posted
One thing I have been doing(even though I am obviously not doing it now) is staying off the computer.
I tend to get sucked in. I have been much more active this summer.
Another thing is basically to piggyback off what Zeugma said. When it comes down to it, weight gain or loss is all about the calories in vs the calories out.
You can get a lot of calorie burn from doing household chores, or just by moving around the house instead of sitting.With my computer time limited, I have gotten a lot more done around the home.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Thanks, I'm thrilled. It's about two miles from the Pentagon metro stop. I can ride my bike, or there's a bus that takes ten minutes. Pentagon to L'Enfant plaza is seven minutes, and L'Enfant Plaza, where I switch trains, to Capitol South is four minutes. Capitol South is right next to my building, so that half hour will be, I think, door to desk. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:It's sad, but I'm switching from a diet of all-day chips and candy to a diet of TV dinners and considering it a victory [Smile]
Well forget exercise. I doubt it would help you that much until you change your eating habits.
I'd say the first step is to eat less calories at work. I work an eight hour day, and eat around 500 calories during those eight hours. I pretty much make sure that I don't exceed 600.
I eat one breakfast bar when I get to work (90 calories). I try not to eat anything more until lunch-time. This isn't easy, so sometimes I have another breakfast bar. My lunch is a Lean Cuisine southwest chicken sandwich. These are great, they grill in the microwave, and taste quite good (280 calories). It took a very long time for me to find low calorie lunches that I enjoy. I only have two right now, these sandwiches and the Lean Cuisine garlic chicken pizza (290 calories). I'm so glad that I found these, however, because they are both delicious.
I try not to eat again until a few hours after lunch. What I munch on depends on what I bring. If I bring an apple, I'll eat that (around 40 calories). I sometimes bring Quakes, those yummy rice cake cracker things. They are seven calories each, and trust me, they are quite yummy. They have ranch flavored ones, cheato flavored ones, sour cream and onion ones, ones which taste like carmel corn. I am a total chip lover myself, and these satisfy the craving. The key is not to bring more than a handful each day, or else you run the risk of eating half the bag. I can have an apple and 13 quakes in the afternoon and leave work with 500 calories consumed. On an indulgent day, I leave work with 700 calories consumed.
This means that as long as my dinner is less than 1300-1500 calories, I've managed to bring a net loss.
Before I started actively reducing my calories, I would often leave work already having consumed 1800-2200 calories. My lunches were usually 600-800 alone, and I would even eat candy bars in the afternoon. These are 200+ calories each! Somedays I would have two or more of them. I'd bring cookies to work, chips, all sorts of things.
Anyone who eats like this is going to gain weight, unless you have a hyper-active metabolism. The problem with me is that I did have that metabolism because Grave's Disease, and those eating habits left me 37 pounds heavier after the condition was cured.
I started exercising three times a week, and the weight gain mostly stopped. I didn't start losing weight until I started counting my calories at work. This was an eye-opening experience for me. I didn't realize that I was eating so many calories. I started counting my calories about 10 weeks ago, and I've lost about one pound a week since then. I'm not perfect. I will sometimes have days where I go out to lunch with my coworkers and get a net gain for the day, but then again I also still exercise three times a week.
I'd listen to Bob about taking the steps to fix the problem now, and I would start reducing your calorie intake. Counting helps so much. I'll give an example.
I often (about once ever other day) purchased a twix bar from the office candy closet. Then I started counting my calories and realized just how bad the 200 calories was. Especially since it didn't do anything to my hunger. I'd go to the gym, and spend 20 minutes on the eliptical to burn off that one solitary candy bar. Busting your ass for twenty minutes on an eliptical isn't easy, and I resented myself for eating the darn thing. I haven't eaten one since, and don't even look at the candy shelf any more. It honestly has very little pull on me anymore, because no amount of pleasure gained by eating the candy could ever make up for me hating myself for being weak and indulgent the whole rest of the day.
