I'd like the advice of a non Atkins devotee!!

I've done my 2 weeks atkins and lost 7lb BUT it didn't suit me. Felt like poo and really miserable.

I'd like to keep eating pasta etc and i'd like some advice as to the best way to go about it and keep my weight down (I need to lose about 7 more pounds!! I eat quite healthily, don't have huge portions etc but the weight crept on due to excess alcohol on a regular basis followed by a pizza or kebab. I've cut out alcohol completely (and most of my junk food) now but what else can I do? I know excersise but I don't want to join a gym so any advice on excersise I can do at home would be great. I used to go jogging but have a bad back and knees and it did nothing but hurt so I stopped.

Eat less

Excercise more.

Have you tried roller blading? You don't seem to do much work on them, but you actually do. You get the fitness and energy using without stressing the muscles too much.

Try cycling - either a proper bike or an exercise bike if you have to do it at home. Ive had two ACL (knee ligaments reconstructions) ops and they get you on the bikes pretty much straight away as it doesnt hurt your knees. I wouldnt of thought it would hurt your back.

Also write down everything you eat, you might be suprised how much food you actually eat when you look at it. Other than that its obvious stuff, swap chocolate and crisps for fruit, dont stick mayonaise and fatty stuff on your food, try and cut out too much bread, eat wholesome food like pasta, rice, potatoes, white meat, fish, and dont eat too much of it.

Its not easy though or everyone would be thin.

Atkins also made me very ill - just getting over it now :(

But I've started the Kellogs one - bowl of Fruit&Fibre, CrunchyNut Cornflakes or Special K for brekky & lunch, followed by a normal meal for dinner.....

Can recommend it so far - states that you can lose 6lbs in 2 weeks....

watch this space.

Dan :)

As you've got your diet sorted i'll only say have a salad at lunchtime. I've started doing this and it does make a difference.

Are you still doing martial arts?
On your "days off" do these simple exercises ...

Skipping 10mins.

Do these at medium pace.
1. 50 squats to seated position.
2. 50 pressups [arms slightly wider than shoulder width]
3. 50 situps.
4. 25 deep lunges, left leg
5. 25 deep lunges, right leg

1 mins rest

Do these at fast.
1. 25 squats to seated position.
2. 25 pressups [arms slightly wider than shoulder width]
3. 25 situps.
4. 15 deep lunges, left leg
5. 15 deep lunges, right leg

Repeat above after 1 mins rest

Do these again at medium pace.
1. 50 squats to seated position.
2. 50 pressups [arms slightly wider than shoulder width]
3. 50 situps.
4. 25 deep lunges, left leg
5. 25 deep lunges, right leg

Skipping 5 mins continuous.
Rest and stretch.

Should'nt take too long. I know they are simple but as you get better you can mix them around with other exercises.

You sad lot!!!
Why not be fat and happy. Skinny people are normally miserable gits anyway.Or better still just eat a sensible balanced diet and get some regular excercise.

Chip.

Bajie

Thanks. Had to give the martial arts a miss for a bit as had a groin strain, now can't be arsed to go back :( Thinkin of doing something different. Probably bog standard kick boxing or maybe combatative hapkido. Not sure yet.

Thanks for the programme, i'll try it tonight. I know for a fact I won't be able to do the press ups. My weedy girlie arms can't take my weight!! 50 sit ups are going to kill me!! I can do 20 then feel i'm going to die!!! I won't be defeatist though, i'll have a go. Anything is better than nothing!! :D

Red
Grill every meat item with skin and fat cut off.
Grill or steam all fish.
Eat with jacket spud or pasta or rice.
For a sauce try using Weight Watchers or similar soups or the supermarket low fat stuff like " Be good to yourself".
Eat Muller Light or Mullerrices or the like as snacks.
When shopping try and buy products with more less than 5% fat content.
Use skimmed milk.
Use sweetners.
No more than four eggs a week
Cut down on tinned food, cook fresh wherever posible.
Four units of alcohol a week no more.
Eat Kellogs Crunchy Nut, Wheatabix or any Shredded Wheat variety for brekkie.

