Right it's time for this weight to go

meoklmrk91

I am currently around 15 stone, the heaviest I have ever been, I am putting this down to bad eating and not taking the time to exercise, I am a student and spend a lot of time driving to or from college, so I am often eating in the car and then wreaked by the time I get home. I have a few questions regarding diet and exercise though.

Diet: I know I should be getting a good bit of protein into my diet, so stave away the hunger should I be getting some into each of my meals? I was also thinking of having a juice day once a week, just to get some quick results really, I am going to talk to my doctor about that to make sure it's safe though. Can anyone recommend any good books or sites for recipes, I get bored easily and want to make sure I have a varied diet so I don't slip as much, although I know I will slip sometimes. Also I will be counting calories, fat etc.

Exercise: I will be walking the dog everyday but this is low impact exercise, I also have an eliptical trainer and a game trainer thingy for my kinect so I will be using that each day, plus going to the gym 2 -3 times a week. Again I want to keep it varied so I don't loose interest. How much exercise should be getting a day in order to loose atleast a few pounds a week, and should I ease into exercise, doing a little more each day so as I get used to it?

Thanks

UL_heart_throb

Right, good to hear you're motivated to improve your diet, take more exercise and lose weight.

Just some bro-science before I begin. Regulation of food intake can be looked at from a short term and long term perspective. Short term what causes satiety is neural and hormonal signals from distension of the stomach and entry of fats and protein into the duodenum. More long term is fat levels and the release of a hormone called leptin. Paradoxically, obese people should have higher levels of leptin, and their brains should be stimulated to reduce intake but at some point, or multiple points that process along with others goes astray.

So in your case, what's really important is that you firstly work out a healthy and sustainable diet plan.

I think people on this forum give out plenty of well meaning and usually appropriate diets but there are a lot of outliers on this forum who will probably tell you to go primal or paleo or keto or eat nothing but grass. Be careful.

Next you need to get a healthy and sustainable exercise plan and the same caveat as above applies.

As a rule of thumb, for the average person diet should be around 50% carbohydrate, 25% protein and 25% fat. You have to be especially careful about your source of carbohydrate as it's very easy to over eat bread/pasta/rice/starchy carbs. You also have to be careful about your fats and try and minimise your trans fats.

I think a juice diet sounds like a terrible idea, do you mean a liquid diet? Still sounds like a drastic measure I don't think fits into the philosophy of healthiness and sustainability.

So yes, to answer one of your specific questions, you need to take protein ideally in every meal, and keep those 50:25:25 proportions if you can.

With regard to exercise, I want to clear up a few things I presume you mixing up for yourself. Low impact exercise is usually a term reserved for low physical impact on the joints - like swimming, rather than low impact on your waistline or Cardiovascular system. Did you mean low intensity?

Low intensity exercise like walking and jogging and stuff like house work for periods up to 40minutes has been shown to be very good at promoting weight loss. So if you aim to walk the dog, aim to walk away from your house for 20 minutes and walk back for 20 minutes. Consider bringing a water bottle, one for each of you. I'd say the 40 minute thing for the kinect and the elliptical would also apply.

I think 20 minutes a day is all that people recommend people with normal BMI should take! But if you're trying to lose weight you will have to double that.

You should definitely ease into the exercise. For two reasons, one so you don't do yourself a mischief injuring yourself on something and two, that you don't push too hard too soon and give up. I won't go into my opinions on exercises you should do in the gym and I'm sure you're already fed up with the length of this post assuming you read it. What I will say is though:

Weight loss is a product of reduced energy intake and increased energy expenditure. What controls this is will power, motivation and interest. It's important that you want to make the change personally, not just because someone else wants you to do it, the will power has to come from yourself. The motivation can come from your friends and family who support you. The interest comes from sculpting your brain to take an interest in it. You said you had problems with concentration and losing interest, this is something else you will have to over come, discipline is key.

Mellor

meoklmrk91 wrote: »

Diet: I know I should be getting a good bit of protein into my diet, so stave away the hunger should I be getting some into each of my meals? I was also thinking of having a juice day once a week, just to get some quick results really, I am going to talk to my doctor about that to make sure it's safe though.

Juice day is a terrible idea.
You'll probably tak on a similar level of calories and it'll all be mostly from sugar. Any other reasonable option would be a better idea, just eat as you would every other day.

BarryDG

meoklmrk91 wrote: »

I am currently around 15 stone, the heaviest I have ever been, I am putting this down to bad eating and not taking the time to exercise, I am a student and spend a lot of time driving to or from college, so I am often eating in the car and then wreaked by the time I get home. I have a few questions regarding diet and exercise though.

Diet: I know I should be getting a good bit of protein into my diet, so stave away the hunger should I be getting some into each of my meals? I was also thinking of having a juice day once a week, just to get some quick results really, I am going to talk to my doctor about that to make sure it's safe though. Can anyone recommend any good books or sites for recipes, I get bored easily and want to make sure I have a varied diet so I don't slip as much, although I know I will slip sometimes. Also I will be counting calories, fat etc.

Exercise: I will be walking the dog everyday but this is low impact exercise, I also have an eliptical trainer and a game trainer thingy for my kinect so I will be using that each day, plus going to the gym 2 -3 times a week. Again I want to keep it varied so I don't loose interest. How much exercise should be getting a day in order to loose atleast a few pounds a week, and should I ease into exercise, doing a little more each day so as I get used to it?

Thanks

Yes, you should be getting a good bit of protein into each meal. You should try to have 3 balanced meals a day (meals with a good amount of carbohydrates, protein and vitamins). You can get a great book by a Certified Nutrition Specialist who has helped thousands of people = http://kill-abdominal-fat.in . And I think a juice day would give you too much calories. I recommend just water - I mostly drink water.

If you are looking to get a good workout for burning fat (aerobic training) - you could go for a jog with your dog - you want to aim for about 20 minutes and try to get a good workout with it. In the gym aim to do exercises that focus on your major muscles: there is a website that shows some great major muscle group exercises = http://www.bestexerciseworkouts.com/major-muscle-group-exercises/ . At your gym try and join a class, they might have something like a body pump class or some sort of similar one - these are great and they are not long.

I got a kung fu game that I play on my PS3, it does the same thing as the eliptical trainer - I just find it way so much fun compared to one of those straight forward exercise video games, its really cool.
Best wishes!