Exercise is important, but don't let the inability to get to the gym stop you from reducing your calory intake. If you don't take steps now, you will become morbidly obese. Like others have said, it will not get any easier.
posted
Yep, it's (almost) all about the calories. Which is a bummer, because calories are so tasty!! But there's a lot of good news, too, once you get into watching them... one is that, when you sit down and calculate it, you'll see that your body burns a LOT of calories without you even lifting a finger. Yay, breathing!
The other is that, while the amount of calories your body needs to gain/maintain/lose weight is hard to change, where you get those calories from is totally up to you. So if you know you want to shoot for 1500 calories a day, and you absolutely cannot live without chocolate ice cream, it's totally possible for you to find a way to work a little ice cream into your goal for the day, either by limiting the size, or eating chocolate fro-yo instead, or eating nothing but vegetable soup the rest of the day, or by doing enough exercise to offset the ice cream. Maybe these aren't as fun as just eating the darn ice cream, but it's a whole lot more satisfying to choose from a set of options than to just tell yourself "I'll never eat ice cream again!"
That said, weight loss by calorie reduction alone is very reliable, but VERY slow, like BQT said. I've gotten very accustomed to going an entire week eating within my target range, without seeing any progress on the scale. But... my clothes continue to get baggier, I feel great knowing that I've finally turned my eating habits around, and I know that, even if I only lose 3 pounds in a month, that's 3 pounds I didn't *gain*, and it's twelve sticks of butter I'm not carrying around with me anymore. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
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A couple of random suggestions specifically directed towards Puppy. I have no idea if they will work for you but I thought I'd throw them out. These suggestions will be appalling to the whole foods crowd but will make a difference over time.
1) If you've upgraded to TV dinners , go with Michelinas or something similar. Not only can you get them on sale for 88 cents a piece, they are in smaller boxes, so the calories are very limited. You can eat two and still have fewer calories than many of the Banquets. I personally don't think they are as greasy either.
Also, after you've got yourself down to two, then start spacing them away from each other, so it becomes two smaller meals rather than one all at once. They are only 4 minutes in the microwave and you can eat them at your desk.
2) Couldn't you put a DDR or your other 3-D thing in at work somewhere? I would imagine that you aren't the only one that would utilize it, and even programmers need brain breaks sometimes. You can find tons of research showing the productivity improvements that even five minutes of excercise normally has while at work.
Even if you are doing DDR while simultaneously slurping down soda at least you are doing something physical.
Thirdly, being LDS I don't whether you consume caffine or not, however if you haven't already consider switching to diet soda. It lowers calories radically. I personally like Coke Zero. Or, if you really can't deal with diet flavors, and do need the sugar to keep your brain functioning, mix diet and non-diet half and half. It's more bearable than straight diet still cutting calories, while keeping your brain happy enough with the sugar.
4) Take a good standard vitamin suppliment if you aren't already. It will help keep your metabolism going a little better. Isn't a diet pill, it just supplies the micronutrients your body needs to work more efficiently.
I have no idea if they will work for you or not, but I thought I'd throw them out there...
quote:4) Take a good standard vitamin suppliment if you aren't already. It will help keep your metabolism going a little better. Isn't a diet pill, it just supplies the micronutrients your body needs to work more efficiently.
I second this. I've recently re-started a vitamin regimen and when I lost all my weight before I took one faithfully and I really can tell a difference. I feel like I have more energy, there are times when I'm sitting and reading (this lit class requires a lot more reading than previous ones I've taken, as if the prof thinks we really must cover the entire book) and I put it down and go do something because I absolutely cannot sit still any longer. That's something that never happened before I started taking my health seriously again and started back the vitamin. Now, I'm not saying the vitamin alone did it, maybe it's all pyschosomatic, but I think it makes a difference, so it does. Anything that gets me off the couch is a good thing.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Thirdly, being LDS I don't whether you consume caffine or not, however if you haven't already consider switching to diet soda. It lowers calories radically. I personally like Coke Zero. Or, if you really can't deal with diet flavors, and do need the sugar to keep your brain functioning, mix diet and non-diet half and half.