Exercise:
Do some form of cardio vascular exercise for 45 mins every other day.
Swimming
Walking
Cycling
Rowing
Aerobics

This is a healthy and balanced eating plan that with exercise over time will cut down body fat in 99% of people. It's not for people who want to lose a stone in a week, but its for people who want it to stay off and maintain it.
Every so often, twice a month say, have a few treats in a day, cakes, booze and stuff, you know unhealthy stuff. This will help boost your metabolism and stop your body learning to subsist on the low fat diet.

Red

No worries. Drop the number of reps to something comfortable, the last set is the one which will "do it" for you.
As far as the press ups go, do them from a kneeling position [a la Jane Fonda] as your strength builds up you can straighten your legs.

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Never eaten less than three bowls at one sitting :D

You need to work out roughly how much calories it takes to keep you at a maintained weight. Take a look at Brian MacKenzies excellent site. There's a calories counter on this page which takes into account your current weight and level of daily activity. It needs to be based exactly on your body, but it'll give you a rough estimate.

Then you need to look at your diet to see if you're eating more than your burning off, then just cut back or exercise more.

You need to pay attention to the intensity of your training. For example, I could do 100 press-ups as fast as possible and burn 50 calories. Likewise, I could also ride a bike slowly for 5 mins and burn off the same number of calories. The difference is with the first exercise, 90% of the calories is coming from carbohydrates and 10% is fat. In the second example, perhaps 30% is carbohydrate and 70% is fat.

So, if you're goal is to reduce fat, then the second training technique is preferable.

I do a lot of circuit training, but that helps with general conditioning, muscle strength and stamina as well as maintaining a nice high heart rate for a good long period. Unfortunately, most of the energy is in the form of carbohydrate, so burns very little fat - certainly works the heart and lungs though.

If you simply can't run, then you need to look at non weight-bearing (or more specifically low-impact) exercises, like cycling, walking, rowing, swimming, aerobic classes (spin-cycle, for example). These are all good all-round cardiovascular exercises and will help raise your metabolism and start burning calories, but just watch you don't overdo it otherwise you'll just be burning carbohydrates more than fat.

Stefan

If you're not used to press-ups, you simply won't do 50, so don't feel you have too.

Start with something that's comfortable, yet you can feel it after the 3rd circuit. Then just increase the number of reps after 1 to 2 weeks and slowly build on that (add 5 reps after 2 weeks, for example). It won't take that long before you're pushing out 50 press-ups or 50 sit-ups. Just make sure you do the regularly, if you lay off a week or two you might find you take a big step back.

Also, every couple of weeks go for some maximums just to check you're actually making good progress.

Stefan

Thanks Ozzy. That website is really interesting.

Very nice website.

The skipping will warm you up and get you into the "aerobic training zone".
The squats/pressups/situps regime is basically because the only sport I remember Red being into is martial arts and Red wants to train at home.
The final skipping set helps the body cool down and is also aerobic.
How does the body store unused carbohydrates? It turns them into fat.

7lbs isn't much which suggests you aren't particularly overweight. On that basis you might find changing when you eat certain foods could do the trick. As you should know from researching Atkins you body will burn carbs before fat if it has that option available to in and alcohol before them both. My big food sin (pre-atkins) was to have a fairly normal breakfast (i.e. cereal) , some fruit and a pint of milk for lunch (seems pretty healthy so far eh), then (!!) I'd have a massive plate of pasta or fajita's, etc for tea at about 7 and usually some icecream or similar treat.

The problem here is that is takes several hours for the MASSIVE amount of carb consumed in my tea to be digested and ready for use so I'd be going to bed (using little energy) just as that source was becoming available. Where do you think that surpluse energy goes :rolleyes:

What I'm saying is that you might be able to eat pretty much the same diet you are on now if you have your main meal (and highest carb) meal at lunch. This way you'll get a carb rush at about the time you body is most active and when you are most likely to be doing an afterwork exercise activity. In the evening time when you body is winding down so will your carb levels hence no surplus :)

Make sense?

So Kenny, when Lisa (sorry!) said non-Atkins devotees, which bit didn't you understand..??!! :p :D

It's a bit like Monty Python's spam sketch. "I don't wany ANY spam".

