Martin J Stirling

I just don't understand, what is the big mystery with weight loss? There are so many ridiculous diet regimes, pills, potions and theories banded about, yet it's such a simple concept.

If you put on weight, you are consuming more energy than your body is expending. The resulting surplus is then stored as fat. If you want to lose weight then you need to expend more energy than you consume - simple. This can be done in 2 ways, or a combination of:

1. Eat fewer calories than you burn.
2. Increase the calories that you burn - excercise.

Now, the reason people have such trouble losing weight is that they can't/don't want to give up all the **** in their diet, or can't be arsed to excercise. If you eat well, preparing meals only with fresh ingredients and staying away from processed food, then it is actually very easy to lose weight. Not only does eating healthily help you lose weight, but it also supplies your body with all the essential nutrients that it needs, and which modern processed food doesn't supply.

What I always find so fascinating is how many people fail to understand what is good and bad for you. I find it very annoying when I see so many miracle diets that claim to allow you to 'eat what you want' and still lose weight, that's not the effin point! People always want to get sumthin' for nuthin', and that's why it can't work. If you're lucky, you might lose a few pounds, but at the end of the day, once you go back to your normal eating habits, you'll just pile it back on again.

So, the real answer is, just be sensible, think of your food as 'medicine' for your body and getting the right balance of nutrients and the rest will sort itself out.

Cheers,

Mart.

djuk

This is what ive been saying to a girl at work for absolutely ages, she has paid stupid money (£500) for some scheme which tells her exactly what to eat and appears to be just a variation of atkins, she lost stacks in the first week or so as all the fluid came off as expected but then moans about not losing more than 1 or 2lbs in the weeks after that but shes doing no exercise at all and as such not burning any surplus calories.

No helping some people!

Martin J Stirling

Yep, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm on about! It's sooo simple, I can't see how people can be conned into believing this Diet or that, it's so crazy. People seem to go into things blindly, with the hope that this time it'll work, or because they saw it advertised on TV.

It's like the Slim Fast fad of the 90's, that was so funny. The method was basically calorie deprivation! Have two drinks and only one meal a day - simple! He he, I couldn't believe people fell for that one.

Some people just need to think about thngs a little..

Mart.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

just keep calling her a fat cow until she becomes anorexic...........she'll thank you one day

TelBoy

I think i'll re-visit when we get to page 11.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

that early!

Spoon

Of course the concept maybe but the practise for some is much harder otherwise there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Smoking's bad for you and it's a waste of a lot of money but you don't see people stopping immediately they are told this do you?

I'll join back in on page 11 too.

weapon69

*grabs another doughnut* What do you mean i won't lose weight?!!

lightning101

Where does weight/fat go when you lose it - Do you **** it away, **** it out etc.


If it expended as energy then it is heat and fluid, so where does the fat go ?

ozzy

Fat, Protein and Carbohydrates are oxidixed to create ATP - the source of energy for all muscle contractions.

Diet plays a major role in which of these is used as the primary source, but in the end it has to be burned as energy either through exercise or normal expenditure from keeping your body working.

Stefan

ozzy

You need to look at what you eat and not just calories if you want to shift weight from problem areas - hips, stomach, thighs, chest, etc..

No amount of sit-ups will shift fat from your stomach - you simply can't spot reduce fat (unless you try liposuction). Diet and exercise will keep you nice and trim, but if anyone wants a six-pack then sort out your diet.

IMHO the biggest problem with modern diets is all the sugary cr@p they stuff in it. So, when you see a doughnut, just say no - or eat while you're on a treadmill

Stefan

fitzscoob

lost 2 stone since december, just started to play football again thats it, didnt change my eating habbits, just exercised

feel 100% better for it to

CC

agreed calorie deficit ='s weight loss.

but there are ways of doing it that will deffo influence long term effects.

we could eat very little and lose alot, body goes into starvation mode, then u eat just a bit but cos ure in starvation mode and metabolism is v slow, u gain weight.
or eat little and often, no starvation mode, metabolism stays high, better for long term weight loss.

not exactly a scientific explanation i know but its worth considering

CooperS

It really annoys me when people say they can't lose weight, they can, they just have no will-power. I lost loads about a year ago (4 stone) by changing my lifestyle and eating healthily.

Martin J Stirling

Well, nice one!

To be honest I think it's just plain old education. I'm sure there are a lot of people that just don't realise that WHAT they are eating is causing them to pile on the flab, rather than the amount of food that they eat. Some of these new fangled 'Be good to yourself' and '99% fat free' products don't help either! People think, wow no fat, yet don't realise that the Fat has been subsituted by sugar, so the calorie count is probably even higher than before.

Worst thing of all for me is the way that huge corporations target children in their advertising. Take Mcdonalds, their advertising shouldn't be allowed. Once children get the taste for fast food, then they're stuck on it for life - it really is a learned taste.

Mart.

bloke

Oh the irony...

Dracoro

Basically stick to low GI foods for good long term results. You feel less hungry as the foods take longer to turn to energy. Hi GI foods turn into energy fast and if you don't burn it ASAP it stores itself as fat and then you feel hungry again not long after eating so you end up eating more.

As others have said, it's about consuming less and burning more.

Put it this way - Anyone know of a fat person who doesn't eat much and exercises a lot? I certainly don't.