I think that the very FIRST thing someone should do who cares about their calories is to drop soda entirely.
Stepping down to diet is a step, but I'm not so sure it helps any. Weren't there studies linked here which suggested that diet sodas actually are worse for a dieter than regular sodas?
If even half of that article is true, I'd be extremely cautious about switching to diet soda.
If at all possible, drink water. Lots of water. Empty out a gatorade bottle and leave it filled with cold water and at your desk at all times.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Xavier, correlation is not cause, and that article is particularly blatant about conflating the two. However they are talking about the tast stimulating biochemistry. In which case the half and half mix of soda that I described would address that situation too.
I actually tend drink regular soda at work and diet at home. If eating anywhere where there is self serve drink dispenser, I'll mix half and half on my own. I can handle drinking a combination of the two... I realize not everyone can.
However I second the water suggestion, and I also would suggest lemonade when out at a resturaunt.
quote:Xavier, correlation is not cause, and that article is particularly blatant about conflating the two.
I agree. From the facts that this article puts forward, it seems more reasonable to conclude "Overweight people drink more diet soda than others" than "Drinking more diet soda will make you more likely to become overweight."
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I've been shocked at how much more water I drink when there's ice in it. Somehow it just goes down much faster when it's colder. And I'll pass on the straw suggestion that folks gave me when the doctor told me to drink more water. Get a large cup and a bendy straw and keep it filled with ice water and your water consumption will go up.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I'd guess it's because people with a sweet toth have a higher incidence of future obesity.
I personally don't have much of a sweet tooth (salty greasy foods are my weakness), and I prefer water over any kind of soda most of the time.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Xavier, correlation is not cause, and that article is particularly blatant about conflating the two.
You know, I had a feeling that this would be the response, and was considering editing my post to address this. Not sure why I didn't.
No, of course correlation does not equal cause. That doesn't mean that its something you should dismiss either.
Have their been any studies which have shown that switching to diet soda helps you lose weight?
If not, and there are studies which correlate obesity and drinking diet soda, then I think that someone should be very cautious about thinking that switching is going to help you.
The article mentions some speculation by the researchers that drinking diet soda stimulates appetite, because your body craves the calories it thinks it was getting from the soda.
We don't know if that's true, but we also don't know that it's not. Another study mentioned may suggest causation:
quote:That may be just what happens when we offer our bodies the sweet taste of diet drinks, but give them no calories. Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar.
quote:Have their been any studies which have shown that switching to diet soda helps you lose weight?
I would be interested in seeing that too, but you'd have to eliminate any other variables. And that's pretty impossible, because you can't tell someone "switch to diet drinks but make no other changes" and be certain that they did, in fact, make no other changes.
I can say anecdotally, that I lost weight when I switched to diet sodas, but was the diet soda the reason I lost weight? In itself, probably not, because I made a bunch of other changes at the same time. I also started eating better and walking.
However, a switch to diet soda, I think, is better than doing nothing. Depending on how many you drink per day, you may save hundreds of calories. I can't believe that's a bad thing, but anything's possible.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:The article mentions some speculation by the researchers that drinking diet soda stimulates appetite, because your body craves the calories it thinks it was getting from the soda.
quote:However, a switch to diet soda, I think, is better than doing nothing. Depending on how many you drink per day, you may save hundreds of calories. I can't believe that's a bad thing, but anything's possible.
I do agree with this. I would strongly enourage a soda drinker to switch to water instead of diet sodas, however, if it's at all possible.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I second the water in a bottle with a pull-top or a straw. You can sip it all day, whereas trying to sit down and drink a whole glass of water (as in "drink eight glasses of water a day") sounds horrible to me.
And I forgot about vitamins ... I'm not a vitamin person, but I took them after my last baby to help combat postpartum depression. Not only did they help my mood, they gave me MUCH more energy. Suddenly the hours I was sleeping at night were enough - I was no longer falling asleep at my desk. I need to get back to doing that.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:I would be interested in seeing that too, but you'd have to eliminate any other variables. And that's pretty impossible, because you can't tell someone "switch to diet drinks but make no other changes" and be certain that they did, in fact, make no other changes.