"Well, we've got egg, spam, sausage, spam, spam, egg, spam, spam and spam. That hasn't got much spam in it..."

:D

[Edited by TelBoy - 6/24/2003 4:35:32 PM]

So who's Lynne?! :D Oh well, I don't expect everyone can remember my name!! Anyway, Kenny made a valid contribution about meal times and isn't necessarily trying to 'peddle his Atkins wares' on this thread! :D

Lisa :D

[Edited by red_dog104 - 6/24/2003 4:16:36 PM]

I've read (can't remember where, might have been Men's Health) that you should reduce the size of your meals as you go through the day.

ie Brekkie is the biggest amount-wise, and your evening meal the smallest.

Must admit I haven't tried it, cos it seems odd, but I think I can see where they're coming from.

The other good one to remember is "Eat little, and often". I think the techy explanation goes something like not having your blood sugars drop, and your metabolic rate staying higher. But I might be wrong! :D

Talking of metabolic rates tho, from an exercise point of view it's good to do it (;) exercise! :p) in the morning. This way your metabolism is raised, and everything you do during the day burns more calories.

Now, ozzy, over to you to explain it properly! :D

Iain

[Edited by V5 - 6/24/2003 4:17:52 PM]

LOL @ Iain :D

Isn't part of the thinking about going to the gym [1] first thing that as you haven't eaten, the body doesn't have many carbs to burn and hence turns to your fat stores?

[1] or whatever CO exercise you're doing

[Edited by ChrisB - 6/24/2003 4:19:59 PM]

:D

Good point Chris! I'd forgotten that one! :rolleyes:

And....while we're on about things I've heard...:D

....I've heard that having a cup of coffee in the hour before you exercise helps you to burn fat at an increased rate.

But it's hard enough getting up at 0545 to go to the gym, I can't be @rsed to get up earlier to make a cuppa!! :rolleyes::D:D

LOL @ Telboy and his spam. I wasn't pushing Atkins and I accept its by no means the only/best way. It works for me for now which is great but no matter what you decided to do it will require a degree of compromise and will power unless you can naturally eat whatever you want! (lucky buggers)

That would make sense but I think its accepted that most people struggle to pack down a massive meal first thing but are usually read to go at lunch time.

The real irony in all this is that I've done the diet thing and it is tough controlling what you eat and how much. I've also done the weightlifting thing and its almost as tough to control what you eat and eat as much as you can. 8 small meals a day with lots of protien! Have you ever tried to fit 8 small meals into a day!!

Saxo

Unless you get sponsorship deals, and don't need to go out to work it is virtually impossible :(
Serious sportsmen are training 5/6 hrs a day. How you gonna do that and keep your 9-5 going at the same time.

Red
How was it last night :D

Hi Bajie

Erm....... Sad to say that was so tired when I got in I only did 20 sit ups and that was it:( Will force myself to do more tonight. I hate excersise so much BUT once I start it's ok. I just need to get motivated!

That's the problem I have with training at home.
No scoob so I can use the garage but when I get home, wash meself up and sit on the sofa after playing with the kids its lights out :D

We'll all get there in the end though :)

My wife is doing the Slimming world diet, and by default so am I.

I have to admit it's the only diet I have enjoyed. It just seems to change the way you eat. You have a meat day, where you eat more meat, then a veg day where you eat more veg. And you can have a double gin and tonic of an evening out of your "sins".

My wife has lost a stone in about 10 weeks, but has started going back to the gym. I think the problem with most diets is you have to cut out on something or go hungry, this you don't seem to. Although I don't follow it as rigorously as she does I do tend to look at what I'm eating.

Today for my lunch (which will be my main meal as I'm swimming tonight) I am munching my way through:

Jacket potato, tub of cottage cheese, prawns, some raw mushrooms, a pint of skimmed milk, an apple, a banana, and an orange. Don't think I'll be hungry some how, and it all tastes bloody good. the carbs'll get used swimming and there is no more than 2g of fat in it!

Dave

There's more than 2g of fat in a pint of semi-skimmed milk alone. It's about 1.7g per 100ml according to the carton in my fridge.

Stefan

And skimmed milk?

Yeuch!