Chris L

Martin is right when he says, the problem is very simple - eat too much, put on weight. To lose it, eat less! That said, don't discount formal diets - if they work for people then fine. The problem most people have is that it must be a lifesytle change. If you go on a diet for a few months and lose weight - then great. If however, you go back to your same old eating habits, then you'll put on weight again!

I've found Slimfast very successful in the past - both Sal and I did it with a lot of success. It wasn't so much that you were following the regime, it just made it a lot easier to keep track of what you are eating. I've managed to keep most of the weight off, but I'm back on it to lose some more. They have revised it now, so that you can eat upto 6 times a day, which works well for me.

To be honest, it hasn't been difficult and its easy to see why I am losing weight because of the amount of crap I've cut out. Having a dog helps too as it means that I am out everyday walking her - 2 to 4 miles a day. There is enough help and decent low fat food available now to make losing weight relatively easy. It just takes a bit of common sense, will power and determination.

Chris

milo

not necessarily. your body can happily store it as lean mass.

while to glibly quote "eat less calories" and "calorie deficit" is accurate, it doesn't necessarily the people who already are on 1500 calories a day all eaten in one meal late at night.

when splitting food up throughout the day, your metabolism speeds up, and you burn more calories that way too.

furthermore, you can always add lean mass to your frame, which lowers your bodyfat percentage WHILE YOU'RE CONSUMING EXCESS CALORIES. in other words, you CAN lose bodyfat (percentage-wise) on an excess calorie diet.


this is SO true. it's the people who are eating "healthy eating" packaged food... which replaces often good fats with processed food and hidden sugars.

even tho "every calorie is equal" in terms of fuel, your body's insulin response differs GREATLY.


too true... this is what most people miss. sadly, companies are not forced to put the gi index on the packaging of food also.


yes - plenty of "skinny fat" people... i.e. those who look skinny, but take off their shirt and they're soft and puffy, not lean at all - simply because they don't eat much, so their body will store EVERYTHING it can (in the quickest way - i.e. fat) as soon as they eat anything.

you need to eat all the time to stay REALLY lean... but they need to be TINY portions AND the right foods. most bodybuilders, who end up among the lowest bodyfat percentage of all athletes during a contest, never have a proper meal during a cutting phase, but instead are eating small snacks (200-400 calories) every hour or less. many of them do no cardio whatsoever also.

druddle

You want to all try reading a book called Fast Food Nation. That is a real eye opener to the modern day diet and some of the obesity statistics are horrifying.

I lost about 3/4 stone leading up to my wedding by eating fresh, healthy produce alot more, and drinking alot more water !!! I didnt really exercise more, just ate healthier and took in less calories.

Dave

druddle

Ooo just remembered one statistic in the book - the average American kitchen sink contains more faecal bacteria than the average American toilet. Yuk.

Nicci

I think some of the lazy large people could try getting a stomach bug.

I had one last week and lost 3/4 stone in 3 days. Unlucky for me I wasn't trying to lose weight, but put it on...aaah. Is anybody's weight ever correct?

But I agree with the earlier comments, why don't the overweight people eat less and do some exercise and stick to their diets.

Lack of will power drives me mad.

Kevin Mc

What's GI? How do you know which food has a good GI? (Can't remember if it should be high or low! )

Dream Weaver

Losing weight is easy (i've lost a stone in the last 4 weeks), the difficult part is getting motivated to actually do it and cutting out the things you love.

Once you get the motivation its easy.

wacky.banana

Stefan,

Serious question: from a diet perspective therefore, what would you suggest is right to reduce fat on the stomach/create a sixpack?

Cheers

WB

philc

repeating the question; wot's GI ? (in this context)

imlach

It's the Glycemic Index.

philc

thanx

Martin J Stirling

WB,

Stefan is right, sit-ups alone will not give you a six pack! They will certainly strengthen your stomach muscles, but in order to be able to actually see the results you still need to burn the excess fat from the stomach area first.

There is no way, however, to isolate fat reduction to just one part of the body, the male body generally stores fat on the torso, whereas the female stores fat on the thighs, and bum.

To get your dream six pack, I have to be honest, is very hard. You need to get your body fat percentage down to such a level where you hardly have any fat between your muscles and your skin, so that your muscles can show through.

Basically you just need to be very disciplined and determined, being very careful about the amount of and type of calories that you consume. Obviously, calorie cutting alone wont do it, you also need to do extended periods of medium intensity exercise (running, cycling, swimming, rowing etc) to really start burning that fat away. Also, as has already been mentioned, adding weight traning to your regime helps by boosting your metabolism; your muscles continually use energy to repair, rebuild and grow themselves - which means that you're still burning calories even while you sleep!

As has been mentioned previously, to keep your metabolism high, small regular meals, which distribute calories to your body throughout the day, is much better than the traditional, 3 meals. At the end of the day, if you only ate one meal a day of 2000 calories - even though this is lower than your recommended calorie intake for the day, you would still put on weight as your body doesn't need all these calories at once. It uses what it needs, and the rest is stored as fat. Scary huh!

So there you have it, a six-pack is acheivable, but you WILL need to make some pretty big changes to your lifestyle to get it!

Good luck.

Mart.

Double D

no offence but do the people who seem to have the most knowledge and have posted what to do, actually have good physiques,??