I've convinced several friends to switch to diet drinks while making no other dietary changes. They each lost 5-10 pounds within a month (including one who lost 14 pounds in 3 weeks -- results not typical). Obviously, that's not a study, but for some people (like my friends) who drink a lot of cokes and stuff, it's certainly an easy way to cut calories, especially for people (like me) who abhor water.
As long as the relationship is correlative, I see no reason to worry about diet drinks making me or anyone gain weight. Calories are what make you gain weight, and diet drinks don't have any.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Water in a bottle with a pull-up top does not work for me, because I do "sip it all day." I'd go through maybe a half a bottle in eight hours. Pouring it into a glass with ice and a straw, I suck down four bottles worth in the same timeframe.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I got an Aquafina 1.5 liter bottle for work, and I fill it twice a day. I like having something to do with my hands when I'm thinking. If it isn't water, it'll be junk food, so this is so much better.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: Drink lots of cold water- your body will burn calories heating it up, it also can kill hunger pains.
The minuscule number of calories involved in heating the water to body temperature won't make any difference. However, most people drink more water when it's cold, and more water is good for all kinds of reasons -- including weight loss.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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My husband, the lout, switched from Coke to Diet COke for two weeks before our wedding and lost FIFTEEN POUNDS.
(He drinks about a 12-pack a day!)
Our doctor, who plays squash with him, calls him his "Number One Follow-through Patient." He saw him without his shirt on and said, "Whoah! How much weight have you lost!" He has not really lost any, but he is just getting shape.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: Calories are what make you gain weight, and diet drinks don't have any.
Generally I'd agree with this, but sometimes I don't think it's that simple.
Hypothetically speaking, if a chemical in diet drinks increased the body's insulin resistance, then weight gain could follow due to the way the body will handle the rest of the food.
Also hypothetically, if the sweetness (or a chemical in the drink) causes an insulin spike, the liver will store glucose as glycogen.
This is fine when your liver needs its glycogen level replenished, like as after an intense workout. However, if the liver is glycogen saturated (as is most likely in a sedentary lifestyle), any extra glucose will be transported to fat cells.
Calories in < calories out is definately the foundation of weight loss, like you said. However, when artifical substances are being considered I usually get a bit wary and try to understand what the body is actually doing in response to foods. There's so much we don't know though.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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If you're looking for tasty, healthy meal options, you might try www.tastybite.com They have microwavable Indian & Thai food. Not everything on the site is super-healthy, but it tends to be pretty good, fairly low-cal, and very tasty! There are five or six meals which come with rice, a spoon, and a container to heat the food in, which is useful if you're on the run. (Avoid the green Thai curry though.) They're pretty cheap if you purchase them in the six-packs.
I survive on these things during the school year - my basic diet is tasty bite, lean pockets, fruit, cold cereal with skim milk, homemade "throw everything into the pot" stews, some salads, and lots of water & herbal tea.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote: Drink lots of cold water- your body will burn calories heating it up, it also can kill hunger pains.
The minuscule number of calories involved in heating the water to body temperature won't make any difference. However, most people drink more water when it's cold, and more water is good for all kinds of reasons -- including weight loss.
True, it won't make a huge difference as far as direct calories burned goes. Also true that it has many many other benefits. However, it can cause the metabolism to speed up just a bit resulting in more benefits & calories burned than just the direct calorie burn alone.
From Howstuffworks.com:
quote: So in the case of a 16-ounce glass of ice water, your body must raise the temperature of 473.18 grams of water from zero to 37 degrees C. In doing so, your body burns 17,508 calories. But that's calories with a little "c." Your body only burns 17.5 Calories, and in the grand scheme of a 2,000-Calorie diet, that 17.5 isn't very significant. But let's say you adhere to the "eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day" nutritional recommendation. In 64 ounces of water, there are 1,892.72 grams. So to warm up all that water in the course of a day, your body burns 70,030 calories, or 70 Calories. And over time, that 70 Calories a day adds up. So, while you definitely shouldn't depend on ice water consumption to replace exercise or a healthy diet, drinking cold water instead of warm water does, in fact, burn some extra Calories!
