutting out the crap(I love home cooking its just I always made massive portions). Within all this trying to drink my 2 litres of water..Totally cutting out take aways and high fats food I also cut of eating after 8 or something and if I do maybe some kind of fruit. I am committed to get my weight down, I am engaged to a wonderful fiance that is very supportive to me but my self esteem is very low at the moment and the scales yesterday scared the s**te out of me and I no longer want to be a person I hate and want to change.. Thanks again for all your help/advice so far and I will keep updates to you guys,

Bottle_of_Smoke

Deleted User wrote: »

3. A two-day detox, living on fruit and water alone, could be the boost you need to start this. I was absolutely knackered during it and slept through most of it but I was full of life after it. It's like that feeling you get when you've finished a good run or come out of the gym except longer lasting.

Of course you felt great after finishing it, you'd been depriving your body of nutrients and calories for 2 days beforehand.

You might as well have been on hunger strike for two days. We have a liver and a gut, they do all the de-toxifying we need.

OP I'd look up the lo-gi diet. It is very healthy, you don't have to cut out your favorite things, and keeps you full so you don't get demoralised.

I'd advise some weightlifting if you're going to use excersise. Whilst diet is the most important factor for you, men trying to lose weight should take advantage of their higher level of testosterone.

Whilst running/cycling etc are great in themselves, they only really burn calories whilst you're doing them. Lifting heavy weights is a different story. When you lift your body responds by growing more muscle tissue over the following days, this burns up huge amounts of calories. Think of a growing teenager - eats loads but doesn't get fat as their energy goes into growing. Weightlifting is the closest way of mimicking this.

In addition to speeding up weightloss you will look better whilst you get to your ideal weight. Lifting gives definition to your body and improves motivation.

For help on what to do in the gym look up the fitness board here and on youtube. For diet check out the nutrition and diet forum.

Bottle_of_Smoke

magicface1 wrote: »

Hi Guys seriously thanks very much for all your info and I am taking all of this on board and seriously thank you.. I'm a guy, I went back to college as a mature student this year and have just joined the college gym today so that's one think I wanted to do for ages.. I was very active when I was younger playing sports and that but now not so much but that is going to change now. I am putting together a food plan with fruit taking over chocolate or sweets and trying to cut carbs out as I have been known for having loads(big portion) of spuds(will cut that down a lot now). I normally skip breakfast but will try to do that for start weetabix or something with good fibre maybe a apple or banana before lunch then maybe brown/multi grain bread sandwich minus butter(another thing I over use) and maybe some other piece of fruit between lunch and dinner then (a lot) smaller portion than normal cutting out the crap(I love home cooking its just I always made massive portions). Within all this trying to drink my 2 litres of water..Totally cutting out take aways and high fats food I also cut of eating after 8 or something and if I do maybe some kind of fruit. I am committed to get my weight down, I am engaged to a wonderful fiance that is very supportive to me but my self esteem is very low at the moment and the scales yesterday scared the s**te out of me and I no longer want to be a person I hate and want to change.. Thanks again for all your help/advice so far and I will keep updates to you guys,

Sorry I responded before reading this, but it seems you are heading toward my advice anyway.

For breakfast go for scrambled eggs with a slice of wholegrain bread. Have an orange as a snack before lunch. Have something like brown rice and chicken/beef/cheese for lunch, then in the evening have another meal with with protein(fish/chicken etc) and salad. Reduce carb intake later in the day. For snacks nuts are great. High fat but you need to have energy for the gym.

Cut out all of the following for at least the first whiel:

Sweets
Chocolate
Potatos
White pasta
White breads
White Rice

When you're at the gym make sure you're lifting heavy free weights. Most important ones are

Bench Press
Deadlift
Squat

These excersises use your largest muscle groups with other smaller muscles supporting them. Do them on separate days.