70 calories is equal to 25 minutes of walking at a regular speed (2mph) for a 200 lb person. I'd consider that to be very helpful in Puppy's position.
Personally, I try to drink 1 gallon of water a day, which would burn 140 calories directly.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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This is a great topic, Puppy. It's good to know that my husband and I aren't the only ones experiencing these issues. We work long hours, don't have a lot of free time, and find ourselves slowly gaining weight. Like you, we know we have to get and stay in shape and healthy, but we're just having a hard time doing it.
We cut calories and added small exercise like parking far away and walking up steps but that only served to stop the weight gain. (By the way, I used the http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov/ site by the USDA that allows you to actually track your calorie intake and calorie output. I was surprised at how many calories I was taking in, even when I ate healthy food. I was also surprised that I was only eating about 1.5 servings of veggies a day despite my best efforts).
I have recently (within the last month) started to lose weight only because I've been able to go jogging 4 times a week. I may be working 50+ hours a week, but I don't have any set times I have to be there. However, my husband's schedule is not that flexible. He has a sedentary job that requires long hours in front of the computer. I'm going to see if he'll try some of the suggestions given in this thread (vitamins, more water, bringing his lunch from home, walking the dog in the evenings instead of TV, maybe getting him to go hiking on the weekends when he's not at work).
Posts: 82 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I also have a very stressful job with often long working hours. One of things that I've found really helps with keeping in shape even when I'm under pressure is bicycling to work. I know it isn't possible for everyone, but it is far more practical for most people than they think. If you live 10 miles or less from your place of work, you can generally bicycle to work in about the same time (sometimes less) than it takes to drive. This may seem counter intuitive but when you drive to work, you spend alot of time sitting at stop lights, driving slowly in heavy traffic, find a place to park and then walking to your office. When you factor all of that in, bicycling often turns out to cost you no time.
One big advantage of making excercise part of your communte, whether its walking or cycling or something else, is that you end up doing it no matter how busy you are. You can't simply skip the commute because you've got a deadline. And if you ride your bike in to work in the morning, then your generally committed to riding it home again at night.
The Seattle area (Are you still in the Seattle area Puppy), is all in all a pretty good place to cycle communte. There are numerous bike routes and cars a generally courteous to cyclists(compared to other American cities).
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:One of things that I've found really helps with keeping in shape even when I'm under pressure is bicycling to work. I know it isn't possible for everyone, but it is far more practical for most people than they think. If you live 10 miles or less from your place of work, you can generally bicycle to work in about the same time (sometimes less) than it takes to drive.
If my work had some sort of shower, I would certainly bike to work. There's actually two bike trails in Omaha, which when combined, would be able to get me to work with very little riding on the roads.
But when I work out, I sweat a bunch, even in the air conditioned gym. Some mornings its 80+ degrees out, and I would pity my coworkers when I got there. Even changing my clothes, I don't know if it would be enough. I could wipe the sweat off in the bathroom or something, but this would involve stripping naked, getting out wipes, wiping down my full body, and then changing into my work clothes. As much as the idea of biking to work appeals to me, I'm not sure this would be worth it.
Plus I need my car to drive to the gym from work .
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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![[Smile]](smile.gif)
It's about two miles from the Pentagon metro stop. I can ride my bike, or there's a bus that takes ten minutes. Pentagon to L'Enfant plaza is seven minutes, and L'Enfant Plaza, where I switch trains, to Capitol South is four minutes. Capitol South is right next to my building, so that half hour will be, I think, door to desk. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Which is a bummer, because calories are so tasty!! But there's a lot of good news, too, once you get into watching them... one is that, when you sit down and calculate it, you'll see that your body burns a LOT of calories without you even lifting a finger. Yay, breathing! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
